“Victor,” started Mitch.

“How did you find me?”

Mitch held up his cell. “Dominic. He called me, freaking out, said you took it back, that it was like before, when you were dead. I tried to call you but you didn’t answer. I was heading for the elevator when I saw the light burned out in the stairs.” He shook his head. “Had a bad feeling—”

The cell started ringing again. Victor took it from Mitch’s hand and answered. “Dominic.”

“You can’t just do that to me,” snapped the ex-soldier. “We had a deal.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” said Victor slowly, but Dominic was still going.

“One minute I’m fine and the next I’m on my hands and knees, trying not to pass out. No warning, nothing in my system to dull the pain, you don’t know what it was like—”

“I promise you, I do,” said Victor, tipping his head back against the concrete wall. “But you’re fine now?”

A shuddering breath. “Yeah, I’m back online.”

“How long did it last?”

“What? I don’t know. I was kind of distracted.”

Victor sighed, eyes sliding shut. “Next time, pay attention.”

“Next time?”

Victor hung up. He opened his eyes to find Mitch staring at him.

“Did this happen before?”

Before. Victor knew what he meant. Once his life had been bisected by the night in the laboratory. Before, a human. After, an EO. Now, it was split down the line of his resurrection. Before, an EO. After—this.

Which meant that it was Sydney’s doing. This was the inevitable flaw in her power, the fissure in his. Victor hadn’t avoided it after all. He’d simply ignored it.

Mitch swore, running his hands over his head. “We have to tell her.”

“No.”

“She’s going to find out.”

“No,” said Victor again. “Not yet.”

“Then when?”

When Victor understood what was happening, and how to fix it.

When he had a plan, a solution as well as a problem. “When it will make a difference,” he said.

Mitch’s shoulders slumped, defeated.

“Maybe it won’t happen again,” said Victor.

“Maybe,” said Mitch.

Neither one of them believed it.

V

FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO

FULTON

IT happened again.

And again.

Three episodes in less than six months, the time between each a fraction shorter, the duration of death a fraction longer. It was Mitch who insisted he see a specialist. Mitch who found Dr. Adam Porter, a compact man with a hawkish face and a reputation as one of the best neurologists in the country.

Victor had never been fond of doctors.

Even back when he wanted to become one, it had never been in the interest of saving patients. He’d been drawn to the field of medicine for the knowledge, the authority, the control. He’d wanted to be the hand holding the scalpel, not the flesh parting beneath it.

Now Victor sat in Porter’s office, after hours, the buzzing in his skull just beginning to filter into his limbs. It was a risk, he knew, waiting until the episode was in its metastasis, but an accurate diagnosis required the presentation of symptoms.