They were just—gone.

VIII

THREE YEARS AGO

CAPITAL CITY

IT was happening again. Again. Again.

Victor braced himself against the dresser, the pills from Malcolm Jones’s supply arrayed before him, that ever-present hum turning to a high whine in his skull. He searched the labels again for something he hadn’t tried—oxycodone, morphine, fentanyl—but he’d tried all of them. Every permutation, every combination, and they weren’t working. None of them were working.

He stifled a frustrated growl and swept the open bottles from the counter. Pills rained down onto the floor as Victor surged out into the apartment. He had to get away before the charge reached its peak.

“Where are you going?” asked Sydney as Victor crossed the room.

“Out,” he said tightly.

“But you just got back. And it’s movie night. You said you’d watch with us.”

Mitch put a hand on her arm. “I’m sure he won’t be long.”

Sydney looked between them, as if she could see the omissions, the lies, the space where truth had been carved out. “What’s going on?”

Victor pulled his coat from the hook. “I just need some air.” The charge was spilling out now, into the air around him, energy crackling through his limbs. Dol whimpered. Mitch winced. But Sydney didn’t back down.

“It’s raining,” she protested.

“I won’t melt.”

But Sydney was already reaching for her own coat. “Fine,” she said, “then I’ll go with you.”

“Sydney—”

But she made it to the door before him.

“Get out of my way,” he said through clenched teeth.

“No,” she shot back, stretching her small body across the wooden frame.

“Move,” said Victor, a strange desperation creeping into his voice.

But Sydney held her ground. “Not until you tell me what’s going on. I know you’re hiding something. I know you’re lying, and it’s not fair, I deserve to—”

“Move,” ordered Victor. And then, without thinking—there was no room for anything beyond the rising charge, the slipping seconds, the need to escape—Victor took hold of Sydney, and pushed, not against her nerves, but against her whole body. She stumbled sideways, as if hit, and Victor surged past her for the door.

He was almost there when the spasm hit.

Victor staggered, braced himself against the wall, a low groan escaping between clenched teeth.

Sydney was on her hands and knees nearby, but when he stumbled, all the anger drained out of her face, replaced by fear. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Victor bowed his head, struggling for breath. “Get her—out—”

Mitch was finally there, dragging Sydney back, away from Victor.

“What’s happening to him?” she sobbed, fighting Mitch’s grip.

Victor got the door open, and managed a single step before pain closed over him like a tide, and he fell.

The last thing he saw was Sydney, tearing free of Mitch’s arms, Sydney, rushing toward him.

And then death erased it all.

* * *

“SYDNEY?”

Victor dragged in a shallow breath.

“Sydney, can you hear me?”

It was Mitch’s voice, the words low and pleading.

Victor sat up and saw the man kneeling on the floor, crouched over a small shape. Sydney. She was stretched on her back, her pale hair pooling around her head, her skin porcelain and her body still. Mitch shook her by the shoulder, put his ear to her chest.

And then Victor was up, the room tilting under his feet. His head felt heavy, his thoughts slow, the way they always did in the wake of an episode, and he turned his own dials up, sharpened his nerves to the point of pain. He needed it, to clear his mind.

“Move,” he said, dropping to a knee beside her.

“Do something,” demanded Mitch.

Sydney’s skin was cold—but then, it was always cold. He searched for a pulse, and after several agonizing seconds of nothing, felt the faint flutter of her heart. Barely a beat. Her breath, when he checked, was just as slow.

Victor pressed a hand flat against her chest. He reached for her nerves and tried, as gently as possible, to turn the dial. Not far, just enough to stimulate a reaction.

“Wake up,” he said.

Nothing happened.

He turned the dial up a fraction more.

Wake up.

Nothing. She was so cold, so still.

Victor gripped her shoulder.

“Sydney, wake up,” he ordered, sending a current through her small form.

She gasped, eyes flying open, then rolled onto her side, coughing. Mitch rushed forward to soothe her, and Victor sagged backward, slumping against the door, his heart pounding in his chest.

But when Sydney managed to sit up, she looked past Mitch to Victor, her eyes wide, not with anger but sadness. He could read the question in her face. It was the same one crashing through his own head.

What have I done?

* * *

VICTOR sat on the balcony and watched the snow fall, flecks of white against the dark.

He was freezing. He could have put on a coat, could have turned his nerves down, muted the cold, could have erased all sensation. Instead, he savored the frost, watched his breath plume against the night, clung to the brief period of silence.

The lights had come back on, but Victor couldn’t bring himself to go inside, couldn’t bear the look on Sydney’s face. Or Mitch’s.

He could leave.

Should leave.

Distance wouldn’t save him, but it might protect them.

The door slid open at his back, and he heard Sydney’s light steps as she padded out onto the balcony. She sank into the chair beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest. For a few minutes, neither spoke.

Once upon a time, Victor had promised Sydney that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her—that he would always hurt them first.

He’d broken that promise.

He studied his hands, recalling the moment before—when he’d forced Syd out of his way. He hadn’t touched her nerves then, or at least he hadn’t turned the dials. But he’d still moved her. Victor rose from his seat, thinking through the implications. He was halfway to the door when Sydney finally broke the silence.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Not right now,” he said, sidestepping the question.

“But when it happens,” she persisted. “Does it hurt then?”

Victor exhaled, clouding the air. “Yes.”

“How long does it hurt?” she asked. “How bad does it get? What does it feel like when you—”

“Sydney.”

“I want to know,” she said, voice catching. “I need to know.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my fault. Because I did this to you.” Victor started to shake his head, but she cut him off. “Tell me. Tell me the truth. You’ve been lying for all this time, the least you can do is tell me how it feels.”

“It feels like dying.”

Sydney’s breath caught, as if hit. Victor sighed and stepped to the balcony’s edge, the railing slick with ice. He ran his hand over the surface, cold pricking his fingers. “Did I ever tell you how I got my power?”

Syd shook her head, the blond bob swaying side to side. He knew he hadn’t. He’d told her his last thoughts once, but nothing more. It wasn’t a matter of trust or distrust so much as the simple fact that they’d both left their pasts behind, ones filled with a few things they wanted to remember, and many more things they didn’t.

“Most EOs are the result of accidents,” he said, studying the snow. “But Eli and I were different. We set out to find a way to effect the change. Incidentally, it’s remarkably difficult to do. Dying with intent, reviving with control. Finding a way to end a life but keep it in arm’s reach, and all without rendering the body unusable. On top of that, you need a method that strips enough control from the subject to make them afraid, because you need the chemical properties induced by fear and adrenaline to trigger a somatic change.”

Victor craned his head and considered the sky.

“It wasn’t my first try,” he said quietly. “The night I died. I’d already tried once, and failed. An overdose, which, it turned out, provided too much control, and not enough fear. So I set out to try again. Eli had already succeeded, and I was determined to match him. I created a situation in which I couldn’t take back control. One in which there was nothing but fear. And pain.”

“How?” whispered Sydney.

Victor closed his eyes and saw Angie, one hand resting on the control panel.

“I convinced someone to torture me.”

Syd drew a short breath behind him. Victor kept talking.

“I was strapped to a steel table, and hooked up to an electrical current. There was a dial, and someone to turn it, and the pain went up when the dial was turned, and I told them not to stop until my heart did.” Victor pressed his palms against the icy rail. “People have an idea of pain,” he said. “They think they know what it is, how it feels, but that’s just an idea. It’s a very different thing when it becomes concrete.” He turned back toward her. “So when you ask me what the episodes feel like—they feel like dying all over again. Like someone turning up the dial inside me until I break.”