Page 172 of Victorious

“What is it?” demanded Victor.

She was about to tell him when Sydney’s sister sighed, and her eyes drifted open, cloudless and blue. As they did, the dark interior of the transport van blurred around June.

She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but her vision wasn’t the problem. It was the van itself, the world slipping, smudging, losing shape.

The phone slipped from June’s fingers as she rocked back on her heels, lost her balance and—

Landed on a cushioned bench.

The scent of pancakes wafted toward her, along with the rattle and chime of silverware, the top-you-up?s and faint but constant oldies on the radio, all of it so steady and so comforting.

June had always loved diners.

They were a constant in an ever-changing world.

No matter where you were, you could find one.

And this wasn’t just any diner. It was the one back home, and she was sitting in her favorite booth, emptying sachet after sachet into her coffee, waiting to see how many it would take for the spoon to stand up straight.

She was on her thirteenth pouch when the bell over the door sang its little song.

June looked up and broke into a smile.

“There you are…”

XXIVNOW. THEN.

“VICTOR, we have a problem.”

“What is it?” he demanded. She didn’t answer. “June?”

He bristled, assuming for a moment she’d hung up on him, but when he checked, the call hadn’t disconnected. The seconds continued ticking upward on the screen.

“June,” he snapped. Nothing. Then—a crash. The telltale clatter of the phone falling through her fingers, glass and metal striking ground.

“What’s going on?” asked Mitch, gripping the wheel.

Victor held up a hand, strained to hear something, anything, beyond the silence on the line. He strained and caught the soft echo of footsteps over metal grating, and a voice murmuring, “Sweet dreams,” followed by the scrape of the phone being lifted before the call abruptly disconnected.

Victor’s fingers tightened on the phone.

EON had been transporting someone in that van. Someone June had mistaken for Sydney from a distance.

And that voice, like Syd’s, but softer, sweeter, more grown-up. A voice he’d never heard with his own ears because he’d stopped them up, so it couldn’t get inside his head, the night he cut its owner’s throat.

Serena.

He’d ordered Mitch to burn her body, and he had. But there was a reason crematoriums had to burn at such high heats. Bones didn’t disintegrate in ordinary fires. Certainly not in hasty ones lit with gasoline in the middle of the night.

He’d seen Sydney practicing. Seen her go from needing whole bodies to only incomplete remains. Not just trying to improve, he gathered now, but working toward a goal.

An end.

Victor told himself the kid would never be that reckless. But she hadn’t been reckless, she’d been desperate. Cornered. Hunted down. And in that moment, she’d used the only weapon she had on her.

He sighed, the breath hissing through his teeth.

With any luck, Serena Clarke would be easier to kill a second time.