by V. E. Schwab
Dresden.
South Broughton.
Brenthaven.
Halloway.
She stilled, recognition flitting like a pulse inside her chest. “What is this?”
“The locations,” said Marcella, “of the EO’s last five kills.”
June didn’t look at her phone, but she knew that if she did, if she opened her texts from Sydney, she’d see these same places listed, each in response to the question June always asked.
Where are you these days?
June wanted to know, because the world was big, wanted to know because Sydney was hers to protect. She read the list again.
So this was what Victor had been doing. Why the three of them were always on the move. But June doubted that he was purely an executioner. Doubted it was that simple.
We’re looking for someone who can help.
Maybe that was true. Maybe Victor was being thorough. Covering his tracks afterward. It made sense, considering he was supposed to be dead.
“Let me get this straight,” said June, pocketing the list, “there’s an EO out there killing other EOs. And you want to find him.”
“EON wants to find him,” said Marcella. “And they want my help.”
June let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s what you meant by making connections?”
“Indeed,” said Marcella. “I told you I would handle them. But I had to give the boys something, and it was either you and Jonathan, or this.” Marcella leaned on the marble counter. “They’ve given me two weeks to find this EO killer.”
“And what happens then?”
“Oh,” mused Marcella, tracing the veins in the stone, “I imagine that Director Stell will decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”
“You don’t seem worried,” said June.
Marcella straightened. “He’s underestimated what I can do with two weeks. In the meantime, I suppose we should find that EO.”
June’s mind was turning, but she kept her voice airy, light. “What are you going to do with him?”
“You know,” said Marcella, “I haven’t decided yet.”
XX
A WEEK AND A HALF AGO
DOWNTOWN WHITTON
JUNE had texted Sydney on her way to the car, sat idling there until she saw the three small dots that signaled an incoming reply.
Syd: Whitton.
June put the location into her GPS, and shifted into gear as the map came up on the screen.
From there it was easy to find them.
How’s the view? she’d asked. Tell me what you see.
Such a simple question, made routine by years of checking in, asking such small, seemingly innocuous questions as a way to condense the distance between them. June soon learned that Sydney and Victor and Mitch were staying in a nondescript apartment building, a ten-story stack of tan stone blocks on a street filled with the same, the only relief a small park on the corner, the bright flags on the hotel across the street.
June checked in to that same hotel the next day, and waited. Waited for proof that Victor was the EO killer, that he was the person Stell was looking for, the one Marcella promised to find.
She had been waiting for three days.
Victor came and went, a constant, restless force, carving slow circles through the small city, and June would follow at a distance, snapping photos with her phone. But so far, he’d yet to make a move. June was getting restless.
Still, it hadn’t all been a waste of time. She’d gotten to see Syd—hadn’t let the girl see her, of course, there would be time for that later—but once, she’d trailed Mitch and Sydney to a movie, sat right behind them, and let herself pretend they were there together, like a family.
It had been nice.
But mostly, June waited.
She hated waiting.
Right now, she was pacing on the curb outside the hotel, dressed as an old man, a cigarette hanging from her fingers.
She looked up, now and then, waiting for the balcony door five floors up and two over to slide open, waiting for Syd to emerge into the afternoon sun.
A few minutes later, she did.
That familiar blond bob caught the light as she stepped out onto the patio. June smiled—despite Sydney’s complaints, she was growing up. The changes were subtle, sure, but June knew people well enough to read those subtleties, even if they had less to do with height and weight and more to do with posture, poise.
Syd had explained the problem of her aging, sometime around her sixteenth birthday. It was the cold—or, at least, that was Victor’s theory—that the hypothermia she’d suffered had slowed everything about her. Syd had complained that, at the rate things seemed to be going, her teens would take forever. But then June had pointed out that so would her twenties, and in her own experience, those were the best years, anyway. Syd had gotten quiet then, silence stretching across cities.
“And by the time I’m thirty,” she’d said, “everyone I know will be dead. Except for Eli.”
Eli. The way Sydney said that name, as if she was afraid that speaking it too loud would somehow summon him.
“What about you?” she’d asked June with sudden curiosity. “Do you age?”
June had hesitated. She’d glimpsed the shape that hung in the back of her wardrobe, the one she never took out. It hung so perfectly still, beneath its film of disuse, but there was no denying.
“I do.”
Now, June watched as Sydney sank into a patio chair, head bowed over her phone even as she put her feet up on that giant black dog, who didn’t seem to mind at all.
A few seconds later, June’s cell gave a soft ping.
Syd: Are you still in Merit?
She tipped her head up to savor the warm blue sky, and then lied.
June: Yeah. It’s raining. I hope the weather’s nicer there.
The front door across the street swung open, and a wraith of a man stepped out, shielding his eyes from the sun. It had been three years since June had seen Victor Vale. He didn’t look well. His face was a rock worn with deep hollows. And the way he moved—as if he were a length of cord, strung so tight that any force might snap it.
He hurts people, Sydney had said.
But June had been watching for days, and aside from the way strangers bent out of his path, she hadn’t seen him use his power once. He didn’t look that strong.
He’s sick. It’s my fault.
Victor started down the block. June stubbed out her cigarette and followed, merging with a small group of pedestrians as it passed. With each intersection, strangers peeled away, but others joined, and all the while June kept Victor in her sights. He moved like a ghost through the city, slipping out of its bright heart and into seedier parts, before arriving in a district known as the Brickworks.
Four warehouses, squat brick buildings like pillars, or compass points, framed the blocks that made up the Brickworks, and between them, a network of bars, betting shops, strip clubs, and darker fare.
You didn’t need a line or a fence to find the place where good neighborhoods gave way to bad ones. June had lived in enough of both to know by feel. The shift from new steel to old stone. Double-glazed windows to spidering glass. The polish worn off, and never repainted. Curbs glittering with the remains of the last broken bottle.
The Brickworks didn’t even pretend to be respectable.
Few places could exude that much trouble in the middle of the day, and given the sheer number of illicit businesses, June guessed the local police were getting a cut to look the other way. By the time she stepped across the proverbial tracks, she’d shifted into an old biker, all gristle and bone and tattooed sleeves.
It wasn’t the first time Victor’s wanderings had led him—and by extension June—to this corner of the city. He was obviously looking for someone. But the tangle of buildings and the broad daylight made it hard to follow too closely. June fell back, and when Victor’s pale head vanished through a door at the back of a bar, she changed tactics, returned to
the street and circled until she found a half-rusted ladder hanging from a structurally unstable fire escape.
June hauled herself up onto the nearest warehouse roof, boots skimming the tar as, somewhere nearby, a door crashed open. She crossed the roof in time to see a man go crashing backward into a stack of empty crates, muttering curses.
Victor came into view a few seconds later. The man on the ground got up and started toward Victor, only to buckle, as if he’d been struck.
Victor’s cool voice wafted up like smoke.
“I will ask you one more time . . .”
The man said something, the words low and unintelligible from June’s position on the roof. But Victor clearly heard him. With a single, upward flick of his hand, the man was forced up to his feet, and Victor shot him in the head.
The silencer muffled the violence of the gun’s retort, but not its impact. Blood sprayed across the bricks, and the man fell lifeless to the ground. A second later, something seemed to fall in Victor, too. His poise, so tightly held, began to fray, and he swayed a little on his feet before slumping back against the opposite wall. He ran a hand through his light hair, and let his head tip back against the brick as he looked up.
June lunged backward, breath held, waiting for some sign that he’d seen her. But Victor’s gaze had been miles away. She heard his footsteps, slow and even, and by the time she chanced another look over the rooftop edge, he had disappeared around the corner.
* * *
JUNE found him again, at the edge of the Brickworks, followed half a block behind as she dialed Marcella’s number.
She hesitated before she hit Call, not because she had any lingering doubts, but simply because the words would carry weight, consequence, and not just for Victor. Putting him in EON’s path meant endangering Sydney, too.
But June would be there. She’d keep her girl safe.
The phone rang once, and then Marcella answered. “Well?”
June studied the man in black. “His name is Victor Vale.”
“That was fast,” said Marcella. “And you’re sure he’s the one they’re looking for?”
“Positive,” said June.
“And his power?”
“Pain,” said June.
She could hear Marcella’s smile. “Interesting. Is he alone?”
“Yes,” said June. “As far as I can tell.”
The words came out effortlessly. Lying was a skill made easy by habit.
Besides, Sydney was hers, and June didn’t know if she wanted to share. If she could get the girl to Merit, maybe. If Marcella succeeded, if the time came when EOs didn’t have to hide, or run. June knew Sydney was tired of running. In the meantime, there was no need for Marcella to know about the girl. Not yet.
“I’ll stay here,” continued June. “Keep an eye on things. Wouldn’t want Victor to slip away.” She frankly didn’t care if EON got their hands on Victor, but she wasn’t about to let Sydney fall into the same trap. “Unless you need me,” she added.
“No,” said Marcella. “We’ll survive a little longer without your sparkling wit.”
“You know you miss me,” said June. “Has Merit built a statue in your honor yet?”
Marcella only laughed. “Not yet,” she said, “but they will.”
And June honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking.
* * *
AS June followed Victor home, she toyed with the idea of killing him then and there.
She knew she shouldn’t, but the idea was tempting. It would certainly make things simpler. And she was pretty sure she could manage the kill—the pain wasn’t an issue, but that physical control of his would likely make things difficult. Still, June did love a challenge. She turned the idea over like a butterfly knife as she walked. After all, Marcella planned to hand Victor over to EON. Wouldn’t it be a mercy, to cut him down instead? It was a boon, of course, that in killing Victor, Sydney would be free—free of her guilt and her attachment.
June was still mulling it over when, halfway down the block, Victor stumbled.
His step changed, lost its smooth stride. She saw him lurch to a stop, and then start again, his steps faster, more urgent.
June quickened her pace, but as Victor reached the intersection, the light changed, and there was a jostle of bodies, a taxi pulled too far forward, honking horns and hurrying shapes, and in that second, June lost him.
She swore, doubling back.
She hadn’t been that far behind.
Where could he have gone?
He wasn’t on the main road, which meant he’d slipped down a side street. June checked one, and then another, and she was at the mouth of the third when she caught sight of him, his back to her, doubled over and clutching at the wall. She started toward him, shifting into a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair, innocuous, forgettable, and was just about to call out, ask if he was all right, when Victor collapsed.
As he did, the air around him rippled, and a second later, something slammed into June with all the force of a truck. If a truck were made of current instead of steel.
June was thrown backward, her latest shape sloughing away by the time she hit the pavement. Had she been anyone else, the force would have killed her.
As it was, she felt it. Not the blast itself, but the back of her head where it hit the ground. Pain cut a shallow line across her scalp, and June sat up, rubbing her head. Her fingers came away dotted with red, and her breath caught, not at the sight of the blood, but the arm, familiar pale skin dotted with freckles.
She was herself. Vulnerable. Exposed.
“Fuck.” June staggered to her feet, swapping out the body—her body—for another, shuddering with relief as the pain was erased along with every other trace of her true form.
And then she remembered Victor.
He was slumped, motionless, against the alley wall. His head lolled against his chest.
He’s sick, Sydney had said. I made him sick.
But the body on the ground wasn’t just sick. It was dead. No pulse, no color, no signs of life.
Amazing—after all the time June had spent persuading herself not to kill him, he’d gone and died anyway.
At least, she thought he was dead. He certainly looked dead.
Cautiously, June moved toward the body.
She crouched, and touched his shoulder, and as she did, something leapt through her fingers, flickered through her mind. Memories. Not all of them, not even a handful, only one. A lab. A redhead. A current. A scream. It moved through her like static shock, a single glimpse, brief, and impossible, bright, and then gone.
June recoiled, shaking out her hand, and then she drew her gun and brought the barrel to rest against the man’s forehead. Whether or not he was really dead, she could make it stick. He’d made it so easy. Maybe fate was shining on June after all.
She thumbed off the safety, let her finger come to rest against the trigger.
And then stopped.
June could think of a dozen reasons to make sure Victor was dead, and only one to stay her hand.
Sydney.
This was the one thing Sydney would never forgive, if she found out. Besides, June didn’t want to steal the girl this way. Wanted to win her, fair and square. She’d told Sydney once that people should choose their family, and she’d meant it.
June wanted Sydney to choose her.
So she lowered the gun. Was just sliding the weapon back into her coat when suddenly, impossibly, Victor moved.
June nearly jumped out of her skin.
Few things caught her by surprise these days, but the sight of Victor Vale, shuddering back to life, was enough to give her a fright. His fingers twitched, a small current running visibly over his skin, and then his chest inflated as he drew a deep breath, and opened his eyes, and looked up.
“Oh, Christ,” said June, one hand to her racing heart. “I thought you were dead!”
For a moment, Victor stared at her with the blank gaze of the very drunk, or the hopeles
sly lost. And then, quick as a spark, the light went on behind his eyes.
If he was surprised to find himself sitting on the ground, it didn’t show.
He started to say something, and then stopped, and drew a small black object from between his teeth. A mouth guard. June realized that whatever had happened just now, it wasn’t the first time.
Victor was looking at June now, his gaze cold and clear.
“Do I know you?” he asked, and there was no thickness in his voice, no disorientation, only study.
“Don’t think so,” said June, talking as fast as she could think, relieved she’d shifted into another disarming body, the black-haired girl she’d used in Hutch’s office. “I was just walking past and saw you lying on the ground. Should I call an ambulance?”
“No,” said Victor quietly, rising to his feet.
“No offense, sir, but you didn’t look too well a moment ago.”
“I have a condition.”
Bullshit, thought June. Seizures were a condition. What she’d seen just now was death.
“I’m fine now,” he insisted.
That bit seemed true. Whatever had come over Victor, it was already gone. The man who stood before her now was the picture of control. He turned, heading back toward the street.
June had a clear shot at the back of his head, but she also had the strange certainty that if she went for her gun now, she’d never get the shot off.
The air was humming with power, and none of it was hers. So June’s hand stayed at her side as she watched Victor go, swearing inwardly.
She should have killed him when she had the chance.
XXI
ONE WEEK AGO
DOWNTOWN WHITTON
SYDNEY Clarke was getting stronger.
She’d resurrected three more birds since the first, each feat performed using fewer and fewer pieces.
She was just setting her latest victory free when she heard the front door close.
Victor was home.
She hadn’t told him yet, about the successes—she knew he’d be proud, wanted to see that pride turned toward her—but she didn’t want to jinx them, didn’t want him to look at her and glimpse the motive behind her progress, the reason for her intensity.
