Vicious (Vicious #1)

SERENA’S eyes brightened when she saw him again the next day.

Eli was waiting on the building steps in the late afternoon with a cup of coffee in each hand. The dusk smelled like dead leaves and far-off fires; his breath escaped in small clouds as he held one of the coffees out to her, and she took it and slipped her arm through his again.

“My hero,” she said, and Eli smiled at the inside joke. In nearly ten years he hadn’t let anyone close. Certainly not an EO. Yet here he was, walking through the twilight with one. And he liked it. He tried to remind himself that the sensation was false, projected, tried to convince himself that this was research, that he was only trying to understand her gift, and how best to eliminate her, even as her let her guide him down the steps and away from the campus.

“So you protect the innocent world from the big bad EOs,” she said as they made their way, arm in arm. “How do you find them?”

“I have a system.” As they walked, he explained to her his method. The careful narrowing down of targets based on Lyne’s three steps. The periods of observation.

“Sounds tedious,” she said.

“It is.”

“And then when you find them, you just kill them?” Her steps slowed. “No questions? No trial? No assessment of whether they’re a danger or a threat?”

“I used to talk to them. Not anymore.”

“What gives you the right to play judge and jury and executioner?”

“God.” He hadn’t wanted to say the word, hadn’t wanted to give this strange girl the power of knowing his beliefs, of twisting and bending them to her own.

She pursed her lips, the word hanging in the air between them, but she didn’t mock him.

“How do you kill them?” she asked eventually.

“It depends on their ability,” he said. “Default is a gun, but if there’s a concern regarding metal, or explosives, or the setup, I have to find another method. Like with you. You’re young and you’d probably be missed, which would be messy, and that therefore ruled out a crime. I needed to make it look like an accident.”

They turned onto a side street lined with small apartment buildings and houses.

“What’s the strangest way you’ve ever killed someone?”

Eli thought about it. “Bear trap.”

Serena cringed. “No details necessary.”

A few minutes passed in silence as they walked.

“How long have you been doing this?” asked Serena.

“Ten years.”

“No way,” she said, squinting at him. “How old are you?”

Eli smiled. “How old do I look?”

They reached her apartment and stopped.

“Twenty. Maybe twenty-one.”

“Well, I guess I’m technically thirty-two. But I’ve looked this way for ten years.”

“Part of that whole healing thing?”

Eli nodded. “Regeneration.”

“Show me,” said Serena.

“How?” asked Eli.

Her eyes glittered. “Do you have a weapon on you?”

Eli hesitated a moment, then withdrew a Glock from his coat.

“Give it to me,” said Serena. Eli handed it over, but he had the self-possession to frown as he did it. Serena stepped away from him and took aim.

“Wait,” said Eli. He looked around. “Maybe not out here, in the street? Let’s go inside.”

Serena considered him for a long moment, then smiled, and led him in.





X


THIS AFTERNOON


THE ESQUIRE HOTEL


“VICTOR sent you a message,” said Serena, brushing her fingers over Sydney’s stick figure in the drawing. There was a fleck of brownish red on the corner of the paper, and she wondered whose blood it was. “Are you going to send one back?”

She watched as the answer climbed up Eli’s throat. “I don’t know how,” he said under his breath.

“He’s here in the city,” she said.

“So are millions of other people, Serena,” growled Eli.

“And they’re all on your side,” she said. “Or they can be.” She took Eli’s hand, drew him up from the chair. Her hands slid around his back, pulled him close until his forehead rested against hers. “Let me help you.”

She watched his jaw clench. Eli couldn’t resist her, not really, but he was trying. She could see the strain in his eyes, in the space between his brows, as he fought the compulsion. Every time she asked a question. Every time she gave a small order. There was a pause, as if Eli were trying to reprocess the command, twist it until it was his. As if he could take back his will. He couldn’t, but she loved to see him try. It gave her something to hold on to. She took it in, savored his resistance. And then, for his sake, she forced him to bend.

“Eli,” she said, her voice, even and unmovable. “Let me help you.”

“How?” he asked.

Her fingers slipped into his front pocket, and drew out his phone. “Call Detective Stell. Tell him we need a meeting with the Merit PD. All of them.” Victor wasn’t the only one in the city. Sydney was here, too. Find one, and they would find the other—the drawing told them as much. Eli stared down at his phone.