Page 85 of Victorious

“Trust me,” said Gabriel. “Can you do that?”

Behind Noah’s back, Helena raised a gun.

The soldier nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, right before the shot went off.

VIIINOW. THEN.MEANWHILE, EN ROUTE TO EON …

THE van hit a bump, and the back of Rios’s helmet knocked against the armored wall.

She swore and rolled her neck, trying to shake off the bad feeling. There was no reason for it. The mission had been a success. Her team had captured two targets without losing any of their own.

And yet.

No one was celebrating. After a mission, the air was usually buzzing with a combination of victory and relief, but the two agents up front didn’t joke, or ramble, or say anything. They sat, facing forward, the only sound the tires on the asphalt, the dull hum that filled the inside of the van, the muffled silence of her helmet. As the silence stretched, the feeling in her gut went from bad to worse.

And then the EO cuffed to the van’s opposite wall said, “They’re all dead.”

Rios’s head jerked up. She scowled behind her visor. The EO stared back at her, eyes sliding in and out of focus. She’d been hit with a dart. Blood darkened her blond hair. A bruise was blooming on one cheek.

Charlotte Tills. Nineteen. According to the dossier, she could see the future in reflective surfaces.

“I look at them,” she murmured now, “and I see nothing.”

Rios knew she should tell the EO to be quiet. At the very least, she should ignore her. Instead, Rios spoke, her voice flattened by the mic inside her helmet. “What do you mean?”

Charlotte frowned, struggling to focus. Her wrists were bound in front of her, her torso strapped against the metal wall.

“I know what you are.” Rios stiffened inside her armored suit. Charlotte kept talking. “The mirrors look different when you’re like us.” Her voice was still thick from the sedative, but it was clearly wearing off. “Humans are one color, and we’re another. But them.” She tipped her head toward the front of the van. The agents there. “Their reflections are all wrong. Their mirrors come back black.”

Rios clenched her jaw.

“No future,” mused the EO sleepily. “Just … dead.”

The girl was probably just trying to get inside her head, under her skin.

Besides, her fellow agents were sitting right there. They’d fought beside her on the mission. Spoken, at least to throw out orders. Gone through the motions, the way they always had, even if they’d done it with less attitude, less spark.

“Do you want to know,” whispered Charlotte, “how you’re going to die?”

Rios gritted her teeth. “That depends,” she said. “Can I change it?”

Charlotte’s head tipped side to side. She hummed thoughtfully. “You can try. It doesn’t really work, though. In the end, all of us meet what’s waiting in the mirror.” She swallowed dryly. “Most of the time it’s a what. But sometimes it’s a who.”

Rios held her breath. The agents up front might be oblivious, but the ones back at base, the ones in the control room, could hear everything that was being said. So she said nothing.

“I have a who,” mused Charlotte. “I see him in the mirror every day. You have a who, too. Do you want to know what he looks like?”

Rios’s pulse thudded in her ears. Her face would have given her away, if it weren’t for the visor. Her fingers curled inside their gloves.

“That’s enough,” she warned.

The girl began to chuckle softly.

“Why are you laughing?” growled Rios.

The EO smiled. “Because,” she said, “this isn’t how I die.”

The sound inside the van shifted, tires sliding from asphalt to dirt road.