THE LAST NIGHT
SAFE
SYDNEY stood at the mouth of the storage locker, still gripping the gun.
Dol whined behind her, pacing nervously, but Sydney kept the weapon trained on Eli, waiting for him to get back up, to turn on her, to shake his head at her weapon, her futile attempt to stop him.
Eli didn’t rise.
But Victor did. He struggled to his feet, one hand to the shallow wound at his throat as he said, “He’s dead.”
The words seemed wrong, impossible. Victor didn’t seem to believe them, and neither could Sydney.
Eli was—forever. An immortal ghost, a monster who would follow Sydney through every nightmare, every year, plaguing her until there was no one left to hide behind, nowhere left to run.
Eli Ever wouldn’t die.
Couldn’t die.
But there he was on the ground—lifeless. She fired two more shots into his back, just to be sure. And then Victor was there, guiding the gun from her white-knuckled grip, repeating himself in a slow, steady voice.
“He’s dead.”
Sydney dragged her eyes away from Eli’s body, and studied Victor. The ribbon of blood running from his throat. The hole in his shoulder. The arm he’d wrapped around his ribs.
“You’re hurt.”
“I am,” said Victor. “But I’m alive.”
Car doors slammed nearby, and Victor tensed. “EON,” he muttered, putting himself in front of Sydney as footsteps pounded down the hall. But Dol only watched, and waited, and when the door rose the rest of the way, it wasn’t soldiers, but Mitch.
He paled as he took in the storage locker, the makeshift operating table, the bodies on the floor, Victor’s injuries, and the gun in Sydney’s hand. “EON’s not far behind me,” he said. “We have to go. Now.”
Sydney started forward, but Victor didn’t follow. She pulled on his arm, felt instantly guilty when she saw the pain cross his face, and realized how much of the blood in here must be his.
“Can you walk?” she pleaded.
“You go ahead,” he said tightly.
“No,” said Sydney. “We’re not splitting up.”
Victor turned and, cringing, knelt in front of her.
“There’s something I have to do.” Sydney was already shaking her head, but Victor reached out and put a hand on her cheek, the gesture so strange, so gentle, it stopped her cold.
“Syd,” he said, “look at me.”
She met his eyes. Those eyes that after everything still felt like family, like safety, like home.
“I have to do this. But I’ll meet you as soon as I’m done.”
“Where?”
“Where I first found you.”
The location was burned into Syd’s memory. The stretch of interstate outside the city.
The sign that read Merit—23 miles.
“I’ll meet you at midnight.”
“Do you promise?”
Victor held her gaze. “I promise.”
Sydney knew he was lying.
She always knew when he was lying.
And she also knew she couldn’t stop him. Wouldn’t stop him. So she nodded, and followed Mitch out.
* * *
VICTOR didn’t have much time.
He waited until Mitch and Syd were out of sight, and then returned to the storage unit. He fought to focus as he dragged his aching limbs across the room, stepping around Eli’s body.
It was like a magnet, constantly drawing his eye, but Victor forced himself not to stop and look at it. Not to think about what it meant, that Eli Cardale was really, truly dead. The way the knowledge knocked Victor off-balance. A counterweight finally removed.
An opposite but equal force erased.
Instead, Victor turned his attention to Haverty’s tools, and got to work.