Page 129 of Captured Immune

“Why didn’t you kill me when you could?” I shout at Jodi. “I was seven. It would have been easy to get rid of me. Why keep me around for so long?”

If she tells me she kept me around just to torture me too, I won’t be surprised.

Jodi chuckles deep from Victor’s throat. “I had just killed Debbie and made it look like an overdose. That same night, your parents blew themselves up. How was I supposed to kill you too without raising suspicion? One death is an accident. Two is tragic. Three is a pattern. With the cops and social workers up my ass, it was either keep you alive or get investigated.”

“What?” my dad shouts. “You told me Debbie took Trey in! You fucking lied!”

“Of course I did! I couldn’t tell you that he was living on the floor right above you.”

“What?” my dad turns to me. “Trey, you—you lived here?”

“Yep,” I say. “From the day after the explosion, I lived here until the day I turned eighteen, when she kicked me out.”

My dad gapes at me, then at Jodi. “You heartless bitch!” He runs at her with his fists up. He doesn’t get very far though. The chains connecting him to me and thirty-some other people stop him. “You stole my body, locked me up for twenty years, and the whole time, you kept my son away from me right above my head!”

The Enforcers on the sidelines aim a perrizo gun at my dad, but they don’t shoot him.

“You’re a psycho!” my dad says. “A deranged lunatic!”

“And you were screwing around with your sister-in-law behind my back!” Jodi shouts. “Then you had a fucking baby with her and tried to hide it from me. I knew the second you laid eyes on Trey that he was yours. Nobody looks at a little boy like that unless they know it’s their son.”

Everything makes sense now. That’s why Jodi always treated me like I was diseased. The whole time, she knew about Victor’s affair. She knew I was his son.

Jodi glares at me. “Why don’t you look surprised?”

I shrug nonchalantly. “Because I already knew.”

“That Victor is your real father?”

“Yep.”

My dad drops his jaw—well, technically, he drops Jodi’s jaw. “How long have you known?”

“Since yesterday. Li and Tao told me.”

“I knew it!” Jodi sneers. “Those chinks must have been hiding you underground somewhere.”

My opinion of Jodi was already low based on my memories of her. It dipped even lower after I found out she’s a Royal who stole my real father’s body. Now she’s racist too? What’s next? Is she a pedophile? A Nazi? An animal abuser? I wouldn’t be surprised by any of those.

In the corner of my eye, I see Cameron press a finger against his earpiece. “Nah, he ain’t back yet.” A pause, then he turns to one of the other Enforcers. “How long do ya think Eduardo’s been gone for?”

The man shrugs. “A few minutes?”

“Hmm. He doesn’t usually take that long to run the perimeter. Apparently, he’s not responding to?—”

BOOM!

The tree behind Cameron explodes, rocketing chunks of wood through the air. Cameron falls over and doesn’t get back up. Screams echo around me as I instinctively leap in front of Arella and cover her with my body.

“We’re under attack!” an Enforcer shouts.

A mass of people burst out from the tree line. Lightning balls sizzle through the air. A flaming fireball hits an Enforcer in the back and sets him on fire.

“Send backup now!” the Enforcer behind me shouts.

The chain line explodes with a deafeningBOOM!, releasing everyone from it. With my cuffs still on, I grab Arella’s arm and yank her toward me.

Then I shout at Katie over the screaming. “Please tell me these people are from your ZIRDA base!”

---