off the street and you didn’t have a problem with that.’
Vero scowled at him, eyes flashing venom.
‘What are you saying? That I can’t fight as good as you?’ the mouthy girl suddenly asked, throwing herself towards Cyrus as if angling to start something.
‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Cyrus laughed.
RJ collapsed onto the bottom step. ‘I’m not sure I want to do this anymore,’ he said, looking up nervously at Victor. ‘When you said it was going to be like a video game I didn’t think you meant anyone would actually get hurt for like real.’
Cyrus crouched down by his side. ‘These things are not two-dimensional video game monsters.’ He pointed at Vero. ‘This girl’s sister died fighting them. Ash’s best friend? Also dead.’ He rolled up his sleeve. ‘You see these?’ he asked, thrusting his forearm in the kid’s face, showing him the scars criss-crossing his arm. ‘These aren’t paper cuts, my friend. They’re from tails, they’re from acid, they’re from knives.’
‘Well, I’m in,’ the girl said from her position on the stairs. ‘I’m not scared of nobody. I’ve been shot once already, and some bitch did this to me with a knife.’ She pulled down the strap of her tank top, showing an ugly fat worm of a scar coiling around her collarbone. ‘You best believe she needed more stitches than me when I was done with her.’
Cyrus stood up slowly. He wanted to bang his head against the wall. These two kids were Victor’s big plan to rid the world of unhumans?
‘You’re a Hunter,’ Victor said to the kid on the step in an evangelical, hellfire-and-brimstone voice. ‘You were born to do this. It’s your destiny.’
‘Oh, quit it on the destiny stuff and just tell us what you’ve found out,’ Cyrus cut in. He was done with hanging around here. He just wanted whatever information the guy had so that he could then go and find Evie. He was starting to side with her on the issue. Did they really need him?
Victor glared at him for a second but then strode into the front room. Cyrus followed him, ready to lay into him with his fists if necessary to get the guy to answer. He found Victor standing in front of a giant map spread across the far wall of the room. Cyrus stepped closer and saw that the map was covered in small red pins and then he reeled backwards as he made out the detail in the photographs lining the map.
‘I found their lair,’ Victor said, pointing to a place on the map. ‘It’s here.’
Chapter 26
Evie ran. And as she ran she tried to wipe the image of Cyrus clean from her mind. Why was he being so damn nice to her? She didn’t want niceness. Or concern. She didn’t want to feel better. She didn’t deserve to.
She had wanted more than anything to stay wrapped up in a cocoon of hatred and anger. It made everything easier that way. But last night, when Cyrus had put his arm around her and she’d caved in and leant on him, for just a second she’d felt the anger lessen. It still hovered there, like a dog waiting to pounce, but it had backed off into a corner, allowing room for the sadness to come. And that was far worse than the anger. If anger was rocky ground, sadness was the quicksand beneath, waiting to drag her down. Only if she was angry could she keep going, keep moving forward.
Where was the old Cyrus when you needed to keep your anger honed and focused? He would have managed to keep her fury levels constant with every damn comment that came out of his mouth. But this new, sensitive, enlightened Cyrus model was going to be her undoing. Because not only was she losing her grip on her anger, but she was also feeling twinges of something else, another type of feeling that she was on familiar and uncomfortable terms with – guilt.
Guilt that she had let another guy comfort her. Guilt that she had felt safe in his arms. Guilt because she didn’t want to feel that way about anyone but Lucas.
So why then was she wishing that Cyrus had come with her? Why was she thinking of him even now as she ran?
Because Lucas is dead, the voice in her head screamed. He’s dead!
But that didn’t matter. She still loved him.
But how long can you stay in love with a dead person? the voice in her