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Flic’s arm. A faint shimmer rose off him as if he was fighting the urge to shift. ‘Flic, come on,’ he said, ‘we don’t even know what this prophecy means for sure. Don’t you think we should find out before you start attacking and, er, killing people? Especially if the person in question is your brother’s girlfriend?’
    Flic glared at him and then, shrugging her arm free of Jamieson’s hold, she crossed over to the window where she stood with her back to them, her arms crossed, looking out through a crack in the blind.
    ‘Issa,’ Lucas said, still keeping one eye trained warily on Flic, ‘can you help?’
    Issa regarded him for a moment, before nodding. ‘I’m not sure. I could try going back to the Sybll lands to see if I could find someone who might know more. But you can’t come with me, Lucas.’ She held up a hand, seeing he was about to argue with her. ‘It’s too dangerous for you to go anywhere near the Gateway. And she certainly can’t come,’ she said, nodding at Evie. ‘You should both stay here.’
    Flic spun around instantly, ‘They can’t stay here!’
    ‘Where are they going to go, Flic?’ Jamieson asked quietly. ‘You said yourself that every unhuman in the realms is going to be looking for them.’
    ‘The Hunter’s not in any danger though, is she? If she’s who you all say she is then no one will be able to stop her fulfilling this dumbass prophecy. She’s invincible!’
    ‘She can’t do this alone,’ Lucas answered.
    ‘She needs to be with her own kind, Lucas,’ Flic said, jerking her head at Evie. ‘Don’t look at me like that. You chose your side. Deal with it! Aren’t there any Hunters she can run to?’ She flashed him a snide smile, ‘Surely they’d help her fulfil her destiny?’
    ‘We can’t go to them.’
    She raised her eyebrows. ‘Why not? Did you kill them as well?’
    Lucas pressed his lips together. Risper, the only Hunter they could possibly have counted on, was dead. Not killed by him, but by a Thirster. He’d seen her die, torn apart and choked on, limbs discarded and her blood sluicing over the uneven ground, and he hadn’t been able to save her because he’d been fighting for his own life and for Evie’s. And Victor and Jocelyn, the only other two Hunters left, were alive but not exactly on their side. So no, there was no one else they could turn to.
    ‘What about the rogue Hunters?’
    ‘The who?’ Lucas asked, whipping around to face Jamieson.
    ‘There’s a band of Hunters,’ Jamieson said. ‘Trained. Running around like the children of Blade taking out unhumans. They’re on some kind of mission.’
    Lucas heard Evie draw in a sharp breath behind him. Her fingers gripped his shoulder tighter.
    ‘How do we find them?’ he asked, feeling a surge of hope.
    ‘Start a fight,’ Flic answered, smiling savagely. ‘You’re good at that, aren’t you?’

Chapter 4
    Evie watched the water drain first red, then pink and finally run clear down the drain, and only then did she stand up under the steaming shower and stop shaking. She rinsed her hair, took a few deep breaths and then turned off the tap. Putting the nail file down on the side, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it quickly around herself. The mirror was fogged up. She could make out her body distorted and smudged with purple bruises through the clouds of steam, but she didn’t want to look down and measure the events of the last weeks in each of the marks left behind.
    She hesitated before unlocking the door and stepping out into the darkened hallway, trying to pull herself together. She could hear the others talking in hushed voices in the living room as she crossed silently into the room opposite – the room that Jamieson had pointed out to her. She closed the door, feeling suddenly terrifyingly alone and wondering whether taking a shower in the house of a girl who wanted to kill her had been a wise thing to do. She’d half expected Flic to pull the shower curtain back and