Page 81 of Victorious

She folded back the towel, and there they were. Three charred fragments—all that was left of Serena Clarke.

Sydney had idolized her older sister. She would have followed her to the end of the world and back again.

And in a way, she had.

She’d followed her onto the frozen lake behind their house that day in March.

Followed her down into the icy waters when it broke.

Followed her right to Eli, and her own execution.

Serena had always had a power over people, always been able to get her way, even before she’d gone through the ice, and come out with the ability to bend the whole world to her word. Her will.

As an EO, no one could say no to her.

Not even Syd.

Follow me.

The memory surfaced: a parking garage, a gun coming to rest against her forehead. The moment Serena decided to spare her instead of finishing what Eli started.

Three bones—that was all Sydney had been able to salvage from the fire, the one Mitch had used to burn Serena’s corpse. After Victor slit her throat.

She hadn’t forgiven him for killing her sister.

She didn’t think she ever would.

And yet.

Sydney had never tried to bring Serena back.

Even after years of practicing to do just that.

Of making sure she could.

But resurrecting EOs wasn’t as easy as resurrecting humans. Because they’d already been changed by death, it was harder to reach across the line, harder to catch the thread, harder to haul them back. When she’d explained it to Victor, he had compared it to scar tissue, which explained the added effort, sure, but not the fact that when she did succeed, they came back wrong. The resurrection changed them, like the first death had. Only, this one didn’t give them powers. It changed the ones they had. They came back altered.

Broken.

The image of Victor Vale, the most stoic man she knew, collapsing to the floor in pain, clutching at his chest as his heart seized, and stopped. The shock wave he created every time he died again.

Because of her.

That was why, Syd told herself, she hadn’t brought Serena back.

And it wasn’t a lie.

But it wasn’t the whole truth.

Which was that, as much as she missed her older sister, Syd knew the world was a safer place without Serena in it.

A shadow fell across her lap, and she looked up to find Mitch filling the doorway. He frowned at the sight of the tin in her lap, or maybe just the way her fingers hovered over the contents. But all he said was “Come on, kid. It’s time to go.”

Mitch trudged across the yard and freed the axe from its block. Everything else was packed and loaded. All of it fit in the truck bed, with room to spare.

Sydney held the door for Dol, but the dog stood, resolutely facing the woods. He made a low growl, and Syd and Mitch both turned, scanning the tree line. Mitch’s fingers tensed on the axe. Syd hauled herself up onto the running board and squinted, gaze darting between the trees, finding nothing but dead branches until movement caught her eye, and a moment later, three crows burst from the woods, cawing as they rose in a flutter of black wings.

Dol barked at the birds, and Syd slackened in relief.