Page 49 of Captured Immune

The air is sucked from my lungs as the tornado disappears. From the ceiling, I fall straight back into the battle box and land on my front. My head bounces back from the impact as agony flares up my cheek. Wheezing, I force myself onto my knees only to find Victor pointing a finger at Arella.

“Quit that shit!” he says.

My girl shoots a dirty look at him. “You’ve spent all day trying to get me to do this, andnowyou want me to stop?”

The auditorium goes silent again.

From the stands, a deep voice says, “She’s got a point, boss.”

Victor directs a glare at Craig. “Nobody asked you.”

I get to my feet and march across the battle box to stand in front of Arella protectively. “This is over. You have no right to treat her like this. No right to be yelling out orders to her or manhandling her like she’s a fucking ragdoll. She’s an Ordinary. A person that we, as ZIRDA agents, have sworn to protect.”

“Well, aren’t you Mr. Righteous tonight?” Victor scoffs and even has the nerve to chuckle. “You don’t get it, kid. Within the last day, this Ordinary has gone from being unable to tap into her immunity to activating it while making skin-to-skin contact with you. Then, just now, she projected it onto you while you were near the ceiling. That’s way more progress than the last Immune.

“Don’t you see? She’s it! She’s the key we’ve been looking for. The ultimate win against the Royals. Once we can get her to fully control and project her immunity, she can help us wipe them out of existence. And once we can replicate her immunity to make the rest of us immune too, this could be the end for the Royals. It all begins here—with her.”

Having the right intention doesn’t justify purposely hurting innocent people. Clearly, Victor has no boundaries when it comes to completing his life’s mission of eliminating all the Royals. I’m certain that he’ll kill off as many Immunes as it takes to finish the job. Yes, the Royals tried to kill him and they succeeded in killing his younger brother—my father. We both lost people we loved at the hands of the Royals, but at some point, we need to say enough is enough.

When Victor first assigned me to Arella, he said the goal was simply to find out the source of her immunity. No one was supposed to get hurt or kidnapped. Somewhere between here and there, he has justified doing whatever it takes to get what he wants. We can find another way to bring down the Royals. A way that aligns with ZIRDA’s values of protecting Ordinaries.

I wish I could say all that to Victor, but it won’t change his mind. He’s so blinded by his need for vengeance that he’s drifted too far off the path of what’s right. He thinks it’s okay to kill one to save a thousand, but if that one is Arella, he’ll have to get through me first.

“Craig, get your ass up here and make yourself useful,” Victor says.

In an instant, Craig is in the battle box with us. I keep Arella close behind me.

“Craig has the ability to shrink anything down to the size of a grain of rice,” Victor says to Arella. “Unless you want Trey to be squashed under my shoe, you’ll project your immunity onto him.”

Without a single warning, Craig points at me, and I’m falling. Except, I’m not. The room has gotten bigger. Every passing second makes everything sound louder and echoey.

My already aching body doubles over as I clutch my stomach. Vomit sprays out of my mouth onto the floor, and then I cough as another wave of vomit rises inside me. Arella’s shriek vibrates through the air as a giant shoe appears above me.

* * *

Someone shakes my arm.My eyes pop open.

Katie leans back into a chair and stares at me with a honeyed smile.How is this girl always so happy?If I wasn’t an Empath, I’d think it’s fake, but the energy I sense from her is light and content.

“Good morning,” she says and holds out a bottle of Healing Water to me. She glances at the iPad in her lap. “Actually, no. Good afternoon! How ya feelin’?”

I sit up and glance around. Sterile white cabinets. A sink in the corner. A beeping sound coming from a machine. An IV is taped to my arm, connected to a bag of fluids. I’m on a hospital bed with crisp white sheets. I’ve been here before. Many times. This is the infirmary on the third floor of Shadow Ridge.

I accept the Healing Water and unscrew the cap. It’s hard to move. My arms are sore, and my fingers have lost some dexterity. Still, I put my lips against the opening of the bottle and chug. It’s the berry-flavored kind—my least favorite. I didn’t even check the label before consuming it. Still, I drink it all in one breath.

“Wow,” Katie says. “That’s one hell of a party trick.”

I press a button on the side of the bed. The top half of the mattress folds upward until it’s in a comfortable position for me to lean against. My hazy head has a pounding migraine, and I swear I can still hear Pixie’s ringing in my ears.

“Where is she?” My voice comes out scratchy.

“In her room.”

The fuck she is.If Arella was in “her room,” she’d be in her apartment. “Why aren’t you there with her?”

“Victor told me to check on you. He wanted me to make sure you were okay.”

I scoff, and it hurts my throat to do so. “He hasn’t cared about my well-being since I was a kid. Why start now?”

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