Page 55 of Victorious

The hall strobed red.

The boy stared at Gabriel—unarmed, in his crisp slacks, and button-down shirt, as out of place as he was.

“What’s your name?” asked Gabriel, taking a step forward.

Helena’s voice broke through the alarm. “Dr. Gray…”

“Xavi,” said the boy. “Please, I’m not supposed to be here.”

Gabriel nodded and held out his hand. “Let me help you.”

The boy swallowed and looked at the hand as if it were a lifeline. He lunged for it, right before a wall of plexiglass slammed down between them.

Xavi scrambled backward as a second wall descended from the ceiling farther down the hall, blocking the boy’s retreat. He spun in a panicked circle as gas poured in from hidden vents, pluming thick and white around him.

Gabriel looked back, and saw Director Roy, her palm pressed to a panel on the wall as the boy staggered, pounding against the barrier, chest hitching as he struggled not to breathe. But bodies have needs that minds can’t overrule, and moments later, he collapsed.

The siren cut off, Gabriel’s ears ringing in its wake.

The red lights snapped back to white.

The whole affair had taken seconds.

Helena’s hand dropped back to her side, and the air inside the chamber instantly began to clear. The barricades lifted, and the soldiers swept forward to collect the unconscious EO.

“Put 049 in a new cell,” she ordered, turning on Gabriel. “Emergency lockdown protocol,” she explained. “The gas has vents in every corridor and chamber. It’s strong enough to take down almost anything. But it’s lethal in high doses.”

“I could have helped him,” said Gabriel, annoyed.

She shook her head. “You have a lot to learn about EOs. That one,” she said, gesturing to the unconscious boy as the guards forced his limbs back into the straitjacket, “can erase a person’s mind, just by touching them.”

He stilled, remembering the hungry way the boy had eyed his outstretched hand. It sickened him. Not just the danger, narrowly avoided, but the idea that it had been a test, and he’d just failed.

But Helena only waved a hand.

“We all burn our fingers on the stove,” said the director. “That’s how we learn it’s hot.” Relief rolled over him as she went on. “Let it be a warning, Dr. Gray. EOs may look like us, may talk like us, may act like us. But they’re not.”

His mouth twitched in something that could have been a smile. “All the more reason to understand them.”

“Indeed.” She led him around a corner, and they were back at the entrance to EON. “Well,” she said. “The job is yours, if you want it.”

“I do,” he said, looking past her, into the maze of white halls, the cells filled with patients waiting to be treated. “And please,” he added, “call me Gabriel.”

VNOW. THEN.

“FUCKING EOs,” muttered Farley.

The guard slammed the locker as he said it, hard enough that Rios winced. The anger, of course, wasn’t directed at her.

Apparently, there had been an incident with the EO in cell 008. A young man with the ability to alter the pressure of the air around him. Until that point, the guards had assumed he could only amplify it, increasing the outward force. But apparently, he could create a vacuum, too. And his cell wasn’t airtight. Something the guards in his section learned when they started to feel dizzy and began to laugh. Farley had recognized it as hypoxia before anyone passed out. But an hour of supplemental oxygen and two aspirin later, he was in a foul mood.

“I need a drink,” he muttered.

Honestly, right now, so did she.

Three times she’d been sent into the field in search of Victor Vale.

The first two were a bust.