Fated (15 page)

As they walked out of sight into the darkness offered by the trees, she could still feel the heat of all their eyes. Lucas kept on glancing backwards over his shoulder, no doubt checking to see if Tom was following them. She still didn't understand what had caused the dizzy spell. It had never happened before. Her hearing and her heart rate still felt amped up too. She wondered if she might be coming down with something. They kept walking. Lucas not saying a word.

'Thanks,' she said finally, to break the silence. 'But I didn't need rescuing.'

Lucas laughed under his breath.

'I really didn't,' she said indignantly. If only he knew who she was. She wasn't a damsel in distress. She was a kickass Hunter they sent to rescue damsels.

'Well,
I
did,' he finally said. 'You left me with a pack of crazed schoolgirls.'

She smiled despite herself. 'Yeah, it really sounded like you were struggling.'

He didn't reply, just kept ushering her forward and she kept moving because she didn't want the heat of his hand to fall away.

They were back in the orchard. The lights of the house were glistening through the branches. His hand finally dropped from her back and she felt a light shiver travel up her legs.

'Why do you wish you'd been in the car?' he finally said.

She drew in a breath and stopped. She hadn't realised he'd heard that part of the conversation with Tom. What had he been doing in the clearing, listening in? She paused. Strangely, she didn't feel cross.

'I - I just sometimes think it would have been a whole lot easier that way,' she said with a sigh.

She was glad it was a new moon, barely a sliver, and it was so dark he couldn't see her face. She couldn't make out his expression either, though his eyes were shining silver in the light. But she did see him nod. And then she remembered what he'd told them the night before. About his mother.

'Were you in the car with her?' she asked tentatively.

13

He was flung back there - to the scene in the woods. Back to the place where his mother had died while he watched. Holding her hand as the pool of red sunk into the ground around him. The blood-spattered leaves hanging off the tree dripping onto the back of his head, anointing him in red. When the paramedics finally arrived they'd strapped him to a gurney thinking he had a head injury. When they finally figured out he was fine, just paralysed by shock, they called it a miracle.

Not a miracle. Fate. Or luck. If that's what you wanted to call it.

He nodded in the darkness, felt Evie's fingers brush his own, accidentally or not he couldn't be sure.

'I'm sorry,' she said.

He couldn't see her properly, the moonlight was dim, barely penetrating through the branches of the trees around them. He could only see the translucent gleam of her skin. Her eyes looked even inkier than normal, her body narrower in the sheath of her dress.

'I'm sorry about your father,' he said.

He heard her breathing run more ragged, as though it was snagged in her chest.

'What happened?'

She took a breath. 'He was helping a neighbour fix a leak in their roof. And he slipped.'

Life was so precariously balanced, he thought.

'And just six months later Anna died.' She was whispering now. 'It's so weird. I thought I'd go numb like I did after Dad died. But I didn't. I just got angry.' She looked up at him. 'I'm still so damn angry. You know?'

Did he know? He had to force his lips together, clench his jaw shut.

'And I prefer the numbness. I want the numbness back,' she carried on in that slightly husky voice of hers.

'Stick with the anger,' he finally said.

'Why?' she asked, bewildered at his response.

'Because it will keep you going. If you're numb you can't fight.'

As soon as he spoke the words he wished he could take them back. Why was he giving her advice to stay angry and to fight? It would be a lot easier if she was broken and in pieces when it came time to kill her. What in this world was he doing?

A footstep through long grass. His attention snapped to the present.

Someone was out there. The same person he'd sensed stalking Evie in the wood by the river. Definitely Unhuman. But it was too dark and Evie's scent was blocking the smell of whatever was out there so he couldn't tell who or what it was.

He tried to focus. He could hear the sound of dry leaves rubbing together and a tread - heavy, a boy's tread. And a swish, like the wind cutting through leaves. Except it was a windless night.

It was a tail, not the wind. His eyes flew to the trees.

Damn Caleb, what was he doing here? He narrowed his hearing to one segment, fifteen metres or so behind them. There it was again. The swishing noise, the sound a blade makes when it falls.

He turned to Evie with a smile. 'Let's get inside, it's cool out here.'

Once inside he waited until Evie was upstairs and out of the way before he headed back downstairs to hunt Caleb. Lobo was pacing the back porch anxiously, pausing now and then to howl at the moon. Lucas stopped to stroke him and whisper in his ear that he could relax now, he would see to it. The dog whined just once and then stopped pacing, taking up sentry duty in front of the door instead. Their last line of defence - and a pretty useless one against a Scorpio.

Lucas darted into the shadows of the trees and circuited the house, but there was no sign of Caleb.

What had he been doing here? Why had he followed them to the river and what had he been planning to do? If he hadn't scented him and disturbed him, would he have attacked Evie in the clearing? Was that his plan? Was it sanctioned by Tristan? Surely not. If it had been the others would have come too. And Tristan would have warned him.

Lucas slipped back into the house, one thing still puzzling him. How had the Hunters let Caleb through the net? There were three of them patrolling the perimeter of the town. Lucas had to go the long way around to the Del Rey ranch every day just to avoid the one with the red hair. Even though he doubted any of them could pick him up, he wasn't going to go rubbing their noses in him. He couldn't believe that Victor and three other Hunters wouldn't notice an Unhuman as easy to sense as Caleb.

He took the stairs noiselessly and hovered outside Evie's room. No light shone from under the door. He turned the handle and the door opened freely. No more chair in the way.

She was sleeping, wrapped tight in her covers like they could cocoon her from the outside world and all she feared in it.

Yet what she feared most was right here in the room with her.

The baseball bat was lying across the sheets. He walked over to the bed and looked down. Her hair was half covering her face, her arms locked around her knees which were drawn up to her chest. She looked like she was desperately trying to hide from something. It was so different to how she appeared normally - yes, she was always a little defensive and on guard, but she never seemed to be hiding. In fact, she always seemed the opposite, to be standing so tall, facing everything head on.

He frowned. He wasn't here to look at her and wonder at her fears. He scanned the room. There was no sign of the book she'd been reading the other night - the one he'd heard her turning the pages of. God only knew where she kept it in this riot of a room. This would be a handy time for Grace to appear and help him out, but he was on his own. As he'd wanted it, he reminded himself.

The blue dress she'd worn earlier, the one that had matched her eyes so exactly, had been discarded on the floor. He picked it up and felt the featherweight of it run through his fingers - and felt the same panicked sense of something slipping away inside him. A moaning sound made him turn back to the bed. Evie was crying. In her sleep. The tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she stayed locked in the foetal position even as she cried. He reached a hand out and stroked back a strand of damp hair, wiping away a tear. A small sigh escaped her lips and he drew back his hand, staring at the teardrop on the end of his thumb.

Then, with a rush that caused Evie to pull the sheets even tighter around her, he left the room.

14

He took a blindfold out of his pocket and Evie backed away from him.

'No, don't use the blindfold, Victor,' the woman with red hair said. 'Let her try without it first.'

Evie glanced between them. Victor was looking cross. Earl, the short and squat and mostly silent one, just looked bored. He kept staring around at the cornfield they were standing in as though expecting the Brotherhood to arrive any second. He was armed to take them though, she thought, what with the two swords crossed on his back. He looked like some crazy-eyed Viking. By comparison she felt quite naked and defenceless in her jeans and T-shirt. Victor had told her to quit the jeans but she'd had a feeling training was going to involve running and sweat and possibly blood so she'd stuck with denim.

She did another double take at Mrs Lovell, still not believing she was a Hunter. That the woman in the plaid skirt who'd come into the store and told her not to quit her diner job, the woman who'd babysat her as a child, ran the knitting circle, and who could rival her own mother for nosiness, was a Hunter who'd been placed in the town to protect her.

Evie couldn't get her head around the fact that she was that important. She felt incredibly guilty that she'd sentenced someone to fifteen years of tweed and small-town politics for the thankless task of keeping an eye on her. But Jocelyn, as she was asking Evie to call her now, hadn't seemed in any way resentful, rather she'd walked right up to her and given her a huge hug. She seemed relieved that the charade was over, had even swapped the sensible shoes and plaid skirts for tight leggings and running shoes. She looked fifteen years younger. And had very good legs too, Evie noted.

The third Hunter she'd been introduced to was a girl aged about twenty.

At first Evie had been stunned. For some reason she'd expected them all to look like Victor - tall, middle-aged and built like brick houses. And Mrs Lovell and Earl were both about forty, she guessed - which gave Evie some comfort on the life expectancy front - and they both seemed to be pretty militant in the stature department. So to be confronted with a girl shorter and slighter than her, wearing sheer black tights underneath hot pants and heavy Doctor Marten boots, had thrown her.

Victor had introduced the girl as Risper. She hadn't offered her hand. In fact, Risper had barely lifted her chin in greeting. She had long black hair and blunt-cut bangs that hung down to meet her eyes, which were a churning dark brown colour.

Evie had expected some level of friendship from among her fellow Hunters. A slap on the back, maybe, a welcome to the fold - at the very least a smile or a word of encouragement. But no, only Mrs Lovell had bothered to smile at her and make her feel slightly less nervous about what was coming. Though now Evie caught her chewing her lip anxiously and darting little glances her way.

It wasn't making her feel any more optimistic about the training that was about to kick off.

'OK, Evie, this is designed to develop your instincts,' Victor announced.

A snort from Risper?

Evie whipped her head in her direction but she was just staring sullenly at Victor.

'I want you to stand here. And I'm going to give you these.' He held something in his hand but Evie couldn't work out what they were. 'The others are going to come at you and the idea is for you to hit them with one of these before they can touch you.'

'So a bit like tag, then,' Evie said lightly, staring around at the two-metre-wide corn circle they'd made in the middle of the field. The farmer would think he'd had alien visitors when it came to harvest.

'Yes, I suppose.' Victor shook his head. 'You can try without the blindfold first.' He handed her what was in his hand.

She looked down at what looked like little darts with pointed ends. 'Won't these hurt?' she said, looking up at Victor.

A little smile fluttered around his mouth. 'Only if they make contact.'

She stared at him hard. What was he suggesting? That she couldn't hit them? Right. She pulled her hair back and fastened it in a ponytail. She'd show him.

By the time she was done, the others had disappeared. Victor was standing on the far side of the circle observing her.

'Concentrate,' he told her.

She furrowed her brow in reply and tried to block out the sound of the corn swaying and the chirrup of crickets. She could hear an airplane droning overhead. She spun in a circle, trying to catch the whisper of movement, her arm raised, dart poised. When she spun back, he was standing in front of her. Earl. The silent one. She glared at him as he placed his hand gently on her shoulder.

'OK, out,' Victor called. Earl went to stand next to him. Evie huffed out a breath and tried to concentrate again. She closed her eyes, struggling to pick out a break in a corn stalk or the tread of a foot on uneven ground. There. Just there. She spun and threw her dart. The surprised expression in Mrs Lovell's eyes showed Evie she must have hit her. She looked down and spied the shaft of the dart sticking into the top of her thigh.

'Oh God, I'm so sorry, Mrs Lovell,' Evie said, dashing forward.

'Evie!' Victor yelled.

She turned around, confused as to why he was yelling at her, and was thrown backwards, slamming into the ground, the air knocked out of her. She was too stunned at first to understand what had happened but then Risper's boot came down hard on her chest, pinning her to the floor. She writhed underneath it like a bug pinned on a Petri dish, feeling a sudden surge of hatred towards this girl in her ridiculously short hot pants. Risper snarled something unintelligible and stepped away at Victor's order.

Mrs Lovell helped her to her feet and brushed her down. She'd pulled the dart out of her leg and handed it over. 'Good shot, well done,' she said.

'OK, again,' Victor shouted.

'What?' Evie rounded on him, nursing her bruised ribs.

'This time, you're blindfolded.'

She started to blurt out something about him obviously wanting to see her killed and why not just give them all sniper rifles while he was at it, but he wasn't listening. He twisted her and tied the blackout cloth over her eyes without another word, leaving her nose and mouth clear. Then he spun her into the centre of the circle.