Page 34 of Captured Immune

I can sense them. Every single one of them. Katie, Mustache Man, his two bodyguards, and the one out in the hall. Turns out this babycansense more than one person at a time. They just have to be close enough.

“You need to call your grandma back now.” As Mustache Man speaks, the long horizontal scar on the front of his neck moves up and down. Either he had surgery or someone tried to slit his throat. My bets are on the latter.

Something about his face makes me squint at him. He looks familiar. Like an actor I’ve seen in a movie. I can’t place him though.

I don’t respond to Mustache Man with words—only glares. He glares back with his piercing eyes. I want to know his name and everything about him so that when I leave here, I’ll have everything the police need to put him behind bars.

“Are you going to call your grandma back or not?”

Again, I remain silent. I’m not going to comply with his demands that easily.So much for everything I’ve learned from those true crime shows.

“Katie!” he shouts so loudly, she jumps. “Proceed with Plan B. He’s in the bathroom on the fourth floor. I’ll work on trying to convince her by the time you return with him.”

“Yes, sir.” With her iPad in hand, Katie retreats out of the room.

I almost shout at her to not leave me alone with this scary man, but she’s already gone. Strangely, without her, I feel more vulnerable.

Mustache Man approaches me. The closer he gets, the more his irritation twists into curiosity. He wants something from me. I can see it in the way his eyes are staring straight into my soul. What does he want?

“Leave us,” he says. Almost instantly, his two guards exit the room. They don’t go far though. I still feel their presence right outside the closed door.

Now that it’s just me and Mustache Man, he closes the distance between us in two strides. As he does, his blue eyes turn black like he’s being possessed by a demon. I crawl backward on the bed, screaming at the top of my lungs.

“Get away from me!”

“Hold still,” he says and reaches for my neck.

I swat him away with my free arm. “Don’t touch me.”

“I said hold still.” He grabs me by the neck and forces me to meet eyes with him. His eye color has returned to blue, but it’s not long before a cloud of black takes over his pupils again. It’s like something out of a horror movie.

“Let me go!” My words come out stifled from how solid his grip is around my throat. I claw at his fingers.

Surprisingly, he releases me and takes a step back. I cough and gasp for air as he runs a hand through the top of his salt-and-pepper hair.

His frustration radiates toward me from where he stands. “I don’t even know why I’m trying. Of course it won’t work.”

Whatever he was trying to do to me, I’m glad it didn’t work. Above all else, I’m glad he wasn’t trying to sexually assault me—although I have a feeling that whatever he was trying to do is much worse.

Something about him isn’t right, and it’s not just because his eyes can turn completely black. There’s something oddly familiar about him.

Minutes later, when someone bursts through the door shouting, “What the fuck is this?” it hits me.

This man looks like an older version of Trey Grant.

6

ARELLA

For a second,I’m relieved to see someone I know. However, when Trey doesn’t immediately punch Mustache Man and carry me out of here...

“The girl’s grandmother is expecting her to call,” Mustache Man says. “I’ve asked her to call the old lady back and act normal, but she’s refusing. Think you can persuade her?”

Trey’s body goes stiff. Anger radiates off him so strongly, I can’t sense Mustache Man anymore, or Katie, who has returned herself to the folding chair in the corner.

Trey barely moves as he glares at his older look-alike. “What the hell is she doing here?”

Mustache Man speaks calmly yet firmly. “I figured that since you’re gonna be busy working your new mission, we could go ahead and accelerate your first one.”

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