Page 78 of Captured Immune

“Stay here!” Pixie shouts to me.

Stay here?And do what? Wait for them to either win or die before I can get Arella to safety?No fucking way.If they’re being attacked up there, they’re gonna need all the help they can get.

I scurry back down the steps and gently lay my unconscious Arella over the tunnel floor. My arms gain a tiny sense of relief from letting her go.

“I’ll be right back, baby. I promise.” Then I sprint up the stairs two at a time, shaking the ache out of my arms.

The second I step out of the hollowed tree, madness swarms my head. Shock, anger, and fear shoot at me from all around. Lightning balls whizz through the air. The forest catches on fire with each fireball that misses its human target. A rock ball the size of a basketball flies straight at my face. I duck just in time, and it hits the base of the tree behind me.

Everyone is screaming and shouting. It’s too dark, and there’s too much commotion for me to make out who is who. All I know is that there are more of them than there are of us.

A large man wails as he drops to his knees and covers his ears. Behind Pixie, another large man charges at her with his arm transformed into the shape of a machete.

“Pixie! Behind you!” I run to help her until I trip over something soft on the ground and fall on my face. When I turn to look back, I gasp.

At my feet, Dash’s lifeless body stares back at me. He’s bleeding out of a deep gash in his neck. They must have killed him the second he got up here. I guess that proves he really was on ZIRDA’s side.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him as I hoist myself onto my feet. Just as I do, a loudpop!pinches my eardrums. A slender man appears in front of me. It’s the Teleporter who brought me here.

He hurls a fist straight into my nose. I stumble backward as pain explodes up my face and something wet trickles into my mouth. Blood. Salty and metallic. I wipe at it with my hand, then launch my bloody fist back at him. He disappears with anotherpop!as I stumble forward, and my fist catches nothing but air.

Pop!The man kicks me from behind. I face-plant into the ground, then turn and aim a fireball at him.

Pop!My fireball hits a tree, setting it ablaze.

Pop!The Teleporter appears on top of me. He straddles me and punches my face. Then he does it again. And again. And again. He grabs my neck and chokes me as a punishing jolt of lightning races down my legs. I scream out in pain, clawing at his fingers digging into my throat.

This isn’t my end. It can’t be. Arella needs me.

I draw my arms back as some flames flicker between my fingertips, but I can’t gather enough strength to produce a fireball.

Suddenly, the lightning stops and the man groans in agony. His body convulses as he falls onto his side. I kick him away from me.

“Stop! Stop!” he shouts.

A hissing sound comes from behind me.

“St—” The guy vomits in his own mouth, then coughs as he chokes on it. Seconds later, his body goes still.

Ruby offers me a hand and helps me off the ground. “Grab the Ordinary and get outta here!”

“What about you guys?”

“We’ll hold them back! Just go!”

I don’t need to be told twice. I climb back into the hollowed tree and race down the steps. Arella is exactly where I left her, unmoved and unharmed. I heave her limp body into my still-aching arms, then sprint back up the stairs.

When I step out, the women and Carlos are guarding the entrance. Ruby has two men shaking on the ground, wailing like dying cats. Pixie has another three people on their knees, with their hands clasped against their ears. A few guys are swirling around in Carlos’s giant tornado. Katie is throwing ice balls at two women as a tree behind them glows red.

BOOM!The tree explodes. The women attacking Katie go flying through the air. When they land on the hard ground, the emotions of one of them leaves my head.

“Run!” Katie shouts. “We’ll cover you!”

Since I don’t know where in the forest I am, I don’t know which way to go. But anywhere is better than here, so I pick a direction and sprint.

I’m barely five steps away when Katie screams from behind me. “No! Carlos!”

Instinctively, I turn just as Carlos’s emotions disappear from my head. A giant tree root sticks out from the ground, piercing him right in the chest. Three people scream as Carlos’s tornado vanishes and they fall to the ground. It only takes them a second to get onto their feet. One of them punches Katie in the stomach as the other two run toward me.

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