Vicious

Victor wanders Merit, collecting his thoughts. Though there are many cops on the streets, none of them give him a second glance because he applies a low level of pain to avert those around him. At the hotel, Victor instructs Mitch to make a flagged profile for him in the police database. While Mitch works, Victor imagines “carving lines into Eli’s face, watching them fade so he could do it over again” (286).

Sydney asks about Victor’s plan. Victor doesn’t have the power to convert an army like Serena. Sydney gives Victor the profiles of two EOs profiles who might help. One is a man named Dominic Rusher, who is on powerful painkillers. If Victor can get to Dominic before Eli does and offer his ability to take pain away, he might be able to win Dominic into his service and use whatever skill he possesses. Before Victor and Mitch leave, Victor tells Sydney to upload his profile to the police database if he isn’t back by 10:30 PM. After that, she must burn the profiles, and he gives her a lighter. She asks if they’re coming back, and Victor says he will because “that’s my favorite lighter” (292).

Eli waits alone at the bar where Dominic Crusher, his next mark, goes every night. He revels in freedom from Serena’s influence because it affords him the control he desperately craves. Even though her help has made hunting EOs easier, he wishes he never got involved with her.

On the night Eli became an EO, Eli and Victor celebrate at a bar. Though Eli doesn’t know about his ability yet, he feels odd, as if something is missing inside him. Victor asks why Eli would change his name to Eli Ever if he became an EO. Eli tries to shrug off the question. Victor persists, and Eli finally admits that he doesn’t “want to be forgotten” (296). Victor proposes they live forever and promise to remember each other so neither is forgotten. They toast to cheating death and being remembered.

In the present, Dominic Rusher arrives at the bar looking physically and emotionally like “a broken man” (297). Eli waits for an opportunity to lure Dominic outside so he can get a demonstration before killing him. Eli is impatient but reminds himself that he’ll see Victor if he comes looking for Dominic.

Meanwhile, Victor and Mitch arrive at the bar. Mitch goes in the front, and Victor sneaks in the side door.

In prison, Victor speaks to Mitch for the first time. Dazed, Mitch lets his guard down, and a powerful inmate attacks him. Victor returns, and the inmate goes after him instead. Victor simply stands there while the inmate “[buckles] to the ground, screaming” (302-03). Victor pretends he doesn’t know what happened and the guards haul the inmate away. Back at their cell, Victor says he doesn’t need a bodyguard but would like a friend. Mitch isn’t sure if he wants to be Victor’s friend, but he does know that he does “not want to be in his way” (304).

At the bar, Eli grows impatient. Dominic still sits on the same barstool, and there’s no sign of Victor. Just when Eli is about to give up, Mitch takes the barstool beside Dominic. Eli recognizes Mitch from the lobby of the hotel and deduces that he is Victor’s accomplice. Eli watches Mitch talk to Dominic and then walk behind him. When Mitch passes, Dominic is gone. Eli follows Mitch to the bathroom.

At the hotel, Sydney waits to post Victor’s profile. She flips through a book written by Victor’s parents, noting how every word is blacked out except “for” and “ever.” She worries that she’ll soon be alone again. She considers not posting the profile but pictures Victor standing over the dead officer’s body, “pain crackling in the air around him” (310). The image hardens her resolve, and she posts.