The moon was a pixelated blur sliding in and out of black clouds. She sniffed the air and waited for her senses to kick in and adjust to the onslaught of new sounds and smells. Her heartbeat slowed as soon as she’d verified there were no other creatures besides Lobo lurking out there in the dark. There were no more monsters, she reminded herself. She didn’t need to be constantly scanning her surroundings trying to sense unhumans.
She crunched through the leaves in the orchard, hearing Lobo howling behind her as she stretched the distance between them. She missed it, though, she realised as she reached the road. She missed feeling him. That sense of heightened awareness whenever an unhuman was around was something she had never thought she would miss. Not that she wanted to be surrounded ever again by Thirsters and Mixen and Scorpio, just that she associated the feeling unhumans evoked – the sweaty palms, racing heart and whoosh of adrenaline – with Lucas. Being half Shadow Warrior he’d managed to confuse her senses so that the danger signs, which should have kept her alive, had become synonymous in her mind with him and with safety. And, yes, that had almost killed her. But now she missed it. She missed Lucas more than she thought it possible to miss anyone, so much that she thought she might die from it. And not in any melodramatic way, but because sometimes she actually couldn’t breathe; sometimes she woke up choking down air, dots dancing in front of her eyes, as if her lungs had decided of their own accord to shut down while she slept.
Of course, that could also be to do with the number of sleeping pills she was popping.
She broke through into the tree line on the other side of the road and started jogging. She didn’t understand. She would never understand why fate had brought her down the path it had. Why it had so entwined her path with Lucas’s, only to wrench them apart just at the point they’d reached their destination.
But maybe that was why. They had reached the destination. Maybe the point was the journey.
Either way it wasn’t fair.
She swore at herself. As if she hadn’t learnt that lesson about life already.
Chapter 4
Evie stood on Jocelyn’s veranda staring at the door. She didn’t bother knocking. She didn’t need to. She knew that Jocelyn – being a Hunter – would have sensed her from half a mile away. And even as she stood there hesitating, she could hear footsteps, slow and heavy, heading her way.
The door fell open. Jocelyn stood there, her face rumpled and her clothing creased, as if she’d just been startled awake from a nap.
She stared at Evie for a beat and then nodded, as though she’d been expecting her for a while.
Evie felt her nostrils flare in response. She sunk her heels into the veranda to stop herself from swinging around and leaving.
‘Do you want to come in?’ Jocelyn asked her.
Evie didn’t. But now she’d come this far she figured she might as well. She edged past the older woman, feeling a familiar jolt, a buzzing in her sternum as if an invisible cord connected them.
It was a connection she wished she could sever. It made her jumpy. She hadn’t felt that jolt in a while now. Not since that day at the Bradbury building when everything had ended. That had been the last time she’d been around any Hunters. Because that’s what it was – that buzzing feeling – it was what all Hunters felt around each other. Cyrus had called it chemistry, had claimed it was part of an undeniable attraction she and he had for one another. She’d told him that all he was feeling were the tidal waves of irritation bouncing off her.
‘Would you like a drink of something?’ Jocelyn asked.
‘Um, no, thank you,’ Evie answered, surprised by how cold and official her voice sounded – like a cop come to deliver bad news.
‘Are you sure?’ Jocelyn asked. She seemed nervous, jittery almost, her hands refusing to settle in one place and her voice ratcheted several notches too high. ‘I can make some fresh coffee. Or something to eat? You look like you could use something to warm you up.’
Evie realised only then that her hair was plastered to her skull and a cold trickle of water was worming its way down her spine. How had she not noticed that it had been raining? Her clothes were