he could remember that at least, even if he couldn’t remember the same experience with a girl.
He came to a stop at the side of a road and put the kickstand down, helping Evie off. She fell forward, against his chest and for a split second he held her there, feeling a rush of something that was way more than the adrenaline dissipating through his body. But before he could savour it she snatched her hands away as if he’d burnt her and crossed instead to Ash and Vero who’d parked behind them.
He couldn’t figure Evie out. One minute she was so vulnerable and broken – like she had been last night when she’d talked about Lucas – and the next moment she was about as approachable as a scorpion.
When he’d rushed in to wake her she’d been totally out of it. Her hair pasted across her face, her body warm and floppy. He’d had to shake her hard, and her head had fallen backwards exposing a pale stretch of neck and flushed cheeks. She’d been smiling in her sleep, and the look of her, the total tempting sultriness of her had almost made him forget why he was coming in there to wake her up. But as soon as she snapped awake, the softness vanished, the sultriness went completely AWOL and she was all business as usual. Though, he had to admit, she couldn’t stop being sexy if she tried.
The only problem was that she was clearly still in love with the dead guy. So why then did he remember kissing her? And why did it feel so good when she wrapped her arms around his waist like she had done just now? Hell, he’d wanted to keep driving all night. And why – this was really the crux of it – why had he given his life for her? Well, not given his life, because he was still alive, thank god, but he had intended to, and that was what counted. He’d been ready to die for this girl. Had he really done that for someone who didn’t give a rat’s ass about him? It was possible, he supposed. But it didn’t sound like he’d been that sort of guy.
‘I cannot believe you had that escape route planned. You could have shared it, you know,’ Ash said to him as he joined them. ‘I mean, what if you’d never come back. What if they’d attacked when we were there alone? It would have been good to know there was an exit route.’
‘I don’t remember,’ Cyrus said, shrugging apologetically.
Vero grinned at him. ‘Nice bikes, by the way.’
‘How did they find us?’ Evie asked, glancing back up the street in the direction they’d just come from.
‘Guess they followed one of us,’ he shrugged, ‘or maybe they just lucked out.’
The four of them stood there in silence for a few seconds, thinking about how close they’d just come to being wiped out.
‘Where are we going to go now?’ Vero suddenly asked, wrapping her arms tight around herself. She was wearing only a thin T-shirt over skimpy pyjama shorts and her bootlaces were undone.
‘We can’t go back,’ Cyrus said, pointing out the obvious.
‘We lost all the weapons,’ Ash added grimly.
‘Except the blades,’ Vero said, holding hers up in its sheath, and pointing at Evie’s. ‘Could be worse.’
Cyrus turned to look at Evie. She was clutching her bag close to her chest as if it contained her soul or something equally precious.
‘What about going to your mum’s?’
Vero was talking to him. It took him a few seconds to process. To his mum’s? ‘Do you know where she lives?’ he asked her, ‘because I don’t have a clue.’
‘No,’ Vero shook her head. ‘I only know the store.’
Cyrus glanced at Evie who was busy scowling at the sidewalk. She was wearing a man’s T-shirt which, baggy though it was, still couldn’t disguise the hotness of her body. Her hair was a windswept mess, her eyes two blue streaks in the pale oval of her face.
‘Does anyone have any money?’ he asked.
‘You’re the one who had all the money,’ Ash answered, wryly.
‘I did?’ Huh. He guessed that made sense, accounted for the car and the bikes and the impressive wardrobe and the display of grooming products in the bathroom. He didn’t have a wallet though anymore, guessed it must have vanished into the ether along with his clothes on the night whatever happened to him happened. But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. It wasn’t like he