Page 90 of Victorious

He didn’t answer, just motioned toward the van. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back.”

But Rios didn’t move. She looked to the transport van, then back to Noah, and lowered her voice. “What’s going on?”

He sighed, and took a step closer, and she let him. She let him because she’d always liked him. And because with the car at her back, there was nowhere else to go.

“Hey,” he said gently, “everything’s gonna be okay.”

She might have believed him, but he tipped his head down as he said it, and his sunglasses dipped, just enough for her to catch sight of his eyes. No longer warm and brown and bright, but wild swirls of white and blue and gray. And then his chin was lifting, and his eyes were gone again behind the darkened shades, and Rios didn’t know what was going on, but she knew that she was fucked.

“Okay,” she said, returning the crowbar to the trunk. “Lead the way.”

Run, said the bells in her head, and this time, she listened.

As soon as Noah turned toward the vehicle, Rios dropped through the floor.

The concrete parted like tissue paper, and she fell ten feet, landing in a crouch on the next level down, the force jolting through her knees.

She got to her feet and turned in time to stop a second EON agent, this one in tactical gear, from slamming a cattle prod into her chest.

Rios twisted out of the way, dodging the violent blue tip, and caught the baton, kicking the agent in the chest as hard as she could.

She felt the ribs break, but the agent didn’t go down, didn’t even let go. As if he couldn’t feel it. Charlotte’s voice echoed in her head.

They’re already dead.

The agent drew a second weapon, a tranq gun, and fired twice at point-blank range. The darts would have hit Rios if she hadn’t forced herself down, through the concrete a second time, landing even harder on the bottom floor.

Rios staggered to her feet.

There were no more levels.

No street exits, either.

Rios took off toward the stairwell door, tires screeching as the van took the tight garage turns at speed, hurtling down toward her. She flung open the door, was about to start forward when Noah stepped out of nothing, blurring into sight right in front of her. His expression, caught between exasperation and amusement.

“You shouldn’t have run,” he said, the last word swallowed by the crackle of static as he drove the tip of a baton into her chest.

And everything went white.

XINOW. THEN.

IN the VA hospital where Rios spent six months, after her medical evac, time had lost its meaning.

Some minutes felt like hours. Some days went by in seconds. The drugs left her feeling disembodied, which was a good thing, given how many bones she’d broken. But for weeks, even once she’d weaned herself off those lovely numbing drugs, she felt adrift. Time, as porous as the world around her. Running helped. So did work. The metronomic beat of a body in motion.

But as Rios came back to her senses now, she felt that old confusion.

She dragged her eyes open and found herself looking up at one of EON’s blank white ceilings. She’d expected to wake up in a cell, but the light was softer, the walls a pale but pleasant shade of green.

Dr. Gray’s office.

The sheer contrast between the parking garage and the therapist’s room left her feeling whiplashed. Dazed.

She dragged her head up and saw the doctor sitting in the chair across from her, pencil tapping on his knee.

As if she’d drifted off mid-session.

“Welcome back, Lilian,” he said in his amicable way. “Ah, forgive me. You prefer Rios.”