Page 106 of Victorious

“No,” Eli cut in, before the EO could give him a command.

Gabriel’s mouth twitched. “I like you, Eli. Your resilience is impressive. Most of my patients lose the will to fight so quickly. Here you are, still so—resistant.”

“I’m not your patient,” said Eli. “And unlike them, I have the benefit of past experience.”

“Your father?” asked Gabriel.

Eli bristled. “No.”

“Who, then?” he pressed.

Fuck. Eli clenched his teeth against the name, felt it rise up anyway. “Serena.” Before Gabriel could pry, Eli changed course. “I’m amazed they let someone like you take charge of EON.”

“Someone like us,” said Gabriel. “And who better? After all, Hell was run by those cast out of Heaven.”

Eli glared. “Don’t mock me.”

Gabriel sat forward. “I meant no disrespect,” he said, reaching for the top file and flicking it open. “It’s no surprise, the role faith plays, given the severity of your upbringing.”

Eli looked down and saw a paper excerpt. The headline read: LOCAL PASTOR LEADS NEW FLOCK. Beneath the heavy type, a black-and-white photo of his father, standing before the church with Eli on one side and his mother on the other. Her face was turned toward her husband, who stared ahead, one hand on Eli’s shoulder. To someone else, it must have looked like a happy family. But that was because Eli had learned by then to keep the pain from showing on his face.

“Your father died when you were ten years old, is that correct? It must have been a loss. Especially since your mother’s death the month before. Faith can offer comfort, solace—” Eli grimaced. Gabriel caught it. “Or was it something else?”

“My father was not a good man. But in a way, he is the source of my faith.” Eli dragged his gaze up to meet the therapist’s. “The first time I felt the grace of God was when I pushed him down the stairs.”

Gabriel’s brows quirked upward in surprise.

“I knew he deserved it, not because of what he did to me. But because of how I felt, the moment he died.”

“How did you feel?”

The way you feel when sunlight breaks through clouds, thought Eli. When the chill burns off and you finally get warm. “Like I’d finally done something right.”

Gabriel’s pencil seesawed against his knee. “I see.”

“Do you?” sneered Eli.

“In the absence of your father’s approval, you sought a higher one. Which is understandable, of course, but also enabling. It allowed you to cede responsibility for your own actions. Allowed you to pretend that you were merely an instrument of justice. A divine tool, rather than accept the truth, that you were in control. You were in control, when you killed your father. You were in control, when you went in search of powers, and when you found them, and you were in control of every life you took.”

Eli flicked his hand. “I’m not in control now. Am I, Dr. Gray?”

Gabriel nodded. “One of the reasons people are so hard to treat is because, unlike diseases, they can lie. They conceal things, protect themselves. I am simply removing that obstacle to ensure my patients answer honestly.”

“I’m not your patient,” Eli said again, through gritted teeth.

“And I can’t help but notice,” persisted Gabriel, “how strongly you resist being put in a subjugated role, except in relation to God. The Great Absolver.” Eli’s fingers dented the arms of the chair. “Do you still believe that this is your great purpose? That you are the weapon, and not the hand holding it?”

You’re not blessed, or divine, or burdened, hissed Victor in his head. You’re a science experiment.

“Answer me,” instructed Gabriel, those two words like a crowbar between Eli’s teeth.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what I believe.” The words—the knowledge they were true—left him feeling hollow. “What I do know,” he pressed on, “is that we are monsters, all of us. I used to think I was an exception, but I’m not. EOs are an error, a crime against nature and a danger to the world. And I will do everything I can to strike them from it.” He met Gabriel’s gaze. “Including you.”

He expected the therapist to frown. To offer some rebuke. Instead, he cocked his head, and tapped his pencil thoughtfully, and smiled.

“You’re using an old script, Eli. You know how to say the words, but do you feel them? Are they true? Ask yourself, do you really want to kill me?”

Eli began to answer. Stopped.