Page 102 of Victorious

Eli frowned. “So you think yourself a messenger of God?”

The man—Gabriel—shrugged lightly. “You thought yourself His sword.” Eli’s skin tightened. Gabriel pressed on. “I’ve read your file, Eli. I know about your time here, and at Lockland, and before. But that’s the trouble with files. They tell me who you’ve been. Only you can tell me who you are. And no, I do not think myself a messenger.”

“What are you then?” asked Eli.

He slid the glasses from his face, began to polish them. “A man searching for answers. For insight, into the minds of those deemed ExtraOrdinary.” He set the glasses back on his nose. “In short, a therapist.” His gaze fell on Eli. “And EON’s new director.”

That was a jolt. “Where’s Stell?”

“Director Joseph Stell was killed.” Whatever vindication he might have felt was tempered when the stranger added, “Two and a half years ago.”

Eli felt his balance tip.

Two and a half years?

“What happened to me?” he demanded.

“You died.”

The word landed like a gavel. Died. No caveat. No nearly, no almost.

“But I can’t—” he started, before remembering Haverty, the serum, the way his body failed to heal. The pain, the cold, the dark.

Eli Ever had never been afraid of death.

He had trusted God. His Plan. His Great Design. Believed that when he went, it would be his time.

The night he sank into the icy water, he knew that whatever happened, it would be okay, for God was with him. After, as he knelt on the kitchen floor, and opened his veins, and watched them heal, over and over, he told himself that it was a sign that God was with him still. Preserving and protecting for a greater purpose.

He had been raised on tales of heavenly rewards. Of paradise. Of peace.

But Eli had died that night in Haverty’s makeshift lab.

And there had been nothing.

A flat expanse of black.

Panic churned inside his chest, but anger rushed to meet it. Because maybe there had been something, a higher plane, too great to comprehend on waking. Maybe, but if there was, its memory was lost to him, stripped back by this involuntary resurrection, this unnatural return. A corruption of the order.

“Who brought me back?” he growled through gritted teeth.

The doctor smiled. “I did.”

Gabriel. The messenger.

Eli’s attention sharpened. “You’re an EO?”

The man beyond the glass spread his palms in a beatific gesture. “I am.”

Eli wanted to wrap his hands around the other man’s throat. For tarnishing his body, his soul.

But he was on the wrong side of a cell, and he had no doubt that if he struck the glass, the room would fill with current or with gas.

“Why did you bring me back?” he demanded.

“I believe in second chances.” The right words, offered in the wrong tone. Bland.

“You’re full of shit,” growled Eli. Gabriel’s mouth twitched. “Is something funny?”