Vicious
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0765335352
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.
Victor and Eli started out as college roommates―brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.
Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find―aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge―but who will be left alive at the end?
In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.
"A dynamic and original twist on what it means to be a hero and a villain. A killer from page one…highly recommended!" ―Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Marvel Universe vs The Avengers and Patient Zero
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Fantasy Books of 2013
everyone takes by living.” Eli ran his fingers through his hair. He was rattled, unsure. Victor liked seeing him that way. “It’s just a theory.” “Nothing you ever do, Eli, is meant to be theoretical. I see it in you.” Victor was very proud of verbalizing the observation in one try, considering his level of inebriation. Nevertheless, he needed to stop talking. He didn’t like people to know how closely he watched, matched, mimicked them. “I see it,” he finished quietly. “I think you’ve had
mumbled. Between his parents, he’d had enough involuntary therapy to last several lifetimes. Ms. Pierce’s patronizing look returned. “I feel it is.” “If I agree to it, will you release me now?” “If you don’t agree to it, Lockland will not welcome you back. You’ll be here for seventy-two hours, and during that time you’ll be meeting with me.” He spent the next several hours planning how to kill someone else—Ms. Pierce, specifically—instead of himself. Maybe, if he told her, she’d see that as
cooperative. When Detective Stell pointed out that everyone around him was either dead or close to it, Eli did his best to look heartbroken. He explained Victor’s jealousy, both over his girlfriend, and over his rank in the class. Victor had always been a step behind. He must have snapped. People do. When Detective Stell asked Eli about his thesis, he explained that it had been his, until Victor usurped it, went behind his back and started working with Lyne. And then he leaned in, and told
that the sensation was false, projected, tried to convince himself that this was research, that he was only trying to understand her gift, and how best to eliminate her, even as he let her guide him down the steps and away from the campus. “So you protect the innocent world from the big bad EOs,” she said as they made their way, arm in arm. “How do you find them?” “I have a system.” As they walked, he explained to her his method. The careful narrowing down of targets based on Lyne’s three
gift, her control, but even before, Serena got her way, and she was Serena’s sister, and she needed him to see. “Go back,” she said sternly. “Go. Get. Dol.” And it must have worked because Dominic swallowed, nodded, and vanished into nothing. * * * Eli emptied the gun into the air, but all signs of them were gone. He growled and ejected the magazine. It clattered to the ground as he dug in his coat for a full one. “I watch you, and it’s like watching two people.” He spun at the sound of the