Shadowed (Fated) (14 page)

‘Like what?’ he asked.

‘Like the way you smile,’ she said turning to him,
‘and the way you walk.’
And the way you
look at me like I’m some kind of prize
, she added silently. Though the old
Cyrus had looked at her as some kind of prize to conquer, or a steak he
wouldn’t mind grilling and eating, and now he looked at her as if he couldn’t
figure out if she was the loser’s prize or not. ‘And you still know how to
fight,’ she added because he was still watching her, expectantly.

He didn’t speak for a while, his brow furrowed.
Then he said, ‘You miss him.’

‘I’m sorry?’ she asked, thrown by the question.

‘Lucas,’ Cyrus said. ‘Vero and Ash told me about
him. About what happened. I’m sorry.’

She had to look away. She chose a spot on the far
wall and focused on it, trying to breathe through the fizzing pain shooting
through her insides.

‘Did you love him?’ Cyrus asked.

Evie bit her tongue, fighting her instinct to lash
out at him, reminding herself that it wasn’t the old Cyrus asking. She’d
already had this conversation with him months back, had tried and quickly given
up explaining the concept of love to him – to someone who’s understanding
of love involved a one-night stand with a waitress whose name he couldn’t even
remember the morning after.

‘Yes,’ she said, the pain of loss taking another
savage bite out of her. ‘I loved him. I still love him. I’m never going to stop
loving him.’

She dropped her head into her hands and tried to
obliterate the image that had appeared in her mind’s eye of Lucas lying in her
lap, his hand tracing her lips and then falling away, vanishing forever.

She startled suddenly, feeling a hand come to rest
gently, almost tentatively, on her back. For a moment she tensed at Cyrus’s
touch. And then the loneliness and the emptiness got the better of her and she
dropped her head onto his shoulder.

‘It’s OK,’ Cyrus whispered, his lips grazing her
ear. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

Lucas was standing in front of her, bare chested, in jeans, staring at
her with smouldering grey eyes. Evie gasped.

He took a step forward and wrapped his arms around
her, pulling her hard against him, so that she could feel the flat of his
washboard stomach against her ribs. He was alive. He was real. And he was here!
She couldn’t begin to understand it but he was here. She closed her eyes and
felt the scorch as his lips touched hers and every thought in her head
evaporated. It didn’t matter why he was here.

His hand slid under her T-shirt, searing hot
against her stomach and his other hand traced up her back. Then he lifted her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and drew in a sharp breath as he started
kissing up the bare length of her neck. Her fingers started pulling at his
shirt, desperate to feel his skin against hers. His kisses grew more frantic,
sending shivers down her spine, and then all of a sudden he stopped, pulled
back.

Evie opened her eyes, ready to urge him on, and
found him staring at her, his expression solemn. ‘Wake up, Evie,’ he said, in a
voice layered with both sadness and urgency. ‘Wake up.’

Evie shot upright in bed, slamming her head into
the top bunk.

‘Ow!’ she yelled.

‘Wake up!’ someone hissed, pulling her by the hand,
dragging her from the bed.

She started to protest, to yell, but stopped
herself, realising that it was Cyrus who had woken her, who was now pulling her
towards the bedroom door.

‘What? What is it?’ she cried, already feeling the
surge of adrenaline pumping through her body.

‘They’re outside,’ Cyrus whispered, throwing a pair
of jeans at her.

‘Who’s outside?’ she asked, her head snapping up.

‘Them, those things … unhumans.’

Even before he said it Evie’s senses came screaming
to the fore and a bolt of nausea made her head spin. Her heart seemed to be hammering
a thousand beats a minute all of a sudden. Her hands started to shake as she
fumbled with her jeans, trying to button them. Cyrus had his back to her, was
waiting by the door.

‘Come on,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder.
‘Hurry!’

‘Where are the others?’ she asked as she knelt
quickly to pull on her shoes.

‘They’re grabbing whatever weapons they can.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Just gone midnight,’ Cyrus answered.

‘How did they find us?’ Evie asked, grabbing her
bag off the chair and strapping her blade to her waist.

‘We’ll figure that out later. Come on, out!’

Vero and Ash came sprinting from the other end of
the hallway, clutching several swords and the flamethrower.

‘They’re almost through!’ Ash yelled as they heard
an almighty crash coming from the direction of the elevator. It sounded like a
dozen people were trying to tear through the metal grille with their bare
hands.

‘They’re in the elevator?’ Evie asked. ‘How are we
going to get down?’

Cyrus pulled her towards the far end of the
corridor. ‘This way.’

Vero and Ash were right behind them as they tore
into the bathroom adjacent to Cyrus’s bedroom.

‘What are we doing in here?’ Evie yelled, spinning around
to Cyrus. ‘I hate to tell you, but hiding out in the bathroom isn’t going to
fool these things.’

Had he lost his mind? Yes, she remembered too late
that he had. Crap, and now they were going to die. She headed for the bathroom
cabinet – maybe they could make some weapons out of all the hair products
and a lighter. But Cyrus grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the
bath.

‘This way,’ he grunted, climbing on the rim of the
tub and pushing his palms against a skylight set in the roof above. The glass
flew open and Cyrus heaved himself quickly up and through the gap. A second
later, his head reappeared. He reached a hand down. ‘Move!’ he shouted to them.

Evie pushed Vero towards the bath. ‘Drop them,’ she
shouted as Vero glanced up at the window and then at the swords in her arms.

Cursing, Vero dropped the swords into the bath and
reached her hand towards Cyrus. He grabbed her by the forearm and hauled her
through the window.

‘Ash,’ Evie called as she stepped onto the edge of
the bath, ready to follow Vero, ‘get over here.’ He was standing guard by the
door, the flamethrower in his arms.

She felt Cyrus’s hands close around her wrists and
she swore through gritted teeth as the Mixen burn under her bandage caught
fire. From below she heard the sound of the elevator grille crashing open into
Cyrus’s apartment and footsteps thundering down the corridor towards the
bathroom.

Cyrus pulled her through the gap and she rolled,
scrambling to her feet as he bent for a final time to haul Ash through. They
were on the roof of the building. Evie sprinted over to Vero who was standing
on the edge and peered down at the alley running between the warehouse and the
building opposite. There were at least twenty Thirsters and what looked like
some Scorpio and Mixen on the ground, covering all the exits.

‘Are they Originals?’ Vero whispered.

‘I don’t know,’ Evie whispered back, pulling her
blade close. ‘I don’t think so, though.’ If they had been Originals then they
wouldn’t have taken so long to break through the elevator grille.

Cyrus appeared just then behind them. He slipped
his hand into Evie’s.

‘This way,’ he said.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Just trust me,’ Cyrus answered.

She glanced sideways at him. Was he grinning?

They reached the opposite edge and Evie’s stomach
plummeted the four floors to the ground below. She had been right. They were
surrounded and trapped. More Mixen and Scorpio paced the alley below them. She
glanced up at the sky. Unless Cyrus had a helicopter or a stealth jet hovering
overhead ready to rescue them they were screwed.

‘Take hold of this,’ Cyrus ordered, suddenly
thrusting something into her hands.

Evie barely had time to glance at it before he
shoved her hard in the back and she went flying forward off the roof. It took a
second of heart-stopping terror before she realised that she was attached to
some kind of zip line. She cut off the scream before it burst free, drew her
knees up to her chest as the opposite roof came hurtling towards her and braced
for the collision. She cleared the ledge and threw herself forward, scrambling
quickly to her knees. The other three were standing, silhouetted, on the far
roof. She grabbed hold of the handle bar contraption and with all her might
sent it whipping back along the line.

Vero was next, a small, dark shape that barrelled
towards Evie’s outstretched arms. Twenty seconds later Ash landed in a crouch
beside them, the flamethrower slung across his back.

‘Shit!’ Vero hissed.

Evie glanced up. Three unhumans now stood on the
roof opposite and more were climbing through the skylight. Cyrus had turned to
face them.

‘He’s not going to try and fight them, is he?’ Evie
asked nervously, as they began to edge towards him. That would be so like him,
to think he could handle that many on his own.

He looked like he might be considering it and Evie
was about to yell across at him to move his ass, when he grabbed hold of the
wire with his left hand and took a running leap off the roof, swinging his
blade over his head as he jumped.

They watched in horror as the zip line was severed
and Cyrus, clinging one handed to the end of it, smashed into the wall of the
building on their side. He braced himself, taking the hit against his forearm
and the side of his body. The Thirsters and Mixen below and on the opposite
roof started howling and yelling as Cyrus started climbing, scrambling up the
wire towards them.

Evie remembered all the ropes hanging in the loft
and how she’d once watched him shimmy up them like a spider monkey. Was that
what he’d been preparing for? This eventuality?

Cyrus heaved himself over the ledge, collapsing in
a heap and grinning up at them. Ash offered him a hand and he took it, jumping
to his feet.

‘There’s a part two to this escape plan, right?’
Evie asked, shouting to be heard over the screams from below.

Cyrus stared at her, his face paling. ‘Yeah, but
I’ve forgotten it,’ he said.

Panic started to claw at Evie’s throat. Great. The
amnesiac had got them this far, and now they were just as screwed.

‘Just kidding,’ Cyrus smirked, elbowing her in the
ribs. ‘I told you to trust me, didn’t I?’

She stared after him in irritation as he held the
door to the fire exit open for her. ‘After you,’ he grinned.

She brushed past him, glaring, and felt his hand
coming to rest in the small of her back as he followed her down the stairs,
urging her on. She upped her pace, leaping down the stairs three at a time behind
Vero and Ash.

At the bottom, Cyrus shouldered his way past them
and smashed through a heavy door into a garage. It was empty except for two
gleaming black and red motorbikes, parked facing a set of double doors.

‘What are these doing here?’ Vero asked, turning to
look at Cyrus in astonishment.

‘Waiting for an emergency like this one,’ Cyrus
murmured, running over to the furthest one. ‘I seem to remember I left the keys
in the ignitions.’

Vero straddled the one closer and jerked her head
at Ash. ‘Get on,’ she yelled.

‘You planned all this?’ Evie asked as Cyrus swung
his leg over the second bike.

‘Yeah. Not just a pretty face, huh?’ he said,
giving her an all-too-familiar grin and holding his hand out to help her on
behind him.

She grimaced at him, trying not to smile back. It
might encourage more of the old Cyrus to come out and she was getting to like
the new one – sort of. She settled behind him, careful not to press
herself too close, but his hand closed around hers anyway, pulling it around
his waist and pressing it there, hard against his stomach.

‘Ready?’ Cyrus called.

‘Ready,’ Ash answered, revving his engine, blowing
exhaust fumes all around them.

Cyrus hit a button on a remote and the garage doors
started to rise.

‘Hold on,’ Cyrus said over his shoulder as he
gunned the engine and they went tearing out of the warehouse.

Cyrus felt Evie grab on tighter as he accelerated down the alley. He
managed to cut between two Thirsters, ramming the back wheel into one and
bringing him down with a satisfyingly painful scream.

Evie let out a yell and he grabbed for her wrist,
thinking she was about to topple off the bike, but she was fine, clinging onto
him with both hands now, her face pressed against his shoulder blade. That
could be a dangerous distraction, he thought, as he gunned the bike through the
next alley, putting as much distance as he could between them and the small
army of unhumans chasing them.