Page 30 of Villains Series

YESTERDAY

THE ESQUIRE HOTEL

SYDNEY woke up the next morning in the too-large bed in the strange hotel, for a moment unsure of where, when, or how she was. But as she blinked away sleep, the details trickled back, the rain and the car and the two peculiar men, both of whom she could hear talking beyond the door.

Mitch’s brusque tone and Victor’s lower, smoother one, seemed to seep through the walls of her room. She sat up, stiff and hungry, and adjusted the oversized sweatpants on her hips before wandering out in search of food.

The two men were standing in the kitchen. Mitch was pouring coffee and talking to Victor, who was absently crossing out lines in a magazine. Mitch looked up as she walked in.

“How’s your arm?”

asked Victor, still blacking out words.

There was no pain, only a stiff feeling. She supposed she had him to thank for that.

“It’s fine,”

she said. Victor set his pen aside and rolled a bag of bagels across the counter toward her. In the corner of the kitchen sat several bags of groceries. He nodded at them.

“Don’t know what you eat, so…”

“I’m not a puppy,”

she said, fighting back a smile. She took a bagel and rolled the bag back across the counter, where it butted up against Victor’s magazine. She watched him black out the lines of text, and remembered the article from last night, and the photo that went with it, the one she’d been reaching for when Victor woke. Her eyes drifted back to the couch. It wasn’t there anymore.

“What’s wrong?”

The question brought her back. Victor had his elbows on the counter, fingers loosely intertwined.

“There was a paper over there last night, with a picture on it. Where is it?”

Victor frowned, but slid the newspaper page out from under the magazine, and held it up for her to see. “This?”

Sydney felt a shiver, somewhere down deep.

“Why do you have a picture of him?”

she asked, pointing at the grainy shot of the civilian beside the block of mostly blacked-out text.

Victor rounded the counter in slow, measured steps, and held the article up between them, inches from her face.

“Do you know him?”

he asked, eyes alight. Sydney nodded. “How?”

Sydney swallowed.

“He’s the one who shot me.”

Victor leaned down until his face was very close to hers.

“Tell me what happened.”