Vengeful (Villains #2)(128)

“I am,” said Victor. “But I’m alive.”

Car doors slammed nearby, and Victor tensed. “EON,” he muttered, putting himself in front of Sydney as footsteps pounded down the hall. But Dol only watched, and waited, and when the door rose the rest of the way, it wasn’t soldiers, but Mitch.

He paled as he took in the storage locker, the makeshift operating table, the bodies on the floor, Victor’s injuries, and the gun in Sydney’s hand. “EON’s not far behind me,” he said. “We have to go. Now.”

Sydney started forward, but Victor didn’t follow. She pulled on his arm, felt instantly guilty when she saw the pain cross his face, and realized how much of the blood in here must be his.

“Can you walk?” she pleaded.

“You go ahead,” he said tightly.

“No,” said Sydney. “We’re not splitting up.”

Victor turned and, cringing, knelt in front of her.

“There’s something I have to do.” Sydney was already shaking her head, but Victor reached out and put a hand on her cheek, the gesture so strange, so gentle, it stopped her cold.

“Syd,” he said, “look at me.”

She met his eyes. Those eyes that after everything still felt like family, like safety, like home.

“I have to do this. But I’ll meet you as soon as I’m done.”

“Where?”

“Where I first found you.”

The location was burned into Syd’s memory. The stretch of interstate outside the city.

The sign that read Merit—23 miles.

“I’ll meet you at midnight.”

“Do you promise?”

Victor held her gaze. “I promise.”

Sydney knew he was lying.

She always knew when he was lying.

And she also knew she couldn’t stop him. Wouldn’t stop him. So she nodded, and followed Mitch out.

*

VICTOR didn’t have much time.

He waited until Mitch and Syd were out of sight, and then returned to the storage unit. He fought to focus as he dragged his aching limbs across the room, stepping around Eli’s body.

It was like a magnet, constantly drawing his eye, but Victor forced himself not to stop and look at it. Not to think about what it meant, that Eli Cardale was really, truly dead. The way the knowledge knocked Victor off-balance. A counterweight finally removed.

An opposite but equal force erased.

Instead, Victor turned his attention to Haverty’s tools, and got to work.





EXODUS





I





AFTER


STELL’S APARTMENT

VICTOR ran his fingers over the surface of his phone.

11:45 p.m.

Fifteen minutes until midnight, and he was not on his way out of town.

Victor settled back into the worn armchair, tuning the dials of his own nerves, to test their strength. Haverty’s serum had worn off a few hours before—it had been like a limb returning to feeling, nerves initially pins-and-needles sharp before finally settling back under control.

But as Victor’s power returned, so had the humming in his head, the crackle of static. The beginnings of another episode. But only the beginnings. That was the strange thing—before stepping into the storage locker, his limbs had been buzzing, the current minutes from overtaking him. When Haverty’s serum suppressed his power, it had suppressed the episode, too. Reset something, deep inside Victor’s nervous system.

He drew a vial from his coat pocket—one of six that he’d collected from Haverty’s storage locker. Its contents were an electric blue, even in the darkness of the empty apartment.

The liquid represented an extreme solution, but it also represented progress.

He’d have to be mindful—each time Victor used the serum, he would be trading a death for a window of vulnerability, a period without powers—but he was already making notes—plans, really.

Perhaps, with the right dosage, he could find a balance. And perhaps was more than Victor had had to work with in a very long time.

His phone lit up—he had switched it to silent, but it still flashed brightly, a familiar number on the screen.

Sydney.

Victor didn’t answer.

He watched the screen until it gave way again to darkness, then slipped the phone in his pocket as footsteps sounded beyond the door. A few seconds later, the rattle of a key in the lock, and Stell limped into view, one foot encased in a medical boot. He tossed his keys into a bowl, didn’t bother turning on the lights, just hobbled to the kitchen and poured himself a drink.

The director of EON had the liquor halfway to his lips when he finally realized he wasn’t alone.

He set the drink back down.

“Victor.”

To his credit, Stell didn’t hesitate, simply drew a gun and aimed it at Victor’s head. Or at least, he meant to. But Victor stilled the man’s hand.

Stell grimaced, fighting the invisible weight around his fingers. But it was a battle of wills, and Victor’s would always be stronger.

Victor lifted his own hand, turning it, and like a puppet, so did Stell, until his gun was resting against his own head.

“It doesn’t have to end like this,” said Stell.

“Twice you locked me in a cage,” said Victor. “I don’t intend to let it happen a third time.”