Page 205 of Victorious

It shattered under him, and Victor adjusted his stance, the gun in one hand and the short knife in the other as Eli got back to his feet.

Broken glass had nicked the side of his face. Victor watched as the cut healed, leaving a mottled silver scar along his cheekbone. In each hand, he held a shard of glass, though whether he meant to use them as weapons, or simply to keep Serena’s illusion at bay, Victor didn’t know.

Eli shifted, drifting sideways until he was blocking the door again.

Victor kept the gun trained on him.

“This is pointless,” said Eli. “Only one of us can die.”

“You say that,” said Victor, “but Sydney killed you once. I’m betting I can do it again.”

Blood dripped from the glass in Eli’s fists.

“You’re going to lose that bet.”

Victor swung the gun up as Eli started toward him. He dodged the first shot, caught the next three in the chest, but didn’t stop. Eli was brute force, a battering ram, charging toward Victor, who turned the dials up as high as they would go, until Eli finally buckled, the pain enough to bring him to his knees, a scream tearing up his throat.

Victor held him there, even as a warning ache pooled inside his chest.

Until the voice over the intercom said, “Get back up.”

And to his horror, Eli did.

He rose, trembling, and slammed Victor back into the wall, driving the shard of glass down into his shoulder, severing something vital. Victor gasped, the knife slipping from that hand as Eli moved to slice the other shard across his throat. Victor got the gun up just in time to block the cut, glass grating against metal stock as blood spilled through Eli’s fingers, the shard biting down to bone.

“Tell me,” goaded Victor. “When you died, did you see God?”

For a split second, Eli faltered, and in that instant, Victor slammed his boot into the other EO’s chest. Eli stumbled back a step, his eyes gone dark with anger.

There it was, the monster Victor had first glimpsed all those years ago.

He was glad to see it was still there.

“After I kill you,” said Eli. “He’s going to bring you back. And you’ll know what it means to bow before a higher power.”

Victor tsked. “Thou shall not worship false idols,” he mocked. “And as for him…”

He swung the gun up, aiming not for Eli but the camera in the corner of the room. “Therapy requires a foundation of mutual respect,” he said, addressing Gabriel. “If you want mine, come kill me yourself.”

He pulled the trigger, and the camera exploded.

It was a gamble, but at this point, that was all that Victor had.

There was no time to wonder if it would pay off. In the time it had taken to deliver the message, Eli was there, sinking the other shard of glass into Victor’s side. Too shallow to do more than scrape over his hip bone, but with his nerves turned up so high, it fucking hurt.

VIINOW. THEN.

SERENA was still waiting.

She stood there, hand outstretched, fingers curling from her sister toward herself, as if her words were still enough to will Sydney into motion.

But she’d lost that power when she gained this new one, and Sydney hesitated.

The smile faltered on Serena’s face, and just like that, the weather turned. The cold wind sharpened, and the fog rolled in, erasing the distant house, the banks of the lake, everything but the ice, which groaned beneath her feet as if in warning.

She was too powerful. And too unstable to control it.

Sydney shivered.