Chapter 13
‘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.’
Evie dropped her head into her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Vero was wrong about something, she thought to herself. She didn’t want the pain to magically disappear, because if it did then it would be as if she had forgotten Lucas ever existed. The pain was a part of her now, just as much as he had been a part of her, and always would be. She didn’t know who she would be without it – without him. And she didn’t want to find out.