Page 95 of Victorious

The one in her back, just below her ribs, which she couldn’t reach to suture. Her gaze flicked to the toilet, where the rest of her supplies were waiting. A butane torch and a metal spoon. She wrapped a washcloth around the spoon, and turned the torch on, holding the hot blue flame to the metal till it began to glow.

June really, really didn’t want to do this.

But she also didn’t want to die.

If someone had asked her earlier that day, if she was afraid of death, June would have said no. Would have had some glib response, like how she’d been through it once already, and the novelty was gone.

And she would have meant it, too.

It was easy to be brave, when you thought you were invincible.

Harder, when you learned you weren’t.

She didn’t scream when the metal met the wound. She was proud of that. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. As soon as the skin had cauterized, she dropped the tools, and let herself escape into another body.

As soon as she did, the pain blinked out, and the sheer relief made her knees buckle. She slid to the floor, a stranger’s hands against the speckled lino. A stranger’s hair falling in her face.

Too close, too close, too close hammered her heart. The pain may have been gone, but the terror lingered.

Just then, her cell chimed from the edge of the sink.

Slowly, June got to her feet. Saw the name on the screen.

Victor. June let out a haggard laugh. He really had the worst timing.

Call me, said the message, and June’s first instinct was to do it. It could be about Sydney, she told herself, fingers drifting toward the phone. But before she got to it, she stopped. Because she knew it wasn’t. Knew no matter what Victor said, he’d never let her see Sydney again.

It had never been about the girl.

Only him. And EON.

She remembered the look on Rios’s face, her strange words about faith, and wondered what could possibly have happened between when she called June and when June got there. She didn’t know what was going on—and the truth was, she didn’t want to.

She was done. Done with EON. Done with Victor. Done with killing.

There were other lives out there, ones she could be living.

June took in the blood dotting the bathroom floor, the mess of gauze, the butane torch. The pain no longer felt but certainly remembered. She cleaned up the mess, and deleted Victor’s text, and then she did what she did best.

She disappeared.

XIVNOW. THEN.

1 DAY BEFORE THE END

ON THE ROAD

THE pickup trundled down the interstate.

Syd had killed the first hour counting road signs. The second picking the polish from her nails. The third, stewing in anger, and the fourth, in defeat. Now the sun was going down, turning the sky sherbet colors.

Dol snored quietly on the bench in the backseat. Something deemed “vintage” played softly on the radio. Every time the signal gave up the ghost, they traded turns. This one was Mitch’s pick, and much to her chagrin, the station showed no signs of flagging.

Mitch kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. Except for every thirty minutes when, like clockwork, his gaze flicked to the rearview mirror, to see if they were being followed.

They weren’t.

She could have told him that, but she knew he wouldn’t listen. Better safe than sorry, that was Mitchell Turner’s mantra. But safe was getting old.