Vengeful (Villains #2)(112)

June stiffened, but Sydney was already on her feet, abandoning the half-empty mug beside the bed.

June could have grabbed her, but she didn’t. She simply watched her go.

Sydney was almost to the door, reaching for the handle, when it seemed to drift out of reach. The floor had tilted, too. And suddenly, it was all Syd could do to keep from falling over.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made things worse.

When Sydney opened them again, June was there, reaching out to steady her. “It’s okay,” she said, her accent soft, melodic. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t.

Syd tried to ask what was going on, but her tongue felt leaden, and when she tried to pull away, she stumbled, head spinning.

“You’ll understand,” June was saying. “When this is all over, you will . . .”

Sydney’s vision blurred, and June’s arms closed around her as she fell.

*

THE road jostled under Eli’s feet as the transport made its way toward Merit.

Five minutes into the drive, the hood had come off, trading the dark, woven interior of the fabric for the dark, windowless interior of the van itself. Not a vast improvement, but certainly a step.

The brown-eyed soldier sat on the bench to Eli’s right. The other two sat across from him. They rode in silence, Eli attempting to track the distance with one part of his mind, while the rest traced over the details of the plan he’d been given, pondered the problem of Marcella and her chosen compatriots.

He felt Brown Eyes staring at him.

“Something on your mind?” asked Eli.

“I’m trying to figure out how a guy like you kills thirty-nine people.”

Eli raised a brow. “You can’t kill what’s already dead. You can only dispose of it.”

“Does that apply to you, too?”

Eli considered. For so long, Eli had thought himself the exception, not the rule. Now he knew better. And yet Eli had been given this specific power. A memory flashed through his mind—kneeling on the floor, slicing open his wrists over and over and over to see how many times it would take before God let him die.

“I would bury myself if I could.”

“Must be nice,” said Green Eyes. “To be unkillable.”

A second memory—of lying on that lab table, his heart in Haverty’s hands.

Eli said nothing.

A few minutes later, the van came to a stop on a busy street—Eli could hear the noise even before the back door swung open and Stell himself climbed in. “Briggs,” he said, nodding at the woman. “Samson. Holtz. Any trouble here?”

“No sir,” they said in unison.

“Where have you been?” demanded Eli.

“Believe it or not,” said Stell, “you weren’t the highest priority.”

He’d meant it as a jab, but Eli saw only its truth, written in the lines of the director’s face.

Victor.

The van drove on for a few more blocks before pulling into an alley, where the three soldiers climbed out—but not Stell. He turned his attention to Eli. “They are going ahead to secure the room. In a minute, you and I are going to leave this van and go inside. You make a scene, and that collar will be only the first of your problems.”

Eli held out his cuffed wrists. “If you want to keep a low profile, these should probably come off.”

Stell leaned forward, but simply tossed a coat over Eli’s outstretched hands, hiding them from view. Eli sighed, and followed the director out of the van. He looked up at the stretch of blue sky, and breathed in fresh air for the first time in five years.

Stell brought a hand to Eli’s shoulder, kept it there as they wove through the cars in front of the hotel.

“Remember your instructions,” warned Stell as they stepped through the doors and crossed the lobby to the bank of elevators.

The soldiers were waiting on the fifth floor.

Two in the hall, one still clearing the room.

They’d taken off their helmets in an effort to blend in, revealing three young, good-looking soldiers. A woman in her early thirties, compact and strong and stoic. A young man, handsome and blond, thirty at most, who looked like he would have won Most Likable while in school. A second man, wide-jawed and smug, who reminded Eli of the frat boys he’d hated in college, the kind who would crush a beer can on their heads as if the feat were something to be proud of.

Once inside, Stell finally removed Eli’s handcuffs.

He rubbed his wrists—they weren’t stiff, or sore, but it was a hard habit to shake, that urge, and the small gestures that made people ordinary. Human. Eli surveyed the room. It was an elegant hotel suite, with a large bed and two tall windows. A garment bag hung on the back of the bathroom door, another had been cast onto the bed. A chair sat beneath one of the large windows, a low desk beneath the other, its surface adorned with a pad of paper and a pen.

Eli started toward it.

“Stay away from the windows, inmate.”

Eli ignored him, resting his hand on the desk. “We’re here because of this window.” His fingers closed around the pen. “This view.”

He leaned across the desk and looked out at the Old Courthouse across the street.

What a perfect choice, thought Eli. After all, a courthouse was a place of judgment. Justice.

He straightened, slipping the pen up his sleeve, and started for the bathroom.