Page 169 of Victorious

XXIINOW. THEN.

2 MONTHS BEFORE THE END

LOCKLAND UNIVERSITY

VICTOR and Dani sat together on the Slope.

That was the name for the massive curve of concrete steps that rose out of the quad, stripes of grass between the shelves. A coffee hung from Victor’s fingers. Beside him, Dani sat cross-legged with a tablet in her lap. It was a clear winter day, the sun burning off the cold, and the Slope was packed with students and teachers alike, which made it a good place for the experiment.

Victor let the hum wash over him, his senses stretching out until they brushed the nearby study group, the trio of faculty on their phones, the young couple shoulder to shoulder. As he studied the people ranged around the steps, Dani studied him. Beneath his shirt and coat, the monitor pressed between his ribs, its sensor feeding vitals to the tablet in real time.

“Ready when you are,” she said.

Victor set the coffee down and cracked his knuckles.

He’d been using her new compound for weeks now. Weeks of small refinements, frequent tests, but none of Dani’s adjustments had eliminated the new, unwelcome ceiling on his power. Yet.

Victor scanned the crowd. Twenty, maybe thirty in total.

He could have leveled all of them at once, through sheer brute force, but that wasn’t the point. Victor had always preferred to use his power like a scalpel, not a hammer, but now, it was imperative. If there was a limit to what his body could endure, then efficiency was everything.

He picked a pair of students chatting down below, focused on the books one was holding in her hand. His fingers twitched, and so did hers, the books tumbling to the ground.

As she knelt to collect them, Victor splayed his hand, and she rocked back onto her heels. He caught her before she lost her balance, held her there as he took hold of her companion, and made them kneel to help.

He relinquished both, attention flicking to a study group of four, packing up their bags to go. Victor stretched his focus and his reach, and as the bodies rose, he took hold of all of them at once, and pushed, their knees folding in unison as the invisible force made them sit back down. They looked around and laughed, as if it were the wind.

Dani hummed. “There’s a little flux,” she warned, but Victor felt no pain, so he pressed on. So far, he had limited himself to subtle gestures—a stumble, a flinch, a moment’s faltering—all of which could be easily discounted, chalked up to clumsiness, distraction.

Now his focus slid past the Slope, to the green lawn that made up the main quad, where a dozen figures jogged and kicked around a ball. He reached out for them, determined to see how many he could hold before his power slipped.

Dani said something, but her voice faded as his focus sharpened on the players, as he took hold of four, then six, then ten.

One by one, they each stopped running, dragged to a stop by the unseen force of Victor’s will. Distantly, he felt the tightness forming in his chest, but he didn’t let go. Unlike the bodies on the Slope, the players struggled, each locked in their own sudden war against his hold. But they were his. He could make them move. Make them kneel. Make them fall. All he had to do was—

“Stop.”

Dani’s voice cut through the humming static, and Victor let go, the brief discomfort in his chest retreating as he did. The players stumbled into motion, dazed, and he sat back with a sigh, and cracked his neck.

It was too soon.

It was always too soon.

Dani showed him the readings on the screen, the way his heart began to strain, his pulse not climbing as an athlete’s would, but losing rhythm.

“But this is good,” she said, tapping the tablet. “I mean, what you were able to do, it’s—”

“—not enough.” He took his coffee and stood, ascending the concrete steps.

“Enough is not a scientific term,” said Dani, rising to follow. “Besides,” she went on, catching up with him, “enough for what? Because from where I’m standing, you’re alive. And you can drop a body from a hundred feet.”

Enough, thought Victor, to take down EON brick by brick.

Enough to stop anything that came for him.

Enough to protect the people he’d sworn to keep safe.

“We should increase the dosage.”