Vicious (25 page)

“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.

“It’s too public,” he said, fingers punching in the numbers even as he struggled to think. “It makes
us
too public. I haven’t made it this long by standing in spotlights.”

“It’s the only way to flush them out. Besides, you shouldn’t worry. You’re the hero now, remember?”

He laughed drily, but didn’t say
no
again.

“Do you want a mask?” she teased, pulling the glasses from her hair and sliding them back onto his face. “Or will these do?”

Eli ran his thumb over his phone, hesitating for one last moment. And then he connected the call.

XI

LAST FALL

UNIVERSITY OF MERIT

SERENA
Clarke lived alone. Eli could tell from the moment they walked in, when she slipped her shoes off by the door. The place was clean, calm, and unified. It had one cohesive taste, and Serena didn’t look around for anyone before turning on him and raising the gun.

“Hold up,” said Eli, shrugging his coat off. “This is my favorite. I’d rather not have holes in it.” He took a small cylinder from the pocket, and tossed it to her.

“Do you actually know how to use a gun?” he asked.

Serena nodded as she screwed the silencer on. “Years of crime dramas. And I found my father’s Colt once, and taught myself. Cans in the woods, and all that.”

“Are you a decent shot?” Eli unbuttoned his shirt and took that off, too, draping it over the entry table with his coat. Serena gave him an appreciative head-to-toe-and-back look, and then she pulled the trigger. He gasped and staggered backward, red blossoming against his shoulder. The pain was brief and bright, the bullet passing straight through and lodging in the wall behind him. He watched Serena’s eyes widen as the wound instantly began to close, his skin knitting back together. She gave a slow clap, the gun still in her grip. Eli rubbed his shoulder, and met her eyes.

“Happy now?” he grumbled.

“Don’t be so sour,” she said, setting the gun on the table.

“Just because I heal,” he said, reaching past her for his shirt, “doesn’t mean that didn’t hurt.”

Serena caught his arm in one hand and his face in the other, and held his gaze. Eli felt himself falling in. “Want me to kiss it?” she asked, brushing her lips against his. “Will that make it better?”

There it was again, in his chest, that strange flutter, like
want,
dusty and a decade old but there. Maybe it was a trick. Maybe this feeling—this simple, mortal ache—wasn’t coming from him. But maybe it was. Maybe it could be. He nodded once, just enough to bring their lips together, and then she turned and led him toward to the bedroom.

“Don’t kill me tonight,” she added as she led him into the dark. And he never even thought of it.

*   *   *

SERENA
and Eli were lying together in a tangle of sheets. They faced each other, and she ran her fingers down his cheek, his throat, his chest. Her hand seemed fascinated with the place where she’d shot him, now only smooth skin shining in the near dark of the room. Her hand wandered, then, over his ribs and around his back, and came to rest on the web of old scars there. She drew in a small breath.

“They’re from before,” he said softly. “Nothing leaves marks anymore.” Her lips parted, but before she could ask what happened, he added, “Please. Don’t ask.”

And she didn’t. Instead, she drew her hand back to his unscarred chest and let it rest over his heart.

“Where will you go, after you kill me?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’ll have to start again.”

“Will you sleep with that one, too?” she asked, and Eli laughed.

“Seduction is hardly part of my method.”

“Well, then, I feel special.”

“You are.” It came out in a whisper. And it was true. Special. Different. Fascinating. Dangerous. Her hand slid back to the bed, and he thought perhaps she’d fallen asleep. He enjoyed watching her this way, knowing he could kill her, but not wanting to. It made him feel like he was in control again. Or closer to it. Being with Serena felt like a dream, an interlude. It made Eli feel human again. It made him forget.

“There must be an easier way,” she wondered sleepily. “To find them … if you could access the right networks…”

“If only,” he whispered. And then they slept.

*   *   *

THE
sun streamed in but the room was cool. Eli shivered, and sat up. The bed was empty beside him. He found his pants, and spent several minutes searching for his shirt before he remembered he’d left it by the front door, and padded out into the apartment. Serena was gone. His gun was still on the table, and he tucked it into the back of his pants and went into the kitchen to make coffee.

Eli was fascinated by kitchens. By the way people ordered their lives, the cabinets they used, the places they kept food, and the food they choose to keep. He’d spent the last decade studying people, and it was amazing how much could be gleaned from their homes. Their bedrooms, and bathrooms, and closets, of course, but also their kitchens. Serena’s coffee was in the lowest cabinet over the counter, just beside the sink, which meant she drank a lot of it. A small black, two-to-four-cup coffeemaker sat tucked along the tile backsplash, another clue she lived alone. The apartment was far too nice for an underclassman, one of those lottery-only wins, and Eli wondered absently as he pulled out a filter if she’d used her talents to get this, too.

He found the coffee cups to the left of the sink, and tapped the coffeemaker, eager for it to brew. As soon as it did, he filled his cup and took a long sip. Now that he was alone, his mind was making its way faithfully back to the topic of how he was going to eliminate Serena, when the front door opened and she walked in, flanked by two men. One was a police officer, and the other was Detective Stell. Eli’s heart lurched in his chest, but he managed a careful smile over his mug as he leaned against the counter to hide the gun in the back of his pants.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Morning…,” said Stell, and Eli watched confusion spread through his features beneath a glazed calm, which Eli quickly recognized as Serena’s doing. It had been nearly ten years, during which the Lockland case had gone stone cold, and during which Eli had constantly thought of Stell, casting backward glances to see if he would follow. Stell hadn’t, but he clearly recognized him now. (How could he not? Eli was a photograph, unchanging.) Yet neither he nor the officer reached for their weapons, so that was promising. Eli looked to Serena, who was beaming.

“I have a present for you,” she said, gesturing to the men.

“You really shouldn’t have,” said Eli slowly.

“This is Officer Frederick Dane, and his boss, Detective Stell.”

“Mr. Cardale,” said Stell.

“I go by Ever now.”

“You two know each other?” asked Serena.

“Detective Stell was on Victor’s case,” offered Eli. “Back at Lockland.”

Serena’s eyes widened in recognition. Eli had told her about that day. He’d left out most of the details, and now, staring at the only man who’d ever even had reason to suspect him of foul play, potentially of
ExtraOrdinary
play, he wished he’d given her the entire truth.

“It’s been some time,” said Stell. “And yet you haven’t changed, Mr. Card … Ever. Not at all—”

“What brings you to Merit?” cut in Eli.

“I transferred a few months ago.”

“Change of scenery?”

“Followed a rash of killings.”

Eli knew he should have broken up the path, the pattern, but he’d been on a roll. Merit had attracted an impressive number of EOs, by virtue of its population and its many dark corners. People came to the city thinking they could hide. But not from him.

“Eli,” said Serena. “You’re ruining my surprise. Stell and Dane and I, we’ve had a good long chat, and it’s all been arranged. They’re going to help us.”

“Us?” asked Eli.

Serena turned back to the men and smiled. “Have a seat.” The two men obediently sat down at the kitchen table.

“Eli, can you pour them some coffee?”

Eli wasn’t sure how to do that without turning his back and his gun on the cops, so he reached for Serena instead, and pulled her close. Another small act of defiance. The motion had the easy movement of a lover’s embrace, but his grip was tight. “What are you doing?” he growled into her ear.

“I was thinking,” she said, tipping her head back against his chest, “about how tedious it must be, trying to find each EO.” She wasn’t even bothering to lower her voice. “And then I thought, there must be an easier way. It turns out the Merit Police Department has a database for persons of interest. Of course, it’s not meant for EOs, but the search matrix, that’s what it’s called, right?” Officer Dane nodded. “Yes, well, it’s broad enough that we could use it for that.” Serena seemed thoroughly proud of herself. “So I went to the station, and I asked to talk to someone involved with EO investigation—you told me, remember, that some of them were trained for it—and the man at the desk led me to these fine gentlemen. Dane is Stell’s protégé, and they’ve both agreed to share their search engine with us.”

“There’s that
us
again,” said Eli, aloud. Serena ignored him.

“We’ve got it all figured out, I think. Right, Officer Dane?”

The lanky man with dark, close-cropped hair nodded and set a thin folder on the table. “The first batch,” he said.

“Thank you, Officer,” said Serena, taking up the file. “This will keep us busy for a little while.”

Us. Us. Us. What on earth was happening?
But even as Eli’s thoughts spun, he managed to keep his hand away from the gun against his back and focus on the instructions Serena was now giving the cops.

“Mr. Ever here is going to keep this city safe,” she told them, her blue eyes shining. “He’s a hero, isn’t he, Officers?”

Officer Dane nodded. At first Stell only looked at Eli, but eventually, he nodded, too.

“A hero,” they echoed.

XII

THIS AFTERNOON

THE FALCON PRICE PROJECT

DANE
whimpered faintly from the floor.

Victor leaned back in the foldout chair, locking his fingers behind his head. A switchblade dangled loosely from one hand, the flat of the blade skimming his pale hair. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but his talent was most effective when it amplified an existing source of pain. Officer Dane curled in on himself on the concrete floor, his uniform torn, blood streaking across the floor. Victor was glad Mitch had put some plastic sheeting down. He’d gotten a little carried away, but it had been so long since he’d stretched, so long since he’d let go. It cleared his head. It calmed him.

Dane’s hands were still firmly bound behind his back, but the tape over his mouth had come off, and his shirt clung to his chest with sweat and blood. He’d given up the database’s access codes, of course, and quickly at that—Victor had tested them on his phone to be sure. Then, with a bit more encouragement, he’d told Victor everything he knew about Detective Stell: his earlier days in Lockland, his transfer on the heels of a killing streak—Eli’s work, no doubt—and Dane’s own training. All cops these days, it turned out, learned an EO protocol, whether they were skeptics or believers, but at least one man in every precinct knew more than the basics, studied the indicators, and took charge of any investigation where an EO was even suspected.

Stell had been that man ten years ago at Lockland, and he was that man again here, and grooming Dane to follow. Not only that, but somehow, Eli had convinced the detective in charge of the investigation against him to
help
him.

Victor shook his head in wonder as he tortured the details out of Dane. Eli never ceased to amaze him. If he and Stell had been working together since Lockland, that would have been one thing, but this was a new arrangement—Stell and Dane had only been assisting Eli since last fall. How had Eli conned the Merit PD into helping him?

“Officer Dane,” said Victor. The cop cringed at the sound of his voice. “Would you mind telling me about your interactions with Eli Ever?”