Vengeful (Villains #2)(132)

He closed his eyes, measuring the current inside of him. It was already in his muscles, already threading his bones, already filling his chest cavity. The sensation was unpleasant, but not nearly as unpleasant as what would happen when the current peaked.

“I swear,” said Linden, “I’d help you if I could.” But Victor heard him shift. Heard a hand knocking against the tools strewn across the floor. “You have to believe me . . .” he said, fingers closing around something metal.

“I do,” said Victor, eyes flicking open right as Linden lunged at him, wrench in hand. But halfway there, the mechanic’s body slowed, as if caught in a sudden drag, and Victor swung the gun up and shot Linden in the head.

The sound echoed through the garage, ricocheting off concrete and steel as the mechanic fell.

How disappointing, thought Victor, as blood began to seep across the floor.

He holstered the gun and turned to go, but only made it three steps before the first wave of pain hit, sudden and sharp. He staggered, bracing himself against the shell of a car as it tore through his chest.

Five years ago, it would have been a simple matter of flipping that internal switch, killing power to the nerves, escaping any sensation.

But these days, there was no escape.

His nerves crackled, the pain ratcheting up like a dial. The air hummed with the energy, and the lights flickered overhead as Victor forced himself away from the body and back across the garage toward the wide metal doors. He tried to focus on the symptoms, reduce them to facts, statistics, measurable quantities and— The current arced through him, and he shuddered, pulling a black mouth guard from his coat and forcing it between his teeth just before one knee give way, his body buckling under the strain.

Victor fought—he always fought—but seconds later he was on his back, his muscles seizing as the current peaked, and his heart lurched, lost lost rhythm— And he died.

TURN THE PAGE

FOR A BONUS STORY

SET IN THE





VILLAINS UNIVERSE





COMMON GROUND





4 YEARS AGO


A CITY IN RUINS


IT was a routine mission.

Or as routine as missions got in the middle of a war zone, anyway.

Rios adjusted her flak jacket, slid the bolt on her rifle as the rest of her team came through on the comm.

“Fallon, in position.”

“Mendez, in position.”

“Jackson, in position.”

Their voices sounded too loud, the night too quiet. The shelling had stopped a few hours before, and now her team was being sent in, not to clear civilians or track down retreating insurgents, but to raid one of the larger houses, a known site of terrorist activity, and get whatever they could. Weapons. Intel.

“Rios,” she said, “in position.”

Position, in this case, was the side entrance of the house.

Three stories tall and still mostly intact, despite a week of heavy fire. Intact, but empty. A drone had picked up the insurgents’ evacuation earlier that day.

The scope on her rifle cut through the dark as she nudged the door open, heard the mirroring steps of the other three soldiers cutting predetermined courses through the house.

Rios took the first floor, went from room to room, the camera in her helmet recording the remnants of maps tacked to walls, papers on a low wood table. She’d nearly reached the end of the circuit when she heard the sound.

A whistle.

It split the air, getting louder, and louder. Rios knew what that noise meant, they all did.

“Down!” she shouted, the instant before the shell hit.

The world rocked, the force slamming Rios sideways, her ears ringing. She rolled onto her back—the explosion had sheared off the building’s top floor, sent pieces of the second crumbling down onto the first.

Onto her.

Rios was scrambling to her feet when the ceiling fell, stone and wood buckling. She threw herself under a table, felt the wood crack and then give, the weight of rock and rubble crushing her against the floor. For a long second, the world fell.

And then it stopped.

Rios tried to move, but she couldn’t. Her visor was cracked, her limbs pinned beneath the table, the table pinned beneath the wreckage. Her ribs strained against the pressure on her chest. Rios tried to drag in breath, but the air was dust and debris, and she ended up coughing, retching. Her lungs strained. She felt like she was drowning.

Her ears stopped ringing, replaced by the white noise of static.

“Fallon, come in!” she gasped.

Nothing.

“Jackson!”

Nothing.

“Mendez?”

Nothing.

The building groaned. Shuddered. She had to get out. Had to get free before the rest of the place came down. But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

Through her broken visor, she saw the rubble shift, the stones slipping as the building swayed around her. Rios squeezed her eyes shut and pushed—pushed against the table, against the rubble, against the rock, willing it to move, begging it to let her out. She tried, with the last of her air, the last of her strength. But it wasn’t enough. The rocks didn’t move. The table didn’t shift. Her lungs screamed, and then even that pain faded, and she felt herself slipping. Felt the darkness closing over her.

And then—