Hunting Lila (30 page)

‘Not at all.’ Ryder moved his feet out of the way and Demos sat down next to him.

‘Everything OK?’

‘I think so,’ I mumbled.

He didn’t seem to hear me. ‘We’re going to be meeting them in an hour or so.’

My heart started to skip a path through my ribcage.

‘I need your help.’

I eyed him suspiciously. ‘With what?’

Demos fixed me with one of his looks and I felt my muscles constrict. ‘We need to stop them, Lila.’

No. I needed to be back with Alex and to go with him and Jack somewhere far away.

Suki appeared and dropped to the floor by Demos’s feet.

‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked nervously, glancing at them both.

‘We need you to convince Jack and Alex to fight on our side,’ Demos said.

I felt four sets of eyes on me, and I could have sworn Harvey threw an anxious glance at me too, via the rear-view mirror. ‘Fight?’ I said the word as though it was an unfamiliar concept.

‘Yes. Fight.’

No. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. There was going to be no fighting happening.

Demos looked over at Suki. She pressed her lips together until they went white and shook her head at him. He looked back at me.

‘Lila. Please.’

I looked around me. Everyone was fixing me with pleading looks. ‘How are you going to fight them?’ I asked. ‘What can we do? Alex said the Unit operate under an even higher authority than the President.’

A little smile started to lift the corner of Demos’s mouth. ‘If we have Rachel, we’ll have leverage.’

‘But Alex told me the Unit would never exchange or barter for anyone.’

‘They will for her.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you know?’ Demos narrowed his eyes at me in surprise.

‘Don’t I know
what?
’

‘No, she doesn’t.’ Suki was shaking her head.

‘What?’ I asked again.

‘Rachel’s father
owns
Stirling Enterprises.’

‘Oh.’ I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. Surely my facility for surprise was totally neutralised by now. I leant back into my seat, suddenly relieved. ‘Well, in that case, you don’t need me. Or Jack or Alex. You have all the leverage you need. You just said so.’

‘No.’ Demos was shaking his head at me. ‘It’s not enough. We need people who know how the Unit operates, who can help us to stop them from the inside. We need Jack and Alex.’

‘No.’

‘Lila, I don’t think you have fully understood what your life will look like if you run from this. You will spend the rest of your days hunted. You will not be able to go home. You will not be able to see your father. You will not be able to settle in one place for longer than a few days, a week at the most. You will always be looking over your shoulder, wondering if they’ve caught up with you. They won’t leave you alone. You know too much and, genetically, you’re too valuable. They
will
find you. They will kill Alex and Jack, like they killed your mother, and they will contain you.’ He paused. ‘Am I making myself clear?’

Crystal, I thought. I sat there, unable to move, my head whirring through the options.
Could we run? Would we have a chance?

‘You can’t run, Lila,’ Suki said.

I frowned at her. Why couldn’t I?

‘The Unit killed your mother, Lila,’ Demos said. ‘Don’t you want revenge? Isn’t that what Jack and Alex have been after all these years? Don’t you think they’ll want the chance to stop them?’

My head snapped up and I glared at him. He knew he had me. In that one instant, I knew I would stay. I didn’t have any other option. And if Jack and Alex could be made to believe, I knew there was nothing on this earth that would stop them from going after revenge.

Demos scented victory. ‘We need to fight back. And to do that we need Alex and Jack to join us.’

I stared at him for a long while until Suki started to grin. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll help. What do you want me to do?’

There was a collective unleashing of held breaths all around me.

‘You need to talk to them. We need to convince them of the truth. They won’t listen to me. But they trust you.’

Yeah. I could see a huge flaw with his plan. Jack would never be convinced that Demos didn’t kill my mum. ‘You met my brother, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. And you realise I’m not really in his good books right now? And you – well, let’s not even go there. What makes you think he’ll listen to me? That he’ll ever trust you?’

‘You can be pretty persuasive when you want to be.’

I could? I hadn’t been able to persuade Jack to let me stay in California. And I hadn’t been able to persuade Alex to stay with me and not go back to stop the Unit single-handed.

‘You’re asking me to basically announce to them that they’ve been living a lie for the last three years. I have no proof other than the photo you showed me of you and my mum. And they hate you. I’m not sure I can do this. Jack will kill you before he listens to a word I say.’

‘But Alex won’t. He’ll listen.’

Would he? I thought about it. He might. He had already started having doubts. Maybe he would listen? And maybe he could convince Jack? I certainly wouldn’t have a hope on my own.

‘What about Rachel?’

We all looked over at Nate, sitting on the opposite sofa, by himself. ‘Why don’t we get her to talk? She must know what’s going on. Maybe, if they don’t believe Lila, which I’m thinking they might not, Rachel could, you know, convince them.’

Demos looked at him with interest. ‘Good thinking, Nate.’ Then he knelt back down on the ground next to me. He rested a hand on my knee and I looked at it, thinking how weird it was that I wasn’t flinching away in revulsion.

‘When they arrive, Lila, I need you to stay back. Remember they still think we’re holding you against your will. We need to make sure we get Alicia and Thomas and then you can go to them.’

‘OK,’ I said, almost mutely.

‘We’re there,’ Bill yelled from up front.

The gate into the Joshua Tree National Park was shut and locked. It took Bill about two seconds to remove the lock and open the gate, all from the comfort of his seat upfront. Harvey revved the engine and drove straight in.

The road was rutted, unmade and it was pitch-black out there. The lights from the car dazzled several Joshua trees standing like sentries along the roadside. We rolled along the ruts for ten minutes until we were quite a way into the park. I wondered what on earth had made Demos choose this place in the middle of nowhere.

‘Because it’s the middle of nowhere,’ Suki said.

‘Yeah, OK. Would you please stop doing that?’

‘Sorry.’

Harvey killed the engine. The lights started to fade in the bus. Only small footlights at the sides of the sofas stayed on – like on a plane during a night flight.

Then Demos’s voice came at me out of the gloom. ‘Everyone ready?’

No. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t believe I had agreed to help. But what choice did I have? I wasn’t sure there was such a thing as free will anymore.

‘Bill, Harvey – you know what you’re doing?’ Demos called out.

‘Yes.’ They opened their doors and jumped down into the darkness. I watched them melt into the night and wondered where they were going.

‘OK.’ Demos turned back to the rest of us. ‘I want this to go smoothly. We do the exchange. Lila goes to them. She convinces them to hear us out.’

I hoped Demos believed in the power of visualisation. I glanced around at everyone else to see how they were buying the pep talk. They all seemed pretty focused and positive. Maybe it was just me who was a quivering ball of nerves.

‘Suki, I need you by me. I need you to talk to Alicia, make sure she knows what’s going on. And vice versa. I need you telling
me
what they’re planning. Alicia’s been in the car with them all this time so she’ll know if they’re planning on doing anything unhelpful.’

He turned to Nate. ‘Nate, stay back please, in the bus, out of harm’s way. You’ve done enough. Get your strength back.’

‘It’s back already,’ he said eagerly.

Demos ignored him and I saw the glower of a sulk cross Nate’s face.

‘Amber, Ryder – you stay with Lila. Here . . .’ he handed a gun to Amber, ‘take this. You have yours right, Ryder?’

‘Yeah,’ Ryder said, reaching around and tapping his back.

Amber pointed the gun at the floor and checked the chamber with a practised one-two movement.

I jumped up. ‘Whoa – why do you need guns?’

‘Just so no one tries any heroics,’ Demos said, looking at me watchfully.

The gun was suddenly in my hand. Amber was standing with her finger pointed at the floor, trying to figure out what had happened. As Ryder looked over at me, I flipped his gun out of his waistband and let it smack into my other hand. I stood there like a cowboy at the OK Corral.

‘No one meaning Jack or Alex?’ I demanded. ‘You are
not
pointing a gun at my brother again. Or Alex. Or doing your mind-control thing, either. They’ve done what you asked them to. They’ve brought you Alicia and Thomas. And pointing a gun at them isn’t going to help get them onside.’

Everyone had fallen silent and was looking at me. No, not at me, I noticed. Their eyes were tracking the guns which I had started to wave about in time with my anger. I lowered them so they were pointing at the floor and pushed the safety on Amber’s, glad all of a sudden that Alex had shown me how to do that – before I blew my foot or someone’s head off.

Demos kept his voice soft and calm. ‘Lila, they still think we killed your mother. They think I kidnapped you.’

‘You did,’ I pointed out.

Demos hesitated a fraction. ‘What I’m saying is that they might not be so willing to let things slide once they have you back. They aren’t going to be coming into this unarmed. I just want to be prepared. Can I have the guns back? Please?’

‘No.’

‘Lila.’
His scowl was back. I squared my shoulders and gripped the guns more tightly. I was glad Bill and Harvey weren’t there. I’d have stood no chance against them.

He tipped his head at me and raised his eyebrows. ‘I can make you.’

I raised mine back at him. ‘Not if you want my help you won’t.’

I saw his scowl deepen then vanish. He nodded once curtly and turned away from me.

‘So like your mother,’ he muttered. I grabbed for one of the guns as it fell from my hand, stopping it in mid-air just before it hit the floor.

‘Let’s go,’ he barked. I looked up and around at everyone else. Suki and Nate were watching me wide-eyed, Amber looked mildly irritated but Ryder was laughing.

‘You’ve got balls, that’s for sure.’

I took it as a compliment. He threw his arm around Amber. ‘So, we’re supposed to be making sure you don’t go bounding off in Alex’s direction when they come. But you’ve got the guns. Not sure how we’re going to manage that one now.’

‘Can we just rely on you, Lila?’ Amber said.

‘Yes. I promise.’

I took the clip out of Ryder’s gun and pocketed it. Two guns seemed excessive. We waited in the dark envelopes of shadow on either side of the headlight beams. Bill had parked the bus so it was off the road but facing it at an angle, the headlights illuminating the route they would be coming down. I was hedged in behind Amber and Ryder. Suki was standing next to Demos to my left a few metres away and I had no clue where Harvey and Bill had disappeared to. Nate was sulking in the bus.

I looked around. The ground was pockmarked with little round holes. I stared at them, trying to figure out what they were, then did a little hopping dance when I realised they were rattlesnake holes. Suki giggled from the darkness.

‘You’ll hear them coming first – they rattle.’

She couldn’t see the face I pulled at her.

‘But I can hear you thinking it, Lila. Same difference.’

I focused instead on the blackness ahead, punctured by the arthritic shapes of the Joshua trees and the spray of stars lighting up the sky like someone had needled holes in a blackout curtain. Two were getting bigger. They weren’t stars, they were headlights. Everyone went quiet as they came towards us. I took a step forward automatically and felt myself brush up against someone.

‘Lila,’ Ryder said in a sing-song voice. It carried a hint of a warning.

I stepped back. ‘Sorry.’ I stood on tiptoe instead and peered over his shoulder to watch as the car came nearer. I could hear the engine now and the wheels tearing over rutted ground.

‘It’s them,’ Suki and Amber said, almost at the same time.

‘What are they thinking?’ I whispered into the darkness where Suki was standing.

‘Um, hang on, they’re too far away. OK. They’re just wondering why the hell Demos chose here. Alex is thinking about what he’ll do if we’ve hurt you. Jack, well Jack’s just thinking about how he can kill us. Lila, I really hope you can convince him not to try that . . .’

I felt the angry, blunt press of the gun down the back of my jeans. I hoped that I’d put the safety on properly. ‘I’ll try.’

The road ahead of us suddenly shone as the car they were in rounded the bend. It stopped just on the periphery of the light cast by the bus headlights. The engine cut, leaving the silence to roll back in. The lights from their car bathed the road ahead.

I tried to make out the shapes in the car but, wedged behind the wall of Amber and Ryder’s backs, my view wasn’t great. The doors clicked open and the internal lights turned on in the car. I couldn’t see either of them though as they climbed out and stood in the shadows. On the back seat I could make out Alicia. She was smiling calmly and nodding to herself. Next to her was a slumped shape leaning against the door. I caught sight of a face, the grey, milky colour of a corpse, and heard Amber draw in a tight breath. Ryder’s grip on her arm tightened.

‘Alicia’s fine,’ Suki whispered to Demos. ‘She says they’re focused only on getting Lila back. No other plans. They’re both armed. But she says we need to watch Jack. He’s volatile. His thoughts – I can read them too. They’ve been jumping around a lot. He’s focused now, but Alicia says he’s only just keeping a grip.’

I peered like a blind person into the darkness towards where the taller of the two figures stood. My whole body was screaming with one instinct – to run towards Alex. It was like trying to force myself to stand next to a fire that was about to engulf me, rather than running to safety.