Selena,’ RJ bellowed up the stairs. ‘Come meet the other dudes.’
Dudes? Evie looked the kid up and down. If she had to peg him with a stereotype she’d say stoner. Baggy jeans, long-sleeved, over-sized T-shirt with some surfing brand name stamped across it, dopey smile, longish hair hanging in his face, bloodshot eyes.
‘Where did Victor find you?’ she asked.
RJ turned to her, smiling goofily. ‘In the arcade. I was totally besting my score, and this dude turned up and …’
‘OK, I get it,’ Evie interrupted. She turned to the others. ‘Victor’s recruiting new Hunters to the cause.’
It looked like the others had already figured it out as well.
‘Who the hell are they?’
Evie looked up. A girl had appeared at the top of the stairs, and was now sauntering down them, heavy lidded and pouting. She was wearing a bandana, in what looked like gang colours, over her hair and Evie saw a tattoo snaking across her abdomen where her top was riding up over her jeans. Evie would place a bet that when the girl turned around they’d get an eyeful of butt cleavage and thong.
‘They’re those rogue Hunters Victor was telling us about – remember?’ RJ told her.
The girl sniffed, giving them all a once-over, her gaze lingering on Cyrus just a moment longer than was necessary. She licked her lips, which were so smothered in gloss, Evie wondered how her tongue didn’t get stuck.
‘What’s your problem?’ the girl asked, rolling her shoulders and placing her hands on her hips.
Evie realised the girl was talking to her.
I’m just pondering the terrifying fact that we share genetic code, Evie thought to herself.
‘Nothing,’ she said, eyeing the girl darkly.
‘So you two are the only two Victor’s recruited?’ Cyrus asked.
‘Yeah, though he said he was going to try to find more tonight.’
‘Did he tell you why?’ Evie asked.
Selena glared at her. ‘What’s it to you?’
Evie studied her for a moment. ‘Nothing,’ she answered with a shrug. ‘What do I care if two untrained fools go marching into a fight with some unhumans and get themselves killed? So long as you don’t have my back.’
‘Hey,’ the guy RJ spoke up, ‘we’re not untrained. We’ve been like totally training the last two days.’
‘Have you ever actually been in a fight before? With an unhuman, that is?’ Evie asked, casting a glance sideways at Selena. For sure she’d been in fights before with a mouth that big, though Evie doubted with an unhuman, because if the girl couldn’t see that Evie was in a dangerous mood, then her instincts were clearly faulty.
‘How hard can it be if your pussy ass is still alive?’
Evie dropped her gaze to the ground. She sighed. Really? She had to deal with this on top of Victor and everything else?
‘You might want to think twice before you speak like that to her again.’
Evie looked up sharply. It was Cyrus who was talking.
‘Why? You going to stop me?’ Selena asked, her eyes taunting and inviting at the same time.
‘No,’ Cyrus answered calmly. ‘Just that that pussy ass could whip you into next week. And I, for one, don’t enjoy watching fools get whipped.’
The girl’s glossed mouth fell open for a moment before she drew her lips together and sucked air noisily through her teeth. She tossed her head back as if she couldn’t care less but Evie saw the spark of wariness in her expression as she glanced in her direction.
‘Is Victor going to be back any time soon?’ Cyrus asked.
RJ shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Let’s just take his weapons,’ Evie said, moving towards the two swords in the umbrella stand. ‘That’s what we came here for, isn’t it? Let’s take everything and go. We don’t need him. And we certainly don’t need these guys.’ She gestured at Selena and RJ.
‘But where are we going to go?’ Vero asked as Evie passed her a sword.
‘That’s like totally not cool, dude,’ RJ said, darting in front of the umbrella stand. ‘You can’t just come here and like steal stuff. Victor’ll be really pissed.’
Evie ignored him, drawing out the second sword.
‘I think we should stay here tonight. It’s only a few hours until morning anyway,’ Vero said with a shrug. ‘And we may as well find out what Victor’s discovered about them.’ Seeing Evie’s death stare she added, ‘Two swords aren’t going to get us very far. He must have another stash of weapons somewhere.’
‘Well, you can stay,’ Evie said, suppressing the surge of irritation, ‘but I’m leaving. Call me when you have a plan that