Vicious (Villains, #1)

by V.E. Schwab

Wouldn’t it be lovely to make the gap another person instead of a part of himself? But no, that wasn’t it. Angie had helped, she’d always helped, but he’d felt the hole before she died, felt it even before he died.

Eli stared down at the body, willing himself to feel horrified. He didn’t. There it was again, that gap between what he knew he should feel and what he did, mocking him as he looked down at Lyne.

Lyne’s eyes emptied and Eli set his head gently back against the ground, sliding his fingers free as he stood. There was a moment of such perfect quiet, the kind he used to feel in church, a sliver of peace that felt so … right. It was the first time he’d felt like himself, like more than himself, since he’d come back to life.

This passage is of HUGE concern. While we know what Eli's been up to, this would have been like a warning bell of his nefariousness.

“No, Sydney,” he said. “I need you to stay here.” “Why?” she asked. “Because you don’t think I’m a bad person,” he said. “And I don’t want to prove you wrong.”

Where before Serena’s world had bowed beneath the strength of her will, now it simply bowed. She didn’t have to argue, she didn’t have to try.

Serena's power not only makes her incredibly dangerous, but also makes relationships next to impossible. Consent would be next to impossible to determine. Being on edge all the time would be fractious at best.

And worst of all, Serena hated to admit how easy and addictive it was, getting her way, even when it made her miserable. Every time she got tired of trying to make people fight her, she would slink back into the comfort of control. She couldn’t turn it off. Even when she didn’t order, even when she only suggested, only asked, they did it. She felt like a god.

“So you go around blaming every other EO you can find,” said Serena. “Punishing them in his place?”

“I mean that when a person revives as an EO, not all of them comes back. Things are missing.” Even Eli, blessed as he was, knew that he was missing pieces. “Important things like empathy and balance and fear and consequence. Those things that might temper their abilities, they’re missing. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you feel all those things the way you did before.”

He's applying a generalization that he has no way of knowing for sure exists. Eli fears testing on EOs, fears becoming an experiment, but some kind of counseling or inquiry other than his leap to this conclusion might have spared all the lives he's taken since becoming Eli Ever.

“No wonder you have a wicked sense of entitlement.” “What do you mean?” “Well, your gift doesn’t impact anyone else. It’s reflexive. So in your mind you’re not a threat. But the rest of us are.”

“And then when you find them, you just kill them?” Her steps slowed. “No questions? No trial? No assessment of whether they’re a danger or a threat?”

He didn’t trust other people, not with knowledge or with power, and certainly not with both.

He couldn’t afford to lose them—their help, he corrected himself, their cooperation—

I don't think Victor wants to admit how much Mitch and Sydney mean to him outside of this mission.

Mitch, in a rare display of cynicism, decided that if he was going to go to back to jail (and given his curse, it was a matter of when, not if), he might as well commit a crime, since serving time on behalf of others wasn’t an entirely satisfying use of his life.

guessed at what their powers were, even though she knew they could be anything. Victor had explained that it depended on the person, on their wants and wills and last thoughts.

“He’s not a bad man,” she said. “There are no good men in this game,” said Mitch. But Sydney didn’t care about good. She wasn’t sure she believed in it. “I’m not afraid of Victor.” “I know.” He sounded sad when he said it.

ELI dropped Serena off on the Esquire curb

THEY'RE ALL STAYING IN THE SAME HOTEL???

these words people threw around—humans, monsters, heroes, villains—to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics.

Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.

Zachary Flinch.

What was Zachary Flinch's power? Seeing ghosts or something of that nature?

“Tell you what,” said Victor. “You remember me, and I’ll remember you, and that way we won’t be forgotten.”

To slay without cause would be an abuse of power, and an insult to God. The blood of EOs washed from his skin. The blood of innocents would not.

“I like to think there’s a special place in hell for girls who feed their little sisters to wolves.”

Victor took a single stride up behind Serena, brought a knife to her throat, and drew it cleanly across.

Good.

“You aren’t some avenging angel, Eli,” he said. “You’re not blessed, or divine, or burdened. You’re a science experiment.”

“When no one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong.”

She readjusted the shovel on her shoulder, and wondered if Eli would live forever, and how much of forever someone could reasonably remember, especially when nothing left a mark.

Apparently Eli had stood there over Victor’s body, covered in blood, still holding the knife and shouting that he was a hero. That he’d saved them all. When no one bought the hero line, he tried to claim it had been a fight.

So, someone's death & resurrection doesn't sever the hold of Serena's power, but Serena's death DOES sever her power over them. Otherwise they'd all be keeping with the hero line.