Severed(25)

She whipped around, reeling from his closeness. ‘OK, I'll get dressed,' she said, feeling both mad and flustered.

She watched him as he left the room, wearing a smug smile, and then she went over to the door and slammed it shut, pushing a chair in front of it, pre-empting his undoubted return in a few seconds' time with the excuse that he'd got lost on the way to the bathroom.

Lucas had stashed the bag with the clothes that Issa had brought inside the closet. Evie pulled out the selection and started sorting through the pile. She hated to admit it, but Issa had actually done a really good job. The clothes both fitted her and were things she'd buy herself  –  as opposed to jeans that should come with a thrombosis warning and underwear worn as outerwear. Gone, she realised, were the days of freebie designer handouts. Still, what was the point of wearing thousand-dollar couture to go out hunting in when what was needed was utilitarian black to hide the bloodstains? And, voilà, in the bag she found a pair of black jeans and a long-sleeved dark-grey T-shirt. Even the underwear came in her size and was black. She slipped on the grey Converse Issa had provided. They worked better than heels too. At least she could run in them.

‘Thank you, Issa,' she whispered.

Frankly, she was more than a little freaked out by the fact Lucas had dated a Sybll, but even more freaked out that that same Sybll had foreseen her need for a toothbrush and black underwear. What else had Issa seen? That was what was really bugging her. She knew that Issa hadn't just come around to drop off some clothes and toiletries. She'd come to tell Lucas something. And the fact he hadn't told her what, meant that it was something bad.

The door rattled, catching on the chair she'd put in front of it. She heard Cyrus grunt.

‘I'm getting dressed,' she yelled.

‘Just thought I'd hurry you up,' he called from behind the door.

She didn't answer. She was glancing in the mirror hanging on the back of the door. With her amped-up eyesight she could see the pulse of an artery in her neck fluttering and each tiny crack in her lips, which were bruised dark-red and chapped.

She squashed the bag up with a sigh and rammed it back into the closet, then she pulled the chair out of the way and left the room to go start a fight with some unhumans. And maybe with Cyrus too, just for the hell of it.

Cyrus was in the kitchen, standing against the counter with a butcher's knife in his hand. He was running it up and down a stone block, causing blue sparks to rain down on him. He looked up when she walked in and flashed her a smile which she knew was meant to have some kind of dazzling effect over her. But all it managed to induce in her was annoyance.

She glanced around, looking for Vero and Ash. She hadn't seen them or heard anything all day. Was it just going to be her and Cyrus out on the prowl tonight? She kind of hoped not. Though being in close proximity to Vero and Ash wasn't high on her list of priorities either.

Finally, Cyrus finished sharpening and pushed the blade into a sheath, the shining eyes and unstoppable grin giving away the excitement he was feeling.

‘You like it, don't you?' Evie asked, frowning at him. ‘I mean, going out killing them? Why else would you do it?'

He gave her a confused, faintly amused smile. ‘I do it because a  –  it's fun, and b  –  err  … ' He blew air out of his mouth and shook his head. ‘No, that's it.'

‘Why's everything a joke to you?'

‘Why's everything so serious to you?'

She could feel her nostrils flaring. Together with the rolling eyeballs, she was starting to feel like a hostile horse whenever she was around him. So unattractive. She tried to wrestle back some control of her facial expressions.

‘Listen, Evie,' Cyrus said, ‘people would be thanking me if they knew I've been keeping the streets clear of bloodsucking Thirsters and things that go burn in the night. I think they'd be thanking me profusely.' He walked over to a hook on the wall by the door and pulled off a leather belt with pouches and straps attached to it, then looped it over his head. Very guerrilla Boy Scout, Evie thought as she watched him attach the knife to it.

‘Well, I'm surprised you aren't going around advertising the fact,' she said. ‘Your ego sure could use a boost.'

He laughed off the comment. ‘None of them belong here. But there's too many of them for us to kill. So we focus on the worst ones  –  the ones who go around killing people or, you know, just sucking their blood for a good time: the Mixen, Scorpio, Thirsters and Shadow Warriors. We tend to let the Shifters go. And the Sybll.'

‘Because you couldn't catch one if you tried.'

Cyrus stepped closer, his eyes a bright aquamarine colour under the spotlights in the kitchen. She couldn't help but stare at the brown slash in his iris. It was interesting, like a crack in a stone revealing quartz or diamonds inside, though she wasn't sure that what lay beneath Cyrus's shallow exterior was quite so dazzling or priceless.

‘It's the final reckoning that counts,' Cyrus said, distracting her from his eyes. ‘When you die  –  did you do more harm than good? Did you die with honour?'

She swallowed and he turned on his heel. He went over to the kitchen counter again and started rummaging through the drawers.

‘How did you and Lucas get together anyway?' he asked, looking up at her. ‘Match dot com? No, let me guess  –  unhuman hook-up dot com?'

‘Ha ha,' she answered. ‘No. He was sent to spy on me, then to kill me.'

Cyrus snorted through his nose. ‘Wow, what a cliché. He came to kill you and fell in love with you instead.' He threw her a cringe face. ‘This could be a film script for a movie with one of those sparkly vampires in.' He kept shaking his head and laughing and she felt her teeth grinding in response. ‘How romantic,' he went on. ‘Stupid, but romantic. I'll give him that. So you fell for the Shadow Warrior?'

Evie didn't answer. She just continued to glare.

Cyrus carried on undaunted. ‘OK, I'll grant you he's not bad-looking  –  not that I swing that way mind. He has the whole haunted-angst face that you girls seem to dig so much, but how'd you fall in love with him?' He paused, resting his hands on the counter. ‘Are you sure you are in love? Because, you know, sometimes the feeling we get around unhumans  –  that whole palpitation, faster heartbeat, clammy hands  –  that has been known to be confused with feelings of lust and, er, love. It happened to me once. I thought I liked this Shapeshifter chick.' He shrugged. ‘Turns out I just wanted to kill her.'

Evie exhaled loudly, trying to keep hold of the small piece of calm still left inside her. ‘No, it's not just my instincts firing whenever he's around.' She smiled tightly. ‘Trust me, I didn't feel this way about the Scorpio I put a knife through.'

Cyrus pulled a face, ‘OK. But I really want to know what you see in him because, between you and me, I'm not seeing a whole lot of sparkling personality.'

‘You haven't even spoken to him.'

He laughed. ‘And you spend your time together speaking, do you? Not locking lips and other demon body parts? What are those like by the way?'

The nostril flare again. She couldn't control it. ‘I am not about to explain our relationship. Least of all to someone as shallow and obsessed with sex as you.'

‘Hey, I'm not shallow,' Cyrus answered, scowling.

‘He saved me.'

He raised an eyebrow. ‘As in bibles and dunking in the river?'

‘No. He saved my life. More than once.'

Cyrus walked around the counter, his head nodding knowledgeably. ‘Oh, so it's some sort of survivor guilt thing you have going on. I get it. Adulate your rescuer. Knight-in-shining-armour syndrome. It all makes sense now. You know, I think there's psych treatment you can get for that.'

Evie closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. ‘No,' she said, ‘I don't mean it that way. He saved my life, yes, but only when I didn't want it saving. He brought me back. And I think he was the only person who could have brought me back  –  made me want to carry on.'

Cyrus had actually stopped talking. And stopped mocking. He was staring at her with a serious expression on his face, the half-smug, half-droll smile gone.

‘I hate fate,' she continued. ‘I hate what it's doing to me. I hate the fact I feel like I have no choice in any of this. Everything just seems to happen to me, whereas everyone else gets to choose. But I accept it because that same fate brought me Lucas.' She drew in a breath. ‘Maybe that was the trade. And if I did have the choice  –  to go through all this again or just carry on being Evie Tremain  –  if I could choose to be or not be this thing in the prophecy  –  I think I'd choose it all again, just to get the chance to know him.'

Cyrus still didn't say anything. His eyebrows were raised so high they were almost meeting his hairline. No doubt he was struggling to get his head around the concept of love. It must have confused his brain cell.

‘Does that explain it?' she asked.

He took a moment to answer. ‘I guess. But love as you call it is just an infatuation. It doesn't last.' The mocking smile reappeared. ‘Also, not clever to be infatuated with someone who's probably going to die.' He checked his watch. ‘Is probably already dead, in fact.'