Page 46 of Captured Immune

“Itispossible. We got the last Immune to project his immunity onto someone else, which means she can too. She just needs to focus.”

What?Victor never mentioned he got that far in this research. Why didn’t he tell me? What else hasn’t he told me?

“Ruby! Your turn!”

The redhead takes one look at me and hisses through her teeth. I collapse to my hands and knees again. The feeling of a hundred—no, athousand—snakes biting into my skin takes over my entire body. I scream out as my muscles clench and burn. My arms give out, and I fall face first onto the floor.

“Stop!” Arella launches herself at Ruby. Pixie holds Arella back as Ruby keeps her eyes trained in my direction.

My body convulses like I’m being tasered from all sides. I lied earlier. Pixie’s eardrum-stabbing power isn’t hell. This is. Pure, unfiltered hell.

“Project your immunity onto him!” Victor orders.

“I can’t! Just stop! Please!”

Victor slices a hand through the air. Finally, Ruby drops her arm. The agony on my skin fades. My body is left with a lingering burn.

I turn onto my back, panting as my vision goes blurry. I can’t feel my thighs or anything below them. I would have taken Pixie’s ear pain over whatever the hell that bullshit was.

“Let me go!” Arella shouts. A second later, she kneels at my side.

I can’t see her because I can’t get my eyes to reopen. I only feel her warm palm press against my stubbly cheek.

“Trey!” She says my name through a broken sob. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to make them stop.”

“I told you already,” Victor says from across the battle box, “you just need to focus. Imagine yourself protecting him with metal shields or maybe some armor. If you don’t save him, he will die. Ruby, hit him again.”

I brace myself for the pain. It doesn’t come.

“You sure, Big V?” Ruby says. “I went pretty hard on him. He might need a break.”

“He can handle it.”

No, I can’t!I don’t get a chance to say that out loud because the stinging ache in my limbs returns. I lose all control over my convulsing body. Someone could be throwing knives into an open wound in the middle of my chest and it would feel like butterfly kisses compared to this.

My limbs tremble against the floor.

Nausea.

Throbbing.

Vomit rises in the back of my throat.

Arella drapes her body over mine as if it’ll shield me from the stinging pain. It doesn’t. Not even a little bit.

“Stop!” She sobs into my chest. “Stop hurting him!”

“Project your immunity onto him!” Victor shouts.

“I can’t! Stop! Please!”

“Ruby, go harder!”

Seriously?There’s a setting above this one? The torture increases. It’s like snake venom, and bee stings, and being mauled by a jaguar, and?—

Arella pulls me into her lap, clutching me against her front. She rocks back and forth as my body trembles in her arms. Tears pour down her cheeks as she screams, “Stop hurting him! Stop hurting him! Stop hurting him!”

Somehow, I find the strength to get some words out. “Arella, please, make it stop.”

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