grinned, biting back the wave of pain and dizziness that followed.
He drew back his lips, stretching them over his blood-spattered fangs and Evie squeezed her eyes shut and felt the trickle of a tear slide down her cheek.
A blood-curdling yell made her eyes flash open.
The Original was staggering backwards away from her. And then he was on his knees and she watched – the drumbeat getting fainter in her ears – as he burst into a ball of orange and blue flame, the heat scoring her face. From behind him, as though he was walking through the fire, Victor appeared.
He dropped to his knees by her side and pressed his fingers roughly against her neck. Evie rolled her head, trying to get away from him, trying to shout, but it came out as a hissing, gargling sound. She tried to raise herself onto her elbows, gritting her teeth at the sliver of pain that shot down her neck.
Victor pressed her back to the ground. He was prodding at her, saying something, but she couldn’t make out the words over the whooshing, thundering noise in her head.
She heard shouting in the distance and suddenly Cyrus was beside her and he was yelling at Victor to back off, to get the hell away from her and she felt such relief. And then Victor was gone.
Arms were cradling her instead, she was being pulled gently upright, fingers were stroking back her hair, tracing along her jaw, and her ear was pressed against another drum, this one louder and faster.
‘Evie, Evie,’ Cyrus was saying over and over, each cry like a slap.
She blinked and tried to focus.
‘Can you hold on?’ Cyrus was asking.
She made some kind of noise. And then she felt herself being lifted, and she was weightless and her head was banging against Cyrus’s chest as he ran, but his arms were holding her steady and she knew she was safe.
Her eyes were half-closed, she was feeling drowsy, and then, just for an instant, in the trees at the side of the house she thought she saw Lucas, standing there, watching her, his grey eyes haunted and on fire.
She lifted her arm to try to wave, but he had vanished.
Chapter 37
White. White walls. White sky. White coats. Whiteness everywhere. And a cold so deep and crushing she thought she might be buried beneath snow.
A jolt of pain in her arm. Then shooting fire tracing spirals down her neck.
Evie fought to keep her eyes open, struggling to turn her head, but it seemed to weigh five thousand pounds. Where was he? Where was Lucas? Someone had hold of her right hand, was stroking the palm. It felt good. She worried that if whoever it was let go the cold might sneak up on her and make her fall again into darkness, and she didn’t want that to happen. She wanted to stay awake. She wanted to see Lucas again. He was here. He was real. He was alive.
Wasn’t he?
Her fingers tightened around the hand. She couldn’t let it go. Voices were shouting over her, people were running, her shirt was being ripped off and she felt hard, cold metal pressed against her bare skin and shivered some more.
Through the noise and shouting she made out a familiar voice.
‘Please, help her.’
It was Cyrus but his voice was broken, husky, desperate sounding.
‘What happened? What’s your name?’ Someone was asking him a question.
‘Forget my name,’ he yelled. ‘Do something for her, she’s losing blood. Do something!’
‘What happened?’ a doctor or a nurse – someone in white – was asking. Their faces were all out of focus.
‘It’s another neck wound,’ a woman said, loud in her ear.
Another, the word registered somewhere in the depths of her mind.
‘She had an accident,’ she heard Cyrus say.
Hands forcing their way under her, pressing into the small of her back and then she was lifted, shunted, dropped down onto another bed, this one softer. A mask was put over her face.
‘5mg Valium,’ someone said.
No, no, no drugs. She couldn’t afford to be drugged. She twisted her head and tried to bat away the hands in front of her. Someone grabbed her arm and forced it to the bed. She heard Cyrus shushing her. Then she felt a sting in her hand. A few seconds later the room ebbed away as if she was being pulled out to sea on a current. The voices that had been shouting now sounded a mile away; she felt like she was floating on the waves,