But after that, they didn’t share a life—Charlotte just pulled Eli into hers.
And he let her.
It was easy.
It was simple.
She adored him.
And he enjoyed the attention.
Charlotte liked to say they were a perfect fit. Eli knew they weren’t, but only he could see the jagged sides, the empty spaces.
“How do I look?” she asked as they climbed the steps to her parents’ house—mansion—for Thanksgiving, sophomore year.
“Stunning,” said Eli automatically, pairing the word with a wink. Charlotte fixed his tie. She ran her fingers through his dark hair, and he let her, his own hand grazing the bottom of her chin, tipping her face up for a kiss.
“Don’t be nervous,” she whispered.
Eli wasn’t.
The door swung open, and he turned, half expecting to see a butler, a grim old man in coattails, but instead he found an elegant, older version of Charlotte.
“You must be Eli!” said the woman brightly as a slim, stern man in a well-tailored suit appeared at her back.
“Thank you for having me,” said Eli, holding out a pie.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Shelton warmly. “When Charlotte said you didn’t have plans, we insisted.”
“Plus,” said Mr. Shelton, shooting Charlotte a look, “it’s about time we meet the boy our girl’s been so taken with.” They started down the hall, Charlotte and her mother arm in arm.
“Eli,” said Mr. Shelton, putting a hand on his shoulder, “why don’t I give you a tour while the ladies catch up.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Of course,” said Eli, falling in step behind the man, who led him through a pair of doors into a private study. “This,” he said, “is really the only room that matters.”
He opened a cabinet and poured himself a drink.
“I can see why Charlotte likes you,” he said, leaning back against his desk. “She’s always had a weakness for charity cases. Especially handsome ones.”
Eli stilled, his easy manner stiffening a fraction. “Sir, if you think I’m with Charlotte for her money or her station—”
“The truth doesn’t matter, Mr. Cardale, only the optics. And they don’t look good. I’ve done my homework on you. So much tragedy—you handle it with poise. While I admire how far you’ve come, the fact is, you’re tracking mud into my home.”
Eli’s teeth clicked together. “We can’t shape our past,” he said. “Only our future.”
Charlotte’s father smiled. “Well put. And that’s what I’m offering you. A bright future. Just not with my daughter. I’ve seen your grades. You’re a smart young man, Eliot. Ambitious, too, Charlotte tells me. You want to be a doctor. Haverford is a decent college, but it’s not the best. I know you got into other schools. Better schools. I assume you couldn’t afford them.”
Eli stared, amazed. He was being bribed.
Mr. Shelton pushed off the desk. “I know you care about my daughter. Hell, you might even think you love her . . .”
But Eli didn’t.
If Mr. Shelton was better at reading people—or if Eli hadn’t made himself so hard to read—he might have seen the simple truth. That Eli didn’t need persuading. That Charlotte Shelton had always been, for him, a vehicle. A way to move through the world on an upward trajectory. What her father was now offering, if he was truly offering it, was a true chance for meaningful change, a great gain for a minor loss.
But what came next was a delicate maneuver.
“Mr. Shelton,” started Eli, contorting his face with an aspect of tightly controlled defiance. “Your daughter and I—”
The man held up a hand. “Before you play the noble card, and insist you can’t be bought, remember that you are both very young, and love is fickle, and whatever you have with Charlotte might feel real, but it won’t last.”
Eli exhaled, and looked down, as if ashamed. Let his features settle into a semblance of resignation. “What would you have me do, sir?”
“Tonight? Nothing. Enjoy your dinner. In a few days? Break things off. Pick one of those better schools. Chester, or Lockland. Transfer. The tuition won’t be a problem.”
“Boys!” called Mrs. Shelton from the kitchen. “Turkey’s ready.”
Mr. Shelton clapped Eli on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said cheerfully. “I’m starving.”
“Dad,” warned Charlotte when they met her in the dining room. “Did you put him through the wringer?”
“Just a little.” Mr. Shelton kissed his daughter on the cheek. “It’s my duty to put the fear of God into whoever you bring home.”
She turned her warm brown gaze on Eli. “I hope he wasn’t being too rough on you.”
Eli laughed softly and shook his head. “Not at all.”
They took their seats, the table falling to easy conversation—so much spoken, so little said—as they passed platters and bowls.
And as Eli and Charlotte walked back to their car that night, she slipped her arm through his. “Everything okay?”
Eli glanced back at the front door, where Mr. Shelton stood watching. “Yes,” he said, kissing her temple. “Everything’s perfect.”
XIX
TWO YEARS AGO
EON
ELI ran his fingers along the shelf where he kept the old case files. His own black folder sat like a stain at the edge of the row, a punctuation mark shifted to fit the growing sentence. Nineteen EOs tracked, hunted, captured, over a period of less than two years. Not bad, considering his limitations.
Eli had insisted on keeping the old folders, telling Stell that past work would inform future cases.
It was a partial truth—there were indeed patterns between EOs, shared traits, the same shadow cast over different faces. But the larger truth was simple: Eli found the markers satisfying. Not as satisfying as wrapping his hands around an EO’s throat, feeling a pulse falter and still beneath his fingers. But an echo of that old calm still accompanied each closed case, the pleasant sense of things askew being set right.
There was another facet to the collection, a grim truth laid bare in the sheer number of folders.
“What have we done?” Eli muttered to himself.
But it was Victor who answered.
“What makes you think we did anything?”
He looked up and saw the thin blond ghost leaning back against the fiberglass wall.
“The number of EOs,” said Eli, gesturing to the shelf, “it’s skyrocketed over the last decade. What if we did something? What if we tore something in the fabric of the world? What if we set something in motion?”
Victor rolled his eyes. “We are not gods, Eli.”
“But we played God.”
“What if God played God?” Victor pushed off the wall. “What if EOs were part of His plan? What if these people, the ones you’ve spent your life slaughtering, were supposed to come back the way they did? What if you’ve been attempting to undo the very work of that higher power you worship?”
“Don’t you ever wonder if it’s our fault?”
Victor tipped his head. “Tell me, is it blasphemy, or simply arrogance, taking credit for God’s work?”
Eli shook his head. “You’ve never understood.”
Footsteps sounded nearby.
The wall went clear.
“Who are you talking to?” asked Stell.
“Myself,” muttered Eli, waving Victor’s ghost away like a wisp of smoke. “I’ve been thinking more about that electrokinetic teen . . .” He looked up. Stell was dressed for fieldwork, his broad frame cinched into a reinforced black suit.
“How did the extraction go?” asked Eli, managing to keep most of the disdain out of his voice. He’d spent two weeks researching the EO—Helen Andreas, forty-one, with the ability to disassemble and rebuild structures with a single touch. Eli had given EON’s agents as much insight as he could, considering the confines of his situation.
“Not well,” said Stell darkly. “Andreas was dead when we got there.”
Eli frowned. EOs, despite their destructive tendencies, rarely veered toward suicide. Their sense of self-preservation was too strong. “Was it an accident?”
“Not likely,” said Stell, holding a photo up to the fiberglass. In it, Andreas lay on the ground, blood pooling beneath her and a small dark circle burrowed into her forehead.
“Interesting,” said Eli. “Any leads?”
“No . . .” Stell hesitated. There was something he wasn’t saying. Eli waited him out. After a long moment, the man finally went on. “This wasn’t an isolated incident. Two months ago, another suspected EO was found in the same way, in the basement of a club.” Stell slid both pages through the slot. “Will Connelly. We were still monitoring him, since we didn’t have enough data to construe the exact nature of his ability and assess his priority level, but we had suspected it was regenerative. Obviously not a power as efficient as your own, but something like it. At the time we assumed his death was a one-off, a run-in with the wrong people, someone to whom he owed a debt. Now . . .”
“Once is chance, twice, coincidence,” said Eli. “Collect a third, and you have a pattern.” He looked up from the paper. “The weapon?”