Page 79 of Victorious

As he spoke, Helena brought up the target’s details on her tablet. A woman stared back, young, attractive, and blond. According to the document, her name was Jessica. She looked like something out of an activewear campaign. Which was to say, she looked happy, and healthy, and human. But the text beside the photo detailed a tragedy. A carjacking gone wrong. A near-fatal stabbing. She’d pulled through. And then she’d disappeared, leaving a not-so-subtle trail of bodies in her wake.

“It was a trap,” said the soldier. “Mirrors everywhere. We deployed countertactics, but by then, Isaac and Parks were already down.…”

“Her ability?” inquired Gabriel.

“Optical paralysis,” said Helena.

“The bitch is basically Medusa,” spat the soldier. “Minus the snakes and the turning to stone.”

Gabriel raised a brow. “She killed them with a look?”

The soldier shook his head. “She stopped them with a look. She killed them with a hatchet.”

Fascinating, thought Gabriel. That propensity for violence. A seemingly pervasive trait. He turned his attention to the soldier.

“I’m sure what you went through today was troubling. Come by my office later, and we’ll talk. In the meantime, have Dr. Andrews see to you in Medical.”

The soldier limped away, and Gabriel turned to the steel door.

The lock chimed under his palm—Helena had granted him full access—and the door slid open, onto black. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he saw the cell, a well-lit cube surrounded by empty, unlit space. A darkened buffer between the prisoner, and the world. Gabriel stepped through the shadowed corridor.

“Hello, Jessica.”

The walls of this particular cell were reflective, so the EO couldn’t see out. At least, that was the idea, but as Gabriel moved toward the panel on the wall, her head whipped toward him.

“I see you,” she said.

Her eyes were red. Not bloodshot, but crimson, edge to edge, and bright as lasers. Instinctively, he tensed, as if they might burn right through the cell wall, right through him. They didn’t, but when Gabriel tried to move, he found he couldn’t. He was pinned beneath her gaze, his hand halfway to the nearest panel.

He marveled, as he always did, at the ingenuity of adaptation. The power of a mind, over a body. His. And hers. The novelty of EOs’ gifts, no two of them alike, and thus each and every one a wealth of knowledge, waiting to be tapped.

“I see you,” she said again. Her gaze hung on him, unblinking. And then she said something that surprised him. “I see what you are.”

Gabriel couldn’t move, but he could speak. “What am I?”

“A traitor,” she seethed. She crossed toward the cell wall—toward him—red eyes narrowing in anger. “On the wrong side of the glass.”

Interesting. Somehow, she’d been able to register not only his presence, but the fact he was an EO. What a useful power that would be.

“Do they know?” She pitched her voice higher. “Do they know that you’re like me?” she screamed. Which might have been an issue—if there were anyone to hear.

“Don’t worry, Jessica. I’m here to help.”

She shook her head. “I helped somebody once,” she muttered, digging her hands into her hair. “And look what happened to me.”

The EO in the cell began to laugh, a nervous, almost frantic sound that bubbled up her throat.

Luckily her power didn’t seem to extend to those in Gabriel’s control.

“Gas,” he said softly, and Helena reached the panel in his stead. The vents opened, and smoke poured into the cell. And the woman’s laughter thinned.

And died.

Gabriel stepped into the silent cell.

He knelt, hand hovering over the EO’s body. He hesitated, briefly, though he wasn’t sure exactly why. This was the purpose after all. The reason for the other casualties.

The proper start of his experiment.