Page 140 of Villains Series

TWO DAYS AGO

DOWNTOWN WHITTON

SYDNEY was back on the ice.

It stretched in every direction. She couldn’t see the banks, couldn’t see anything but the frozen stretch of lake ahead, behind, the plume of her own breath.

“Hello?”

she called.

Her voice echoed across the lake.

The ice crackled just behind her and she spun around, expecting to see Eli.

But there was no one there.

And then, from somewhere in the distance, a sound.

Not the cracking of the lake. A short, sharp tone.

Sydney sat up.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she was curled on the sofa, Dol at her feet and thin morning light seeping in the windows.

The sharp tone sounded again, and Syd looked around for her phone before she realized that the sound was coming from Mitch’s computer. The laptop sat open on the table a few feet away, pinging like a beacon.

Sydney tapped the computer awake.

Mitch’s black lock screen came up, and she typed in the password—benedición. The screen gave way to a matrix of code, way beyond the basics he’d been teaching her. But Syd’s attention went to the corner of the screen, where a small icon bounced up and down.

Results (1).

Sydney clicked the icon, and a new window popped up.

Her breath caught. She recognized the page’s format from the paper she’d found crumpled in the trash. It was a profile. A distinguished man, dark-skinned with a trim white beard, staring out at her from a professional photo.

Ellis Dumont. Fifty-seven. A surgeon who’d been in an accident the year before. He hadn’t abandoned his old life; maybe that was why he hadn’t shown up in the system. Not enough markers. But this—this was the important part. Ever since he’d returned to work, his patients’ recovery rate had skyrocketed. There were links to news articles, pieces praising this man with a near prescient ability to discover what was wrong.

She scrolled down the page until she found Dumont’s current location.

Merit Central Hospital.

Sydney surged to her feet and hurried down the hall. The soft hush of the shower spilled from Mitch’s room. Victor’s door was ajar, the space beyond dark. She could just make out the lines of his body on the bed, his back to her.

The first and only time she’d ever woken him, it had been from a nightmare, and he’d lit her up like a Christmas tree. The pain had echoed in her nerves for hours.

She knew it probably wouldn’t happen again, but it was still hard to force herself forward. In the end, it was a wasted fear.

“I’m not asleep,”

said Victor softly.

He sat up and turned to face Sydney, his eyes narrowing.

“What is it?”

Sydney’s heart was racing.

“There’s something you should see.”

She sat, perched on the edge of the sofa, as Victor read the profile, his expression carefully blank. She wished she could read his mind. Hell, she wished she could read his face.

Mitch appeared in the doorway, large towel draped over his bare shoulders.

“What’s going on?”

“Get your things,”

said Victor, rising to his feet.

“We’re going to Merit.”