Hunting Lila

by Sarah Alderson

I nodded my head again.

  ‘This is why. It’s always a possibility that they find a way to get to us. It’s safer if none of us have family living nearby. No one is married or has children.’

  I stared at him dumbfounded. Then I remembered something. ‘Sara – is she safe?’

  ‘She’s safe on the base. Jack’s staying with her now, though, until they find out what triggered the alarm.’

  Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. ‘Is that why Jack doesn’t seem to want me here, either now, or when I talk about coming back for college?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Despite what Alex was telling me about me being a possible option on the hostage menu, his confirmation of my suspicions made me feel deliriously happy. It wasn’t anything personal, they still liked me. Then I remembered that my whole approach to convincing Jack about coming back for college rested on my proving to him I didn’t need protecting. That was going to be a little bit tricky now. Hope was dying in me today on so many levels.

  I looked back at Alex. ‘You still haven’t told me who these people are.’

  Alex didn’t say anything, he was staring out the window frowning again. The possibilities were stacking up and I flicked through them in my head. I’d ruled out the drugs connection earlier, which left vice or the mafia or – I had run out of ideas. Then a sudden thought blindsided me – maybe they were my mother’s killers. I dropped my head onto my knees.

  ‘The people who killed my mother. Is it them? Are they the ones who are looking for me?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  I scanned his face for any trace of a lie. Alex held my gaze, his eyes blazing blue.

  ‘And Lila,’ he said, squeezing my collarbone, ‘we honestly don’t know if they are looking for you. It’s pure conjecture on our part. For all we know, they’ve given up and are halfway to Alaska by now. If I were them, I would be.’

  I considered this for a moment.

  ‘You won’t ever tell me anything about these people, or Suki, or about my mother’s murderers, will you?’

  Alex took another deep breath and looked at me, his expression torn. ‘I can’t, Lila. But I’ll tell you when we find them and it’s over. I’m so sorry that you’re in the middle of all this.’

  My face must have been registering the terror I was now feeling – and the irony. I had wanted so much to be in the middle again. Because he shifted towards me and put his arm around my shoulders.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be fine.’

  I let my head rest against him, feeling the calm descend.

  ‘You’re with me,’ he murmured, ‘and I won’t let anything happen to you, ever.’

  12

  A loud buzzing noise shocked me awake, sending vibrations through my body. I felt a hand lift off my back and Alex move off the sofa where he’d been sitting next to me.

  As he got up to answer the door, he looked back and said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just Jack and Sara.’

  I uncurled my aching body, kicking the blanket off me and pushing my hair out of my face. The dying sunset threw a few last notes of colour into the room. I wondered what the time was and how long I’d been asleep.

  I got up, my heart leaping as I heard Jack’s voice in the corridor.

  He came through into the living room, Alex and Sara following. Jack came right over to me and held me tight for a minute or two.

  ‘You OK?’ he whispered into my hair.

  I just nodded my head against his shoulder.

  ‘So, what did you find out?’ Alex had crossed to the windows and pulled down the blinds. He flicked a switch and a sidelight came on, casting a warm orange glow around the room. Sara sat down next to me on the sofa, Jack perched on the arm.

  ‘It’s all good. It was a false alarm,’ he said. ‘We’re still not sure what triggered it, but it must have been an electrical fault because there was no security breach. We checked all the surveillance films and there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Least we know it works,’ Alex said with a little shrug.

  ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Jack said. He looked at me now. ‘And you don’t need to worry about anything, Lila, you’re not in any danger. We’ve managed to pick up their trail. They’ve crossed the border into Mexico.’

  I glanced at Alex. Did that mean he was free to let me out of his sight again?

  ‘If you know where they are, why don’t you arrest them?’ I asked.

  ‘It isn’t as easy as that,’ Alex said.

  Man, how hard could it be? A whole unit of trained Marines hadn’t been able to catch my mum’s killers, and now they were telling me they couldn’t stop these guys, either. I was starting to wonder how good Marine training actually was.

  ‘Listen, can Lila stay here tonight?’ Jack said, diverting the conversation. ‘I have to get the window fixed in her room.’

  I glanced sheepishly at Jack. He was giving me a look.

  ‘How did you manage that one?’

  ‘Um, well, I . . .’

  ‘It’s cool,’ Alex cut in, saving me. ‘Of course Lila can stay. I’ll drop her back tomorrow morning.’

  I peeked at him through my lashes, grateful for the save. Maybe he realised I didn’t want to explain to my brother that I broke a window because I was pissed with him and his boss.

  Jack stood up and motioned to Alex and the two of them wandered off into the hallway. I looked at Sara and she smiled at me.

  ‘Jack told me you were just outside when the alarm went off, that must have been a bit of a surprise.’

  I thought back to the crush of Alex’s weight as I lay on the pavement and my first ride on a motorbike. ‘Yeah. It was pretty exciting.’

  ‘It’s never happened before. You should have seen the reaction inside the building.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t see anyone coming out to check what was going on.’

  ‘Lockdown,’ Sara explained. ‘The entire building shuts down when the alarm goes off. We can’t get out.’

  ‘I’m glad I was outside, then.’ If only Rachel had been a few minutes behind schedule I’d never have met her, I thought. I wouldn’t have run off. But then I wouldn’t have found out I was being guarded and I wouldn’t be getting to spend the night with Alex.

  What did it matter, anyway? Alex and Rachel obviously had a thing going on. I shut my eyes. When I opened them, I saw Sara looking at me with a concerned expression. I tried to smile but it came out as a grimace.

  ‘Don’t worry. The Unit are on top of this. You’ll be perfectly safe until you go back to London.’

  My jaw clenched. Go back to London. Like I needed a reminder about that.

  Jack came back into the room. He strolled over and kissed me on the top of my head. ‘I’m going back to the base with Sara now. We’ll see you tomorrow.’

  I looked quizzical. ‘It’s Alex’s birthday tomorrow, remember? You’re still on for a party, right?’ she said, looking at Alex.

  He looked at her. ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘No!’ She laughed. ‘But we’ll do dinner beforehand. Just the four of us.’

  At least it wasn’t five. If I had to sit through a double date with Rachel the chances were that more than a window was going to get broken. It would be far too dangerous in a room with forks. And knives.

  Alex followed them out into the hallway and I heard him setting the alarm.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you to bed,’ he said, when he came back in.

  ‘No, really, I’m fine here on the sofa,’ I protested.

  ‘Listen, if I have to pick you up and carry you in there, you’re sleeping in my bed.’

  The words sounded so good – it was a shame they didn’t mean what I wanted them to. I thought about protesting some more, but decided it would be more dignified to walk.

  In his bedroom, Alex opened the wardrobe. I stared at myself in the floor-length mirror. Still dressed in my shorts and pink vest, my hair hanging in waves down my back, I noticed the
scrapes on my knees. My eyes looked tired, with faint shadows under them. I felt like I’d lived through the longest day.

  Alex turned and threw me a T-shirt. ‘Here, you can sleep in this if you want. Just don’t go stealing it again.’

  ‘I didn’t steal it,’ I stammered in protest. I had so stolen it.

  ‘I’m just kidding with you. You can keep it if you want.’ He was laughing.

  I turned away so he wouldn’t see my face turning beetroot.

  He crossed over to the windows and drew down the blinds then came over and put his arm around me. ‘Sleep well,’ he said, then bent and kissed me on the top of my head.

  Always the top of my head.

  13

  There was a soft knocking at the door. I rolled over, unwinding myself from the tangle of sheets I’d straitjacketed myself in. The door opened at the same time my eyes did and I saw a bare-chested Alex in his shorts, standing there with a steaming mug in his hand.

  ‘Tea?’ he said.

  ‘Happy Birthday,’ I replied, sitting up. The room spun a little as I did so, Alex’s bare chest was like a flashing billboard in Times Square. My eyes were drawn back to it again and again, before my gaze fixed on the shallow dips on either side of his hips that were swallowed up by the waistline of his shorts. It was all I could do not to trace the shadows with the tips of my fingers.

  He grinned at me a little sheepishly, setting the tea down by my side.

  ‘I should be bringing you tea in bed,’ I said, though really I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind Alex serving me breakfast in bed every morning for the rest of my life . . .

  He crossed over to the windows and pulled up the blinds, letting in ribbons of sunlight. Then he moved to the wardrobe, giving me a simultaneous view of his front, reflected in the mirror, and his muscled back. I bit my lip as I took in the line of his spine and the soft shadow of his ribs under his skin. He pulled a T-shirt out of a drawer and slipped it on. I sighed in disappointment.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ he said, throwing me a glance.

  ‘OK. You?’

  ‘Not bad,’ he said, already out the door. ‘If you want to take a shower or anything, be my guest. I’ll fix breakfast. Jack’ll be over in about half an hour.’

  I got out of bed. My legs were aching from yesterday’s run. I glanced in the mirror opposite. The sunburn had eased and I had some colour across my face now, a few freckles making their comeback on my nose, but still I looked tired. No, not tired, sad. I looked sad.

  I would be leaving soon and it didn’t look like I’d ever be coming back. And Rachel would sink her manicured claws into Alex and that would be that. My life would be over.

  Jack arrived while I was getting dressed. I heard him talking to Alex in the kitchen and followed his voice down the corridor.

  ‘She can’t come back. It isn’t safe. It’s never going to be safe. Not until we’ve caught him.’ I froze mid-step. It was Jack talking.

  ‘That might not be for a while,’ Alex replied. ‘You can’t stop her. Lila’s got a mind of her own. Maybe you should tell her the whole story. I don’t like keeping it from her.’

  ‘You know we can’t. Rachel would never allow it.’

  My heartbeat was so loud they must have heard it. The conversation swerved off in a different direction.

  ‘Coffee?’ I heard Alex ask.

  I walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Hey,’ Jack said, looking shifty. I hoped his job never required him to do undercover work.

  ‘Hi,’ I answered.

  ‘You ready for breakfast?’ Alex asked, serving up some bacon and eggs onto a plate and pulling out a stool for me.

  I contemplated him for a second. He was avoiding my eyes. I climbed onto the stool. What was the whole story? Who was the him they were talking about catching? Why couldn’t Jack listen to Alex and just tell me? And why wouldn’t Rachel allow it? Who the hell was she to tell them what to do?

  Only their boss, I remembered with a sinking feeling.

  As soon as I said goodbye to Alex and the door shut behind me, I could feel the pull, that elastic band around my heart being stretched again. How was it going to feel with a whole ocean separating us? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Down in the car park, Alex’s motorbike stood at an angle as though leaning over to be petted.

  Jack saw me gazing at it lovingly. ‘I hope you enjoyed your first ride on that thing,’ he said, ‘because it was also your last.’

  Actually I’d had two rides on Alex’s bike, but I didn’t pull Jack up on the technicality – maybe Alex hadn’t told him about me running off.

  We walked over to Jack’s Audi which he beeped open. I slid into the passenger seat and tried to spot what one hundred and twenty thousand dollars bought. The speed gauge went all the way to two hundred and fifty miles an hour. Maybe that was it. I wondered if I could convince Jack to show me some of that speed. I scanned the dash. There were two buttons without icons on them. Bass? Treble? On/Off? Or something more exciting, like an ejector seat? I considered pressing one but realising how that might play out if they weren’t audio balance buttons gave me pause for thought.

  We swung out of the car park and into the blazing sunshine. I turned my head, trying to spot the black car that had been waiting on the street last night. It didn’t seem to be there anymore.

  A few minutes later, I checked again to see if it was behind us but nothing. I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to figure out how to broach the subject once more.

  ‘Jack,’ I eventually said, ‘if I leave next week, when can I come back?’

  He stepped on the gas. ‘Lila, you’ve seen what’s happened just in the few days you’ve been here. You need to stay in London, where you can’t be a target. If you’re here, I can’t keep you safe.’

  ‘But you don’t need to. I can look after myself,’ I said, with something approaching conviction.

  Jack glanced over at me with one eyebrow raised, snorted and then looked back at the road.

  I glared ahead. I needed to tell him. It was suddenly so obvious. If I told him and Alex about my ability then maybe they wouldn’t feel they had to keep protecting me. They might relax and let me stay. It was a long shot, and there was still a chance they might totally freak out and send me off to some secure unit for testing, but I had to rely on the fact that one of them was my brother and the other was, well, Alex, and he never overreacted to anything.

  Jack had parked the car and turned the engine off before I even realised we were back at his.

  ‘Sara’s coming round later,’ he said, unlocking the door to the house. ‘She thought you might like to get ready for the party together.’

  I smiled. It would be good to spend time with another girl, and I might be able to get more out of Sara than I’d been able to pry out of Alex. I looked at the clock on the wall. I had ten whole hours to kill before I saw Alex again. It felt like five centuries. But possibly it was just long enough to figure out a present for him, as in a real present, not one of the imaginary gifts I’d like to give him. It might also be long enough for me to figure out a way to tell them both about my ability without either of them running from me screaming.

  The present-giving problem was easily resolved in the end. In the back of my diary was a strand of brown leather Alex had once given me – a hastily pulled-together goodbye present from when I left five years ago. I’d worn it on my wrist for approximately a week in London before my new teacher told me to remove it or lose it. I figured that Alex might appreciate the return gesture. There was a risk that he might look at it and wonder why I was giving him a worn-out piece of leather as a birthday present, but I’d take it. I had no money other than a pile of loose change, so it was either the strand of leather or a popsicle.

  The other problem I thought I’d solved too. I figured that it was all about the way you looked at things. I could sell my ability to them as something freakish – or I could sell it to them as a superpower. The image in my head shifted f
rom Alex staring at me in horror and running away, to him looking at me the way Jack looked at Sara, and asking me out on a date. A superpower might just put me on a par with Rachel.

  I had it all planned – I would tell them tonight. After the party. The only minor spanner in the works was the fact my ability wasn’t so super and neither was my control of it. Still, I’d cross that bridge when I had to.

  14

  A knock on my bedroom door blasted me out of my daydreams.

  Sara poked her head around the door. She was wearing a little black dress with a gold detail around the edge which reflected onto her skin, making it glow. She also had a bag the size of a small suitcase in her hand.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ she said, coming to stand next to me.

  I looked in the mirror. I was wearing the blue silk dress I’d packed. Not that it mattered what I wore. If I’m the boss Barbie was in the room, Alex wouldn’t even notice me.

  ‘Right, let’s have some fun,’ Sara said, opening her bag with a flourish. It was filled with make-up and shoes. I had never felt so grateful to anyone in my whole life. Now I might actually have a shot at being noticed. Alex wouldn’t be able to see me as quite so little if I was wearing heels and lipstick and Rachel, if she was there, might even think twice about making another comment about babysitting.

  ‘So, when was the last time you three all saw each other?’ Sara asked, as she brushed powder onto my cheeks.

  ‘Three years,’ I said. A long three years.

  ‘That was in Washington, wasn’t it?’ She stopped what she was doing and knelt back.

  ‘Yes. Just after they dropped out of college. My dad flew back to try to talk some sense into Jack, and I came too.’

  ‘Yeah, he told me about that visit. He said your dad was really angry.’

  That was an understatement. My dad had totally flipped. I wondered at the time how Jack could have triggered such a reaction. But I didn’t complain because before I knew it we were on a plane back home and I was wishing he’d dropped out sooner.

  I looked at Sara. She was giving me a funny look, like she’d lost me into daydreams.