Page 57 of Victorious

He shrugged one shoulder. “Could be worse.”

“You know you’re bleeding, right?” she pointed out, and he was, a narrow trickle running down his cheek.

“Yeah, well,” said Noah, pawing at his face. “You should see the other guy.”

As if on cue, two of his team came through the door looking similarly battered and hauling an EO between them. A woman, head covered and hands bound, blood dripping from her clothes, leaving a red trail in her wake.

“Before you say shit, it isn’t hers,” snapped the first one, Stevens.

Rios held up her hands. “I didn’t ask,” she said, stepping out of the way to let them pass. Though she was curious. As if he could read her mind, Noah answered, “Pedestrian. Wrong place, wrong time.”

The second agent, Weaver, shook his head. “Gonna be a bitch to clean this up,” he said, and she wondered if he was talking about the innocent bystander, or the hall. “Fucking EOs,” he added as they trudged away.

Noah smiled grimly. “Fucking EOs,” he echoed dryly.

His team knew about his power, the way Rios’s knew about hers. But they had a way of forgetting. Whether on accident, or on purpose.

She remembered the day in Stell’s office when they’d first been introduced.

“A fellow soldier,” the director had said with a weighted look. Then, at his prompting, Noah had lowered himself into a chair, and proceeded to disappear.

At least, that’s how it looked.

One moment he was there and the next, he wasn’t. But when Stell reached out to touch the place where he had been, should be, his hand came down on something solid.

In the chair, Noah reappeared.

An illusion, that’s what it was.

Camouflage.

As Noah rose back to his feet, Rios took in this other EO, tall, broad shouldered, blond. His eyes were nice, on the lighter edge of brown. But there was a ghost in them. She’d seen it enough at the VA hospital, that specter, haunting the soldiers who’d made it out alive, but not unscathed. Some part of themselves left behind in the field. Not in the physical sense, though many had lost limbs. But something just as precious.

Rios knew an EO’s power was tied somehow to their near-death. She could move through solid surfaces after nearly being crushed beneath the rubble of a house when it was bombed, her last moments consumed by the desperate urge to escape. To be free.

She couldn’t help but wonder what had led to Noah’s power.

Stell had asked her to show him around. And so she had, gauging his conduct as she showed him the captured EOs in their cells. If it bothered him, he didn’t let it show.

If it bothered him, he’d be on the other side of the wall, instead of next to her.

“Where did you serve?” she’d asked as they toured the barracks, the canteen.

He ducked his head. “Afraid I can’t say.” Then, “You?”

“Same,” Rios admitted, venturing. “Black ops?”

He shrugged in a noncommittal way.

“Well,” she’d said, “this is a stimulating conversation.”

He’d chuckled then, a smile lighting up his face.

“How did they catch you?” she asked.

His smile faltered. “They didn’t. I turned myself in.”

That brought her up short, but she didn’t pry.