Chapter 55
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.