Page 3 of Villains Series

LAST NIGHT

MERIT CEMETERY

SYDNEY’S arms were beginning to ache from lifting the shovel, but for the first time in a year, she wasn’t cold.

Her cheeks burned, and she was sweating through her coat, and she felt alive.

As far as she was concerned, that was the only good thing about digging up a corpse.

“Couldn’t we do something else?”

she asked, leaning on the shovel.

She knew Victor’s answer, could feel his patience thinning, but she still had to ask because asking was talking, and talking was the only thing distracting her from the fact that she was standing over a body, and digging her way toward it instead of away from it.

“The message has to be sent,”

said Victor. He didn’t stop digging.

“Well then, maybe we could send a different message,”

she said under her breath.

“It has to be done, Syd,”

he said, finally looking up.

“So try to think of something pleasant.”

She sighed, and started digging again. A few scoops of dirt later, she stopped. She was almost afraid to ask.

“What are you thinking of, Victor?”

He flashed a small, dangerous smile.

“I’m thinking about what a lovely night it is.”

They both knew it was a lie, but Sydney decided she’d rather not know the truth.

* * *

VICTOR wasn’t thinking of the weather.

He hardly felt the cold through his coat.

He was too busy trying to picture what Eli’s face would look like when he received their message.

Trying to picture the shock, the anger, and threaded through it all, the fear.

Fear because it could only mean one thing.

Victor was out. Victor was free.

And Victor was coming for Eli—just as he’d promised he would.

He sunk the shovel into the cold earth with a satisfying thud.