It had taken Mitch months to track this particular EO down. But he’d done it. Because he knew, just as Victor knew, that they were running out of options. The stack of paper had dwindled down to a few spare sheets, and as the leads shrank, the length of Victor’s deaths grew, the seconds ticking upward until they threatened to brush that lethal edge, the medically established threshold of no return.

A soft bleating sound alerted Victor to the likely object of Campbell’s

attention.

An injured deer lay in the brush, its side opened by a scattering of buckshot. As Victor slowed to watch from the shadow of a nearby tree, Campbell crouched over the injured deer, making gentle noises as he laid a hand on the animal’s side.

And then, as Victor watched, the buckshot rose back up through muscle and skin, and rolled down the animal’s sides into the grass.

Victor’s breath caught.

He had become so accustomed to disappointment—to tracking EO

after EO down, only to learn that their powers were incompatible, or worse, irrelevant—so he was caught off guard by the sight of Campbell’s power. The realization that he’d finally found someone who could help.

The deer rose on unsteady legs, and then bounded away through the trees, unhurt.

Campbell watched it go. Victor watched Campbell.

“Is it a kindness,” asked Victor, his voice breaking the stillness, “to loose prey back into the world, simply to be shot again?”

Campbell, to his credit, didn’t jump. He straightened, brushing his palms against his jeans. “Can’t do much about the hunters,” he said.

“But never could pass up a creature in pain.”

Victor laughed, a humorless, hollow sound. “Then you should have no qualms about helping me.”

Campbell’s expression narrowed. “Animals are innocent,” he said.

“People are another matter. Most, I’ve found, don’t deserve the help.”

Victor bristled—it sounded like something Eli would say. His fingers twitched, the air beginning to hum, but Campbell surprised him by stepping forward instead of away.

“How are you hurt?” he asked.

Victor hesitated, unsure how to answer such a simple question with such a complicated answer. In the end, he said, “Mortally.”

Campbell gave him a long, measured look.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do what I can.”

Victor’s heart stuttered, not from an episode, but from hope. A thing so rare he’d forgotten what it felt like. He had been prepared to use force.

“There are limits,” continued Campbell. “I can’t stop nature. Can’t change its course. I can’t rewind death, but I can undo a violence.”

“Then,” said Victor, whose deaths had been shaped by blood and pain, “you are well suited to this.”

Campbell held out his hand, and Victor, who had never been comfortable with contact, forced himself to still as the EO’s hand came to rest on his shoulder.