Shadowed (Fated) (3 page)

Evie placed her fork down carefully by the side of
her plate.

‘I mean, what was that man thinking? Designer
dresses in a place like Riverview? Those price tags! And they’re all still
sitting in there, hanging on the rails. I had a look through the window the
other day. He just cleared off out of town without so much as a day’s notice.
What was his name again? Victor. Here one day, gone the next. If you ask me,
there was always something very suspicious about him.’ She lowered her voice,
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all a front for some kind of
money-laundering operation.’

Evie looked down at the tabletop, her fingers
digging sharply into her thighs. She knew her mother was angling, trying to get
her to talk. The co-incidence of Victor disappearing from town on the exact
same night that Evie had run off with Lucas had had the whole town buzzing with
the scandal, rumours flying around like migrating birds. To her credit, her
mother hadn’t mentioned a word of it to her face, but Evie’s hearing was good
– better than good, it was supersonic these days – and she’d
overheard people talking at school as well as on the street. There were some
pretty good stories going around. According to a woman she’d overheard in the
drugstore, Evie (referred to only as
that
Tremain girl
) had stolen all the cash from the boutique and then gone on
the run with the good-looking boy who worked on Janet Del Rey’s ranch.

She’d also heard Kaitlyn Rivers whispering to
someone in the cafeteria line at school, saying that she (referred to this time
as
that skank
) and Victor had been
having an affair and that Lucas had walked in on them, so they’d done away with
him and buried his body in the woods. Unfortunately Evie had only managed to
fuel that last rumour by slamming Kaitlyn against the wall and daring her to
say it one more time to her face.

‘So, what do you think?’

‘Huh?’ Evie looked up, startled.

Her mother shook her head in exasperation. ‘I was
asking about Joe’s offer to give you your old job back. I don’t want you to feel
like you need to work. Now Mrs Lewington’s back lodging with us and the
insurance company have finally paid out we’re doing fine, and this year is your
senior year. But it might be good for you – you know, to be out there,
meeting people, seeing your friends again …’

‘I don’t know,’ Evie mumbled into her potatoes.

Her mother frowned, then decided to drop it. She
got up from the table and walked to the fridge. ‘Oh, I bumped into Jocelyn
today by the way,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘She was asking about you.’

Evie paused with a forkful of peas halfway to her
mouth. ‘Really?’ she asked, wondering what on earth Jocelyn was still doing in
town. There was no reason for her to still be in Riverview. Evie didn’t need
protection anymore. She was trained. She had her full Hunter powers now that
she’d killed her first unhuman. Not that any of that mattered because there
weren’t any more monsters to kill. But beyond all that, she thought she’d made
it pretty damn clear to Jocelyn just how much she disliked her. Jocelyn had
lied to her all along – she had known that Victor had murdered her
biological parents and had said nothing. And rather than protecting Evie as she
had sworn to do, she had let Victor use her.

Evie stood up suddenly, pushing her plate aside.
She needed to get out, breathe fresh air. Being scrutinised all the time, like
she was a bug on a Petri dish, was more than she could bear.

‘Where are you going?’ her mother asked, looking up
at her in surprise.

‘For a walk,’ Evie mumbled, heading for the back
door.

‘But you’ve hardly touched your dinner,’ her mother
said to her back.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Evie answered.

Her mother called something after her but Evie
didn’t hear it, or rather she chose not to. She promised herself that when this
was all over she would find a way to apologise for everything, but until then
she just couldn’t find the words.

She opened the door and walked out onto the
veranda, feeling the instant relief that being outside and away from people
brought her.

The orchard was growing murky, the trees dissolving
into darkness and shadows. The moon was a pixelated blur sliding in and out of
black clouds. She sniffed the air and waited for her senses to kick in and
adjust to the onslaught of new sounds and smells. Her heartbeat slowed as soon
as she’d verified there were no other creatures besides Lobo lurking out there
in the dark. There were no more monsters, she reminded herself. She didn’t need
to be constantly scanning her surroundings trying to sense unhumans.

She crunched through the leaves in the orchard,
hearing Lobo howling behind her as she stretched the distance between them. She
missed it, though, she realised as she reached the road. She missed feeling
him. That sense of heightened awareness whenever an unhuman was around was something
she had never thought she would miss. Not that she wanted to be surrounded ever
again by Thirsters and Mixen and Scorpio, just that she associated the feeling
unhumans evoked – the sweaty palms, racing heart and whoosh of adrenaline
– with Lucas. Being half Shadow Warrior he’d managed to confuse her
senses so that the danger signs, which should have kept her alive, had become
synonymous in her mind with him and with safety. And, yes, that had almost
killed her. But now she missed it. She missed Lucas more than she thought it
possible to miss anyone, so much that she thought she might die from it. And
not in any melodramatic way, but because sometimes she actually couldn’t
breathe; sometimes she woke up choking down air, dots dancing in front of her eyes,
as if her lungs had decided of their own accord to shut down while she slept.

Of course, that could also be to do with the number
of sleeping pills she was popping.

She broke through into the tree line on the other
side of the road and started jogging. She didn’t understand. She would never
understand why fate had brought her down the path it had. Why it had so
entwined her path with Lucas’s, only to wrench them apart just at the point
they’d reached their destination.

But maybe that was why. They had reached the
destination. Maybe the point was the journey.

Either way it wasn’t fair.

She swore at herself. As if she hadn’t learnt that
lesson about life already.

Evie stood on Jocelyn’s veranda staring at the door. She didn’t bother
knocking. She didn’t need to. She knew that Jocelyn – being a Hunter
– would have sensed her from half a mile away. And even as she stood
there hesitating, she could hear footsteps, slow and heavy, heading her way.

The door fell open. Jocelyn stood there, her face
rumpled and her clothing creased, as if she’d just been startled awake from a
nap.

She stared at Evie for a beat and then nodded, as
though she’d been expecting her for a while.

Evie felt her nostrils flare in response. She sunk
her heels into the veranda to stop herself from swinging around and leaving.

‘Do you want to come in?’ Jocelyn asked her.

Evie didn’t. But now she’d come this far she
figured she might as well. She edged past the older woman, feeling a familiar
jolt, a buzzing in her sternum as if an invisible cord connected them.

It was a connection she wished she could sever. It
made her jumpy. She hadn’t felt that jolt in a while now. Not since that day at
the Bradbury building when everything had ended. That had been the last time
she’d been around any Hunters. Because that’s what it was – that buzzing
feeling – it was what all Hunters felt around each other. Cyrus had
called it chemistry, had claimed it was part of an undeniable attraction she
and he had for one another. She’d told him that all he was feeling were the
tidal waves of irritation bouncing off her.

‘Would you like a drink of something?’ Jocelyn
asked.

‘Um, no, thank you,’ Evie answered, surprised by
how cold and official her voice sounded – like a cop come to deliver bad
news.

‘Are you sure?’ Jocelyn asked. She seemed nervous,
jittery almost, her hands refusing to settle in one place and her voice
ratcheted several notches too high. ‘I can make some fresh coffee. Or something
to eat? You look like you could use something to warm you up.’

Evie realised only then that her hair was plastered
to her skull and a cold trickle of water was worming its way down her spine.
How had she not noticed that it had been raining? Her clothes were stuck to her
body and her hands were chilled to the bone, the tips of her fingers red and
numb.

‘I didn’t come here for tea,’ Evie answered,
ignoring the chill and hoping the coldness of her body carried all the way to
her eyes. ‘I came here for information.’

Jocelyn pursed her lips and then, after a beat, nodded.
‘Let me at least get you something to dry your hair with,’ she said, moving
quickly past Evie to a closet at the end of the hallway. She pulled out a small
towel and handed it to her.

Evie took it reluctantly and started absently
patting the ends of her hair. When she was done Jocelyn led the way into the
front room.

Two overstuffed sofas covered in knitted blankets
took up most of the space. Paintings of what appeared to be foreign landscapes
hung on the walls. Books filled the bookcases, but the mantelpiece was bare.
There were no photographs on display anywhere. Jocelyn had no family, a choice
she’d made which had once seemed tragic to Evie and which now seemed damn
sensible.

‘Why are you still here?’ Evie asked, rounding
suddenly on Jocelyn. ‘I don’t need protecting anymore. There’s no reason for
you to stay in Riverview.’

Jocelyn seemed taken aback by the question. She
took a while to compose herself, staring at her hands, which were now clasped
in her lap. ‘You’re still my responsibility,’ she finally answered, looking up.

Evie rolled her eyes. ‘Oh please.’

‘Your parents …’ Jocelyn began.

‘Again, oh please,’ Evie shouted, cutting her off.
‘You betrayed them. Don’t you dare talk about them.’

‘I didn’t betray them,’ Jocelyn burst out, anger
sparking like flint and flaming across her face.

Evie grimaced. ‘Well, why didn’t you stop Victor
from killing them then? You said they were your friends.’

Jocelyn took a deep breath. ‘Evie, you of all
people should know that we can’t always protect the people we love. That
sometimes, despite our best efforts, we fail.’

Evie’s legs actually went from under her. One
moment she’d been standing in front of Jocelyn and the next she was sitting on
the sofa, staring at her knees, the room spinning wildly.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Jocelyn said, pulling a
blanket from off the back of the sofa and draping it over Evie’s shoulders.

‘If you knew what Victor had done,’ Evie whispered,
gripping hold of the sofa arm, ‘how could you let him take me when I was a
baby, how could you let him come back and train me to be a Hunter?’

Jocelyn drew back. ‘Evie, please,’ she said. ‘I
asked you once to try to understand. I’m asking you again. I was barely
twenty-two. I’d seen what Victor was capable of. I was terrified of him.’

‘And you also wanted the way through closed,’ Evie
reminded her.

Jocelyn shrugged, her chin lifting. ‘Yes. I’m not
going to lie. I wanted the way through to close. We all did! The realms needed
to be severed – unhumans don’t belong in this realm. But believe me when
I say I had no idea that it would involve you getting hurt. If I had known
about the prophecy – if I had understood what it meant – I would
never have let Victor near you, I swear.’

‘You let him get away though. When Lucas and I left
him tied up in his store, you let him escape.’

‘No,’ Jocelyn interrupted. ‘He was already gone by
the time I got there. I had to take care of Risper’s body before it could be
found.’

Evie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the
image that arose of Risper lying in bloodied, scattered pieces across the
alley. It didn’t make a jot of difference though. She could see it with her
eyes open and with them shut.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jocelyn finally said. ‘I’m sorry for
my part. For making you believe that the White Light was you. I thought it was
true. And I’m sorry about Lucas – I know what he meant to you. And I know
…’

Evie shot Jocelyn a look so fierce that she fell
instantly silent. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Jocelyn
finally worked up the courage to speak again. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘that he
loved you and that he wanted this.’

‘Oh really?’ Evie shouted, leaping up from the
sofa, unsteady on her feet. ‘He wanted this, did he? He wanted to be
dead
?’

Jocelyn winced as if Evie had kicked her. ‘No,’ she
said quietly. ‘But he wanted
you
to
live. And he was prepared to die for that.’

Evie’s shoulders collapsed. Her vision blurred and
she whipped around so that Jocelyn wouldn’t see the tears that were threatening
to spill.

For an instant it was as if she could feel Lucas’s
fingers biting into the flesh of her arms, holding her tight, trying to shake
some strength back into her. She shuddered away the thought.