Page 1 of Victorious

1THE DOCTOR IS IN

INOW. THEN.

3 YEARS AGO

A HOTEL BAR

VICTOR sipped a whisky—neat—and counted.

He counted the number of states he’d crossed—six—and the number of finished drinks in front of him—two—and the number of empty seats to his left—four.

He counted the number of hours since his last dose—seven—and the number until his next one—five.

He lifted the glass to his mouth and counted the number of other bodies in the room—eight.

Once upon a time, he would’ve felt them, too, been able to trace the elaborate pattern of their nerves, the current that ran beneath their skin. Would’ve been able to pull on that current until they buckled, screamed.

Now, the only thing he felt was the thin glass tumbler in his hand.

And the worst part was, he’d done it to himself.

Not that he’d had many options.

Ever since Sydney had brought Victor back from the dead, his power had been glitching, his body reenacting the same electrical surge that had stopped his heart back at Lockland, fifteen years before. After each episode, it had taken longer for his heart to restart, until it became clear the next death would genuinely kill him.

A fortuitous discovery, then, that he’d found a drug capable of suppressing that death.

Unfortunately, it did so by suppressing his powers.

Rendering him ordinary.

Victor drew the inhaler from his coat pocket and turned it in the bar’s low light, studying the vivid blue contents as he counted the number of vials currently in his possession—four and a half—and the number he’d started with—six—and the number of days—sixty-three—until he ran out of Haverty’s compound. Which wouldn’t be such a problem except the good doctor was dead.

He counted the number of weeks—three—that had passed since the showdown at the Merit gala. The night Victor had killed EON’s director, Stell.

The night Eli had killed Marcella.

The night Sydney had killed Eli.

Victor’s hand tightened imperceptibly on the glass.

He had waited fifteen years to kill his best friend.

And he was dead.

But Syd had been the one to pull the trigger.

Victor told himself that’s what bothered him, the fact she’d deprived him of his closure, stolen his kill. But that was a lie. What bothered Victor most was that, for the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do next.

And he hated it.

More than the absence of his powers.

More than dying at Eli’s hands.

More than the solitary cell in which he’d spent the first five years, after his arrest. Because then, at least, he’d been fueled by the promise of revenge.

Eli was dead, and Victor wasn’t dead.