Page 24 of Captured Immune

I glance at her, then at the necklace, then back at her. My words come out like a shattered reflection of my heart. “Are you trying to hurt me?”

“Are you trying to hurtme?”

“No. I just want you to have your things back.” That’s not true. Really, I’m looking for any reason to prolong our time together, and apparently, arguing with her is what I went with.

“I want you to have your things back too.” She shakes the jewelry. The tiny engraving on the back catches my eye.Paris? T.G.I envisioned the rest of my life with her in Paris. Right now, that life feels so far away.

I clench my jaw to keep from punching something, then I snatch the necklace from her. Without a word, I lean in to hook it back where it belongs.

She doesn’t move as my fingertips graze her soft skin. Being this close to her is dangerous. I’m about to put my lips all over her neck. Her sweet lavender scent is making me lose control over my thoughts and even my hands. The diamond slips from my grasp and lands on her lap. She remains still as my trembling fingers pluck it back up and I try again.

Not once does she fight me as I take my sweet time getting the clasp to work—surprising, considering she’s spent this entire morning doing the opposite of everything I want. Maybe she wants to keep the necklace as much as I want her to keep it.A man can hope.

Once the jewelry is back around her neck, I take her hands into mine and gaze deeply into her eyes as a silent plea for her not to rip it off.

When she doesn’t, I lower my voice to almost a whisper. “I’ll keep your stuff, Arella. Just please, keep the necklace.”

4

TREY

I’m fucked.Completely fucked.

Victor has called two more times since Arella dropped me off this morning. I didn’t pick up. I can’t. Not without something good to tell him.

When he assigned me this mission, one of the first things he said was “Don’t fuck this up.”

I was determined not to. Back then, my mission seemed simple.

Step one: Get close to this twenty-two-year-old woman to find out the source of her immunity.

Step two: Replicate it, and use it to destroy the people who killed my parents.

Step three: Live out the rest of my life knowing my parents would be proud of me for finishing the research they started before they died.

Thing is, I haven’t even completed step one. The moment I found out that whatever tests Victor performed on the last two Immunes killed them, my mission was over. I switched my focus from trying to discover the source of Arella’s immunity to protecting it. Maybe Victor’s willing to risk innocent lives for a greater cause, but I’m not. Especially not Arella’s.

Suddenly, it hits me: I’ve been making a huge mistake.

I’ve been so down in the dumps over our breakup that I’ve forgotten the bigger picture: No matter what Arella has done, she still needs my protection. She still needs me to keep Victor away from her.What the hell am I doing here? I need to get that woman on a plane and fly her as far away from here as possible.

I launch off the toilet I’ve been sitting on for the last forty-some minutes, give myself a shake, then pull my pants up. After washing my hands, I check the time on my phone.Wow, it’s late...12:53 a.m.What the fuck did I do all day?Nothing, that’s what. I spent all day sulking over the bullshit I call my life when I should have been working out a plan to get Arella to safety.

Since we’re not on the best terms right now, I don’t know how I can convince her to run away with me. Maybe that should be the first step of my new plan: Make things right with her. I’ll buy her the biggest bouquet of flowers I can find and show up on her doorstep with it first thing in the morning. I’ll apologize for everything that happened. I’ll confess that I’m in love with her and that I have been for a while. She’ll forgive me, right? She has to.

Once I’ve won her back, I’ll convince her to go to Paris with me. If she refuses, I’ll try convincing her to help me find my parents’ safe house. On a password-protected voice recording hidden in my childhood teddy bear, my parents left me instructions on how to find an underground hideout. The only problem is that I’ve listened to the recording about a hundred times now, and I still can’t figure out where the safe house is.

Maybe this safe house thing isn’t the greatest idea.Plus, I don’t have time to sit around trying to convince Arella of anything. That woman is too stubborn for her own good.

How about I simply ask her to go on vacation with me? I’ll take her somewhere tropical, where she can enjoy a nice view from our resort window. I just won’t tell her that we won’t be coming back.Damn.I’m pretty sure that’s called kidnapping. Maybe she won’t see it that way if she’s sipping mocktails on a beach with her feet in the sand.

All right. That’s the plan.

Step one: Win my girl back.

Step two: Take her on vacation.

Step three: Drinks on a beach.

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