Shadowed (Fated) (24 page)

‘What did you see? What was on the other side of
the wall?’ she demanded, shaking Selena by the shoulders. ‘Did you see Cyrus?’

Selena shook her head, mute, the whites of her eyes
gleaming in the darkness of the undergrowth. The fear on her face was enough to
make Evie’s own stomach clench into knots. Gone was the tough girl with
attitude and in her place a scared child, looking to Evie for help. She
couldn’t just leave her there.

‘Damn,’ Evie swore. She hauled Selena to standing.
‘Come on, let’s go.’

She would drag her somewhere safe and then go back
to help the others. They hadn’t gone two yards though when a foot suddenly
crunched through a pile of leaves close by them. They froze, Selena gripping
her hand so tight Evie felt the bones crunch.

She ignored the pain shooting up her arm and focused
her senses on that one area, twenty metres or so to their right. Something was
stalking them.

‘Run!’ she hissed, pushing Selena away from whoever
was approaching.

For a split second Selena stood there like a rabbit
caught in headlights before she started running blindly, jumping over roots and
bouncing off trees.

Evie darted out from the cover of the trees and
onto the lawn, making herself a visible target, yelling, calling attention to
herself, praying it gave Selena enough time to get away.

It worked. Evie blinked and suddenly it appeared.
Right in front of her. An Original. Male. Over six feet tall, wearing jeans, a
crisp white shirt and a pair of deck shoes – an outfit that seemed so
incongruous with what it was that Evie blinked, trying to clear her head. It
was only the red stain spattered across the shirt that gave her a reality
check.

Her stomach turned somersaults. Her pulse spiked,
announcing itself like a siren call. She started backing away, towards the
house, in the opposite direction to the way Selena had run. She couldn’t run
herself. It would take her down in a split second, in a heartbeat. She cast a
quick glance over its shoulder.

Where were the others? Were they even alive any
more? She couldn’t feel them, couldn’t feel anything but this raging fear
blocking out everything.

The Original strolled slowly towards her, pausing
to pick some yellow gristle out of his teeth before advancing some more.

‘So it’s true, then,’ he said in a voice that reverberated
like a gong inside her skull. ‘The White Light lives.’ He tipped his head and
smiled. ‘At least for a few more seconds.’

Evie held her blade out in front of her trying not
to let it shake. Suddenly it seemed as ineffective as a toothpick.

The Original paused for a nanosecond, smiling in
amusement at the sight, before he began circling her in light steps as if the
two of them were dancing a waltz.

‘Did you come here to try again?’ he asked.

His voice swirled like fog, confusing her. She
struggled to make sense of the words. What did he mean,
try again?

All of a sudden she heard Lucas in her head, his
voice, low and calm, ordering her to stop retreating and start attacking. Her
hand immediately stopped shaking, her breathing steadied. Without pausing she
lunged, feinting right, and rolling to her left, coming up under the Original’s
arm, her blade slicing the air as he dodged the strike.

Don’t
lose the advantage. Surprise him again
. It was Lucas talking in her head and his voice
was so good to hear, so real, that she obeyed without thinking, darting forward,
aiming straight for the heart. The Original was surprised once more, but still
managed to sidestep her attack.

‘That the best you can do?’ she asked, growing in
confidence.

His lips curled into a grimace. And this time he
came at her. Fast. A blur. Evie threw herself to the ground, rolling onto her
side. He went sailing past. She was on her feet spinning around trying to see
him in the next second but he’d vanished. She spun the other way. And something
metallic closed around her neck, gripping vice-tight.

Evie choked, fear and panic igniting every cell of
her body. Her toes scraped the ground as she was lifted by the throat, and her
vision began to cloud.

Fight
back!
she heard Lucas yell.

Dots danced in front of her eyes and then, without
warning, just as she was starting to lose all sensation in her body, an arrow
of pain shot down her neck and acid flushed through her veins. She was on fire
from the inside out, black flames licking around her, devouring every cell,
every muscle, every nerve. Somewhere in the dark someone was screaming –
a terrible, ricocheting noise that spiralled through her skull like a drill.

It was her, she realised – she was the one
screaming. The sound terrified her but then it cut off abruptly and blood
rushed into her mouth. He was draining her. She was going to die here, in this
garden, without having killed Victor, without having got her revenge.

Fight
back goddamn it! Don’t give up.
It was Lucas, his voice a whisper pushing through the enclosing
gloom.

With one final effort she squeezed her fingers
together, tightening them around the slippery hilt of the blade. She brought
her arm up, feeling the weight of the shadow blade, no longer light as air but
heavy as steel. And then, with a final gargled yell, she slashed with all that
remained of her strength.

The pain eased in her neck. She fell backwards into
soft velvet darkness.

Get
up.

She couldn’t get up. She couldn’t move. She tried
to roll onto her front – tasted dirt mingling with blood. Her fingers
sank into earth. She tried to push herself onto her knees, but she was moving
so slowly and her head felt as if it had liquid sloshing around in it. She
opened her eyes. The world was upside down. She was kneeling on cloud, But then
she realised she was lying on her side and there was a thumping noise all
around her, coming from beneath her, as though the earth itself was a giant
drum. Only, the rhythm was slowing.

A boot appeared. A man’s boot, right in front of
her face. She twisted her head and squinted up at the figure silhouetted above
her, smiling. It was Lucas.

But then he moved and the sunlight fell on him and
she saw it wasn’t Lucas at all. It was the Original. He was holding one hand to
his shoulder and she could see the red seeping through the cotton of his shirt
and between his fingers. She’d done that. She grinned, biting back the wave of
pain and dizziness that followed.

He drew back his lips, stretching them over his
blood-spattered fangs and Evie squeezed her eyes shut and felt the trickle of a
tear slide down her cheek.

A blood-curdling yell made her eyes flash open.

The Original was staggering backwards away from
her. And then he was on his knees and she watched – the drumbeat getting
fainter in her ears – as he burst into a ball of orange and blue flame,
the heat scoring her face. From behind him, as though he was walking through
the fire, Victor appeared.

He dropped to his knees by her side and pressed his
fingers roughly against her neck. Evie rolled her head, trying to get away from
him, trying to shout, but it came out as a hissing, gargling sound. She tried
to raise herself onto her elbows, gritting her teeth at the sliver of pain that
shot down her neck.

Victor pressed her back to the ground. He was
prodding at her, saying something, but she couldn’t make out the words over the
whooshing, thundering noise in her head.

She heard shouting in the distance and suddenly
Cyrus was beside her and he was yelling at Victor to back off, to get the hell
away from her and she felt such relief. And then Victor was gone.

Arms were cradling her instead, she was being
pulled gently upright, fingers were stroking back her hair, tracing along her
jaw, and her ear was pressed against another drum, this one louder and faster.

‘Evie, Evie,’ Cyrus was saying over and over, each
cry like a slap.

She blinked and tried to focus.

‘Can you hold on?’ Cyrus was asking.

She made some kind of noise. And then she felt
herself being lifted, and she was weightless and her head was banging against
Cyrus’s chest as he ran, but his arms were holding her steady and she knew she
was safe.

Her eyes were half-closed, she was feeling drowsy,
and then, just for an instant, in the trees at the side of the house she
thought she saw Lucas, standing there, watching her, his grey eyes haunted and
on fire.

She lifted her arm to try to wave, but he had
vanished.

White. White walls. White sky. White coats. Whiteness everywhere. And
a cold so deep and crushing she thought she might be buried beneath snow.

A jolt of pain in her arm. Then shooting fire tracing
spirals down her neck.

Evie fought to keep her eyes open, struggling to
turn her head, but it seemed to weigh five thousand pounds. Where was he? Where
was Lucas? Someone had hold of her right hand, was stroking the palm. It felt
good. She worried that if whoever it was let go the cold might sneak up on her
and make her fall again into darkness, and she didn’t want that to happen. She
wanted to stay awake. She wanted to see Lucas again. He was here. He was real.
He was alive.

Wasn’t he?

Her fingers tightened around the hand. She couldn’t
let it go. Voices were shouting over her, people were running, her shirt was
being ripped off and she felt hard, cold metal pressed against her bare skin
and shivered some more.

Through the noise and shouting she made out a
familiar voice.

‘Please, help her.’

It was Cyrus but his voice was broken, husky,
desperate sounding.

‘What happened? What’s your name?’ Someone was
asking him a question.

‘Forget my name,’ he yelled. ‘Do something for her,
she’s losing blood. Do something!’

‘What happened?’ a doctor or a nurse –
someone in white – was asking. Their faces were all out of focus.

‘It’s another neck wound,’ a woman said, loud in
her ear.

Another,
the word registered
somewhere in the depths of her mind.

‘She had an accident,’ she heard Cyrus say.

Hands forcing their way under her, pressing into
the small of her back and then she was lifted, shunted, dropped down onto
another bed, this one softer. A mask was put over her face.

‘5mg Valium,’ someone said.

No,
no, no drugs.
She
couldn’t afford to be drugged. She twisted her head and tried to bat away the
hands in front of her. Someone grabbed her arm and forced it to the bed. She
heard Cyrus shushing her. Then she felt a sting in her hand. A few seconds
later the room ebbed away as if she was being pulled out to sea on a current.
The voices that had been shouting now sounded a mile away; she felt like she
was floating on the waves, drifting off.

A man’s voice cut through the daze. ‘Can you come
this way, sir?’

‘No,’ she heard Cyrus say roughly. ‘I’m staying
with her.’

She tried to grasp for him. He couldn’t leave her.
She didn’t want to be alone. Someone forced her back down, pushing her
shoulders onto the bed. A machine right by her ear was beeping faster and
faster.

‘Who are you? Are you a relation?’

Please
let him stay.

‘No,’ he hesitated, ‘I’m – I’m her
boyfriend.’

‘Only relatives are allowed any further I’m
afraid.’

‘Please. I need to be with her.’

‘Sorry, you need to wait here. Do you have a number
for her parents? Someone we could call?’

She was being jolted around. The bed was moving.
She tried to turn her head but she was paralysed and then his fingers were torn
from her hand and she was back on the waves.

NO
, she tried to scream but no sound came
out.

Doors banged, a breeze stirred the thin cotton gown
they’d thrown over her. She was cold. And she was alone. And she was afraid.
And then she was gone.

Some time later she tried to open her eyes but it
felt like they’d been sewn shut. She could hear someone groaning nearby. Then
it stopped all of a sudden. Had it been her?

It’s
OK, it’s OK.

It was his voice again. It was Lucas. She forced
her eyes open. She was in an empty room. There was a faint beep beep beep
somewhere by her head and the light was bright – dazzlingly bright. Her
breathing was so loud in her ears it sounded like surf crashing onto a beach.
She tried to move her hand so that she could pull at the oxygen mask covering
her mouth and nose, but a warm hand closed over her own and pushed it back down
to the bed.

Shhh.

She turned her head. She wanted to see him. She
could feel the sob building in her chest. She could actually feel his fingers
stroking her cheek, pushing back a strand of hair, lingering on the tip of her
torn ear. It wasn’t real. It was a dream. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she
felt him press his thumb against one. She squeezed her eyes shut.