Hunting Lila

by Sarah Alderson

  ‘Jack!’ I screamed and lurched out from behind the car towards him.

  Alex grabbed my shoulder and hauled me back, seizing me around the waist and holding me so tight all I could do was struggle against him. He rocked backwards with me in his arms and I kicked out at the ground, watching with horror as Jack fell to his knees and then pitched forward, his arms flung out on either side of his body.

  ‘No, no, no!’ I was sobbing and kicking and trying to get free from Alex’s grasp.

  ‘Lila, stop, stop! You’ll get killed if you go out there.’

  A bullet spun past my head, smacking into the ground by my ankle. Alex rolled over, pinning me with one leg to the ground as he knelt and continued firing over the bonnet of the car at the remaining two men. Tears were rolling down my face as I stared helplessly at Jack lying motionless on the ground. I could see a pool of blood seeping into the earth around him.

  ‘Damn it. There’s two still out there.’ Alex was yelling to Demos, trying to be heard over the haemorrhaging roar of an engine. ‘And there are more coming. We’ve got no chance.’

  I turned my head to see. Another set of headlights had appeared in the distance.

  ‘Go. Get out of here,’ Demos yelled back. ‘I’ll hold them off as long as I can.’

  ‘No!’ I screamed again. ‘We’re not leaving Jack.’

  Alex put his hand on my face, pulling me around so he could look me in the eye. ‘If we leave him, Lila, he has more chance of surviving. We can’t get to him without getting killed. And if we did get to him, there’s nothing I can do for him here. He’ll have more chance if they reach him.’

  He glanced at Jack one more time then started firing again out into the darkness where the two remaining men had gone to ground.

  I stared at Alex, not comprehending, then looked back at Jack. His eyes were open and he was looking straight at me. I felt relief but it was quickly swallowed by panic. I couldn’t leave him. Then he moved one arm, the hand holding his gun, and pulled it up so it was parallel to his head.

  Still looking at me, he mouthed the word ‘go’, then raised himself onto his elbows and started to fire.

  ‘Open the door,’ Alex shouted over the noise.

  ‘What?’ I stammered, my eyes still on Jack.

  ‘Open the car door. I can’t reach.’

  I opened it without even looking at it. Then I felt myself physically lifted off the ground as Alex hauled me like I was a sack around the car door and threw me onto the front seat.

  ‘Head down, move!’ he yelled.

  I obeyed instinctively, curling up into a ball and flattening myself across into the passenger seat. Alex was in after me in the next second, revving the engine. A bullet whined and smacked into the side of the car as he spun it into reverse and roared out onto the road. I gripped the dashboard and looked back at the dark shape lying abandoned on the ground. That was my brother. That was Jack. I saw him drop his gun and rest his head back on the ground. Alex pushed me down into the seat well. I felt the tears pounding down my face in time with the smack and hiss of bullets.

  We veered off the road, Alex killing the lights so we were hurtling through blackness. He swerved violently, the wheel spinning beneath his hands. He wrestled with it while I clambered onto the seat and looked over my shoulder. We were heading away from the park gates, in the opposite direction to the blazing headlights of the third Humvee that had just appeared over the ridge. I willed Demos to move. Then the bus started to roll forward and Demos jumped on board, the men he’d been holding frozen suddenly reanimating and firing in all directions. I watched as two of them raced over to Jack and rolled him over onto his back, kicking the gun out of his hand.

  Alex grabbed my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. ‘Lila, look at me. Look at me,’ he shouted.

  I forced my head to turn, to look at Alex. His eyes were burning into mine. ‘Don’t look back. Just keep looking at me. It’s going to be OK,’ he said. ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’

  Epilogue

  As dawn broke, we pulled into a rest stop just off the highway.

  Alex opened his door and got out. I followed after him, looking around at the half-dozen or so trucks parked around us. There was no RV with West Virginia plates amongst them.

  It had been two days. Two days and two nights of not knowing. Two whole days and two whole nights running from the scene we’d left behind in Joshua Tree – from the people we’d left behind. I felt a horse-kick to my stomach every time I remembered Jack sprawled in the dirt bleeding, with Ryder lying dead beside him.

  I screwed my eyes shut. When I opened them again the sun had started to stretch the shadows across the asphalt. I scanned the highway in both directions, sighing loudly. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be in Oceanside.

  I glanced over at Alex. He had his sunglasses on so I couldn’t see the dark shadows or the look in his eyes, which I was grateful for. Alex, normally so impossible to read, was struggling to hide his worry. He kept reassuring me that Jack would be OK and I was trying hard to believe him but his eyes kept giving him away.

  As though he sensed me studying him, Alex turned then walked around to my side of the car. He put his arms around me and I sank my head against his chest, feeling some of the anxiety immediately fade away. He lifted me up and rested me on the bonnet of the car and we stayed like that for a while, me cocooned in his arms with the sun slowly warming us.

  ‘Will they come, do you think?’ I asked eventually, my cheek still against Alex’s chest.

  ‘They’ll come,’ he answered, as though it wasn’t up for debate.

  For forty-eight hours we had been zigzagging through California and Nevada, trying to shake the Unit off our tail. Alex was convinced that Demos, either through Nate or Suki, would find us eventually. I hadn’t voiced my fears – that they had been caught or that the Unit would find us before they did – because they didn’t need voicing. But now we were getting into our third day since the shoot-out and there was still no sign of Demos and my fears were starting to press against the dam of my chest, threatening to burst through it.

  If it wasn’t for Alex’s arms around me, I thought I would give up and just wait for the Unit to find me. At least then I’d get to see Jack and my mum again. But even as I thought it I knew that I would never give up – I would never give in to the Unit, not after everything they had done to my family.

  I lifted my head so I could watch the road, surreptitiously scanning the rest stop and the surrounding area for missiles I could launch if I needed to.

  Eventually, when the sun was brushing the bottom branches of the trees around us, we heard the grind of gears and looked up. A dirty white RV was thundering down the highway. I gripped Alex’s arm. We watched as it pulled into the rest stop. It had a West Virginia number plate. I jumped down off the bonnet.

  They had found us.

  I spun around to Alex. A shadow of a grin passed across his face when he saw my expression. ‘Told you,’ he said.

  I turned back and waved at the RV as it drew up in front of us. Demos and Harvey were first out, Suki and Nate stumbling down the steps behind them. The two of them looked shell-shocked. Suki’s face was streaked with black lines. Alicia and Bill followed last. There was no sign of either Amber or Thomas. Alicia looked fierce. Her eye was healing but I noticed the scowl she shot at Alex. Bill seemed uneasy, like he wanted to be away from all this.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Demos asked, striding straight towards me. He put a hand on my shoulder, his eyes boring into mine.

  ‘Yeah, I’m OK,’ I said, my voice husky. ‘Is Jack, though? Did you see him? Is he alive?’

  ‘They put him in one of the Humvees,’ Demos answered. ‘He’s alive but we didn’t see what happened to him.’

  My face fell. What was the point of all this waiting, then? We should have just gone straight back to the base, followed after them and found out. I couldn’t wait any longer not knowing. I heard a familiar voice and looked up.

&n
bsp; ‘I saw what happened to him.’ Key was standing in front of me. It took me a few seconds to place him.

  ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’

  Seriously, what was he doing here? My eyes flew from Key to Demos and then back to Key. Only a few days ago Key had been warning me about Demos. Now they were on the same side? It hit me only then. Of course they were on the same side. We all were now.

  ‘I was on the mountain, Lila,’ Key said, wiping the back of his mouth. ‘I heard you all talking – heard what Nate had to say, and then I followed you all to Joshua Tree. Saw that girl Rachel talking about your mother – figured you might need some help in getting her back.’

  I stared at him, tears stinging my eyes. I couldn’t speak.

  ‘I caught up with these guys eventually but it took a while. Had to go back for my body,’ he said, shrugging and smiling at the same time. He glanced over at Nate and smiled. Nate grinned back at his dad.

  ‘And Jack? You said you saw what happened to him.’ I clutched for his hand.

  He looked back at me and the smile vanished. ‘They took him back to the base. He’s in the military hospital there. The Unit are all over him.’ He paused. ‘He’s not in a good way, Lila.’

  I felt my breathing start to hike. The ground started to shimmer and move beneath my feet. I felt Alex’s hand come around my waist, rest on my hip, stilling me.

  Key took a breath and I caught the wary look he flashed at Alex. ‘He was hurt bad. The bullet missed all the vital organs but it’s lodged near his spine. They operated. He’s OK but he’s in a coma. They won’t know what the damage is until he wakes up.’

  Alex’s grip on my waist tightened and I leant into him, closing my eyes, taking in Key’s words.

  ‘He’s alive,’ Alex whispered into my hair.

  Relief belatedly rushed through me. I straightened up, pulling away from Alex. Jack was alive. So now we needed to get him back.

  I turned to Alex. ‘How do we get into a military hospital?’

  He hesitated. ‘Not that easily,’ he said finally.

  I stared at him, wanting a better answer than that, but I just found myself looking at my reflection in his sunglasses. I had my hands on my hips, my hair tumbling over my shoulders, my eyes burning. I turned away, kicking the gravel with my shoe.

  ‘And Rachel?’ I heard Alex say.

  I spun around.

  ‘She’s inside,’ Demos answered.

  ‘We stuck a gag in her mouth,’ Suki added. ‘She can really talk and Demos can’t spend all day whiting her out.’

  Demos gave a faint shrug.

  ‘What are you going to do with her?’ Alex asked.

  Demos studied Alex hard, his gaze inscrutable. ‘We’ll use her. Somehow. She must have some information. Suki and Alicia are both trying to read her but she’s blocking them somehow. We’ll find a way in, though, or we’ll use her as collateral.’

  Alex frowned a little but just nodded.

  ‘You need to get Lila out of here,’ Demos said, tipping his head towards me.

  ‘No!’ I yelled, moving to stand between them. ‘I need to go back. We need to get Jack. We need to get my mum.’

  ‘We will.’ Demos turned to me, his voice low. He put a hand on my arm. ‘Just not now.’

  Why not now?

  ‘We’ll get them back, Lila, I promise. But first we need to regroup. Ryder’s gone.’

  I stopped short, my protest dissolving. Ryder was dead. Demos’s head was hanging down, his eyes hooded. I looked over at Suki, tears streaming down her cheeks. Nate was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Alicia was still glaring at Alex and Bill was just looking at the ground. This was their family. They had lost one of their own. And so had I.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I choked out.

  Demos nodded at me, his lips pressed tightly together. He looked over his shoulder at the door to the RV.

  ‘Is everyone else OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ Demos looked at the ground. ‘No one else got hurt,’ he said, under his breath.

  There was a moment of stillness. Only the shudder of traffic from the road.

  ‘You go,’ Demos finally said to Alex. ‘Take Lila and head south. Over the border. Keep going until you hit Mexico City. We’ll find you there.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Alex asked.

  ‘We’re going to try to draw the Unit away from the two of you, we’ll go north.’

  ‘OK,’ Alex said and started to pull open the car door. ‘We’ll see you in Mexico.’ His eyes flashed suddenly to me. ‘Then we’ll take it from there.’

  I considered him for a moment, considered myself in his glasses. Then I opened the door of the car.

  ‘Wait.’

  I turned around. Demos had hold of my arm. He pulled me towards him and squashed me into a massive hug. ‘Stay out of trouble,’ he murmured before letting me go.

  I stumbled back out of his arms and stared after him as he marched back to the van. Suki held up a hand in farewell. Nate tugged her backwards and nodded a sad goodbye. I watched them go, feeling a familiar snap and ping as something inside me started to stretch.

  Then I turned to Alex. His eyes were fixed straight on me, filled with anxiety and something else. Something I now recognised. Because I knew the feeling well – had known it since the day I broke my leg twelve years ago.

  I smiled a weak smile. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  An echo of a smile turned the corner of his mouth up. He pulled me by the arm until I was tight against him and then bent to kiss me on the lips. ‘We’ll find your mum and Jack, I promise,’ he said.

  And I believed him.

  IF YOU ENJOYED HUNTING LILA,

  LOOK OUT FOR THE NEXT HOT BOOK

  FROM SARAH ALDERSON – FATED, COMING SOON!

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A TASTER. . .

  ‘Her name is Evie Tremain. She’s seventeen years old. She lives in Riverview, California. Now go and kill her.’

  The stillness in the room erupted as chairs scraped the floor. There were a few hushed whispers, a stifled laugh and then the door slammed shut cutting the noise off like a guillotine.

  Lucas stood slowly, taking his time. He didn’t notice that the others had left the room, nor that Tristan was standing by the window watching him. All his attention was focused on the photograph he held in his hand.

  It showed a girl – dark-haired, blue-eyed – looking straight at the camera. It was a close-up. He could make out the shadows her lashes were making down her cheeks. A strand of hair was caught like a web over one eye and in the corner of the shot he could see her hand, reaching up to brush it away. Her lips were slightly parted, like she’d been sighing just at the moment the lens snapped shut. Her expression was . . . Lucas paused. He wasn’t sure what her expression was. She looked unhappy, or maybe just pissed off.

  She was a Hunter, though, so what did he expect? And this one had a history that would make anyone unhappy. Or pissed off.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Tristan asked.

  Lucas looked up from the photograph, then glanced over towards the door, realising that he was the only one left in the room. He looked back at the older man.

  ‘No, nothing’s wrong,’ he answered quietly.

  ‘Well, you’d best get going then,’ Tristan said, his eyes not leaving Lucas’s face. ‘You don’t want to miss out on all the fun.’

  Lucas looked down once more at the picture of Evie Tremain, feeling momentarily ambivalent towards her. Then he scrunched the photograph up into a ball and dropped it on the floor. It didn’t matter what lay behind that expression because soon nothing would. She was just another Hunter to be dealt with. Next week or next month there would be another. And then another. And dealing with Hunters was what the Brotherhood did.

  Lucas didn’t look back at Tristan but he could sense his eyes burning into his back as he left the room.

  Moving away fast down the corridor, Lucas realised he could no longer hear the others. He was faster than an
y human - he knew because he’d had to outrun them many times – so it didn’t take him long to reach the basement garage.

  There was just one ride waiting for him. Caleb and Shula were sitting in the front seats, the engine revving, the back door flung open.

  ‘Come on!’ Shula yelled. ‘What’s keeping you? There’s a Hunter to kill and the others are going to beat us to it!’

  Lucas smiled and shook his head, ducking into the back seat and slamming the door shut.

  He let his head relax back against the seat and watched the speedometer climb as Caleb slammed the Mercedes out of the underground garage and onto the highway. Lucas stared out of the window. This stretch of highway was always quiet, but at night it was even more so – there were only a few factories and gas stations for at least twenty miles in each direction. The Mission was a good base for the moment. Tristan had chosen well.

  ‘She’s pretty.’

  Lucas turned his head. Shula was leaning across from the front seat, waving the photograph of Evie in his face. He grunted and went back to looking out the window.

  ‘Think she’ll put up a fight?’

  Lucas looked back at Shula. She was studying the photo intently, as though she could will it to life. Her raven-black hair was spilling over her shoulders, her skin glowing freakishly in the green dashboard lights. He almost smirked. Shula tried so hard to fit in and yet here she was looking as unhuman as a Shapeshifter midshift.

  He smiled softly. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  Shula grinned back, then kicked her legs up onto the dash and spun the volume button on the radio to high.

  * * *

  Evie Tremain turned the lock in the café door. Main Street was dead. All the stores were dark – only the yellow street-lights were eclipsing the darkness now. Two cars were parked up in the shadows out front. Someone climbed out of the passenger seat of one and walked in her direction. She flipped the Closed sign quickly. There was no way she was serving another customer tonight. Not even for the chance of a twenty dollar tip.