Sydney didn’t know if it would be enough, but she had to try. She closed her eyes and reached for another thread. Felt it go taut against her fingers.

“Come on,” she said to Dol, stepping around the blood.

When they reached the street, Syd paused, closing her eyes again. Felt her world tip ever so slightly to the left. As if to say, This way.

She started walking.

* * *

“DRIVE faster,” said Victor, trying to ignore the buzzing in his skull, those first warnings of a building charge.

It would wait. It had to wait.

“Why?” demanded Mitch, even as he sped toward Merit. “Why are we going toward this mess instead of away?”

Victor found a roll of paper towels in the backseat and pressed them to the shallow wound along his ribs. “Eli will be there.”

“All the more reason to go the other way. You two can circle each

other forever, but there’s only one way it ends, Victor, and it’s not in your favor.”

“Thanks for the confidence,” said Victor, dryly.

Mitch shook his head. “You and your vengeance . . .”

But it wasn’t vengeance.

Whatever’s happened to you, however you’re hurt, you’ve done it to yourself.

Campbell had been right.

Victor had to take responsibility. For himself. And for the monster he’d helped to create. Eli.

“You’re going in like that?” Mitch was asking.

Victor turned the card over in his hand. “I have an invitation.”

But he looked down at himself. Mitch had a point.

He’d lost his favorite trench coat, somewhere between the confrontation in Stell’s hallway and waking up in the cell. A thin slice ran along his black T-shirt. He’d done his best to rinse the blood from his hands with a bottle of water, but it was still under his nails.

He had no weapons, and no plan.

Only the knowledge—the certainty—that Eli would run, the first chance he got.

And Victor would be there to stop him.

XVII

THE LAST NIGHT

XVIII

THE OLD COURTHOUSE

ELI stepped through the doors into the grand foyer, wicking rain from his hair.

The venue was already brimming with people, men and women in evening attire. The toast of Merit, it seemed, all in one place. The two soldiers had already entered, several people ahead, and had immediately dissolved into the crowd.

Eli and Stell advanced, and were stopped by a pair of security guards with handheld metal detectors.

“Law enforcement,” said Stell brusquely, displaying his sidearm.

“Sorry, sir,” said the guard. “This is a weapons-free event.”