Page 31 of Captured Immune

“I’m sorry. Unfortunately, I can’t allow you to leave.” Even though she says it in her mousey little voice, it triggers a pang of fear inside me.

“What’re you gonna do to stop me?”

“Um, let’s just say you don’t wanna find out.” Whatever gift she has that makes her confident she can overpower me must be good.

Without hesitation, she presses the 2 button, and the doors close. Then she offers me another of her sweet smiles. They’re beginning to irk me.

Katie eyes me as the elevator takes us downward. “Are you okay? You’re lookin’ a bit red.”

“I’m fine,” I say as my arms go numb, my head throbs, and my legs feel like they’re about to give out, and?—

Ding!

I follow Katie out toward the community room, even though I want to run straight back into the elevator. Behind the glass walls, a group of four agents are on their laptops, working together. Opposite them is the cafeteria. The rest of this floor is a bunch of sleeping accommodations. Some bedrooms are better than others. The higher-level agents have rooms that are more like luxury apartments complete with their own kitchens and walk-in closets.

When I lived here, my bedroom was basically a square space where the twin-size bed took up half the floor. It included a little closet and a teeny bathroom, where the toilet always broke down. I’m pretty sure Victor assigned me that room because it’s the shittiest and farthest away from everyone else.

As we pass the cafeteria, I spot a woman in her late thirties, who I’ve never seen before. She’s reading a book floating in front of her face while she cuts into a plate of pancakes. A group of men in their forties or fifties sit at a table two away from the woman. I don’t recognize any of the men either.

As soon as Katie takes two rights then a left, I know exactly where she’s going. I’ll bet the burn marks are still on the door from all the times I accidentally set my bedroom on fire. Whenever I got too upset, which was quite often, I’d lose control of my powers. My stuff would fly around the ceiling and bang against the walls. If my emotions were really bad, everything would catch on fire. After the fifth time that happened, Victor assigned a Hydro to live in the room across from mine. That lady’s job was to extinguish my fires before they spread too far.

I follow Katie down the last hallway. At the end of it are all three of Victor’s guards standing outside the closed door of my old bedroom. I was right. The burn marks are still there.

“Why are we here?” I ask.

Instead of answering my question, Katie types a four-digit code into the keypad. I doubt it’s the same code from when I lived here. After releasing the chain lock that was never there before, she opens the door and steps aside for me to head in first.

My heart drops at the sight of the woman sitting on my old bed. She’s wearing a white T-shirt she doesn’t own. I know because it’s four sizes too big. The shorts she’s wearing aren’t hers either. I know because they’re orange, and Arella never wears orange.

I glare at my uncle across the room. “What the fuck is this?”

5

ARELLA

Earlier

I wake up feeling groggy with a slight headache. I’m about to get up to grab some medicine when the handcuffs stop me.What?

I jerk upright. I’m on a twin-size bed with yellowed sheets. The walls around me are charred from the floor to the ceiling. The clock on the wall is warped like it’s been melted at one point. Parts of the carpet are blackened too.Where am I? And has someone been burned alive here?

“Good morning.” A young woman stationed on a folding chair in the corner smiles sweetly at me. She looks about eighteen or nineteen. If she’s the reason I woke up in a strange place wearing handcuffs, that wholesome look on her face is very deceiving.

“Where am I? Who are you?”

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” she says calmly as if she wasn’t watching me sleep a minute ago. “I’ll answer as many questions as I can. My name’s Katie.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in Shadow Ridge.”

Why does she say that as if it’s the same as saying “Welcome to New York” or “This is Miami”? I’ve never heard of a town called Shadow Ridge. “Where is that?”

She places the iPad onto the floor under her chair. “Sorry. I’m not allowed to share that information.”

“Not allowed by who?”

“My boss. Oh, that reminds me. He asked me to text him when you woke up.” From the inner pocket of her blazer, she pulls out a phone with a pastel pink case. After she types out a quick message, she slips it back into the same pocket.

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