the nurses had used in the hospital when they’d first brought him in.
‘I’m guessing it’s Cyrus,’ he said, giving her a half-smile. ‘And I’m guessing that those things you were fighting back there are part of the reason why I can’t remember anything. Would that be right?’
The girl’s eyes suddenly filled up with tears. ‘Something like that,’ she whispered.
Chapter 18
He looked like Cyrus again now he was showered and wearing his old clothes. Only his hair looked different, lying wet and tousled. The old Cyrus had precision styled his hair with enough product to turn him into a walking fire hazard.
When Evie watched him saunter across the wooden floorboards of the warehouse towards them she thought she caught a glimmer of his old arrogance in the way his body moved and the confidence in his stride. But when her eyes tracked up his body to his face she felt her uncertainty return. The mocking smile Cyrus used to wear all the time was gone and the spark in his eyes had been replaced with a wariness and a seriousness she didn’t recognise. The only thing that was really familiar about this new Cyrus was the slice of dark amber cutting through the iris of his left pupil, marring the greeny-blue colour of his eyes. No, she corrected herself, not marring, more like defining.
Her gaze fell to his lips and she inhaled softly, remembering all of a sudden how he’d kissed her just before he walked through the gateway. She’d been surprised by how soft and gentle that kiss had been. If she’d stopped to think about it before – which she never had – she would have assumed Cyrus’s kisses would be rough and demanding, just like he was. But that kiss had felt like it had contained his entire soul. It had been the kiss of a dying man, filled with passion and remorse and pain and enough desire to burn up hell.
Evie felt herself flushing at the memory. She looked away, flustered, as Cyrus came to stand by her side. He kept glancing at her with this curious expression on his face, and it made her fidget with the bandage on her wrist that she’d put over the Mixen burn. She crossed to the sofa, as far away from him as possible and sat down, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.
Ash sat opposite, his elbows resting on his knees, while Vero perched on the arm of the sofa beside him. They were both staring at Cyrus as if they couldn’t work out whether he was really Cyrus or in fact a cyborg.
‘This is my place?’ Cyrus asked, looking around, his eyes scanning the rafters. He seemed to be finding that part the hardest to get his head around.
‘Yeah,’ Ash answered, not taking his eyes off Cyrus.
‘And I was a Hunter. I – I mean we – fought these monsters?’
‘Unhumans,’ Vero cut in. ‘And we’re still fighting them.’
Cyrus frowned at her. ‘Unhumans,’ he said, testing the word out. ‘And they’re from other realms, you say?’
Vero and Ash nodded at him.
Cyrus chewed his lip for a bit. ‘There are ones with tails, aren’t there?’ he asked finally.
‘Yes,’ Ash nodded.
Cyrus snorted through his nose. ‘I told them. I kept telling them.’
‘Telling who?’ Evie asked.
‘The doctors. All the people who kept trying to keep me in that place.’
‘Yeah, that was probably not the best thing to tell the people doing your psych evaluation.’
‘What do you remember?’ Ash interrupted, leaning across the coffee table, a sense of urgency in his voice.
Cyrus shook his head. ‘Not much.’ He turned slowly to face Evie. ‘I remember you and I remember seeing this blinding white light and the next thing I can recall is walking naked down a street holding a knife or a sword or something – I barely remember. A cop car pulled me over. Then they took me to the hospital and locked me up – pumped me full of drugs. They kept asking me the same questions again and again until I thought they were actually trying to drive me crazy.’ He looked over at Ash. ‘How long have I been away?’ he asked.
‘The last time we saw you was almost nine weeks ago.’
Cyrus frowned, his gaze falling to his lap. He started pulling at a loose thread on his T-shirt.
‘Where did they pick you up? The police. Where were you?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t remember. It was all a haze. There were big houses,