Vengeful

“Who are you?” asked Jonathan.

“June,” said the brunette.

“Marcella,” said the black-haired beauty. “But when it comes to people like us, the real question isn’t who, is it? It’s what.”

The woman pressed a single gold nail against the bar and, as Jonathan watched, her finger glowed red, and the wood beneath began to warp and rot, wearing a hole straight through. The brunette—June—slid a coaster over the damage, only she wasn’t the brunette anymore. She was Chris, the Palisades bartender, even though Chris was still on the other side of the counter, back turned while he polished a highball glass. By the time he turned back, so had she.

Jonathan’s mouth went dry.

They had powers, like his shine. But the shine was a gift. The shine was a curse. The shine was his. There weren’t supposed to be others with him, here in this hell.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice barely a whisper.

“That,” said the beautiful woman, “is what I was just about to ask you.”

Jonathan stared down into his club soda. He wanted his life back. But he had no life, not anymore. He wanted death, but he’d been deprived of that, too.

That night, after Caprese’s men were all dead, and Jonathan wasn’t, when the room was silent and dark and the world was empty, he had put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, and that should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t, because the shine was there again, like it or not, and that made him think of Claire, and how pissed she’d be, him throwing away a second shot. And thinking of Claire made him want to get high again, to float out to sea.

But the shine wouldn’t let him.

Jonathan had told himself that he wouldn’t try again.

He wouldn’t let her down.

But it was like a whole new kind of drug, using that shine. A fearsome reminder that he was still alive.

June was frowning, as if she could read Jonathan’s mind. But Marcella smiled.

“Why sit around sulking,” she said, “when you could hurt the people who hurt you?”

But he had hurt them—he’d killed the men who killed Claire, and the ones who came for him, and everyone else Caprese sent. Every single one—except—

“Caprese,” murmured Jonathan.

Was that why the shine wouldn’t let him rest?

Why he couldn’t get to Claire?

“I can help you get to him,” said Marcella. She leaned in, close enough for him to smell her perfume. “I’ve heard a little about your talent, but I’d love to know more.” She reached out and brought her fingers to rest against his arm. It was such a simple gesture, almost kind, right up until her palm flared red. The shine flashed along his skin, and she pulled back, considering her hand. “Hm,” she said, as if she hadn’t just tried to ruin him. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t do anything,” said Jonathan bitterly. “It just happens. Someone tries to hurt me—hell, I try to hurt myself—and it’s there. Shielding me.”

“Well, bully for you,” said June, leaning back on the counter.

Marcella made a small, displeased hum. “I don’t see how that helps me.”

Jonathan stared into his glass. “I can share it.”

Marcella’s blue eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Jonathan shook his head. This was how the shine mocked him. How he knew it wasn’t a gift at all, but a curse, a shallow cut, not deep enough to kill, but more than enough to hurt. He’d just wanted to protect Claire, and he’d failed. Now, when he finally could, it was too late. She was already gone.

“Jonathan,” pressed Marcella.

“I can shield someone else,” he admitted, “so long as I can see them.”

Marcella smiled. It was a dazzling smile, the kind that made you want to smile back, even when there was nothing to smile about.

“Well, in that case,” she said, “let’s talk about revenge.”

XII

THREE WEEKS AGO

SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF BRENTHAVEN

VICTOR’S steps rustled in underbrush.

It was almost dusk, the sky sinking into violent shades around him as he picked his way through the woods. Now and then the silence was punctuated by distant gunfire as, across the reserve, hunters picked off their prey before the last of the light failed.

Victor was hunting too. He trailed a broad man in an orange vest, the shock of color picking him out from the surrounding mottle of green and gray. The trees were sparse, surrounded by fields to every side. A few miles south, a small cabin, the full extent of the man’s footprint.

Despite his current attire, Ian Campbell had been a hard man to find.

He’d gone off the grid after his accident, a disappearance almost as complete as death.

Almost.

But in this day and age, it was impossible not to leave a mark.

It had taken Mitch months to track this particular EO down. But he’d done it. Because he knew, just as Victor knew, that they were running out of options. The stack of paper had dwindled down to a few spare sheets, and as the leads shrank, the length of Victor’s deaths grew, the seconds ticking upward until they threatened to brush that lethal edge, the medically established threshold of no return.

A soft bleating sound alerted Victor to the likely object of Campbell’s attention.

An injured deer lay in the brush, its side opened by a scattering of buckshot. As Victor slowed to watch from the shadow of a nearby tree, Campbell crouched over the injured deer, making gentle noises as he laid a hand on the animal’s side.

And then, as Victor watched, the buckshot rose back up through muscle and skin, and rolled down the animal’s sides into the grass.

Victor’s breath caught.

He had become so accustomed to disappointment—to tracking EO after EO down, only to learn that their powers were incompatible, or worse, irrelevant—so he was caught off guard by the sight of Campbell’s power. The realization that he’d finally found someone who could help.

The deer rose on unsteady legs, and then bounded away through the trees, unhurt.

Campbell watched it go. Victor watched Campbell.

“Is it a kindness,” asked Victor, his voice breaking the stillness, “to loose prey back into the world, simply to be shot again?”

Campbell, to his credit, didn’t jump. He straightened, brushing his palms against his jeans. “Can’t do much about the hunters,” he said. “But never could pass up a creature in pain.”

Victor laughed, a humorless, hollow sound. “Then you should have no qualms about helping me.”

Campbell’s expression narrowed. “Animals are innocent,” he said. “People are another matter. Most, I’ve found, don’t deserve the help.”

Victor bristled—it sounded like something Eli would say. His fingers twitched, the air beginning to hum, but Campbell surprised him by stepping forward instead of away.

“How are you hurt?” he asked.

Victor hesitated, unsure how to answer such a simple question with such a complicated answer. In the end, he said, “Mortally.”

Campbell gave him a long, measured look.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do what I can.”

Victor’s heart stuttered, not from an episode, but from hope. A thing so rare he’d forgotten what it felt like. He had been prepared to use force.

“There are limits,” continued Campbell. “I can’t stop nature. Can’t change its course. I can’t rewind death, but I can undo a violence.”

“Then,” said Victor, whose deaths had been shaped by blood and pain, “you are well suited to this.”

Campbell held out his hand, and Victor, who had never been comfortable with contact, forced himself to still as the EO’s hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Campbell closed his eyes, and Victor waited. Waited for humming in his skull to disappear, waited for the crackle in his nerves to ease and the ticking clock to finally stop—

But nothing happened.

After a long, empty second, Campbell’s hand fell away, and Victor knew that he’d found another dead end. But he’d seen Campbell’s power. It should have worked. It had to work.

“I’m sorry,” said the man, shaking his head. “I can’t help you.”

“Why not?” snarled Victor.

For the first time, Campbell backed away. “When I said I could—I meant—I can heal a violence done by someone else. But whatever’s happened to you, however you’re hurt, you’ve done it to yourself.”

Victor’s anger sliced through him like a knife, sudden and deep. His hand clenched into a fist, and Campbell staggered back into the brush, a pained sob wrenching from his throat.

“Get up,” demanded Victor. But he raised his hand as he said it, forcing Campbell upright. “Fix me.”

“I can’t!” gasped Campbell. “I told you, I can only heal the innocent. You’re not a victim.”

“Who are you to judge me?” growled Victor.

“No one,” said Campbell. “The power judges for itself. I’m sorry, I—”

Victor shoved Campbell away with a snarl. Behind his eyes, he saw his death—not the most recent, or the one at Eli’s hands, but the very first, the one in the lab at Lockland, the way he’d climbed onto the table, pressed his bare back against the cold steel, summoned death to him like a demon, a slave, an order.