Page 47 of Victorious
He had no choice.
He had to run.
He spun and wrenched the metal door back open, intending to cut through the arcade, but instead he found a second stranger in the same black gear. Which he was beginning to suspect had nothing to do with motorcycles.
He held up his hands, “Hey, I don’t want any—”
Before he could say trouble, something punched him in the chest.
Xavi staggered and looked down, saw a dart jutting between his ribs, pain and numbness rushing in its wake. His last thought was Victor is gonna be so mad.
And then he was falling, just like he had That Day.
Only this time, he never hit the ground.
2ASSESSMENT
INOW. THEN.
1 DAY BEFORE THE END
NEWTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY
SYDNEY watched the latest lecture, chin resting on her folded arms.
The library was even emptier than usual today, little drifts of snow dancing past the windows. A hot cocoa cooled at her elbow—courtesy of Martha, who warned her not to drink it over the keyboard—and on screen, Professor Dean wandered back and forth across the lecture hall stage as she discussed covalent bonding.
The class was only half done, but Syd was secretly grateful when her watch gave a warning chime (the first of three she’d set). Her vision was starting to blur.
She paused the lecture, and the professor froze, one hand cupping the air, midway through an explanation Syd had struggled to follow. Organic chem wasn’t nearly as intuitive as biology had been, but she was determined to grasp it.
According to Mitch, Sydney had only been able to kill Eli because someone had designed a formula that could suspend an EO’s powers. An invention like that was a dangerous thing. But if Victor had taught her anything, it was that dangerous things could be useful.
If you knew how to use them.
Syd clicked out of the lecture, scribbled down her timestamp, and reset the student’s progress, erasing her tracks like steps in snow before packing up her textbook, and slipping out of the warm library, and back into the cold.
Her bike groaned a little as she dragged it upright, but five minutes later, she was sailing through the woods. The ground flew away beneath her tires, cold scraping her cheeks as she picked up speed. Sydney smiled, body humming as the world blurred by, the closest thing she felt to freedom as—
BOOM.
A gun went off, too loud, too close.
The sound tore through the woods, and she swerved on instinct, nearly hitting a tree. Syd half leapt, half toppled off the bike, skinning her palms on the frozen ground as she went down.
She winced, and rose, her sluggish pulse now pounding in her chest as she held her breath, and scanned the forest, waiting for the danger to reveal itself, for EON agents to spring out between the trees and close in like a net, make her disappear, either into the ground or into a cell.
Slowly she crouched, and slipped the knife out of her boot, fingers flexing on the shortened grip. She wasn’t going down without a fight.
But nothing happened. No one came. After several agonizing moments, Sydney straightened, retrieved the bike, and started walking.
But instead of heading for the cabin, her body veered, legs leading her down another path. She wasn’t sure why—until she saw the antlers.
The stag lay on its side, heat still rising off its body, even though its eyes were open. Dead. Blood matted its brown fur, its side studded with buckshot. Sydney leaned the bike against a tree and put the knife back in her boot as she shuffled closer. Sank to her knees on the cold, sharp earth, and tugged off her gloves.
“Assholes,” she muttered, running a hand along the animal’s coat.
She splayed her fingers. Its death was so recent, the life was still right there, humming beneath the surface. She reached, icy cold skating beneath her skin as she caught hold of the thread, teeth chattering as she pulled, dragging the beast back from wherever it had been.
