Victor Vale and Eli Cardale declare senior thesis topics; Eli proposes studying the theoretical feasibility of ExtraOrdinary individuals.

Eli explains to Victor that ExtraOrdinary people gain powers by surviving traumatic near-death experiences.

Victor swallows a bottle of painkillers with whiskey in their dorm room as his first attempt to become an EO.

Victor pulls Eli from an ice-filled bathtub and uses EpiPens to restart his heart, successfully reviving him as an EO.

After a fall, a cut on Eli's hand closes on its own, revealing his self-healing ability for the first time.

Angie Knight straps Victor to an engineering lab table and delivers escalating electric shocks at his direction.

Victor regains consciousness after the electric shocks and accidentally kills Angie Knight with his new pain-manipulation power.

Eli calls the police, names Victor a dangerous EO murderer, and Victor is arrested by Detective Stell.

Victor spots a wounded girl trudging along a rainy highway, stops the car, and numbs her pain.

Eli shoots the man Sydney resurrected in a field, then turns the gun on Sydney herself.

Victor and Sydney exhume Barry Lynch's grave and Sydney resurrects him to deliver a warning message to Eli.

Eli pushes his thesis professor down a staircase to conceal his EO secret, killing the man.

Victor kills Serena Clark inside the midnight confrontation building, severing her compulsion hold over the Merit police.

Eli stabs Victor in the chest and kills him, but is arrested when the police no longer see him as a hero.

Sydney and Mitch dig up Victor's freshly buried body and Sydney uses her power to bring him back to life.

Victor Vale and Eli Cardale begin as college roommates united by curiosity about ExtraOrdinary individuals with superhuman abilities. Their experiments to create EOs through near-death experiences succeed, but the process costs Victor everything—his freedom, his closest friend, and a decade of his life. Released from prison with a single-minded vendetta, Victor teams up with a young EO named Sydney Clark to track Eli down in the city of Merit. Eli has spent ten years murdering EOs under a self-imposed divine mission, using his ally Serena's compulsion power to manipulate the local police into protecting him. Victor and Eli's midnight confrontation ends with Victor's death and Eli's arrest, his own self-healing ability becoming the evidence that convicts him. Sydney resurrects Victor, offering both a second chance at life and a quiet, open-ended hope for what comes next.

The headline events of Victor and Eli's deadly rivalry.

Victor introduces Eli to Angie Knight at the campus cafeteria and privately resents having lost her to his friend.

Victor and Mitch decommission a prison security camera while preparing to break out of the facility.

Victor wakes in the hospital after his overdose and is ordered into 72 hours of psychiatric observation.

Victor studies the newspaper photo of Eli and realizes his former friend has not aged a single day.

Eli repeatedly carves up his own skin with a blade and watches the wounds seal shut, convinced God saved him for a purpose.

Victor texts Angie Knight a secret distress code and meets her to manipulate her into helping with his NDE plan.

Victor breaks out of the police holding cell and goes to confront Eli at their dormitory.

Sydney Clark and her sister Serena fall through cracking ice on a frozen lake and are both taken to hospital.

In the hospital, Sydney leans against a body on a stretcher and discovers it starts twitching, revealing her power.

Victor shows Sydney his bullet-wound scars and proposes they work together to stop Eli.

Victor and Sydney find an injured dog in an alley; Sydney resurrects it and they name it Dol.

Eli kills a blue-haired EO student on a college campus, and Barry Lynch holds up a bank while shouting Eli's name.

Sydney discovers her own profile in the police EO database, incorrectly listed among Eli's past victims.

Serena brings Detective Stell and other officers to meet Eli and charms them into treating him as a hero.

Eli shoots Mitch in a bar bathroom; Dominic uses his shadow-travel ability to spirit Mitch to safety.

Behind the central clash between Victor and Eli lies a web of events that set the conflict in motion and keep it running. Victor's jealousy over Eli's relationship with Angie Knight shadows their college years, while Eli's obsessive self-testing after becoming an EO deepens his dangerous religious conviction. Sydney Clark's accidental drowning in a frozen lake and her subsequent discovery of resurrection abilities draw her into Eli's crosshairs. Victor's prison break, his recognition of Eli's unchanged face in a newspaper photo, and his alliance with the wounded Sydney shift the story into its present-day pursuit. As Eli eliminates EOs from his secret hit list and Sydney finds her own name among the dead, the pieces fall into place for Victor's midnight challenge.

The supporting moments that shaped the path to midnight.

After class, Victor persistently interrogates Eli about his ExtraOrdinary thesis topic, pushing him toward real experimentation.

In their dorm, Eli spreads out a stack of EO research for Victor, his excitement barely concealed beneath the surface.

Victor wakes in the hospital convinced Eli called for help too early, deliberately sabotaging his near-death experience.

Eli's successful healing power makes Victor fear being reduced to a sidekick; he slips away into the night to plan another attempt.

At a college party, Victor lays out cocaine for a solo NDE attempt until Eli arrives and forces him to stop.

Victor stabs Eli in their dormitory room and cranks Eli's pain to its maximum level using his new power.

Eli shoots Victor three times in their dormitory room and walks away, leaving him to die.

Sydney tells Serena about her resurrection power; Serena's compulsion takes hold instantly and Sydney feels no desire to tell anyone else.

Victor discovers his pain-manipulation power has no effect on Barry Lynch, who was already an EO before being resurrected.

Eli and Serena unknowingly check into the same hotel as Victor; Eli spots Mitch in the lobby and memorizes his face.

Eli reads his professor's notes on Rebirth Syndrome, recognizes himself in the description, then destroys all the research.

Eli tracks Serena to a Halloween party intending to kill her but discovers her compulsion power and spares her life instead.

Victor kills a police officer working with Eli and has Sydney resurrect him to confirm Serena's compulsion power over the police.

On the night Eli became an EO, Eli admits he wants to be remembered forever and both men toast to cheating death.

Sydney discovers that Victor blacked out an entire book except for the two words 'for' and 'ever.'

Vicious turns on a series of pivotal revelations that reframe everything the characters—and the reader—thought they knew. Victor's fear of becoming Eli's sidekick drives his desperate second NDE attempt, while his suspicion that Eli sabotaged his first try poisons their friendship from within. The confrontation in their dorm room, where Victor stabs Eli and Eli shoots Victor in return, marks the true and violent end of their partnership. Serena's compulsion ability, exposed through Eli's helplessness at a Halloween party, becomes the linchpin of his crusade and ultimately the cause of his downfall. Quiet discoveries—Victor's effect on Barry Lynch's resurrection, the hidden meaning in a blacked-out book, and the truth about what Sydney's gift can and cannot do—add weight to the final reckoning.