Page 86 of Captured Immune

I throw my arms up and let them flop back into my lap. “Well, look at us now, Trey. I’m hurt—emotionally and physically. If you wanted to keep me from getting hurt, you failed. Just like how you failed your mission to find out what makes me immune. I hope it was worth it, because I swear to you, the second this nightmare is over, I never want to see your face again.”

Trey’s breath hitches. He stares at me with his mouth slightly open like he can’t believe what he just heard. I mean what I said though. The second this is over, I never want to see him again. I don’t even want to think about him. I want to move on with my life as if he never existed and none of this ever happened.

With a hard swallow, Trey breaks his gaze from mine and stares down at the trees with a somber look on his face.

Neither of us says anything for a while. I said all I wanted to say, so I just keep my eyes on the forest as I try not to cry.

Occasionally, I steal a glance at Trey. Every time I do, I wish I hadn’t, because with each glance, the light in his eyes is dimmer. They’re glossed over with a pain in him I’ve never seen before. Seeing it makes the large crack running through the middle of my heart break deeper.

After a long time, Trey clears his throat and looks up at me. “Arella?”

My heart skips a beat at the sound of my name on his lips, but I’m still mad, so I huff out a breath. “What?”

His Adam’s apple moves up and down as he swallows hard. His voice comes out low and husky like it’s taking all his energy just to speak. “At your thinking spot, you told me that when you love someone, you put their happiness before your own. If you’re saying that once this is over, you never want to see me again...” He lets out a ragged sigh, looking anywhere but at me. “Then okay. If that’s what makes you happy, then when this is over, I’ll force myself to walk away.”

Hearing him say it out loud makes it more real, and suddenly, it terrifies me. Never see Trey again?Is that really what I want?I think about it for a moment, only to come to the conclusion that I don’t know. What I do know is that being with him is dangerous and it’s detrimental to my life. That should be reason enough to never want to see him again.

“But before I do that,” Trey says, still avoiding my eyes, “I want you to know that I never pretended to like you. I’ve always liked you. From the moment I saw you, I was completely and utterly captivated by you. Then, the more time I spent with you, the more I fell in love with you.”

I try to convince myself he’s feeding me a spoonful of lies, but he sounds so genuine.

“You hooked me in with your kindness and your sense of humor. I fell in love with your laugh and the way you made me feel whole. I fell in love with the way you were fixing me without ever making me feel like I was broken. You made me feel like I had a purpose, and you still do. My purpose is to keep you safe and to make you happy.

“So, once you’re safe, I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy. And if that means I never get to see you again, then...” He shakes his head at himself, biting his bottom lip. After letting out what sounds like a painful breath, he finally looks up at me, and the light in his eyes completely disappears. “I’ll do it, Arella. I’ll walk away.”

I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince that hecando such a thing—me or himself?

20

TREY

There’s a gapinghole in my chest where my heart used to be. My lungs feel tight, and I can’t really feel my arms anymore. I’ve always known that emotional hurt can also make a person physically hurt. I found that out when I was seven.

The pain I feel now is different from the pain I felt when I lost my parents. It’s not that one pain aches more than the other; it’s just a different type of ache. It’s been nineteen years since my parents died, and I still feel the gut-wrenching agony in my chest from that. How many years will it take before I stop feeling the agony of losing Arella?

It took me a while to come to the conclusion that walking away is what’s best for her. It’ll kill me to do it, but I’m going to do it. I love this woman with my entire soul, and if never seeing my face again is what she wants, then okay. I just hope I’ll be able to function after walking away, because the mere thought of having to do it makes me want to leap over the edge of this tire.

Eventually, the trees below us aren’t as dense and we fly over a house. A light-blue Subaru sits in the gravel driveway, parked behind a rusty white pickup truck.

With a soft thud, I land the tire next to the driver’s side of the Subaru. Up the long driveway stands a house with a ton of windows. Inside, it’s dark. The five emotions I sense coming from the house are all muted, which means they’re sleeping.

Arella wastes no time hopping off my lap as if she can’t get away from me fast enough. The last twenty-ish minutes up in the air felt like hours. Neither of us spoke, and she barely even looked at me. I wish I could say it’s just her pregnancy hormones making her give me the cold shoulder, but I’m pretty sure Arella would be acting this way, pregnant or not. I know I deserve it, but it still hurts.

“What are we doing here?” she asks in a low voice.

I reply in an equally low voice, “We’re getting theordinarykindof transportation.”

Her mouth pops open. “You mean we’re going to steal a car?”

“What did you think I meant when I said we were gonna get a different mode of transportation?”

“I thought you meant we were going to take a bus or something.”

I throw my arms up and spin around. “Do you see any bus stations ’round here?”

She glares daggers at me. Maybe I should tone my attitude down a bit. Yes, I’m emotionally damaged and my ribs are screaming at me with every breath I take, but that doesn’t mean I should take it out on her.

“Relax.” I almost call herbabe, then stop myself. “We’re just gonnaborrowa car.”

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