Page 118 of Victorious

“It’s not your back I’m worried about,” said Gabriel. Noah understood. This was about the girl. Sydney.

Noah plucked the right magazine from the rack and loaded the gun before turning to face the other EO. “Hey, Cardale,” he said, knowing Eli resented his real last name. Had rechristened himself Ever, like he was some kind of hero.

Noah held the weapon out, and Eli took it, his eyes as flat as a shark’s. Then he tipped his head, as if listening to a voice in his own ear.

Noah wondered, with a jealous pang, if it was Dr. Gray. Wondered what he was being told. Eli’s mouth twitched in a hollow smirk as he holstered the gun, and turned his attention to the motel sign, a low red light hanging over the field.

No sense in drawing this out.

Noah gave the signal, and the other agents fell into formation as the two EOs made their way toward the motel.

IVNOW. THEN.

SYDNEY snatched up the piece of paper, shoving it in her pocket just as she heard the faint but unmistakable sound of footsteps.

The hairs rose on the back of her neck, and her fingers darted toward her backpack strap, before remembering it wasn’t there. She’d left the bag—and the gun—up by the edge of the pool. Syd swore under her breath and crouched to free the knife from its sheath on her calf. The grip worn to her small hand from years of practicing with Mitch.

Holding her breath, she climbed back up the ladder, pausing as soon as she was high enough to peer over the edge. She scanned the poolside and saw—nothing. Empty night. For a second, Syd began to doubt herself, but then she heard a dog barking.

Dol.

His call was low, but urgent. The same sound he had made when the stranger started toward her at the cabin.

Syd scrambled up the last rungs on the ladder and lunged for her backpack, expecting to be intercepted right before she reached it, to feel hands darting out of darkness, out of nowhere—but she made it. She swung the bag onto her shoulder, and started for the chain-link fence that ran around the pool, and that was when she looked up and saw Eli Ever.

He was a ghost. He had to be. Because she’d killed him. Seen the blood soak through his shirt and the life leave his eyes. Except he couldn’t be a ghost because his boots were thudding softly on the pavement as he walked toward her.

“Hello, Sydney,” said the dead man.

One moment his hand was empty, and the next, he’d drawn a gun, the weapon swinging up, and as she shoved the pool gate open, and bolted toward the motel, she was twelve again, one week shy of thirteen, pain tearing through her arm as she sprinted through the woods. Away from death. Away from him.

Eli fired, and Syd felt the force slam into her back, enough to make her stumble—but she hadn’t been hit. Her backpack had absorbed the blow, not a bullet, but a small red dart lodging in the fabric.

Surprise flashed over Eli’s face, followed by annoyance. But he was already coming toward her. Syd scrambled upright but knew better than to turn and run and put her back to him again until she had to.

He continued forward and she continued back, until something stopped her. The railing of the motel stairs. The ones that led up to the second floor. To Dol, and Mitch, and help.

Syd turned, and sprinted, made it up four stairs before Eli’s hand caught her backpack, and the next thing she knew, she was being flung backward, the bag torn away as she hit the pavement hard enough to crack something in her side, hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs, hard enough to make her see white.

Pain radiated through her ribs, and Syd wanted to curl up and disappear, but a voice in her head warned her to get up, get up, get up. Eli tossed the bag aside as she struggled to rise. She tried, but before she made it past her hands and knees, he was there, forcing her down again, onto her back, pinning her to the icy pavement.

Syd could barely breathe—but she hadn’t dropped the knife.

As Eli’s hand closed around her throat, she drove the blade into his forearm. It went straight through, buried to the hilt on one side, the bloody tip protruding from the other. Anyone else would have cried out, but Eli simply glared, through gritted teeth, as his blood dripped onto her coat. Victor had told her once that Eli couldn’t heal around obstructions, so she didn’t let go. But neither did he. His hand tightened, cutting off her air.

“I killed you,” she gasped.

“I remember. Vividly,” he said, one knee pressing into her cracked ribs. “Don’t worry,” he added, “I’ll return the favor.”

And Syd should have known she wasn’t safe—would never be safe—in a world where dead didn’t mean gone. But the nightmares had stopped, and she’d thought—she’d thought—

“But first, I want you to tell me…” Eli leaned in, so close their heads were nearly touching. “Where is Victor?”

VNOW. THEN.

THE motel manager had clearly exaggerated when he said the Wi-Fi in the room was iffy. It was simply nonexistent. Mitch spent a good half hour trying and failing to hold on to a signal before he gave up, tucked the laptop under his arm, and headed back down to the “lobby.”

He opened the door as quietly as possible, reaching up to mute the bell. But there was no need. It hadn’t been enough to summon the manager the first time around, and it didn’t summon him now.