Page 94 of Captured Immune

“Right.”Pop!

What comes next sounds like utter chaos: people shouting, things toppling over, and a shriek that would leave a man’s mouth only if he was kicked in the balls or stabbed in the chest.

“What the fuck?” Dennis shouts. “Fire just came out of?—”

“Get down!” Trey yells.

Someone screams at the top of their lungs. It’s not Trey’s screams. It didn’t sound like deep-voiced Bruce or the woman either, so it must have been Dennis.

“Find the girl!” Bruce says. “I’ve got him!”

A loud yelp grabs a hold of my heart like someone is reaching into my chest and sinking their sharp nails into it. I’d know that sound anywhere because it’s the same sound I heard for days as they tortured him in front of me.

I’m about to leap out of the supply closet to save him when a thought hits me: Whatever I can do out there is the same thing I can do from right here. Closing my eyes, I picture Trey in my head and imagine shoving him into an ocean. Waves of water surround him like a liquid shield. Within seconds, his screaming stops, then a man grunts with pain.

“What the hell?” Bruce shouts.

I keep imagining my waves surrounding Trey as someone kicks against the locked office door. It must be the other guy trying to get in. He kicks again. Then again. And again, until the door crashes against the floor.

“You help Bruce!” the woman says. “I’ll find the girl.”

Instinctively, I grab the closet’s door handle and pull it back. I feel for a lock, but there isn’t one. From the other side, the woman attempts to turn the handle. My heart races as I put all my weight into keeping the door shut. The woman tries turning the knob again and yanks. This time, the door opens a crack, and I catch a glimpse of her before I yank on the doorknob and brace my feet against the doorframe to secure my precious barrier.

“Get away from there!” Dennis yells.

Bang!Bang! Bang!

I jolt with each loud gunshot that echoes through the air. Just outside the closet, someone’s body thumps against the floor, blocking all light coming through the door’s bottom crack.

“Lisa!” a man shouts. “You worthless Ordinary! You fucking killed her!”

“Get away from me!” Dennis shouts.

“Ow! You’ll pay for that.”

“I said, get away!”

Bang!The door rattles as someone’s body thumps against it.

“And I said you’d pay for that,” a man says from right outside my door.

Dennis cries out in a half squeal, half yelp. He gurgles, then his screaming stops. His thick body thumping onto the floor makes me gasp.

With a grunt, the man picks up the woman’s body and moves her away from the closet. I pull on the door handle with everything I’ve got, but it’s not enough. The man twists the handle, and the door is yanked open.

Trey lets out a gut-wrenching wail. If he’s wailing, that means he’s alive, but that also means I’ve lost concentration.

A bald man grabs me by the front of my shirt. “I’ve got her, Bruce!”

I punch and kick at my captor as I picture waves of water surrounding Trey again. A second later, his wailing stops.

“How are you doing that?” Bruce asks, and it’s the first time someone’s asked that question and I’ve been happy about it.

“Hurry up and kill him!” my captor says as he blocks my punches.

“What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do?” Bruce chucks an ice ball at Trey’s head.

Trey dodges the spikes, then runs the other way as he tosses a fireball at Bruce. The flames miss, hitting a stack of cardboard boxes instead. The boxes catch on fire with flames crackling toward the ceiling.

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