Vengeful (Villains #2)(17)

“Hey!” shouted the bartender. “Get you a drink?”

Victor twisted back toward the bar. Toward the man behind the counter.

Will Connelly was six-foot-three, with a square jaw, a shock of black hair, and all the markers of a potential EO.

Victor had done his homework, had instructed Mitch to rebuild a search matrix, the same one Eli, and then the police, had used to find EOs, the same one that had led Victor to Dominic.

It had taken two months to track down the first lead—a woman down south who could reverse age, but not injury—another three to find the second—a man who could take things apart and put them back together, sadly a skill which didn’t really apply to living things.

Finding other EOs was hard enough.

Finding specific ones, with restorative abilities, was even harder.

Their latest lead was Will Connelly, who’d bailed from a hospital bed, sans discharge, a mere two days after his accident. The doctors had been stunned.

That suggested a healing ability.

The question was whether he could heal Victor.

So far, no one could.

“Well?” called Connelly over the music.

“Glen Ardoch,” Victor called back, nodding at a bottle on the back wall. It was empty.

“Gotta grab some more,” said Connelly, flagging another bartender before ducking out from under the bar. Victor waited a moment, then followed, trailing the other man down the hall. Connelly’s hand was on the open storeroom door when Victor caught up.

“I’ve changed my order.”

The bartender swung around, and Victor gave him a single forceful shove, tipping Connelly down the flight of stairs.

It wasn’t a long flight, but there was a wall of metal kegs at the bottom and the bartender crashed against them with a noise that would have called attention, if not for the wailing of the band overhead.

Victor followed, taking the steps at a more leisurely pace as the man straightened, clutching his elbow. “You broke my fucking arm!”

“Well, then,” said Victor, “I suggest you fix it.”

Connelly’s expression changed. “What? What are you ta—”

Victor flicked his fingers and the bartender staggered, biting back a scream.

There was no need to quiet him. The bass from the club overhead would have been loud enough to drown out a murder.

“Okay!” gasped Connelly. “Okay.”

Victor’s hold dropped away, and the bartender straightened. He took a few steadying breaths, and then his whole body shuddered, the motion so small and fast it seemed more a vibration than a shiver. As if he were rewinding. A fraction of a second, and his arm hung easily at his side, the pain gone from his face.

“Good,” said Victor. “Now, fix me.”

Connelly’s face crumpled in confusion. “I can’t.”

Victor flexed, and the man staggered back into the crates and kegs. “I—can’t—” he gasped. “Don’t you think—if I could help other people—I would? Hell—I’d be a—fucking messiah. Not working—in this shithole bar.”

It was a valid point.

“It only works—on me.”

Fuck, thought Victor right before his phone rang. He dragged the cell out of his pocket and saw Dominic’s name on the screen.

Dom, who only called Victor when there was trouble.

He answered. “What is it?”

“Bad news,” said the ex-soldier.

In the storeroom, Connelly had grabbed a bottle off the shelf behind him and now lunged toward Victor. Or started to. But Victor raised a hand, and Connelly’s whole body slammed to a stop as he caught the man’s nerves, pinned them in place. He’d been practicing, since the night he moved Sydney. He’d learned that pain and motion were both facets of control. Hurting a body was simple; halting it was harder—but Victor was getting the hang of it.

“Go on,” he said to Dom.

“Okay, so you know a lot of the guys who come out of the military, they go into private sector. Security. Task force. Muscle-for-hire kind of jobs. Some of it’s aboveboard. Some of it’s not. But there’s always work for people in a certain field, if you’re willing and able.”

Connelly was still fighting Victor’s hold, throwing all his weight against it as if they were arm-wrestling. As if this were a battle of muscle, not will.

“So I’m having drinks with an old army buddy,” continued Dom, “well, he’s drinking bourbon, I’m on club soda—”

“Summarize,” urged Victor, forcing the bartender to his knees.

“Right, sorry. So he tells me about this new job posting. It’s under the radar—no public listings, no paper ads or online posts, just word of mouth. No details. Nothing but a name. Letters, really. EON.”

Victor frowned. “EON?”

Connelly tried to shout, but Victor clamped his jaws shut.

“Yeah. EON,” said Dom. “As in ExtraOrdinary Observation and Neutralization.”

Victor stilled. “It’s a prison.”

“Or something like it. They’re looking for guards, but they’re also training officers to hunt down people like us.”

Victor turned the information over in his mind. “What else did your friend tell you?”