Shadowed (Fated) (25 page)

Lucas
is dead
.

And she was still alive. That’s what the beeping
meant.

It couldn’t be him in the room, stroking her hair.
It had to be Cyrus. The Valium had made her foggy. She was seeing things,
confusing things. They must have let Cyrus back into the room. How much time
had passed?

‘Cyrus?’ she croaked.

Nothing. No answer. Just silence. A breeze, as if a
fan was blowing directly on her, and then she heard the sound of the door
clicking shut.

She turned her head, wincing at the stabbing pain
that shot up her neck.

The room was empty. The corridor outside was
blurred by opaque glass.

What had happened to the others? What about Flic
and Jamieson and the girl and RJ? What had happened to them? And to Victor?

Victor.
She remembered him standing there now.
In the garden. He’d saved her. He’d killed that Original. The only reason she was
alive was because of him. Her breathing was hiking, the mask was fogging up,
the machine by her head was beeping so loud she wanted to rip the wires out of
it and make it stop.

The door suddenly flew open. She twisted her head
to see. Victor was standing in the doorway. His black suit was stained with
dark blotches.

He stepped into the room and shut the door behind
him. Evie’s fingers fumbled along the edge of the bed, trying desperately to
locate the call button. She wished she could breathe freely; she wished she
could sit up.

She finally tugged her hand free, feeling the rip
of flesh as the IV in her wrist tore out. She snatched off the oxygen mask.

‘Get out,’ she hissed, falling back onto the
pillow.

‘I came to see if you were OK.’

‘I’m fine,’ she panted. ‘Now get out.’

Victor paused by the side of her bed, studying her.
Then he nodded. Why was he here? Why had he saved her? He knew that she was
only going to try to kill him as soon as she was on her feet again.

Victor stared at her for a few more seconds before
he turned and walked back to the door.

‘I don’t owe you,’ Evie called to his departing
back, hauling herself onto one elbow.

Victor turned slowly to face her. ‘I know.’

She fell backwards onto her pillow again,
struggling for breath. The room had started spinning. Suddenly he was standing
over her, looking down on her. He lifted her oxygen mask and placed it gently
over her mouth and she tried frantically to twist her head away, convinced that
he was trying to suffocate her.

He moved back away from the bed and her breathing
settled, though the machine was beeping fast enough to make her think she was
about to have a heart attack.

The door burst open again.

‘What the hell are you doing in here? Get out!’

It was Cyrus. He strode the two paces to the bed
and planted himself between her and Victor. ‘I said, get out,’ he repeated. ‘Or
you’re going to be the one needing the hospital bed and the transfusion. Do you
understand me?’

Victor stared at him for a few seconds, then turned
and strolled out of the door.

Cyrus spun to face her, his face pale but the
relief at seeing her awake clear in his expression.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, his voice soft all
of a sudden, his eyes searching her face.

Evie dragged the oxygen mask off. ‘Like I got
bitten by an Original and lost eight pints of blood.’

‘You did. I thought …’ His voice cracked and she
noticed his hands gripping the bed rail as though it was the only thing holding
him up. ‘I thought for a moment I’d lost you.’

Lost her? She hadn’t known that he’d ever
found
her.

‘Where are the others?’ she asked through cracked
lips.

Cyrus crossed to the table and poured her a glass
of water. He brought it back to her and, sliding one arm under her shoulders,
gently lifted her head so that he could tip the glass against her lips.

‘Flic and Jamieson are downstairs. We’re all trying
to avoid the cops.’

‘The cops?’ Evie spluttered, water splashing down
her chin.

Cyrus nodded at two dark shapes that had
materialised out of nowhere on the other side of the door. He laid her gently
back down on the pillow. ‘I snuck in. The doctors told me only relatives could
see you.’

‘Didn’t you tell them something about being my
boyfriend?’ she asked.

Cyrus looked away. ‘I, er, thought they might let
me stay with you if they thought we were, you know,
together
.’

‘You couldn’t have gone with brother? They might
have actually let you stay if you’d said that.’

He frowned at her, then shrugged.

Evie pushed herself suddenly up onto her elbows.
‘Get me out of here,’ she said.

‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Cyrus smiled and shook
his head ruefully.

‘There are cops outside the door. They’re going to
start asking questions soon, Cyrus. Won’t they have your prints from before?
You’re an escapee from a mental hospital.’

Cyrus frowned. ‘I’m not leaving you.’ But
simultaneously he seemed to be realising that he couldn’t stay either.

‘Then take me.’ She sat fully upright, trying not
to sway at the sight of the red IV bag hanging over her. ‘I’m feeling better.
They’ve put enough blood in me to tank up a dozen Thirsters.’ She swung her
legs off the side of the bed, noticing for the first time she was wearing only
an oversized hospital gown. Her legs were bare. In fact - she did a quick check
– she was completely naked beneath the gown, bar some fetching paper
underwear. Cyrus, she noticed, was staring openly at her legs.

‘I don’t want to stay in here,’ she said, pushing
herself off the bed and yanking a handful of wires off her chest. The machine
flatlined behind her. ‘They might come looking for me. I mean, I would, if I
were one of them. I’d come straight here and finish the job.’

Cyrus shook his head. ‘They won’t.’

She saw the uneasy way he swallowed though and
glanced at the door.

‘You don’t know that,’ she said. ‘Were there
others? How many did we kill?’

‘A few.’

She paused. ‘It’s too dangerous and I hate
hospitals. If you don’t take me I’m going to leave anyway.’

‘I’d like to see you try,’ Cyrus said, his eyebrows
raised, but she could see him glancing again between her and the door, as if
weighing the options.

‘I will,’ she said, staggering slightly against the
side of the bed as she started looking for her clothes. She could only find her
shoes, which had been stuffed in the locker beside her bed. She knelt to put
them on, feeling the ground rushing up to meet her.

Cyrus looked down at her. ‘OK, OK, I believe you.
Man, you’re stubborn. Give me two minutes, OK?’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to break you out of here.’ He pulled off
his sweater. It was V-necked, navy, cashmere-soft. ‘Here, put this on,’ he
said, throwing it at her.

‘What about your jeans?’ she asked, trying not to
smile. It hurt to use too many facial muscles.

‘They won’t fit,’ he answered, grinning. ‘Otherwise
they’d be off already. Chivalry, remember? That’s my thing.’

He was out of the door before she could say a word.

She watched his silhouette on the other side of the
glass. He seemed to be stopping to talk to the policemen. She held her breath,
praying he didn’t get himself arrested. But then the shadows melted and she heard
footsteps running off down the corridor. The door yanked open again and Cyrus
stuck his head around it, grinning.

‘Come on,’ he said, holding his hand out towards
her. ‘It’s clear.’

She pulled the sweater on over her hospital gown.
It barely reached the top of her thighs.

‘What did you tell them?’ she asked as Cyrus
wrapped his arm around her and started half-carrying her down the corridor.

‘Never mind,’ he whispered, pulling her closer.

She was going to be OK. Lucas shut his eyes and took a deep breath,
feeling the ache in his side expand and, instead of dissipating, spread
further, taking up residence somewhere even deeper inside him.

He opened his eyes, but he still couldn’t strike
the image of Evie lying there, whiter than the sheet they’d shrouded her in,
her neck torn open and bandaged up, blood seeping like red moss through the
gauze. She was criss-crossed with wires and IV tubes, an oxygen mask covering
her nose and mouth. She had looked dead. Only the beeping of the machine and
the wheeze of the oxygen pump had convinced him that she was actually alive.
And then she’d stirred, her eyes flying open as if she had sensed him in the
room.

But even though she’d stared right at him, she’d
looked right through him and hadn’t seen him.

For so long Evie had been right there, in the
forefront of his mind, a memory he’d fought with every ounce of strength to
hold on to and now – now that he’d actually come face to face with her
again, had touched her – she’d slipped from his grasp and was gone.

He’d feared it when he’d seen Cyrus gathering her
in his arms and running with her towards the street. He hadn’t seen the attack,
had been too busy fighting the one in the shorts, then making sure all of the
Originals were burning, he had only surmised what had happened from the wound
in her neck.

He’d seen the fear he himself was feeling –
the agonising wrench of it –written clear on Cyrus’s face. He’d followed
them all here to the hospital, had stood motionless in the corridor, frozen
with terror, as the doctors worked on her, trying to stem the blood flow. He’d
watched and urged Evie to live, though another man was holding her hand and
willing it too.

He’d heard Cyrus telling the doctor that he was
Evie’s boyfriend. But even then he might not have believed it. Even at that
point he’d been fighting the urge to slam Cyrus against the wall and force his
way to Evie’s side. But then, in her room, when he’d slipped inside, and his
fingers had traced up her cheek, stroked back her hair, she’d called his name.
Cyrus’s
name. And at that point he finally
recognised that he was too late.

For a second time he had failed her. For the second
time Cyrus had been the one to save her.

At first Lucas couldn’t believe that the Hunter was
alive. How was that even possible? He hadn’t been able to process it during the
fight – that the person fighting alongside Flic had been Cyrus, because
in his mind Cyrus had been dead. But now, here he was, back from the dead, very
much alive – and with Evie.

Of course he was. He’d always wanted her, as if she
was a possession he could own, another girl to add to his collection.

Lucas felt frozen cold all of a sudden, as if he
was lying back in the Shadowlands, out in the open, far from shelter. A harsh
laugh burst out of his chest. What had he expected? That he’d find a way back
– back to Evie – and that it would be just as it had been? And how
had that been exactly? It wasn’t like what they’d had was what you would term a
relationship
. He’d been sent to kill
her. They were sworn enemies. They’d never been on a date. They’d been running,
hiding, fighting. Hardly the kinds of memories to build a relationship on. Yet
the two hours they’d spent together, that afternoon that he couldn’t forget,
when she’d given herself to him completely and with such trust- when they’d
been able to miraculously shut out the whole world and everything in it just
through their touch and words alone, wasn’t easy to forget. He could spend a
lifetime trying to. But he knew that one act had sealed something in him
– his heart belonged to her. His soul too.

He stepped out of the harsh strip lights at the
hospital entrance, through the heated noise and chaos of ambulances and
paramedics. Was this why Issa had been so vague about Evie? Was this why she’d
tried to stop him coming through the gateway? Because she’d seen this? Because
she knew that Evie had moved on?

The blood ran cold in his veins. He needed to get
out of here. He started walking blindly but then he stopped, his feet frozen to
the sidewalk, his eyes fixed on the man who’d just exited through the sliding
doors opposite.

It took Lucas more than a few seconds to understand
that it really was Victor. That it wasn’t some mirage, that it was in fact the
very same man who’d killed his parents and tried and almost succeeded in
killing him.

Lucas was half-way across the street, striding to
meet him, his blade halfway out of its sheath, when two policemen came storming
out of the exit, grabbed hold of Victor by his arms and hauled him back onto
the sidewalk.

For a second time Lucas froze, this time in the
middle of the street. What were the cops arresting Victor for?

Evie. It had to be Evie. He’d done something to
her. What other reason would he be here for?

Lucas started running, flying past Victor and
bursting through the crowded emergency bay, pushing past trolleys and doctors
and bleeding patients strapped to gurneys. He was sprinting down the corridor
to the emergency stairs, his heart pounding in his throat, when the door flew
open ahead of him and Evie appeared.