Page 105 of Victorious

But once he took away her eyes, it had been easy.

Speaking of EOs, Noah withdrew a step as Eli emerged, drawing a weapon as he did. A shotgun with a shortened barrel.

“Walk,” he instructed, leading Eli out of the corridors around the cell and through a hydraulic door, into the hall beyond. It was Eli’s first time ever seeing EON. He had spent four years locked inside, the resident of cell 001. But he’d arrived handcuffed and hooded.

Now he took in the maze of white halls, disoriented by the lack of signs and windows.

There were doors, but nearly all of them were open. Eli wondered which led to cells, like his.

A pair of guards rounded the corner and walked toward them. If they were bothered by the sight of Eli Ever, walking freely down the hall, it didn’t show. In fact, nothing did. Their faces were blank slates, their eyes flat and lifeless as they passed.

Eli slowed to study them.

Noah’s gun prodded him between the shoulders. “Keep walking.”

“I served EON once,” continued Eli.

“I know what you are,” said Noah. “I know what you’ve done.”

Eli smiled, keeping his eyes ahead. “Then you know I will put you down. As I did all of them. And I will do it gladly.”

He stopped as he said it, and again Noah’s weapon came to rest against his back, revealing the distance between them. This time, Eli turned, catching the barrel of the gun with one hand, and Noah’s throat with the other. As soon as his fingers closed around the EO’s neck, Noah disappeared.

Or so it looked, but Eli could still feel the muscles beneath his hand. He grinned and squeezed harder, Noah’s pulse hammering against his palm before a sudden force—a boot, he realized in retrospect—slammed into Eli’s chest, the force enough to crack a rib, and make him lose his hold.

He stumbled, and by the time he straightened, the hall looked empty, his only warning the whistle of an object slicing through the air toward Eli’s head.

He ducked just as metal struck the wall, but before he could dodge a second time, Noah reappeared, forcing the barrel of the gun up beneath his chin and—

“Stop.”

As soon Gabriel said it, both of their bodies came crashing to a halt.

Over the intercom, the therapist let out a disappointed sigh.

Noah stepped back, taking the gun with him. Eli leaned against the wall, aware of the pain in his chest. His rib had healed itself, but now it felt like it was calcifying, growing barbs of bone.

“You will not fight.”

Eli rolled his eyes. Noah’s jaw ticked.

It was clear that, while they both had to do what Gabriel said, neither of them had to like it.

IIINOW. THEN.

“WHAT is this?” demanded Eli.

He was sitting in a room across from Gabriel, a low round table the only thing between them. The walls were the same muted green as the ones in his cell. The chairs, arranged face-to-face like they were colleagues. Friends.

“This,” said the therapist, rapping a pencil on his knee, “is so we can get to know each other.” There it was again, that weight, a subtle pressure pushing down on him.

“I’d rather not,” said Eli.

He considered the space between the chairs, wondered if he could break the table glass and cut the EO’s throat—wondered, the way he had a hundred times when he was in Serena’s grip—and knew, even as he thought it, that he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t let him. Yet.

“Your files paint a detailed picture,” said Gabriel, gesturing to a stack of folders on the table. Most were beige, his name no doubt stamped onto the front, but his attention snagged on the black one at the bottom of the stack. The file that detailed what he’d gone through at the hands of Dr. Haverty. The same one Stell had gifted him as a reminder, of where he’d been, and a warning, of where he could be sent again.

“But paper and ink only go so far. I’d like you to tell me—”