Shadowed (Fated) (35 page)

With a final effort, he brought the blade up high,
blocking out the guzzling sound, and then, feeling teeth gnash with abandon
against nerve and bone he slashed the blade down as hard as he could.

The girl let out a gasp as the blade slid through
her spinal cord, not even snagging on the nerves bundled inside. Before she
could collapse down on him Cyrus rolled, freeing himself.

He climbed to his feet, swaying wildly, his mangled
arm dangling uselessly at his side, and scanned the garden, trying to spot
Evie, panic and adrenaline and blood loss making the lawn tilt vertical.

He kept turning in frantic, unsteady circles, the
others only vaguely registering on his consciousness, the grunts and yells and
cries drowned out by his own silent screams, and then he saw her – on her
knees, by Vero’s side. She had the crossbow on her shoulder and was trying frantically
to load an arrow, while an Original strode towards them.

Evie had shot the blonde Original that came at her. The bullet had hit
its eye, temporarily blinding it, giving enough time for Selena to get close
and douse it with flames.

In the heat and rush and chaos that had erupted
she’d not seen what had happened to Ash. All she’d registered was that Vero was
struggling to her feet, trying to drag the crossbow up to her wounded shoulder
and an Original was stalking her way. Evie had dived towards Vero and snatched
the crossbow from her hands. But it wouldn’t load. She couldn’t fit the arrow.

Finally, she managed to slot the damn thing into
the groove. She hit the trigger in the same second. The arrow went wide,
nicking the Original in the arm, making him pause just briefly to examine the
wound with a slightly curious expression.

Evie flung the crossbow to her feet, stepped in
front of Vero and drew her blade but before she could even bring it up to chest
height the Original crumpled right in front of where they were standing. Evie
looked around, her heart hammering. Who had finished him off? In the next
instant the body exploded as Selena trained the flamethrower at him. Evie threw
herself backwards out of the way of the flames.

She tried to scan the scene in front of her but she
couldn’t make anything out – everything was moving too fast, flames
licking the ground in front of her, and the roar of the flamethrower and the
screams of the others filling her ears.

Jamieson had appeared suddenly by Vero’s side, was
helping her to stand.

‘Get out of here!’ Evie yelled at them.

Through the flames and the black smoke, she saw
Cyrus. He had blood pouring in rivers down his arm and was swaying, veering
towards her at a run.

Just behind him she caught sight of Flic, barely
visible, a dark shadow, haloed by light, feinting and thrusting with her blade,
blue sparks showering down over her. She was fighting one of the two Originals
left guarding the gateway. Ash was fighting the other. Evie started sprinting
towards them, snatching the crossbow from the ground as she went.

She raised it to her shoulder as she ran, took aim
and let an arrow fly. It tore through the neck of the Original fighting Flic.
She watched Flic expertly slice through the flap of skin still keeping the head
attached to the body, even as she kept running, swerving towards Ash who had
been forced almost back against the perimeter wall. Evie was almost by his side
when she came to a slamming stop, her feet kicking up turf.

Through the thick black smoke she saw him.

She saw Lucas.

He was only a trace. An outline against the flames,
no more, and a part of her brain knew it couldn’t really be him, that it had to
be a figment of her imagination. But it was enough to make her pause, to make
all the noise and the panic drop away, as though she’d just plunged off a cliff
and was freefalling through space.

It
was
Lucas. No one else moved like that. So fluidly, so full of grace. And she could
feel him, could sense him now, her stomach tightening and her heart rate
upping, her blood fizzing and bubbling as though magnetised.

And then he turned and looked straight at her. She
noticed every single detail of him in that one second – the streak of
dirt across his cheek, the scratch above his eye, the shirt he was wearing, the
thinness of his face.

He was staring at her fiercely, his shoulders
heaving up and down, sweat running down his face. And she couldn’t move. She
was frozen to the spot. The air exploded out of her lungs in one big rush.

He was here. He was alive.

Lucas had taken out the girl opposite Evie first. An easy kill, one
that had made him believe that they could win. Evie had shot her through the
eye and he’d finished her off with a stabbing thrust through the back of the
ribs that pierced her heart. The lighter was in his other hand. She’d been a
ball of flames before the new Hunter with the flamethrower had even started
smoking up the place.

Distracted by that, he’d lost sight of Evie for a
split second, had whipped around just in time to see her, crouched beside Vero,
firing an arrow at the Original advancing on them. It flew wide, hit him in the
arm, only slowing him for a second. Lucas had reached him just as he closed in
on Evie and had finished him off with a blade across the back of his neck, severing
his spinal cord.

He’d meant to stay close to her and Vero after
that, but the sound of Flic screaming had forced him back into the fight.
Through a blanket of smoke he had caught sight of her weaving and darting out
of the way as an Original came at her – fangs bared. Lucas sprinted
towards her, leaping rivers of flame and scorched ground, ducking beneath Ash’s
flying sword, sliding onto his knees and drawing his blade across the
Original’s hamstrings, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Before he could finish him off an arrow went
slashing past his head, just an inch from his ear, and drove straight through
the Original’s neck.

Flic’s eyes fell on Lucas and she grinned at him
before she finished it off with a final blade thrust through the neck. Then she
turned and ran towards Ash, blade raised, screaming death. Lucas spun at the
same time, searching for Evie.

His eyes fell on her instantly. She was standing
frozen in the middle of the lawn, flames leaping around her and smoke billowing
in curtains. She was staring at him as though she was seeing a dead person
rising from the grave – her face alabaster pale, her lips parted, his
name brushing the edge of them. The noise of the battle faded, time seemed to
slow to microseconds, whole lifetimes lived in the space between them.

Flic’s scream pierced through it all, shattering
the stillness and bringing the world stampeding back in. Lucas spun around. Flic
had fallen – was lying on the ground – and an Original was kneeling
over her, about to tear her throat out.

With a roar Lucas brought his blade up and charged
towards them.

It came out of nowhere – a hard punch to the stomach that
blasted Evie off her feet. She slammed into the ground, the crossbow flying out
of her hands. She clutched her abdomen, feeling fire, trying to suck in a
breath through the flames. Gritting her teeth she tried to pull her blade free
but she was lying on top of it and before she could roll or get her breath back
a hand fisted in her hair and she was being dragged across the ground.

She grunted, her fingernails snagging in the dirt,
her mouth filling with grass and soil. Her eyes were watering so badly she
couldn’t see. She was suddenly yanked to standing and it was only then she
realised it wasn’t an Original who had hold of her. It was Victor. His arm was
wrapped around her neck, cutting off her screams, choking her airway.

Her eyes flashed wildly but the others were just a
vague blur in the distance, shrouded by smoke. Her gurgled cries were muted by
the roar of the flamethrower as Victor pulled her the last few metres towards
the gateway, left unguarded as the others fought.

She should have killed him when she had the chance.
That was the only thought she could muster. She’d known Victor would try
something and yet she hadn’t quite believed he would. And she didn’t even know
yet if Lucas was real. A blistering rage took hold of her. No. No way. She
wasn’t ready. She wasn’t going to do this. Not against her will and not like
this, with everyone fighting around her, possibly even dying.

She twisted, breaking Victor’s grip, feeling a
chunk of hair rip clean out of her scalp.

Victor swore and lunged at her. She dodged him, and
landed a punch to his jaw which did nothing to stop him. He kept coming at her.
She saw a blur at the edge of her vision and realised too late it was his foot.

The kick spun her 180 degrees. A second punch to
her back sent her sprawling. The light was suddenly in her face, blinding her,
rushing up at her. She was falling into the gateway, could feel the sparks of
heat licking at her face.

Her arm practically tore out of its socket as she
jerked to a stop. She opened her eyes slowly, squinting against the brightness.
She was hanging suspended, leaning towards the gateway, the side of her face
burning from the electric heat of it. Someone had her by the wrist, was pulling
her upright.

The ground was tilting. And then she was standing.
And Lucas was in front of her. And there was a dark shape on the ground behind
him that had to be Victor, but she wasn’t even capable of figuring it all out.
It was all she could do to just focus on what was in front of her.

It wasn’t possible. She blinked again. How could he
be real?

But she could feel his hand, warm against the
underside of her wrist. She could see the thin scar running across his temple
and the strikes of amber gold at the edge of his irises. He looked more worn,
tired; his hair was longer, his face harder somehow, but it was Lucas. The
electric current she was feeling, the way her heart had started flying in her
ribcage, batting to escape, was enough to convince her that what was in front
of her, standing there, holding onto her, was not some figment of her
imagination. He was real.

‘Lucas,’ she managed to say his name, her voice
cracking.

‘Watch out!’

Lucas spun around, pulling her behind his back,
shielding her. Victor was on his feet, was standing in front of him, a gun in
his hand. The air stilled around them, thickened like tar. A scream filled
Evie’s head.

When the shot came it tore through the stillness,
shattering it like an earthquake. The ground shook, the noise of the impact
echoing through every cell in Evie’s body.

Her knees went out from under her. She clutched at
Lucas with deadened fingers, a sob welling in her chest as she grabbed his
shoulders to keep him from falling – to stop him from fading. Not again.
Please not again.

But he didn’t fade. He didn’t fall. He stayed solid
beneath her fingertips. She drew a breath – so sharp it hurt, aware only
of the tightening grip of Lucas’s hands on her own as he unlatched her fingers
from his shoulders and pulled her around to his side.

It was only then, when she saw Victor lying on the
ground before them, that her brain put together the jumbled pieces. Lucas
wasn’t hurt. Neither of them had been shot. She stared in shock at Victor’s
body for several seconds.

His limbs were splayed and his mouth was gaping
open. He was staring up at the sky, a trickle of blood oozing lazily down his
face. A smooth round hole was stamped like indelible ink on his right cheek.

Evie raised her eyes to the person standing over
him. Selena was contemplating the body with a satisfied expression. In her
hands she held a shiny semi-automatic. The flamethrower lay discarded at her
feet. She reholstered the gun, then turned to Evie.

‘Guess Victor was wrong about bullets and guns,’ she
said with a smirk. ‘Aren’t you going to at least thank me for saving your
chicken ass?’

Evie could only stare at her in shock.

‘The guy was loco,’ Selena said with a dismissive
shrug, ‘and that’s what we do with crazies where I come from.’ She threw an arm
wide, gesturing at the smoking lawn. ‘We’re all done here. Seven dead
Originals. One dead psychopath.’

Evie glanced around, seeing the smoking heaps on
the lawn and hearing the whoops from Flic and the others, but not really
noticing them. She turned back to Lucas who was still standing opposite her,
staring at her, waiting.

For half a minute she just stood there, staring,
then she threw herself against him, running her hands desperately over his
chest, pressing against his neck, feeling the smoothness of his jaw, her
fingers tracing the curve of his lips. Her hands were in a hurry to slide under
his T-shirt, feel the warmth of him, press against his heart, feel the beat, know
with absolute certainty that he was alive.

But then she drew back, realisation slowly dawning.
He wasn’t smiling. His hands were hanging loosely at his sides, one still
gripping his shadow blade. And his eyes – that was the worst of it –
they were flat and cold and a million miles distant from here, staring right
through her.