said. ‘Vero and Ash told me about him. About what happened. I’m sorry.’
She had to look away. She chose a spot on the far wall and focused on it, trying to breathe through the fizzing pain shooting through her insides.
‘Did you love him?’ Cyrus asked.
Evie bit her tongue, fighting her instinct to lash out at him, reminding herself that it wasn’t the old Cyrus asking. She’d already had this conversation with him months back, had tried and quickly given up explaining the concept of love to him – to someone who’s understanding of love involved a one-night stand with a waitress whose name he couldn’t even remember the morning after.
‘Yes,’ she said, the pain of loss taking another savage bite out of her. ‘I loved him. I still love him. I’m never going to stop loving him.’
She dropped her head into her hands and tried to obliterate the image that had appeared in her mind’s eye of Lucas lying in her lap, his hand tracing her lips and then falling away, vanishing forever.
She startled suddenly, feeling a hand come to rest gently, almost tentatively, on her back. For a moment she tensed at Cyrus’s touch. And then the loneliness and the emptiness got the better of her and she dropped her head onto his shoulder.
‘It’s OK,’ Cyrus whispered, his lips grazing her ear. ‘It’s going to be OK.’
Chapter 22
Lucas was standing in front of her, bare chested, in jeans, staring at her with smouldering grey eyes. Evie gasped.
He took a step forward and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her hard against him, so that she could feel the flat of his washboard stomach against her ribs. He was alive. He was real. And he was here! She couldn’t begin to understand it but he was here. She closed her eyes and felt the scorch as his lips touched hers and every thought in her head evaporated. It didn’t matter why he was here.
His hand slid under her T-shirt, searing hot against her stomach and his other hand traced up her back. Then he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and drew in a sharp breath as he started kissing up the bare length of her neck. Her fingers started pulling at his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against hers. His kisses grew more frantic, sending shivers down her spine, and then all of a sudden he stopped, pulled back.
Evie opened her eyes, ready to urge him on, and found him staring at her, his expression solemn. ‘Wake up, Evie,’ he said, in a voice layered with both sadness and urgency. ‘Wake up.’
Evie shot upright in bed, slamming her head into the top bunk.
‘Ow!’ she yelled.
‘Wake up!’ someone hissed, pulling her by the hand, dragging her from the bed.
She started to protest, to yell, but stopped herself, realising that it was Cyrus who had woken her, who was now pulling her towards the bedroom door.
‘What? What is it?’ she cried, already feeling the surge of adrenaline pumping through her body.
‘They’re outside,’ Cyrus whispered, throwing a pair of jeans at her.
‘Who’s outside?’ she asked, her head snapping up.
‘Them, those things … unhumans.’
Even before he said it Evie’s senses came screaming to the fore and a bolt of nausea made her head spin. Her heart seemed to be hammering a thousand beats a minute all of a sudden. Her hands started to shake as she fumbled with her jeans, trying to button them. Cyrus had his back to her, was waiting by the door.
‘Come on,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Hurry!’
‘Where are the others?’ she asked as she knelt quickly to pull on her shoes.
‘They’re grabbing whatever weapons they can.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Just gone midnight,’ Cyrus answered.
‘How did they find us?’ Evie asked, grabbing her bag off the chair and strapping her blade to her waist.
‘We’ll figure that out later. Come on, out!’
Vero and Ash came sprinting from the other end of the hallway, clutching several swords and the flamethrower.
‘They’re almost through!’ Ash yelled as they heard an almighty crash coming from the direction of the elevator. It sounded like a dozen people were trying to tear through the metal grille with their bare hands.
‘They’re in the elevator?’ Evie asked. ‘How are we going to get down?’
Cyrus pulled her towards the far end of the corridor. ‘This way.’
Vero and Ash were right behind them as they tore into the bathroom adjacent to Cyrus’s bedroom.
‘What are we doing in here?’ Evie yelled, spinning around to Cyrus. ‘I hate