Page 16 of Villains Series

TWO DAYS AGO

THE ESQUIRE HOTEL

VICTOR heard the tread of barefoot steps behind him as Mitch came into the room.

He saw the hulking figure in the reflective sheen of the windowpane, felt him the way he felt everyone, as if they were all under water, himself included, and every movement made ripples.

“You’re wandering,”

said Mitch, meeting Victor’s gaze in the glass.

It was a small, familiar phrase, one Mitch had often used when he’d found Victor staring off between the bars, squinting faintly, as if trying to see through the walls to something in the distance.

Something important.

Now Victor blinked, eyes sliding from the window and Mitch’s ghostly reflection to the fake wood floor.

He listened to Mitch’s footsteps recede into the kitchen, the soft sound of the fridge opening, a carton being taken out.

Chocolate milk.

It was all Mitch wanted to drink now that he was out, since they didn’t have any at Wrighton.

Victor had quirked a brow, but let the man have his whims.

Prison left a hunger in you, a craving.

The exact nature of the want depended on the person.

Victor wanted something, too.

He wanted to watch Eli bleed.

Mitch leaned his elbows on the counter, and drank his milk in silence.

Victor thought his cellmate after getting out might have a plan of his own, people he’d want to see, but he had only looked at Victor over the hood of the stolen car and asked.

“Where next?”

If Mitch did have a past, he was clearly still running from it, and in the meantime, Victor was more than willing to give him something to run to.

He liked making people useful.

His gaze eventually wandered past Mitch’s reflection to the Merit night, the ice in his nearly empty drink clinking as the glass shifted in his grip.

The two had been in each other’s company for a long time.

They knew when the other wanted to talk, and when they wanted to think.

The only problem was that more often than not, Victor wanted to think, and more often than not, Mitch wanted to talk.

Victor could feel Mitch beginning to fidget under the weight of the quiet.

“Quite a view,”

he said, tipping his glass toward the windows.

“Yeah,”

said Mitch.

“Been a long time since I’ve seen a view that grand. Next place we go, I hope it has windows like this.”

Victor nodded again, absently, brought his forehead to rest against the cool glass.

He couldn’t afford to think of next, or after.

He’d spent far too long thinking of now.

Waiting for now.

The only nexts in his world were the short, quick ones standing between him and Eli.

And they were falling away so fast.

Mitch yawned.

“You sure you’re okay, Vic?”

he asked, returning the carton to the fridge.

“Dandy. Night.”

“Night,”

said Mitch, wandering back to his room.

Victor watched Mitch go in the glass, before two pale smudges—his own eyes, ghosted against the darkened buildings—brought him back.

Victor turned away from the wall of windows, and finished his drink.

A folder sat on a side table beside the leather couch, a handful of papers escaping from within.

A face gazed steadily out from a picture, the right eye and cheek obscured by the folder’s front, and Victor set the empty glass on the table and flicked the cover back to reveal the rest of the face.

It was the page from the copy of The National Mark he’d bought that morning.

CIVILIAN HERO SAVES BANK

Below ran the article on the young, precocious man who had been in the right place at the right time and had risked his life to stop an armed robber at a local branch.

Smith Victor had to wonder if Barry was the weapon.

Even more concerning—and more intriguing—than a potential EO was the photograph of the civilian hero.

He had asked to remain nameless, but nameless and anonymous are not the same, especially where papers are concerned, and there, below the article, was a picture.

A grainy photo of a young man turning away from the scene and the cameras, but not before casting a last, almost cocky, glance back at the press.

The smile on the man’s face was unmistakable, young and proud, the same smile he used to flash Victor.

The exact same smile.

Because Eliot Cardale hadn’t aged a day.