Page 128 of Villains Series

THREE WEEKS AGO

SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF brENTHAVEN

VICTOR’S steps rustled in underbrush.

It was almost dusk, the sky sinking into violent shades around him as he picked his way through the woods. Now and then the silence was punctuated by distant gunfire as, across the reserve, hunters picked off their prey before the last of the light failed.

Victor was hunting too. He trailed a broad man in an orange vest, the shock of color picking him out from the surrounding mottle of green and gray. The trees were sparse, surrounded by fields to every side. A few miles south, a small cabin, the full extent of the man’s footprint.

Despite his current attire, Ian Campbell had been a hard man to find.

He’d gone off the grid after his accident, a disappearance almost as complete as death.

Almost.

But in this day and age, it was impossible not to leave a mark.

It had taken Mitch months to track this particular EO down. But he’d done it. Because he knew, just as Victor knew, that they were running out of options. The stack of paper had dwindled down to a few spare sheets, and as the leads shrank, the length of Victor’s deaths grew, the seconds ticking upward until they threatened to brush that lethal edge, the medically established threshold of no return.

A soft bleating sound alerted Victor to the likely object of Campbell’s attention.

An injured deer lay in the brush, its side opened by a scattering of buckshot. As Victor slowed to watch from the shadow of a nearby tree, Campbell crouched over the injured deer, making gentle noises as he laid a hand on the animal’s side.

And then, as Victor watched, the buckshot rose back up through muscle and skin, and rolled down the animal’s sides into the grass.

Victor’s breath caught.

He had become so accustomed to disappointment—to tracking EO after EO down, only to learn that their powers were incompatible, or worse, irrelevant—so he was caught off guard by the sight of Campbell’s power. The realization that he’d finally found someone who could help.

The deer rose on unsteady legs, and then bounded away through the trees, unhurt.

Campbell watched it go. Victor watched Campbell.

“Is it a kindness,”

asked Victor, his voice breaking the stillness.

“to loose prey back into the world, simply to be shot again?”

Campbell, to his credit, didn’t jump. He straightened, brushing his palms against his jeans.

“Can’t do much about the hunters,”

he said.

“But never could pass up a creature in pain.”

Victor laughed, a humorless, hollow sound.

“Then you should have no qualms about helping me.”

Campbell’s expression narrowed.

“Animals are innocent,”

he said.

“People are another matter. Most, I’ve found, don’t deserve the help.”

Victor bristled—it sounded like something Eli would say. His fingers twitched, the air beginning to hum, but Campbell surprised him by stepping forward instead of away.

“How are you hurt?” he asked.

Victor hesitated, unsure how to answer such a simple question with such a complicated answer. In the end, he said.

“Mortally.”

Campbell gave him a long, measured look.

“All right,”

he said.

“I’ll do what I can.”

Victor’s heart stuttered, not from an episode, but from hope. A thing so rare he’d forgotten what it felt like. He had been prepared to use force.

“There are limits,”

continued Campbell.

“I can’t stop nature. Can’t change its course. I can’t rewind death, but I can undo a violence.”

“Then,”

said Victor, whose deaths had been shaped by blood and pain.

“you are well suited to this.”

Campbell held out his hand, and Victor, who had never been comfortable with contact, forced himself to still as the EO’s hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Campbell closed his eyes, and Victor waited. Waited for humming in his skull to disappear, waited for the crackle in his nerves to ease and the ticking clock to finally stop—

But nothing happened.

After a long, empty second, Campbell’s hand fell away, and Victor knew that he’d found another dead end. But he’d seen Campbell’s power. It should have worked. It had to work.

“I’m sorry,”

said the man, shaking his head.

“I can’t help you.”

“Why not?”

snarled Victor.

For the first time, Campbell backed away.

“When I said I could—I meant—I can heal a violence done by someone else. But whatever’s happened to you, however you’re hurt, you’ve done it to yourself.”

Victor’s anger sliced through him like a knife, sudden and deep. His hand clenched into a fist, and Campbell staggered back into the brush, a pained sob wrenching from his throat.

“Get up,”

demanded Victor. But he raised his hand as he said it, forcing Campbell upright. “Fix me.”

“I can’t!”

gasped Campbell.

“I told you, I can only heal the innocent. You’re not a victim.”

“Who are you to judge me?”

growled Victor.

“No one,”

said Campbell.

“The power judges for itself. I’m sorry, I—”

Victor shoved Campbell away with a snarl. Behind his eyes, he saw his death—not the most recent, or the one at Eli’s hands, but the very first, the one in the lab at Lockland, the way he’d climbed onto the table, pressed his bare back against the cold steel, summoned death to him like a demon, a slave, an order.

In the woods, Campbell had struggled back to his feet.

Victor half expected the EO to run, but he didn’t.

Darkness had swept in around them, but even in the lightless woods, Victor saw the genuine sadness in the other EO’s eyes.

Victor briefly considered letting the man go. But if he’d found Campbell, it was only a matter of time before EON did too. Their reach seemed farther by the day.

“I’m sorry,”

said Campbell again.

“Me too,”

said Victor, drawing his gun.

The shots echoed through the woods.

The body collapsed, and Victor sighed, and slumped back against the nearest tree, the humming louder than ever in his head. He closed his eyes, suddenly, immeasurably tired.

If you kill all the EOs you meet, how are you better than Eli?

Whatever’s happened to you, however you’re hurt, you’ve done it to yourself.

His cell broke the silence. Victor dragged his eyes open and answered the call, rising to his feet. “Dominic.”

He heard the telltale sounds of a bar in the background.

“You have news?”

“There’s a new EO,”

said Dom.

“A bold one. Name’s Marcella Riggins.”

“Is she a viable lead?”

asked Victor as he started back the way he’d come.

“No,”

said Dom.

“Her power is definitely of a destructive nature.”

Victor sighed.

“Then what is she to me?”

“I just thought you’d want to know. She’s just drawing a lot of attention.”

“Good,”

said Victor shortly.

“Then EON can waste their time hunting her instead of me.”

He knew, of course, thanks to Dominic, that they were already chasing him. Or rather, chasing someone. And he had a good idea who was leading the charge.

Victor had been disgusted, but not surprised, when he’d learned about the way Stell was using Eli Ever. Putting him back to work. Eli always did have a knack for finding his way to the center of a stage, and Stell had fallen for his charms before. Victor wondered if that was why EON hadn’t gotten closer. Not because their pet had failed to see Victor’s hand in the killings, but because he had.

It would be so like Eli, that self-righteous, self-absorbed need to handle things himself.

And every day the noose failed to tighten, Victor’s suspicions grew.

As for Marcella Riggins, let her have the spotlight, as long as she could hold it. When it came to EOs, there was a kind of natural selection. Most had the sense to stay in the shadows, but when the need for attention outweighed a sense of self-preservation, the scales tended to balance themselves.

And people like Marcella never lasted long.