Severed (26 page)
‘It’s OK,’ Jamieson said softly. ‘He knows.’
She glanced back at him and nodded. His hand closed over her own.
‘Evie?’ he said.
‘Yeah?’
He gave her a smile that faded almost instantly to nothing. ‘Good luck.’
Something wasn’t right. Something had changed – in the atmosphere, in him. Something had shifted, almost imperceptibly, but shifted nonetheless. Where he always felt her heartbeat like a murmur in his own chest, there was stillness. Yet he could still feel her, smell her faintly, her scent hanging in the air of the kitchen, on his skin.
He pushed past Flic and headed for the bedroom, his hearing tuned acutely. Flic was shouting something after him, trying to grab for him. Lucas shook her off, moving faster now, sensing something was definitely wrong.
He threw open the door to the bedroom. But Evie was there, sitting at the desk, facing away from him. She didn’t turn when he came in, though her hand stopped moving across the paper.
He walked towards her feeling the rush of relief speed through his body. The window was open and a stiff breeze was stirring the papers on the desk and making the loose photographs on the wall flap. Evie was still wearing his dark-grey V-neck sweater. It was too big and had fallen down over one shoulder revealing a narrow slat of pale collarbone, which he felt an overwhelming urge to slide his fingers along. He reached out his hand and felt her tense. Her skin felt warm to the touch.
‘You ready?’ he asked.
‘Um, give me another minute,’ Evie mumbled, still not looking up at him, her hand moving to cover the paper she was writing on.
Her heart was beating strangely, faster than normal. Lucas stepped back and looked around the room. Flic was hovering nervously in the door, clearly wanting them to leave. After half a minute he turned to Evie, anxiety getting the better of him. ‘Are you ready to go? I promise we’ll stop for sushi.’
Evie glanced up at him, looking confused. ‘Sushi?’
He frowned. ‘Did you finish your letter?’ he asked, moving in a flash to her side. He cast a glance down and caught a glimpse of the paper before Evie quickly flipped it over. It was covered in doodles.
‘Hey, you didn’t write anything,’ he said, reaching for the sheet of paper.
Evie leapt up from her seat. ‘I changed my mind,’ she said, brushing past him. ‘Let’s go.’ She took his hand and started pulling him towards the door. Her hand felt warmer than normal, but her touch was empty. There was no familiar jolt of heat jumping between them.
Lucas let her pull him into the hallway.
‘Wait,’ he said.
Evie hesitated, her eyes darting over her shoulder to Flic who was now standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘What?’ she asked nervously, avoiding his gaze.
‘Come here,’ he said with a soft smile. She let him pull her towards him, though he noted the reticence. He looked into her eyes, the familiar dark blue of them. She was far more wary than she normally was around him, skittish almost. He lifted his hand slowly and stroked back a strand of hair, pushing it behind her right ear and smiling. He felt Evie tense at his touch, a small and totally strange frown line forming between her eyes. He took hold of her wrists and squeezed tight.
‘Where’s Evie?’ he asked.
Evie pulled back, the look of surprise on her face quickly replaced by nervous indignation as her eyes flashed to Flic. ‘What are you talking about?’ she stuttered.
‘Wrong ear,’ he murmured. Shapeshifters were mirror images. Evie’s bad ear was her left one, not her right.
In the next instant he’d let go of one of her wrists and had brought his father’s blade to rest against the pale of her throat. A pale blue vein pulsed beneath the metal.
Evie’s skin suddenly exploded into a wall of shimmer. He heard Flic shouting, felt her hands beating uselessly against his arm trying to get him to release his hold. Evie’s wrist thickened in his grip and Jamieson appeared in her place. The blade pressed against his neck.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jamieson said through gritted teeth, his eyes nervously eyeing the thin blade.
‘Where is she?’ Lucas demanded, dropping the knife, but not letting Jamieson go.
‘It was her idea,’ Flic shouted, ‘not ours. Don’t blame him.’ She pulled Jamieson out of Lucas’s way, planting herself between them. Her arms were outstretched, one hand resting on Lucas’s chest, as if that could hold him back.
‘Where has she gone?’ Lucas asked, staring from one to another.
Flic and Jamieson glanced at each other. Neither of them spoke.
Lucas seized hold of Flic by the arm. ‘Has she gone to the way through?’ he demanded, shaking her. ‘Does she even know where it is? Tell me!’
Flic shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
He squeezed her arm.
‘Yes, I think so,’ Flic yelled. ‘She asked me to give her two hours alone with you and that …’ Flic stopped, biting her lip, shooting a look in Jamieson’s direction.
‘That what?’ Lucas shouted, shaking her harder.
‘Just said to tell you that she’s sorry,’ Flic sobbed. ‘And that this was the way it had to be. And she’s right!’ She lowered her voice, ‘This is the right thing to do. Don’t you see that? Lucas – she’s trying to save you.’
His hand fell to his side. ‘Flic, what have you done?’ he asked, his hand pressed to his side.
‘I haven’t done anything,’ she answered.
‘If anything happens to her because of this …’
‘It’s going to happen to her anyway,’ Flic yelled. ‘She was doing you a favour. Trying to let one of you have a chance.’
Lucas blinked at her.
A chance? A chance at what?
‘She asked me to give you this,’ Jamieson interrupted, holding something out to him.
Lucas saw at once what it was and reached out and took it slowly between his thumb and forefinger, staring at it, not quite believing. His heart, which had sunk into the depths of his stomach, was now caught in his throat.
He felt Flic’s hand on his shoulder and he shrugged it off, resting his arms against the wall instead and pressing his forehead against his folded hands.
‘It’s over,’ he heard Flic say.
He turned to face her.
‘It’s far from over,’ he whispered hoarsely.
Flic stared at him in confusion, shaking her head, and then, when she saw what he intended to do, her face fell. Lucas moved past her towards the door.
‘What kind of spell does she have over you?’ he heard Flic shout to his back.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully as he closed the door behind him.
Evie jumped three red lights, slowing down and hitting the brakes just before the fourth set. A police car rolled across the intersection and she noticed that her hands were shaking as they gripped the steering wheel. She was in the car that Lucas had stolen. She couldn’t afford to be pulled over for a traffic violation. That was how serial killers got caught. And she couldn’t afford to get arrested and sent to prison because she had somewhere to be right now. She laughed angrily. Waiting for a traffic light to change colour felt like an unjust and totally ridiculous use of the short amount of time she had left.
The light blinked to green and she floored the accelerator, her stomach kangaroo-jumping into her mouth. Her eyes flashed to the clock. It was nearly eight am. She wondered if her mum had made it home yet and got the answerphone message she’d left – garbled but she hoped not totally incoherent. If all went according to plan, her mum would be shortly on her way to a gas station in the furthest corner of New Mexico. She hated lying to her mum but it would get her out of Riverview for at the very least twenty-four hours while all this went down. She tried to picture her mum in Joe’s green pickup; the two of them speeding across the state on a rescue mission. Her mum would no doubt be tearing her hair out and Joe would be providing steady-voiced reassurance and calm. It was a good thing – her mum and Joe. Her mum would have someone to look after her when she finally got the news. She wouldn’t be completely alone. That note was actually the one good thing she’d discovered by going home. The stuff about the prophecy – not so good.
She flew through another red light without seeing it, almost rear-ending the car in front. She ignored the cacophony of honking horns and swung the car left, navigating the narrow roads around the warehouse district until she pulled up outside Cyrus’s building. The double doors to the parking bay were open and she swung in, leaving tyre marks across the concrete floor.
Her foot hit the brake as someone threw himself out of the way of her screeching wheels. Cyrus took a moment to lower the crossbow he was holding. He strode towards her as she climbed out of the car, his eyes scanning over her shoulder.
‘Where’s your shadow?’ he asked gruffly.
She stared at him, unable to answer.
‘What are you doing here?’ Cyrus asked, a furrow appearing between his eyes, his tone changing. She didn’t answer. He sucked in a breath and nodded in understanding. ‘Does he know?’ he asked.
Evie shook her head, swallowing to clear her throat. ‘No. But he will soon, so we need to go now. That’s why I came. I need your help. I can’t do this alone.’
‘That’s why you came back here?’
‘Why try to fight the inevitable, right?’ she answered, her voice shaking. ‘I guess I just got tired of running. We can’t let that army come through – too many people would die. One life versus many.’ She shrugged, amazed at her nonchalance.
Cyrus pressed his lips together as if holding back a response. Eventually his eyes slid from her face and came to rest on something behind her.
‘Why are you driving my mum’s car?’ he asked.
Evie turned and looked over her shoulder at the BMW. ‘It’s your mum’s?’
‘Yes.’ He laughed under his breath.
‘Lucas must have taken it outside the bookshop,’ Evie said, looking over Cyrus’s shoulder and noticing the red pickup truck behind him. ‘But you stole mine, so I guess we’re quits.’
‘Your boyfriend slashed my tyres. You left us with little option other than trying to hitch our way in the middle of the night from nowhere, in the middle of Hicksville.’
Evie smiled despite herself.
‘It’s a piece of junk. You know that, right?’ Cyrus said, slapping the side of her pickup.
‘Well, you can keep that piece of junk if you want,’ she answered. ‘I’m not going to be needing it.’
He caught her eye and for a second held her gaze. She broke away first, clearing her throat. ‘What happened to Victor?’ she asked. ‘He’s not here, is he?’ She wasn’t sure she could deal with that.
‘Oh no, we left him,’ Cyrus answered tersely.
Evie’s head flew up. ‘You didn’t kill him?’
‘Didn’t have a chance,’ Cyrus answered. ‘For a big man with an injury, he can move fast. I tried to follow him but my mum was freaking out. She wanted to get back here and pack our bags. She has some idea that we should run and hide.’
‘Maybe you should,’ Evie said.
‘You’ll never get into the Bradbury building on your own,’ Cyrus said, not looking at her, but sorting through the weapons in the back of her pickup. ‘You need us. That’s why you came here anyway, isn’t it? Vero and Ash are upstairs getting ready.’
‘What were you planning on doing? Trying to hold off an entire army just the three of you?’
‘Something like that,’ Cyrus answered, grinning at her.
Evie shook her head in wonder at his staggering yet mildly impressive arrogance.
‘OK, come on, let’s get you prepared,’ Cyrus said, walking past her, his shoulder banging hers. ‘You’re going to need to be armed. Remember the protection we spoke about,’ he added, looking at her as he reached for the elevator grille, ‘the unhumans that guard the Gateway?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s been doubled. The first wave of that army is already through.’
Evie stalled, feeling her heart dive to the bottom of her chest. ‘For real?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Cyrus answered, ushering her inside the elevator and pulling the grille shut behind them. ‘Fifty-odd Thirsters, a handful of Scorpio and about twenty Mixen. We did a drive-by on the way back here to see what activity was coming through.’
Evie felt a new hit of adrenaline burn her stomach. How were they going to get though this?
‘We took down twelve altogether,’ Cyrus continued. ‘Mainly Scorpio, some Thirsters and a couple of Mixen. That was just before sunrise – the rest will come through after dark.’
The elevator started to sway. For a moment Evie felt as if they were plummeting to the ground and were about to smash in a twisted heap of limbs and metal, but then she realised the elevator had just jolted to a stop.
‘We have to move now,’ Cyrus was saying, ‘before nightfall, before even more come through and there are too many for us to fight.’
‘How is this possible?’ Evie asked.
‘You’re still asking that question?’ Cyrus asked, looking at her sideways.
Evie’s fingers clutched at the grille in front of her. She could feel Cyrus’s eyes on her. His arm was stretched across her as if he was protecting her from something – or holding something back. Then she realised he was only reaching for the grille to pull it open. The owl on his inner arm was visible, peering at her, with eyes as all-seeing as a Sybll. A shiver travelled up her spine and she pressed her hand suddenly against Cyrus’s arm, obliterating the tattoo with her palm.
Cyrus threw the elevator door back with a crash. He stepped out into the loft, ushering Evie in front of him. Margaret was standing beside the punchbag. When she saw Evie her mouth fell open. Then, faster than Evie could believe possible, the woman had crossed the space between them and was lunging for her.
‘She’s here? Oh my God. Don’t let her get away again! Quick!’ she yelled.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Evie said tersely, jerking away from Margaret’s outstretched hands. Her gaze swept the loft. She noticed Vero and Ash sorting through a pile of weapons in the centre of the room, though they had both stopped what they were doing to stare at her in heavy-lidded silence.
