Hunting Lila

by Sarah Alderson

  My breath caught in my throat. How did he know this? ‘How did you see any of that? You’re lying.’

  ‘I don’t need to be in my body to move around. To see things and hear things.’

  ‘Huh,’ I snorted. ‘Right.’ What was I thinking? I should have yelled for Jack when I had the chance.

  ‘I can project – leave my body and go places.’

  This time I laughed. ‘You’re telling me you can fly? You honestly expect me to believe that?’ The man was a lunatic. What was I doing listening to this?

  ‘Can you move things with your mind?’

  I stopped laughing. When he put it like that. I narrowed my eyes at him. He didn’t look like he could fly. But then it wasn’t like I looked any different to anyone else.

  ‘So you’re saying there are others, then?’ I asked quietly.

  He nodded, holding my gaze intently as if scared I was about to do something crazy. ‘Some the same as you; some, like me, who can do different things.’

  I laughed under my breath. Why had I imagined there wouldn’t be others? ‘So—’

  Before I could get the rest of the sentence out, he cut me off, his voice urgent. ‘But that doesn’t matter right now. I need your help.’

  I ignored him. ‘And the Unit – when you said they’re hunting people like us, what did you mean?’

  He licked his lips and I found myself literally hanging on his words. ‘That’s what they do, Lila.’ He paused. ‘That’s their single remit – to find those with abilities like ours and—’ He broke off.

  I swallowed hard. ‘And what?’

  Key turned away from me. ‘I don’t know exactly. But when they take someone onto the base at Pendleton – they call it containing them – they never come back. That’s why I triggered the alarm at the base, so he wouldn’t take you inside. I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again if he did.’

  He. He meant Alex.

  ‘But . . .’ I couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence. Alex and Jack, all this time, hunting for something – and that something was me. Or people like me.

  I looked up into Key’s eyes. ‘I don’t understand. Why?’

  He looked back at me and shrugged slightly. ‘Fear of the unknown? Fear of what you might be able to do?’

  ‘But why would anyone be afraid?’ Then I remembered the boy whose eyeball I’d nearly skewered. He’d been pretty afraid.

  ‘Lila, not everyone’s like you, or me. Just trying to get by in life without drawing attention to what we are. The people who took my son, the people your brother is trying to catch, this man Demos, he is something to fear.’

  ‘Demos? Who is he? And why is he something to fear?’

  ‘Because Demos wants power – he wants control.’

  Key walked over to where I was standing by the door. He was looking at me as though it should be obvious what he was talking about it, but I didn’t have a clue. Power? Control? Over what? The only thing I did know was that I needed to get away and find Alex.

  And then came the crushing realisation that if what Key was saying about the Unit was true, I couldn’t go and find Alex. I couldn’t go near him or Jack ever again. They were after me. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I bent over to suck in some air.

  Key grabbed hold of my shoulders and started to shake me hard. ‘I need your help!’ He was shouting in my face and I flinched away from him.

  ‘You keep saying that,’ I sobbed, ‘but what can I do? You’re telling me there are others like me, but worse, and that my own brother would hunt me down if he knew?’ I gave a hollow laugh. ‘That’s ridiculous, Jack’s my brother. He’d never let anyone hurt me.’

  Key was looking sceptical.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘what do you care?’

  ‘I care because right now you’re the only person who can help me.’

  I shook my head dumbly.

  ‘Demos has my son and I don’t know where they’ve taken him. I need to find him. I need to get him back before the Unit get to them. I can’t lose my son.’ A flash of pain crossed his face. He glanced up at me quickly. ‘I was following the Unit and then they caught Alicia and I lost them.’

  ‘Who’s Alicia?’

  ‘The person your brother’s team caught the other night. The night you arrived.’

  It took me a few seconds to process all this.

  ‘Lila? Do you know anything?’

  ‘Like what? This is all news to me. I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you might have overheard something? Has your brother mentioned anything to you – anything at all about their missions?’

  I suddenly remembered something. ‘They’ve crossed the border. Into Mexico. I don’t know where exactly.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ He came close. ‘Why would they go down south?’ He turned and started pacing, kneading his head in his hands.

  ‘I don’t know, that’s just what Jack said.’

  Key turned back to me. ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘Nothing, he doesn’t tell me anything.’

  The guy was in my face again, his breath like a cigarette blowing in my eyes. ‘Are they close? Is the Unit near to catching them?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, they’re following them. I don’t know what’s stopping the Unit from arresting them.’

  ‘Arresting them? Is that what you think they’ll do?’ A harsh laugh spat from his lips. ‘Lila, you can be sure they won’t be arresting them – which is why I need to find them before the Unit does. I need to get my son back before your brother and his friends catch up with them.’

  I felt tears slicking down my face again.

  ‘I need you to find out where they are and what the Unit is planning.’

  ‘How? You just expect me to ask him? Just like that?’

  ‘No.’

  I wiped the back of my arm over my face. ‘If you know so much about me – about Jack and the Unit – if you can do what you say you can do and fly places . . .’ he winced but I carried on, ‘then why can’t you find the information? Why do you need me to help?’

  ‘I can’t get into your house because of that damn alarm system.’

  I drew in a sharp breath. ‘Is that what it’s for?’ I asked. ‘To keep people like you out?’

  Key raised an eyebrow. ‘People like us, Lila,’ he said.

  ‘Well, how come I can get in then?’ I shot back.

  ‘It only works – it only goes off – if we use our power. Some kind of electromagnetic sensors. No projector can get through it. Neither can a telepath.’

  I thought about Suki on the doorstep peeking through the letter box. If I’d have set the alarm that morning would it have gone off? Then I remembered how I’d broken the window with a flying hairbrush and how I’d turned the light switch on and off without touching it.

  ‘Well how come I haven’t triggered it, then?’ I demanded, my voice shaking. ‘All the time I’ve been here, how come I haven’t set off this so-called alarm? There’s a dozen times I could have triggered it.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking bewildered, ‘was it on?’

  I paused with my mouth open and tried to think back. When the hairbrush flew off the dresser the alarm hadn’t been on because I’d just breezed into the house and switched it off. The time with the bag, Jack had switched the alarm off when we came in the house. But there were other times – what about the time with the light switch? I frowned at Key. It seemed too random that the alarm had always been off at those moments. Too lucky. And luck wasn’t exactly something I had in spades.

  ‘Look,’ said Key in a rush, ‘please can you just take a look in the house? I can’t risk going near the place. Not with all the security and the cars outside. I don’t want the Unit knowing about me – it’s too risky.’

  ‘You think there’s something in the house? Like what?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe Jack has information on Demos and his people, information on where they are or when they�
�re planning on making a move. I want to know if they even know about Nate. Listen, I wouldn’t be coming to you if I had any other choice. But I can’t get into their headquarters and I can’t get into any one else’s apartment. Besides, your brother’s a lieutenant, he’s surely got access to more information than the others.’

  My mind whirled. If what Key was saying was true and Jack had information in the house somewhere, I needed to find it. I needed to know what was going on. I needed to know if any of this was true.

  ‘OK,’ I whispered. ‘I’ll help you.’

  The relief on his face was palpable. I thought he was going to cry. ‘Thank you.’ He squeezed my hand.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’ The words trailed off.

  Key nodded. ‘OK. I’ll go before they come looking.’ Before I could even wrap my head around what he was saying he had inched open the door, peered around it and left.

  I stood staring at the spot where he’d been standing, my breath starting to come in gasps. Little black dots began jumping in front of my eyes and I staggered backwards, falling into a cubicle. I dropped onto the seat and put my head between my knees. A hacking, laboured sob burst out of my chest and I pressed my fist against my lips to stifle it.

  They didn’t know it but Jack and Alex were hunting me. My own brother and the person I’d been in love with since forever would kill me, or ‘contain’ me, whatever that meant, if they ever found out what I was. Everything I had imagined about the Unit couldn’t come close to this.

  I sat up and took a deep breath. Maybe Key was making it all up. He had to be. It was too absurd. It must be a wind-up.

  But the voice inside my head was calm, telling me loud and clear that this was no wind-up. Because, in a messed-up way, it actually made sense. The pieces were suddenly slotting together: the secrecy, the alarm, the fact they hadn’t been able to catch the people they were after even though they’d had them in their sights. Because their targets had powers, abilities – just like I did.

  I had to leave right now. This second. Get on a plane and get out of here before they figured it out.

  But how could I just leave? I hesitated. Maybe they would never find out. Maybe I could stay.

  No. I had to go. Given my lack of control and the number of alarms all over the place it was a miracle Alex and Jack didn’t already know about my power. Would they have locked me up if they did? I’d been right about them thinking I was a freak and taking me to a secure unit for testing. It was hilarious. I was actually laughing out loud. No, that was hysteria. Even I could recognise it for what it was.

  I heard the door open to the bathroom and the noise of the bar rushed in followed by the close-up shrieks of some women. The sound snatched me back into the present. I was sitting in a toilet cubicle in a club full of men who wanted to contain me. I needed to pull myself together and get out of there.

  I stood up, straightened my dress and unlocked the door. I stopped in front of the sink and threw cold water over my face, wiping away the remains of my make-up, staring back at the wide-eyed girl in the mirror – I looked like I’d just crawled out of a car wreck.

  Time to go.

  I pushed the door open slowly, hovering on the precipice of the room, looking around at the members of the Unit scattered across the bar, laughing and necking their beers. A shiver ran up my spine, like someone was walking over my grave. I wouldn’t stand a chance, not even with my ability, not even with all that beer taking the edge off their aim. Still, no one had missed me while I’d been stuck in the bathroom with Key, so why they would start noticing me now, I had no idea.

  Then I saw Alex. It was easy to make him out in a crowd. It was the way he stood, like he was permanently on guard. Which, I now knew, he was. Against me. He turned then so I could see the side of his face, the graze of his stubble and the shadows his lashes made under the low lights. He was laughing at something the person he was talking to was saying.

  And suddenly the idea was preposterous. I couldn’t leave Alex. It was impossible to even contemplate. I would just tell him everything. Walk over there right now and tell him. He had promised he would never let anything happen to me. Maybe once I told him, the Unit would realise they were making a mistake trying to contain people like me. Alex would listen and make everything OK. He always made everything OK. I took a step towards him.

  He turned then and I saw that the person he was talking to, laughing with, was Rachel.

  She looked amazing: blonde, svelte and gleaming, like she’d been dipped in gold. I felt as if I’d been winded, like Rachel had walked over in her three-inch heels and minuscule minidress and, with a smile on her face, punched me viciously in the stomach.

  They made a silent tableau: Alex bending his head towards her, hand hovering at her waist as though about to pull her into his arms. Rachel looking up at him wide-eyed, cheekbones refracting the light like prisms. They looked like they were posing for an aftershave advert. Whatever she was saying to him, he was clearly intrigued, leaning in further towards her, his expression fervent. I waited for the death strike and for her to swallow him whole.

  I wanted to yell across the bar at him to evade and resist. Wasn’t that what Marines were supposed to be good at? Instead I turned on my heel, stumbling through the crowd towards a blurry green light. Blurry because I was half blinded by tears. Ahead of me, the fire exit threw itself open with such force it cracked against the outside wall. I struggled to rein in my emotions before something bad happened, like a roomful of men, including my own brother, pulled out their guns or nets or whatever and aimed them at my head. The door slammed shut behind me with a metallic clunk. I found myself standing at the top of three concrete steps, looking out over a back parking lot.

  I sank down onto the top step and tried to get a grip. I wished that I had the power to make the ground open up right there in front of me so I could hurl myself head first into the chasm. This was it, then. There was no point in staying. Even if I hadn’t met Key there would be no point in staying. I needed to get back to the house, find whatever information I could, then leave. Tonight. There was no other choice.

  I got up from the step and looked around the parking lot. There was a chain-link fence to the left, running the length of the building, and a slim alleyway leading onto the street out the front. I squeezed down it and rounded the corner.

  ‘Lila!’

  I froze at the sound of Jack’s voice. He stepped out of a mass of men knotted by the door area and came towards me.

  ‘Lila, there you are. Are you OK?’ He looked away, embarrassed, as he asked.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ I mumbled.

  ‘We’ve got to go.’ He gestured towards the men behind him. They were loading up into two black SUVs with tinted windows. ‘The alarm’s gone off again at the base. We have to respond, though I’ll put money on it being another false alarm. I’m really sorry to be ditching out on you.’

  A car horn blared next to us and I jumped. The door of the nearest SUV stood open, dark shapes inside gesturing at Jack, the other car already heading away from the kerb, pulling into the traffic on the highway.

  ‘Alex is staying, so are half the guys. Stick around and enjoy yourself.’ He got out his wallet. ‘Here, take this.’ Jack shoved fifty dollars in my direction. ‘Buy a round for everyone. Sara and Alex will see you get home. I’ll be back in the morning.’

  Then he ducked quickly into the car, the door slammed and the car manoeuvred fluidly into the traffic.

  I had fifty dollars in my hand, Jack was tied up at the base, and I couldn’t go back into the bar to face Alex and Rachel. I thought about it for a split second, then stuck my arm out and hailed a cab.

  16

  I ran up the porch steps. The security light blinked on as I unlocked and opened the door. I crossed to the alarm and deactivated it, glancing up at the sky outside, wondering if Key was up there – was that how it worked? If he was, could he come inside now without triggering it? I kic
ked off my shoes. I needed to focus. It would only be a matter of time before someone came looking for me and I needed to be out of here long before then.

  I stood at the bottom of the stairs, frozen. I would never see Alex again. The consequences of leaving suddenly seemed more impossible to bear than the consequences of staying. I shut my eyes and felt the walls closing in on me.

  My eyes snapped open. I’d find whatever information I could and then I’d decide if I was staying or going. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, though a sheaf of papers explaining why there were government-sanctioned units dedicated to eradicating us like a nasty flu virus would be handy. Or information on what they did with such people when they caught them.

  ‘With us,’ I said out loud, ‘when they catch us.’

  I ran into the living room. Jack’s laptop was on the table and I switched it on. It asked for a password. I hesitated a few seconds then tried ‘Sara’ but it beeped angrily at me and demanded I try again. I tapped in the code for the alarm. Another angry beep and a warning that I only had one more try before permanent lockout. I swore loudly. Then my eye caught the photo of my mum on the bookcase. I looked back at the keyboard and typed in my mum’s name: Melissa.

  Password accepted.

  I stared at the screen in shock for a moment then quickly scrolled across the desktop to Jack’s most recent documents and clicked on the first one.

  It was titled Demos.

  It took me a moment to figure out the connection. Then I remembered Key’s words and my heart stalled. Demos was the man Key said had taken his son. Apparently the same man the Unit had tracked to Mexico.

  I clicked the file open, my hands shaking. A face expanded across the screen. The image was grainy and unfocused and it was hard to make out the details clearly. What I could see was a man with a widow’s peak of black hair, a square jaw, flat blue eyes and dark stubble. My eyes flicked down to the paragraphs of text beneath the picture.

  First name/alias: Demos

  Real name: unknown.

  Height: 6´