Chapter 38
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.
Cyrus was half carrying her. She was wearing his sweater, the arms trailing loosely over her hands. Her legs were bare, her hair hanging lank over her face which was shining with sweat. He flung himself immediately into the shadows behind a door, pressing himself there, breathing heavily. She was OK. She was OK. She was alive.
So what was Victor doing here? And why had the cops stopped him? Had he tried to harm her? Was that why she was, from the looks of it, escaping?
Lucas watched as Cyrus pushed open an emergency exit door at the end of the corridor. Wedging it open with his shoulder he reached down and scooped Evie up into his arms.
The door banged shut behind them.
Lucas stood there, fading in and out, staring at the empty corridor, something crumbling irrevocably inside of him.