Page 166 of Villains Series

AFTER

OUTSIDE MERIT

SYDNEY pressed the phone to her ear, listened as the ringing gave way to silence, the automated voicemail, the long beep.

It was fifteen minutes after midnight, and there was no sign of Victor. The car idled in the darkness just beyond the sign—MERIT—23 MILES—Mitch tense in the driver’s seat, and Dol leaning out the back window.

Sydney paced the grassy shoulder and tried to call Victor one last time.

It went straight to voicemail.

Sydney hung up, and found herself about to text June—before she remembered that she no longer had her own phone. Which meant that Sydney didn’t have June’s number anymore. And even if she did …

Syd shoved the burner phone back in her pocket. She heard the car door open, Mitch’s heavy steps in the grass as he approached.

“Hey, kid,”

he said. His voice was so gentle, as if afraid of telling her the truth. But Syd already knew—Victor was gone. She stared at the distant skyline of Merit, shoved her hands in her coat, felt her sister’s bones in one pocket, the gun in the other.

“It’s time to go,”

she said, returning to the car.

Mitch turned on the engine, pulled back onto the highway. The road stretched ahead, flat and even and endless, almost like the surface of a frozen lake at night.

Sydney resisted the urge to look back again.

Victor might be gone, but there was still that thread, tangling their lives. It had led Sydney to him once before, and it would lead her there again.

No matter how long or far she had to look.

Sooner or later, she would find him.

If Sydney had anything, it was time.