Hunting Lila (18 page)

‘Try.’ Alex wasn’t asking too politely.

Key looked at him and sighed like he was giving away a trade secret. ‘When we project we can see auras around people, like a light.’

My mouth fell open.

‘It’s how I knew Lila was one of us. It’s like she’s wearing a sign. The colour of the aura is brighter, the light shimmering, more intense. And the stronger the ability, the brighter it burns.’ It was like he was an art historian explaining the brushstrokes of a masterpiece. ‘They’ll find you. Believe me, they’ll find you. And they want you bad.’

Key’s hand was on the door handle, already opening it.

‘Why are they still coming for me? Why do they want me so badly? Why don’t they give up?’ I could hear the creeping hysteria in my voice.

Key looked at me like I was stupid. ‘Because, Lila, they want you to exchange for Alicia. They know if they got you Alex and Jack will give them whatever they want.’

I swallowed hard, avoiding Alex’s eye. ‘Are you sure about that?’ Wasn’t that before Alex knew what I was? I doubted I held the same ransom value now.

Key suddenly seemed to realised what I was getting at. He shrugged. ‘Well maybe Demos just wants you then to join his little army? What do I know? All I know is they won’t stop until they find you.’

And with that he pushed open the back door and was out, limping to the line of trees and bushes on the side of the road. Then he was gone.

Alex had already put the car in gear and now he pulled out into the traffic again. Within a few seconds the arm of the speedometer was stroking the one hundred mark.

With just the two of us left, the atmosphere became so intense it felt like the slightest noise or movement would ignite the car into a blue ball of flames. My whole body was rigid, poised for flight or fight, though realistically flight was not an option unless I fancied being roadkill.

‘Alex,’ I took a deep breath, ‘why aren’t you taking me to the base?’

He thought about it before answering, his voice terse when he did. ‘The alarm’s gone off. It’s not safe.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant.’ I couldn’t look at him, choosing my words carefully. ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near the base or the Unit, obviously, knowing what I do about what it is you do there and how you feel about us.’

I saw his face darken with what looked like anger. He would be wondering what I knew and how. I struggled on. ‘What I don’t understand is why you aren’t handing me over, “containing” me or whatever it is you do.’

I felt the engine growl deep as Alex pressed down the accelerator. His foot would be through the floor soon. If looks could kill, the road would be dead. I was glad he wasn’t looking at me, and that he hadn’t looked at me since we got in the car. And just as I was thinking that, he did look at me. His eyes were in shadow but the tone of his voice was enough to let me know he was tipping over the brink of calm.

‘Jack will think Demos got to us both. He’ll go after them. Either he’ll catch Demos or he’ll slow him down, which might give us the chance to get you out of the country to someplace safe before either the Unit or Demos catches up with you.’

It didn’t answer my question but it did open up a whole load more. Out of the country? How was he going to explain that to Jack? And where was he planning on sending me? I couldn’t go back to London, where they wouldn’t need Suki to find me, just a phone book. So where could I go? Where on the planet would be safe?

I looked out of the windows at the red and white lights of cars making constellations in the distance and played Alex’s words over in my mind, trying to imagine Jack’s response. Then something registered and I stared at him wide-eyed. Had he meant he wasn’t coming with me when he said it would give us a chance to get me out of the country? That was crazy. I couldn’t go alone, I wouldn’t make it as far as check-in before getting caught. For a moment I considered pleading with him, actually begging him, to come with me but the scowl on his face dissolved the words before I could even speak them.

The clock on the dash showed the time was now 3.06 a.m.

‘Alex,’ I said, when it hit 3.30. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you . . . helping me?’

His face was disappearing in and out of the strobing shadows and I couldn’t see his expression.

‘What?’ he asked, as though he hadn’t heard the question.

‘Why are you helping me?’ I said again, my voice shaking. If he hated us – me – so much, why all this effort to protect me?

He turned back to the wheel, slamming through the gears. ‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he said, his voice a low snarl.

I looked away too, counting the white lines on the road as they blurred into one. As if I had a choice, I thought, as if I chose to be like this. Did he think I would choose to have him and Jack hate me?

I smacked my palm down on the door handle in frustration. Alex’s arm shot across me, pressing me hard into the seat. He was looking at me like I was insane and I realised he’d thought I was trying to open the door. I stared at him in shock and he slowly moved his hand back to the wheel, giving me a look that fell somewhere between a warning and a threat. So now he thought I was suicidal too. Great. Telekinetic and suicidal. Just great.

When I opened my eyes I was staring at the seat buckle, my head and body twisted into the side of the car door and my hand resting on the handle, as though in my sleep I’d been trying to hide, or escape.

I glanced up and out of the window. We weren’t moving anymore, we were just sitting on the side of the road as the dawn broke around us. There was no movement, no people, no cars and no noise – it was like the hiatus between breaths. I tried to work out where we were.

It looked like a desert town, flat and arid with dust already layering the windscreen, and even at this hour the road was throwing up a long-distance shimmer. Through the tinted window I could see a couple of buildings, mainly hardware and building supply stores spaced out at intervals. I had no idea what we were doing here other than maybe that Alex had pulled over to sleep.

I shifted slowly in my seat and turned towards him. He was staring out of his window and I felt both relief that he was still in the car and a shot of pain when I remembered that he wasn’t here out of love or friendship but out of some dubious code of honour. That’s what he had meant when he’d said he had no choice. It was so obvious. And so Alex.

I followed his gaze across the street. We were sitting opposite a second-hand car dealership. About forty cars plastered with ‘for sale’ signs were lined up facing us, like the start of a gumball rally.

We sat in the silence of the car, the air conditioning running, for another hour and forty minutes. Neither of us said a word. I brought my legs up onto the seat and sat there holding them, freezing but too scared to touch the buttons in the car or to open my mouth. I tugged at my dress to try to pull it over my legs and realised the seam had split up my thigh. My knees were hatched with blood and dirt. There was a small rent in one of the straps too which looked like it might at any moment lead to a wardrobe mishap. I remembered my flying tackle from the night before and glanced quickly over at Alex, remembering the hatred I’d seen in his face when I’d been standing on the porch. What would he have done if he’d reached me?

Eventually, things picked up a pace, like someone hitting the forward play button. A car pulled up outside the car dealership and a man in a short-sleeved shirt and golf trousers got out and unlocked the double padlock on the chain-link fence. He pulled into the lot and Alex started the engine.

I pushed my feet down off the seat as he drove across the road and into the dealership. I had an idea of what he was about to do and I was guessing Jack was not going to be too happy about it.

The man in the chequered trousers came straight out of his little Portakabin office, a coffee mug in his hand. I saw the look of surprise on his face quickly replaced with a broad, dental-worked smile.

‘Stay here,’ Alex said under his breath, already opening his door.

I watched through the window as Alex started talking. He had his back to me and I couldn’t hear a word. At one point I saw him gesture towards me and the man leant a little forward and glanced into the car, waving. I fidgeted with my dress, aware that I was looking exactly like someone who’d stayed out all night and then been dragged through a hedge backwards; hair all over the place, dark smudges under my eyes where my mascara must have run, and looking altogether the worse for wear. God only knew what story Alex was spinning the man. I glanced up again and caught him pointing to a car on the far side of the lot and I sat forward to get a better view. It was a little white Toyota, fairly old-looking. Not exactly Alex’s style. I didn’t care what it looked like, though, so long as it went fast.

The man started to circle Jack’s car. He opened the driver’s door and got in next to me, giving me a grin.

‘Hi there,’ he said.

I looked at him blankly then forced a smile, trying to surreptitiously smooth my hair and hold my dress together at the same time.

He wobbled the gear stick, turned on the engine, checked the speedometer. His hand hovered over the buttons by the radio and I felt sickness well up in the pit of my stomach.

Alex leant in the door. ‘That’s just the radio tuning.’

The man put his hands back on the wheel. He turned his head and noticed the bag on the back seat. ‘So, you two lovebirds are heading to Vegas, I hear. Congratulations.’

I stared at him, wondering if I’d misheard. Alex’s face appeared again behind the man’s shoulder, nudging me with his eyes. I realised straightaway what the message was and looked back at the man in shock.

‘Oh, er, thanks.’ I looked up at Alex again, who gave me the tiniest shrug. ‘It’s kind of sudden.’

‘Well, good luck to you both,’ he said, shaking my hand.

He got out of the car and I sat there in shock. I’d dreamt quite a lot when I was younger about marrying Alex. When I was nine I’d scrawled
Lila Wakeman
all over my diary about six hundred times. I’d even designed my wedding dress and practised saying ‘I do’ to a photo of Alex propped up on my dresser. Our wedding would have taken place in my parents’ garden or a little white church. There was probably a pony in there somewhere, too. But never in all those imaginings had I imagined Vegas and a getaway car. I had to laugh at the irony of Alex now being the one pretending we were getting married.

When I glanced up I saw the man indicating his Portakabin. Alex shook his head and the man shrugged and walked inside by himself.

The next thing I knew, Alex had opened my door and pulled me out. Then he walked to the trunk and grabbed a black holdall that I assumed was Jack’s.

Alex put his arm around me, his grip tight. It was pleasurable pain, my body reacting as it normally did to his touch. I was so tired I longed to put my arm around him too but I knew he was only holding me this way to keep up appearances for the car dealer. We had to look like we were in love, not like we were on the run from a secretive government unit and a pack of homicidal maniacs with mind control powers.

The man came out of his Portakabin, holding some keys and several stacks of paper in his hand that I realised were hundred-dollar bills. Alex held out his hand and the man counted out five stacks into it. I shifted uncomfortably, my bare feet starting to burn on the tarmac.

‘Fifty, and I throw in the Toyota.’

Fifty thousand? Jack had said it was worth one twenty. But that was with extras that Alex couldn’t demonstrate, unless he thought the man might up his price if he saw me flop to the pavement clutching my head. So fifty was probably a good amount. Jack would still go mad.

Alex took the keys from the man and handed him the Audi’s in exchange.

‘The paperwork’s all in the glove box.’

‘OK, sir, if I can just get you to sign this here piece of paper and check your licence we’re all done.’

I couldn’t see Alex’s face because he was holding me so tight, I could only look up at his chin. He had to let me go though to reach for his licence in his pocket. I felt him edge ever so slightly towards me so his body was still touching mine. He was clearly nervous about me doing a runner. I instinctively leant into him to close the distance. I was definitely through with running away from Alex.

‘OK, Mr . . .’ the man peered more closely at the document in Alex’s hand, ‘Hunt. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.’ I looked up in surprise. He turned to me. ‘And the soon-to-be-Mrs-Hunt, a pleasure.’

He held out his hand and I looked at it until I felt Alex gently nudging my back. I took the hand and shook it, murmuring my thanks.

‘Mr Hunt?’ I asked. We were walking fast towards the Toyota. Alex had picked up the holdall and slung it over his shoulder, his other arm around me. I was walking awkwardly over the ground and he hadn’t seemed to notice that I wasn’t wearing any shoes. ‘How do you have fake ID?’

Alex was unlocking the car and popping the trunk. He let go of me.

‘How do you think I have fake ID? It’s just a shame I don’t have one for you, too. It would be a big help right now.’

He opened the passenger door for me and I got in. The white leather seats stuck to the back of my bare legs and the inside smelt of stale beer with overtones of upholstery cleaner.

‘Nice choice,’ I said, when Alex got in his side.

He looked over at me briefly and I thought I detected the start of a smile at the corner of his mouth. My stomach muscles contracted with it. It was the first sign of warmth he’d shown me. The arm around me didn’t count, that had been acting. I let my eyes travel all over his face. He was busy reversing out of the space, looking over his shoulder. Maybe it was because it was daylight and the shadows were gone but the anger from last night seemed to have dissipated. He was still tense, I could tell from the furrows in his brow and the way his mouth was set in a line, but he didn’t seem angry anymore, just very focused.

‘Why did you sell Jack’s car?’

‘We’re going to need the money. Plus they’ll have an APB out on us. Every cop in the country’s going to be on the lookout for us. The Audi’s fairly conspicuous.’