Shadowed (Fated) (8 page)

Victor turned to her with an amused smile. ‘I’m
assuming this little break-in and sword-waving routine is your attempt at
killing me?’

Blood roared loud as thunder in Evie’s ears and the
edges of her vision blurred.

‘So are you going to get on with it?’ he asked in a
bored voice.

Evie clenched her hands around the hilt of the
sword and took a step forward. She wasn’t going to let him say another word.

‘This is for Lucas,’ she hissed. ‘And for my
parents.’ She’d rehearsed these lines so many times, wanting their names to be
the last thing Victor ever heard.

She brought the sword up over her head. This was
it. This was the moment she’d been dreaming of for months. It all came down to
this. Yet she couldn’t seem to gather the strength to swing.

‘Oh, Evie,’ Victor sighed impatiently. ‘You’re not
going to kill me,’ he said. ‘Firstly, you don’t have it in you. And secondly,
you need me.’

Evie’s sword arm wavered. ‘Why would we need you?’
she asked, incredulous.

‘I should think that would be obvious,’ Victor
answered with a smile, gesturing to the room behind them – the one with
the horror wallpaper adorning it. ‘We’re all trying to achieve the same goal.
If you’re planning on killing all the Originals out there before they destroy
this realm, then you need my help.’

‘We don’t need your help.’

It was Vero who’d spoken, snatching the words right
out of Evie’s mouth.

Victor smiled thinly at Vero. ‘What if I told you I
know where they live?’

‘I’d say,
Congratulations,
now tell us before I let Evie slice you into cocktail wiener-sized pieces
,’
Ash replied coolly, swinging the nunchuckers in his hand.

Evie noted the beads of sweat popping on Victor’s
temple. ‘Think about it,’ Victor blurted, a gratifying tremor entering his
voice. ‘There are only three of you. These are
Originals
– unlike anything you’ve ever dealt with before.’

‘Actually, I think you’ll find we dealt just fine,’
Ash answered, winking at Evie.

Victor’s eyes flashed wide in surprise. He hadn’t
known that Evie had killed one at the Bradbury and she felt a burst of triumph
as he did a quick double take, reassessing her in the light of this new
information.

Victor cleared his throat. ‘But against a dozen?’
he asked. ‘And all the other unhumans they’re gathering around them? I think
you’ll find you do need me.’

Evie had heard enough. She took a lightning fast
step towards him, switching the sword into her left hand at the last moment and
smashing her right fist into Victor’s jaw. She ignored the pain that burst
through her knuckles and slammed all the way up to her shoulder, and watched
Victor stagger backwards and topple into the coat stand. His gaze flew to the
umbrella stand containing the swords and he lunged for it, but in the same
instant Vero darted forward, kicking it out of his reach.

Evie felt a calm descend over her. The blood
rushing in her ears had dropped away, the adrenaline had crystallised inside
her, bringing a clarity of vision and focus. The sword felt like it was part of
her body, an extension of her arm – just like Victor had told her it
should. And if she wielded it with true intent …

Suddenly Victor moved, a knife flashed silver in
his palm as he dived straight at her. Evie spun sideways as the blade scythed
the air in front of her. She used the momentum to throw all her weight at
Victor, sending him slamming into the door. She followed it with a roundhouse
kick that sent the knife flying out of his hand.

Victor clutched his bruised fingers to his chest
and stared at her, breathing hard and fast, trying and failing to mask his fear.
Evie stepped towards him, her heart slamming into her ribs.

‘You asked me once,
didn’t I want revenge
?’ she said softly, breathing fast. ‘Well, can
you guess what the answer to that is now?’

She raised the sword once more. This time she was
going to do it. Victor shrank back further against the door, his eyes fixed on
the glistening edge of the blade.

Time slowed. Evie felt every pulse of blood
charging through her body, feeding the rush of adrenaline. She readied herself
for a final blow.

And then a hand circled her arm.

‘Evie,’ Ash murmured in her ear.

She whipped around.

Ash shook his head at her slowly, his fingers
tightening even more around her arm, trying to tug it down. ‘Victor’s right. We
do need him.’

Evie glared at Ash but he didn’t let go.

‘Evie, you deserve revenge,’ he said, ‘and I will
happily stand aside and let you have your revenge after this is over, but
only
after this is over. We have to
fight what’s out there first.’

Evie glanced at Victor as Ash spoke and saw the
relief wash across his face.

‘We can find them without him,’ she hissed through
her teeth at Ash.

‘Yes, probably,’ he admitted. ‘But Victor’s right,
we can’t fight them all by ourselves.’

Evie took a deep breath, her whole body shaking
with pent-up rage. Did Ash have a point? She thought of the map in the other
room and of the photographs of all those dismembered bodies. She thought of all
the people who were missing children or brothers and sisters, and she thought
of all the innocent people who would die if they didn’t stop this army of
unhumans from wreaking havoc on the city.

Finally she dropped her arm. The blade smacked
against her side, its tip scraping the ground. Ash studied her for a beat,
warily, before he released his grip.

Victor straightened up, lifting his chin, a smile
creeping across his lips.

‘Just know,’ Evie said to him, anger boiling in her
veins, though her voice stayed icy cold and steady, ‘that one day I am going to
stand and watch you die.’

‘You’re still living here?’ Evie asked, as Ash pulled into the parking
garage of a seemingly abandoned warehouse building.

‘Yes, for the time being,’ Ash answered. ‘We’ve got
nowhere else to go.’

Evie climbed out of the car, taking in the echoing
vault-like space. She half-expected to see Cyrus striding towards her, a sword
in his hand and a smirk plastered across his face, but only ominous silence met
them.

Cyrus’s playboy pad was exactly as it had been
eight weeks before. Evie glanced up at the ropes slung from the rafters and at
the punch bags dangling forlornly from the roof, tensed for an attack that was
never going to come. Her eyes tracked automatically to the weapons cabinet by
the door. Its doors were locked but she already knew what lay behind them. An
entire armoury – enough firepower and weapons to open a military museum.
And not a single one of them could subdue an Original.

The atmosphere was so tense between her and Ash
that not even the shadow blade Vero had stolen from Victor could have cut
through it. Evie avoided looking at them, instead crossing to the windows that
ran the whole length of the room. It felt strange being back here, in a place
so swimming with memories of both Cyrus and Lucas that Evie could feel their
presence thick as tar in the air. How did Vero and Ash stand it?

In the window ahead of her she saw Ash walking
towards her, tentatively, as though approaching a coiled cobra. He hovered
behind her shoulder and their eyes met in the glass, Evie’s gaze laser beamed,
Ash’s steady and even.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment.

Evie wheeled around, unable to contain her rage any
longer. ‘I once asked you how many unhumans you needed to kill before you’d
feel like you had your revenge.’

Ash frowned but his frown quickly gave way to
comprehension as he remembered the conversation she was talking about. He and
Evie had been sitting together in Cyrus’s car just before they had gone hunting
for the first time all together.

‘And you didn’t answer me,’ Evie continued. ‘But I
know exactly how many unhumans I need to kill to get mine.’ She paused just a
beat. ‘
None
.’

Ash’s frown deepened.

‘I don’t need to kill a single unhuman,’ Evie
growled. ‘I just need to kill
one human
.’

‘I understand,’ Ash nodded, ‘and, like I said, I
won’t stand in your way once this is over. I’ll even help you, if you want or
need my help when the time comes. And so will Vero. But right now we need him.’

Evie glowered at him but he held her gaze, unfazed.
Finally, he walked away, following Vero down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

Evie turned angrily back to the window. She could
see herself reflected in the glass as clearly as if she was standing in front
of a full-length mirror. It was the first time she’d seen herself in two months
and she looked like a vengeful ghost hanging outside in the cold night air. Her
skin was deathly pale and she looked gaunt. Her pupils were two bottomless
black pits. It was no surprise people in Riverview had been whispering that she
was a drug addict. She looked completely strung out.

Unable to stand looking at herself for a moment
longer she walked over to the sofa and dropped down onto it, feeling exhaustion
claim her. Her body felt as solid and unwieldy as a punchbag, her skull sealed
in concrete. She hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. Slowly, she hauled
her bag onto her lap and unzipped it, pulling out one of Lucas’s old T-shirts.
She brought it up to her cheek and then lay down, using it as a pillow, closing
her eyes and trying to breathe in the lingering scent of him.

The dream came swiftly, drawing her down, submerging
her. It was a dream she’d had before. She was at the bottom of the pond –
the one in the woods near her house – her limbs bound up with pondweed so
coffin-tight she quit struggling within seconds, knowing already what would
happen and deciding not to fight it. Ice-cold fingers of water plunged into her
ears and forced their way inside her mouth, caressing her eyelids and seeping
into her eye sockets. Her lungs were bursting – on fire from the inside.

‘Evie! Evie!’

She was being shaken, hard. Her eyes flashed open
and she spluttered, heaving in deep breaths of air, clutching at her throat
even as the tears streamed relentlessly down her cheeks. She rolled off the
sofa and tumbled onto her knees, pressing her head to the cool wood floor.

Suddenly she became aware of Vero’s hand on her
back, patting her shoulder blade. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘It sounded like you
were drowning or something, like you couldn’t breathe.’

Evie gripped the edge of the table. Her clothes
were drenched with sweat, her skin felt clammy.

‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled, wiping a hand across her
forehead. She glanced up at Vero, hoping to reassure her. The last thing she
needed was Vero seeing her like this.

Vero stared at her sceptically, her eyebrows almost
merging with her hairline.

‘It was just a bad dream,’ Evie told her, resting
her fingers against her ragged pulse, trying to bring it under control.

Vero continued to stare at her for a few seconds
before she nodded. ‘I have those all the time,’ she said, dropping down onto
the sofa and taking a deep breath. ‘I keep dreaming about Risper – about
her dying. I’m just there. Watching it happen. And I can never do anything to
stop it.’

Evie’s throat tightened again. Was there an element
of blame in Vero’s voice? Evie had been there when Risper died. She and Lucas
hadn’t been able to help her or save her. The guilt of that ate away at her
every second of the day, along with the guilt of everything else.

She cleared her throat, wanting to say something
– to apologise, explain, empathise – but before she could find the
words Vero started talking again. ‘When Risper died I wanted to kill every
single unhuman I could find.’

‘You did,’ Evie said, remembering how Vero had
acted like a woman possessed, on a vengeance mission no one could have stopped.
She had taken out every Thirster in her path without batting an eyelid, setting
fire to the Bradbury building in the process.

‘It was the same when Cyrus died,’ Vero said,
turning towards Evie. ‘But it doesn’t go away.’

‘What doesn’t?’ Evie asked, frowning.

‘The pain. It’s still there. Ash doesn’t realise it
either. He’s like you. He thinks that killing as many of them as he can will
bring his friend back, will somehow make up for the fact that Cyrus died.’ She
softened her tone. ‘It’s not going to fix anything, killing Victor. It’s not
going to bring Lucas back.’

Evie felt as though the ice-cold fingers from her
dream had torn open her ribcage and were now shredding her insides.

‘I can guarantee you’ll feel as empty as you do
now,’ Vero added. ‘Maybe even emptier.’

Evie stared at her, utterly speechless. What she
was saying couldn’t be true. It wasn’t possible to feel any emptier than she
did now. ‘No,’ she managed to say, ‘I won’t.’

A ghost of a smile flitted across Vero’s face. ‘The
one thing keeping you going right now, Evie, is the promise of that pain
disappearing. As if killing Victor is going to be like popping a magic pill.
But it won’t take away the ache. It’ll still be there afterwards. It will
always be there. I don’t think it ever goes away. It will get less though,’
Vero said. ‘Over time. I can promise you that much.’