Chapter 39
The back of the taxi was dark, the leather seats worn and springy. Evie could feel her heart fluttering in her chest as though it was still learning to beat. She felt woozy all of a sudden, her head still spinning wildly. She brushed the back of her hand against her forehead. It felt clammy, though her legs were coated in goose bumps.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked Cyrus.
‘I know somewhere safe,’ he said, his gaze skirting up her legs. She folded them beneath her self-consciously.
Cyrus sat back as the cab drove off and lifted his arm. She hesitated for a moment, then gave in and leant back against his shoulder, letting him wrap his arm around her. For a second his hand wavered, deciding where to go, before settling tentatively on her shoulder.
He felt warm. She breathed him in, feeling the dizziness subside. Maybe leaving the hospital hadn’t been such a great idea. But then again, being attached to all those machines had felt a little like being bound with pondweed, the oxygen mask over her face as suffocating as ice water.
‘What happened?’ she asked after a few minutes of silence.
Cyrus took a deep breath. She felt the muscles in his shoulder and across his chest tense beneath her cheek.
‘There were four of them,’ Cyrus said in a hushed voice, his eyes locked on the back of the driver’s head.
‘Did we kill them all?’ Evie asked, trying to push herself up so that she could look at him.
Cyrus’s fingers tightened on her shoulder, holding her in place.
‘They’re all dead. Someone – I think maybe Victor – came back and … I don’t know. Flic and I killed one. When we turned around the other two were on fire. But I didn’t hang around to figure it out. I heard you – I mean, I felt you.’
‘You felt me?’
Cyrus hesitated and Evie could feel his heart racing. ‘I told you,’ he whispered into her hair, ‘there’s a connection between us.’
She froze, staring at her fingers lying loosely in her lap.
‘I felt you,’ he repeated. ‘I knew you were in trouble.’
Evie kept her head lowered, unable to look at him for reasons she didn’t fully understand. ‘But the others – what about them? Is everyone alright?’
‘They’re fine,’ he answered quickly.
‘Jamieson? Flic? Ash and Vero? They’re all OK?’
‘Yes. They’re all fine. Jamieson’s broken his arm and a few ribs but he’ll be OK, I think. You came out worst. I warned you not to come after me.’
‘It was those two. Selena and RJ. She followed after you – I couldn’t just leave her.’ Evie paused, sitting upright. ‘Did she make it?’ she asked, remembering the last she’d seen of Selena was her running helter-skelter across the garden.
‘She’s fine,’ Cyrus answered. His fingers had started tracing circles over her shoulder blade, along her collar bone, almost absently, grazing the bare skin at the nape of her neck and making her draw in a tight breath.
She felt a slight tingle in her belly – a response she wasn’t sure how to interpret. She put it down to the Valium and tried to focus on the words coming out of his mouth and not his touch.
Cyrus suddenly pulled his arm free and leant forward, tapping on the glass separating them from the driver. ‘Can you pull over?’ he asked.
Evie frowned, twisting her head to look out of the window. They were outside Margaret’s store.
‘What are we doing here?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Just wait,’ Cyrus answered, getting out of the cab and walking quickly around to open the door for her. He handed the driver some cash and then offered his hand to Evie to help her out of the cab.
She pushed him away, wanting to stand by herself. His touch was making her stomach churn with unwanted emotions. It made her remember Lucas and how she’d felt with him – namely safe. But she didn’t want to feel that way with Cyrus. Or with anyone. Safety led to complacency.
Cyrus shrugged and turned away but she noticed a shadow of hurt flit across his face.
‘You remembered your ATM number then?’ she asked, as he pushed his wallet back into the pocket of his jeans.
‘No, I just swiped some money from my mum earlier,’ he said. ‘We needed a change of clothes. Looks like you could have used the shopping trip as well.’
Evie smiled ruefully. It was true; she had nothing to wear other than a hospital gown, some paper underwear and a borrowed sweater.
Cyrus fished some keys out of his pocket and unlocked the front door of the store, opening it to let her through. She passed ahead of him into the darkened space. What time was it? It had to be around midnight she guessed. She’d been in the hospital a while, but it was all a fog.
Cyrus strode past, catching her by the hand and pulling her towards the café section of the store.
‘You need to eat something, get some sugar into your bloodstream.’
‘I’m not feeling hungry.’
‘I don’t care,’ he answered, his hands busy rummaging under the counter. ‘You need to get your strength back.’
She watched him pull out a plate, then slide back the glass on the refrigerated display shelf. She needed to get her strength back for round two. That’s what he was saying. She closed her eyes, feeling the ground somersault its way towards her.
‘Cupcake?’
‘OK,’ she whispered.
Cyrus grabbed a couple and set them on a plate. Then he opened the fridge. ‘Milk? Juice?’ he asked over his shoulder.
‘Water,’ Evie answered. ‘Do you do this often?’
‘What?’ Cyrus asked, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.
‘Bring girls back to your mum’s store and woo them with day-old cupcakes?’
‘Yeah, then I read them quotes from Milan Kundera, occasionally some Rilke, you know, if I think it might help.’
‘Help?’
‘You know, get them into bed.’
Evie opened her mouth to yell at him.
He burst out laughing. ‘I’m kidding. I don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘Maybe I used to. I don’t remember.’
She glared at him for a moment and then suddenly she was laughing too.
‘Come on,’ Cyrus said, still grinning, picking up the plate with the cupcakes and the water. ‘This I do remember.’
She followed him towards the door at the back of the store that opened into the stairwell. They went past Margaret’s office and up another flight. Cyrus pushed open the door to an attic room with skylights set into the flat roof. There were two sofas and a couple of bean bags, a stash of magazines piled messily in one corner, heaps of books – some with their spines bent back as if whoever was here had just been disturbed mid-way through reading a chapter.
‘What is this place?’
‘I used to hang out here when I was younger,’ Cyrus said, setting the cupcakes and the water down, ‘when my mum was working. You know, after school.’
Evie stood in the centre of the room and looked around.
‘Did you bring girls here?’
‘Why are you so interested?’ Cyrus asked, flashing her an amused look.
She glanced away hastily and bent down to read the spine of one of the open books. Tolstoy. She found herself smiling despite herself.
‘I don’t think I did bring any girls though.’
Evie glanced up.
Cyrus waved a tattered copy of Hustler magazine in her face. ‘Judging from my magazine collection, I think this was a male-only space.’ He dropped it back down onto the pile.
‘Well, I guess I’m honoured then,’ Evie said.
Cyrus straightened the patchwork blanket draped over the back of one of the sofas and pointed at it. ‘You should sit down.’
Evie considered the sofa. It looked way more inviting than a hospital bed. She had a sudden urge to lie down and let him wrap her up in the blanket. And, as if he had read her mind, that’s exactly what he did. As soon as she’d sat down, he lifted her legs and gently laid them out, pulling the blanket up to her waist and tucking it in.
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled.
He was crouched awkwardly beside her head, his hand still resting on her waist where he’d pulled the blanket up. She noted the golden stubble across his jaw, the fullness of his bottom lip and the streak of dried blood, probably hers, just under his chin.
‘Do you need anything?’ he asked.
She paused, chewing the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want him to go. But she didn’t want to give him the wrong idea either. She liked him being near to her. That was all.
‘Can you stay?’ she asked, swallowing nervously. Her heart had started to beat more rapidly. She could feel the pulse of it in her neck, making her stitches stretch and sting. ‘I mean … I just …’
He smiled. ‘I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere. Here, lift up.’
She frowned, then realised what he was doing and lifted her head off the cushion so that he could slide onto the sofa. She lowered her head onto his lap and felt his arm come down, his hand resting lightly on her hip. There was a moment of pure awkwardness where she could feel him tense, could feel her own breath stuck in her throat and then he placed his other hand gently on her head and started stroking her hair. She closed her eyes and felt the sigh rush out of her.
It felt good, lying here. It felt like peace, with his fingers pressing warmth back into her body. She felt herself sinking into the sofa even as the butterflies in her stomach started to test their wings.
With her eyes half-closed, she could almost imagine it was Lucas who was holding her, stroking her hair. At the thought she felt something stir deep inside her, something she’d not felt in months – a hunger that sent the butterflies into a flurry. If she lay really still and tried not to breathe she could pretend it was Lucas’s hand moving slowly up her hip and now caressing her waist, softly, very softly.
She made a noise, a low moan escaping from her lips before she could stop it. Cyrus paused, his hand instantly stilling. Evie’s eyes flew open and then, before she knew what was happening, she was on her knees facing Cyrus, his lips an inch from her own. He had stopped breathing, was staring at her, watching her carefully. She shut her eyes, then leant forward and kissed him, feeling the heat of his lips, the softness of them as he kissed her back, carefully at first as though he was scared she might break. And then the hunger took over.
Her hands were weaving through his hair, she was pressing herself against him and his arms were wrapped around her, pulling her closer, forward and down so that now she was lying on top of him. His hand had slid up under the blanket, found its way expertly under the sweater and was running over the flat of her back, sending sparks all the way to her toes.
His belt buckle was digging into her stomach and she could feel his desire like white heat burning through the layers of their clothing. He tasted of cupcakes and cinnamon and as the kiss deepened she could feel his own hunger matching her own.
His touch, which had started tentative, was now demanding more. A lot more. Her fingers slid under his T-shirt, inviting it, feeling the washboard muscles of his stomach, the ridges of scars, and wanting to feel more.
His hands were cupping her face now, his fingers smoother than she was used to. Not like Lucas’s fingers, which had been rough and tender at the same time. She pulled away sharply at the contrast. But he had started kissing her throat now, his fingers holding her gently, careful of the bandage on her neck. His other hand had moved under the sweater again, was tracing her stomach, her rib cage, moving upwards. She drew in a long, deep breath, trying to suppress the shudder that followed it.
Lucas.
Cyrus’s hand instantly stopped moving beneath the sweater. His lips stopped kissing her neck. Evie froze, her eyes flashed open. Already she could feel the blood that had been spiralling out of control through her body redirecting to her cheeks.
Had she said that out loud? She’d been lost – imagining, pretending it was Lucas who was kissing her, who was sending shocks through her body, waking up parts of her she’d thought were permanently dormant. Oh, holy crap.
Cyrus sat up slowly, his arms sliding out from under the blanket. Evie brushed the hair out of her face and sat back, her heart stuttering. She couldn’t look at him. She edged to the other end of the sofa, pulling the blanket around herself. This was beyond embarrassing.
Cyrus didn’t say a word.
After what felt like minutes of stultifying, electrically charged silence during which she could feel him trying to get control of himself, to cool down, he stood up.
She waited for him to leave. He didn’t. Instead he dropped to a crouch right in front of her, looking up directly into her face.
‘Next time,’ he said, when he was sure he had her full attention, ‘it’ll be me you’re thinking of.’
And with that he stood up and walked out.