“Stop the car,” he said, and this time Mitch put the vehicle promptly—a little too promptly—into park. Victor got out, zipped his coat up to his throat, and began to walk alongside the stranger. He was a good two heads taller.
“You’re hurt,” he said to the bundle of wet clothes. It wasn’t the arms crossed tightly over the form’s chest that gave it away, or the dark stain on one sleeve, darker even than the rain, or the way the figure pulled back sharply when he reached out a hand. Victor smelled pain the way a wolf smelled blood. Tuned to it.
“Stop,” he said, and this time the person’s steps dragged to a halt. The rain fell, steady and cold, around them. “Get in the car.”
The figure looked up at him then, and the wet hood of the coat fell back onto a pair of narrow shoulders. Water blue eyes, fierce behind smudged black liner, stared up at him from a young face. Victor knew pain too well to be fooled by the defiant look, the set jaw around which wet blond hair curled and stuck. She couldn’t be more than twelve, thirteen maybe.
“Come on,” he pressed, gesturing to the car that had stopped beside them.
The girl just stared at him.
“What’s going to happen to you?” he asked. “Couldn’t be worse than what already has.”
When she made no motion toward the car, he sighed and pointed at her arm.
“Let me look at that.” He reached out, letting his fingers graze her jacket. The air around his hand crackled the way it always did, and the girl let out a barely audible breath of relief. She rubbed at her sleeve.
“Hey, stop that,” he warned, knocking her hand away from the wound. “I didn’t fix it.”
Her eyes danced between his hand and her sleeve, and back again.
“I’m cold,” she said.
“I’m Victor,” he said, and she offered him a small, exhausted flicker of a smile. “Now what do you say we get out of the rain?”
VIII
LAST NIGHT
MERIT CEMETERY
“YOU’RE not a bad person,” repeated Sydney, flinging dirt onto the moonlit grass. “But Eli is.”
“Yes. Eli is.”
“But he didn’t go to prison.”
“No.”
“Do you think he’ll get the message?” she asked, pointing at the grave.
“I’m pretty sure,” said Victor. “And if he doesn’t, your sister will.”
Sydney’s stomach twisted at the thought of Serena. In her mind, her big sister was two different people, two images overlapping in a way that blurred both, and made her feel dizzy, ill.
There was the Serena from before the lake. The Serena who’d knelt on the floor in front of her the day she left for college—they both knew she was abandoning Sydney to the toxic, empty house—and who used her thumb to wipe tears from Sydney’s cheek, saying over and over, I’m not gone, I’m not gone.
And then there was the Serena from after the lake. The Serena whose eyes were cold and whose smile was hollow, and who made things happen with only words. The one who lured Sydney into a field with a body, cooing at her to show her trick, and then looking sad when she did. The one who turned her back when her boyfriend raised his gun.
“I don’t want to see Serena,” said Sydney.
“I know,” said Victor. “But I want to see Eli.”
“Why?” she asked. “You can’t kill him.”
“That may be.” His fingers curled around the shovel. “But half the fun is trying.”
IX
TEN YEARS AGO
LOCKLAND UNIVERSITY
WHEN Eli picked up Victor from the airport a few days before the start of spring semester, he was wearing the kind of smile that made Victor nervous. Eli had as many different smiles as ice cream shops had flavors, and this one said he had a secret. Victor didn’t want to care, but he did. And since he couldn’t seem to keep himself from caring, he was determined to at least keep himself from showing it.