Vicious

In the cemetery, Sydney and Victor still dig. Sydney asks Victor about prison and Mitchell Turner (Mitch), Victor’s former cellmate and the third member of their group, who is waiting back at their hotel room. Sydney ends the chapter by asking if the prison let Victor out. Victor smiles the smile he uses “a lot before he [lies]” and says yes (36).

Chapter 6 takes place in prison, a week before Victor and Sydney dig in the cemetery. Victor reflects on the last 10 years in prison while Mitch decommissions a security camera. As Mitch works, Victor reads aloud from a book he borrowed from the prison library, focusing on a passage about pain. Turning off a person’s ability to feel pain also shuts off their fear of death, which makes “them, in their own eyes, immortal” (37). Only half-listening, Mitch finishes his work, and the two prepare to confront an approaching guard.

A week after breaking out of prison, Victor and Mitch drive a stolen car through heavy rain. They’re going to Merit because Victor saw a news article accompanied by a picture of Eli, who was hailed for saving a bank from an EO robber.