Page 190 of Victorious

As the first, insufficient wave of agents spilled out the front doors and crossed into her sphere of influence, and were pulled from Gray’s control and into hers.

As they stopped, and began to drift about like moths in the dark.

As she strolled past them, and stepped into the building.

Malcolm sighed, and laid his hands flat on his keyboard, relieved that there was nothing he could do.

Nothing but watch, and wait, and wonder what he’d dream of, when Serena got close enough to pull him under, too.

XXXIVNOW. THEN.

SYDNEY stared at Dr. Gray. “You can’t be serious,” she said.

But he obviously was. “You created a problem. I’m asking you to fix it. Not only because it needs doing, but because it will show that you’re willing to commit to the work.”

“The work…” she echoed, confusion in her voice.

He gestured at the room. “The work that we are doing here. Or will do, once you agree to treatment.”

Sydney shifted in her seat. “Why would I do that?”

His gaze dropped to his notebook. “If my math is right, you have been running for nearly half your life. You must be tired.” Syd felt her chest tighten. She clenched her teeth. “What are you running from, if not from EON? From me? I’m offering a chance to stop. A place to rest. An opportunity to serve a purpose greater than yourself.”

“What purpose would that be?”

“Understanding. Progress. I can’t offer you a normal life. You’re not a normal girl. But I can offer you a degree of freedom, a measure of stability. And together, we can continue my research. Try to understand why some die and others don’t. Why some of us are set apart.”

Sydney knew what he was doing.

Dr. Gray, like all the therapists she’d seen before, was reading Sydney wrong. He was treating her as if she was the age she looked, and not the age she was. Assuming she wanted a father figure, when she already had two.

“Well?” he pressed.

“I can’t,” said Syd, fists balled on her knees.

Dr. Gray sighed. He looked down at the writing implement he’d been twirling, as if noticing it for the first time. “Do you know why I write in pencil?” he asked in a patronizing way.

Sydney shook her head.

“Because each and every person that I treat,” he said, placing the pencil on the glass table between them, “is capable of chang—”

He was cut off by the sudden shriek of an alarm.

Dr. Gray’s head whipped toward the door, and Sydney took advantage of the opening.

She swiped the pencil off the desk. Mitch had taught her, if she was ever in a fight, she should fight dirty.

Throw an elbow, use your teeth, or anything you can find. Fighting clean is for the ring, he’d told her. Not when your life is on the line.

She made a lunge for the door.

Dr. Gray rose, too, and moved to block her way, and she drove the pencil’s sharpened point down into his thigh. She missed the artery, but the graphite and wood sank deep, and his little puppets might not be able to feel pain, but he obviously could.

He staggered back, clutching at his leg as Syd shot past him.

Her limbs were still unsteady, knees threatening to buckle, but in the end, they held, and by the time he jerked the pencil out with a wet sound and a stifled curse, Sydney was crashing against the office door, half sure it would be locked.

It wasn’t.