Vicious

In their dorm at Lockland, Victor and Eli argue about attempting to become an EO via NDE. Victor wants to try, but Eli says it’s too dangerous. If it doesn’t work, they could die, to which Victor says, “that’s a risk everyone takes by living” (57). Victor volunteers to try becoming an EO first, and a half hour later, he lies in bed feeling sick after downing a bottle of painkillers with whiskey. As he fights his growing panic and worsening symptoms, Eli watches with an eager curiosity in his eyes. Eli yells, but Victor can’t focus on the words. Victor’s body goes numb, and he starts sinking “straight through his skin and the bed and the floor, just down into black” (61).

Still standing on the balcony at the Merit hotel, Victor squeezes his glass too tightly, shattering it. To get all the shards out of his hand, he turns on his ability to feel pain a little. After he picks out all the glass, he turns up his pain level until his entire body is “burning, breaking, shattering” (63). He stumbles, and the pain switches off. He thinks about getting the medical kit from the car but pours himself another drink first.

In the past, Victor wakes in the hospital after his intentional overdose. Eli is there, and Victor is angry because he doesn’t think Eli waited long enough to seek medical help. If the experiment worked, Victor is sure there’d be more evidence—electronics failing and other events from comic books. Eli starts to talk about what they should try next time, but the arrival of a hospital psychologist stops him.

Eli leaves, and the psychologist questions Victor. Victor explains that he wasn’t trying to kill himself and says that he was “Making a mistake” (66), but she doesn’t believe him. Victor must spend 72 hours in the hospital for observation and meet with the school psychologist upon returning to school. If he doesn’t do this, he won’t be allowed to return, so he grudgingly agrees.

In the present, Victor paces the hotel room, wrestling with his panic after losing control and breaking the glass. He comes to a halt, recognizing the sensation from his time in prison, when he’d longed to break everyone and everything and just walk out. Victor envisions the feeling as a kind of darkness. As he resisted the feeling in prison, he resists now, commanding his body and mind to be calm. While striving for silence, “a word [rises] up to meet him, a reminder of why he couldn’t afford to break, a challenge, a name. Eli” (69).