Vengeful

Victor nodded at the front of the ambulance. “I assume you can drive?”

Dumont hesitated. “I can, but . . .”

“Get behind the wheel.”

Dumont didn’t move.

Victor wasn’t in the mood to torture him, so he resorted to logic instead. “You said they had eyes on your family. If you go back in there now, they’ll know you helped me escape.”

Dumont frowned. “And how does driving you away make me less complicit?”

“You’re not an accomplice,” said Victor, producing a pair of cable-ties from a toolbox. “You’re a hostage. I can tie you to the steering wheel now, or later. It’s up to you.”

The doctor silently climbed behind the wheel. Victor took the passenger’s seat. He flipped the sirens on.

“I found you,” explained the doctor, unprompted, “outside the morgue. Well, I found the soldiers first.”

“You didn’t turn me over to EON,” observed Victor. “Why?”

Dumont examined his hands. “You could have killed me up on the fifth floor. You didn’t.”

It hadn’t been an act of mercy. There had simply been no point.

“And the soldiers?” asked Victor.

“They were already dead.”

“So was I.”

Dumont nodded. “Medicine is full of calculated risks and split-second decisions. I made one.”

“You could have walked away.”

“I may not be ExtraOrdinary,” said Dumont, “but I am a doctor. And I took an oath.”

“What exactly happens at the apex of these episodes?” asked Dumont.

“Nerve impairment. Muscular seizure.” Victor ticked off the symptoms. “Atrial fibrillation. Cardiac arrest. Death.”

Dumont glanced back. “Death?”

Victor nodded.

“Do you know how many times you’ve died? Are we talking about three to four recurrences or a dozen—”

“One hundred and thirty-two.”

The doctor’s face went slack. “That’s . . . not possible.”

Victor considered him dryly. “I assure you, I’ve kept track.”

“But the sheer strain on your body.” Dumont shook his head. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

“That is both the cause and the crux of our problem, isn’t it?”

“Have you experienced cognitive impairment?”

Victor hesitated. “There’s a brief period of disorientation immediately after. And it’s getting longer.”

“It’s a miracle you’re still forming sentences.”

Miracle. Victor had always hated that word.