Page 80 of Victorious

He brought his hand down. And as it settled against the EO’s skin, he frowned. Something was different. Wrong.

The cold against his palm wasn’t a pins-and-needles prickle but a sharp-toothed saw, biting into his flesh. Gabriel hissed but didn’t let go.

With the others, he hadn’t needed to reach. Their lives had been right there, just beneath the surface. But now, he felt like he was sinking, finger-, wrist-, forearm-deep into an icy void.

Come to me, he willed, his fingers grasping in the dark.

Come to me, he ordered, catching hold, dragging the EO back across that invisible, imaginary line.

On the floor, the woman gasped. Gabriel let go, and stumbled back, his hand numb and his head on fire. But unlike the countless humans he’d brought back, all of them docile, ready to heel, the EO looked up at him, and scowled.

As if she remembered where she was, and what he’d done, and resented him for it.

She sprang to her feet and lunged toward him, so fast he barely got the word out.

“STOP,” he ordered.

She did. But her body trembled. She was trying to fight.

Gabriel not only saw the tension in her face, he felt it, like a length of rope drawn taut between their bodies, a physical weight. Which was how he knew, she couldn’t win this fight—his power overshadowed her resistance. Still, it was disconcerting, her face contorted in resentment instead of calm complacency.

“Traitor,” she hissed, as if to emphasize the point.

She couldn’t move, but anger flared in her red eyes, and Gabriel felt himself pinned in place again. But then the light there flickered suddenly, as if short-circuiting. And with it, the grip she had on him faltered, then reappeared, then vised, the force no longer holding him, but crushing. Gabriel gasped as his body groaned beneath the sudden pressure, squeezing the air from his lungs so he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t issue a command. Panic flashed through him, and the resurrected EO grinned with feral glee.

Right before the shot rang out.

And the right side of her head vanished into crimson mist.

Her body crumpled, lifeless, to the floor, and Gabriel gasped as the EO’s hold sloughed away. He dragged in a breath and looked to the stone-faced soldier who’d shot her. Evanson. Following the order he’d given to every one of his conversions.

Protect me.

Gabriel straightened his glasses as he looked down at the remains of the failed experiment, confused by the setback, uncertain what had gone wrong.

But progress demanded perseverance.

“Bring me another one,” he said.

VNOW. THEN.

1 DAY BEFORE THE END

THE CABIN OUTSIDE HERALD

AFTER eight years of moving without ever moving in, stopping but never settling, Sydney Clarke had learned to travel light.

A toiletry bag. A duffel. And a backpack.

Her body went through the motions, clearing out the drawers, the bedside table, until all that was left were the two things she kept under the bed.

She lay on her stomach, and reached under the frame, fingers grazing the planks until she felt the pistol, its cold weight heavy in her hand. She set the weapon aside, and reached in again, till her hand found the metal tin. It was lighter than the gun, and twice as warm, but she shivered when she touched it.

As Syd sat up, the contents shifted quietly inside the box.

Still, she pried the red lid off to make sure the pieces were still there.

As if her sister’s bones might wander off.