Tormenting Lila (2 page)

I turned back to the counter and picked up a flyer from a pile sitting beside the books. It was advertising a music night at a place called The Ship.

‘Take it.’

I turned around. The boy was standing behind me, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. ‘It’s tonight. Should be good.’

‘Is it your band?’ I asked, holding up the flyer.

He gave me a curious smile, probably wondering how I’d figured out he was a musician. ‘It was,’ he said with a light shrug. ‘I don’t play anymore but they’re
good. You should go. Check them out.’

I nodded. I could wear my green dress.

Just then the door pinged behind us. A girl with messy blonde hair and heavy eyeliner strolled in, her eyes lighting up the moment she saw the boy.

‘Hey, Jesse,’ she said in a husky voice.

‘Hey, Nikki,’ the bike boy said. He gave me an apologetic smile and I smiled back at him and wandered over to Alex who was busy filling in the rental form.

‘What’s up?’ I heard Jesse ask the girl – Nikki.

‘Nothing. Was just passing by and wanted to see if you were coming tonight.’

‘Sure, yeah, wouldn’t miss it,’ Jesse answered.

Nikki glanced over his shoulder, then walked past him and snatched up one of the flyers from the counter. ‘We’re handing these out all around town. It should be busy.’ She
paused. ‘You bringing anyone?’

‘Yeah,’ Jesse mumbled after a beat.

‘Who?’ Nikki asked and I caught the inquisitive tone to her voice. Jesse was looking at the ground while the her cheeks had started to flush.

‘This girl. She’s here on holiday. Her name’s Ren.’

Nikki frowned. ‘Ren?’

‘Mmm,’ Jesse answered looking her straight in the eye now. ‘She’s nice. I think you’d like her. She’s really into music.’

Nikki nodded and smiled a little sadly. ‘Oh, OK, cool.’ She pushed her hair behind her ear and glanced over in our direction, ‘Well, I better leave you to it. I guess
you’re busy.’

Jesse gave her a brief smile. ‘Yeah, I’ll catch you later.’

Nikki walked over to the door and froze just before she reached it. ‘Who did this?’ she asked pointing at the smashed-in door, her tone unmistakably angry.

Jesse shrugged.

Nikki glared at him. ‘Jesse! Was it him?’

Jesse shot her a warning glance and her gaze flitted to Alex and I.

‘OK, fine, we’ll talk about it later,’ she muttered and with one last glance at the door she strode out of the store, shaking her head and muttering something under her
breath.

Alex cleared his throat and Jesse turned, forcing a smile. He took the rental agreement from Alex and moved around the counter to ring it up.

It was then that I noticed beneath the pile of flyers a scrap of torn paper peeking out. I tilted my head so I could read the words scrawled across it in angry black marker pen:

As soon as we spread out our towels on the sand Alex was off, jogging towards the sea. A row of girls in bikinis all raised themselves up onto their elbows to watch him, their
jaws dropping open like famished baby birds in a nest. Once upon a time I might have blown a sandstorm in their direction, but now I was older and theoretically more mature I decided to let it go.
If they decided to follow him into the ocean and start flirting with him I could always opt for the tidal wave manoeuvre.

Suddenly something
thunked
into the sand by my foot, diverting my attention. It was a frisbee. I picked it up and looked around. A group of four boys were standing a little way off,
waving at me. One started jogging in my direction.

‘Sorry,’ he called as he got nearer.

I jumped up and tossed it back to him, directing it into the wind with a little help (because frankly my aim sucked). ‘No worries.’

He caught it in his left hand. ‘You want to play?’ he asked. He had reddish brown hair, freckles and an easy grin but my experiences over the last few months had made me wary of
strangers. Sometimes the sweetest-looking people turned out to be the most untrustworthy, two-faced bitches, and the scariest-looking people turned out to be the ones you could trust with your life
. . . though not always (Carlos the mafia boss had been just as homicidally crazy as he’d looked).

‘No thanks,’ I answered the boy politely.

‘You sure?’ the boy said. He was panting slightly and squinting into the sun.

‘Yeah, I’m not much of a player.’

Just then someone appeared by the boy’s side. ‘Neither’s Parker,’ he said, ‘though he tries his hardest.’ It was another one of the frisbee four. He held his
hand out to me. ‘Hi, I’m Tyler.’

He had dark hair, the whitest teeth I’d ever seen and looked like he’d just stepped out of an advert for Tommy Hilfiger swimwear. I shook his hand tentatively. ‘Lila,’ I
said, introducing myself.

‘You here on holiday?’ Tyler asked. ‘I’ve not seen you around before.’

‘Um, yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m just here for a few days.’

‘Cool. We’re having a party Sunday night at Tyler’s,’ the first one – Parker – said. ‘To celebrate fourth of July. You should come.’

‘Mmmm,’ I mumbled non-committally.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the row of girls were all lying on their stomachs now, as though they’d been flipped over by a short-order cook with a giant spatula. They were all
staring in our direction. One of them, a girl with long brown hair and a perfect tan, stood up and strolled towards us, flicking her hair behind one shoulder and adjusting her bikini straps for
maximum boob exposure.

‘Hey, Tyler,’ she drawled when she got nearer.

‘Hey, Eliza,’ Tyler answered, taking her in with an appreciative glance that rested for an extra-long beat at boob height.

‘You want to come for a swim?’ she asked, placing a hand on his sweaty bicep before shooting me what I guessed was an acid look, though she was wearing sunglasses the size of dinner
plates so it was hard to be one hundred percent sure.

Tyler looked down at her hand, then his gaze darted over my shoulder and he took a small step backwards. I glanced behind me and saw Alex walking towards us, water running in rivulets down his
body. Tommy Hilfiger could step aside. Alex looked like he’d stepped out of an Armani aftershave ad. He stooped for a towel and his hand come to rest lightly on my hip. I leaned into him
automatically.

‘Boys,’ Alex said, by way of a greeting.

The girl’s lips parted as she gazed up at Alex and her hand slid off Tyler’s arm like a dollop of wet putty.

Parker and Tyler shuffled in the sand, uncomfortable in Alex’s presence and looking suddenly really young by comparison. Alex had a few years on them I supposed, as well as a few inches in
height. He also had the hard-muscled body of a Marine and I saw them glance at the tattoo of two crossed swords on his arm and the Marine Corps motto –
Semper Fidelis
– and
swallow nervously.

‘Hi,’ Parker mumbled. He held up the frisbee as though it was a piece of evidence in a trial, or a shield. ‘Frisbee,’ he said. ‘We were just getting the
frisbee.’ He grabbed for Tyler’s arm and started dragging him away, all the while eyeing Alex’s tattoo.

One of the many things about Alex that I loved was that, while he was protective of me, he didn’t act like a caveman about it. There was nothing threatening or possessive about his
demeanour. If Jack had been there he would have probably punched them just for looking in my direction. But Alex was cooler than that. We watched Tyler and Parker run off back to their frisbee
friends, Tyler shooting me a curious look over his shoulder as he went. Eliza stood there for a second longer admiring the view, before throwing Alex a mega-watt smile and strutting back to her
towel.

When I looked over at Alex he was grinning at me. His eyes – a striking aquamarine colour – seemed even clearer than usual in the sunlight. ‘Can’t leave you alone for
five minutes,’ he laughed, whipping the towel at me.

‘I had it handled,’ I told him, dancing out of its way.

Just then something blurred in front of my face. Alex’s reflexes were quicker than mine. His hand shot up and he snatched the frisbee just before it smacked me in the head. I saw Parker
standing in the distance looking horror-struck and then fearful for his life as Alex turned towards him.

I prised the frisbee from Alex’s grip. ‘Allow me,’ I said, tossing it to the very far end of the beach, giving it a little extra throttle to help it on its way. When I turned
back to Alex he was giving me that look – the one that made me feel like we were the only ones on the beach and that skinny-dipping was totally allowable.

‘Did I ever tell you how sexy you are when you’re doing your thing?’ he asked, reaching over and pulling me towards him.

Freshly-showered I pulled on my green dress and turned my back to Alex. ‘Do me up?’ I asked.

Alex crossed the room in one stride and stood behind me in front of the mirror. I smiled at him as he lifted my hair – growing out now, almost to my shoulders and bleached white in places
from the sun – and did the buttons up on the dress. He stooped and kissed the back of my neck and I shuddered as his hands slid slowly down to my hips.

I laced my fingers through his, feeling light-headed and suddenly nervous. Maybe Suki had been right – maybe this dress
would
be the key that unlocked the bunker, so to speak.
Alex gripped my waist and spun me around, his lips finding mine instantly. He kissed me softly at first, but after a few seconds my pulse was flying and his kisses became harder. His hands moved to
cup my face, to draw me nearer even as I edged us backwards towards the bed. Alex lifted me and lay me down, pressing me into the mattress, resting his weight on his arms. Maybe we wouldn’t
be waiting until I was eighteen after all. Hell, I thought, if I’d known the green dress was the key all along I would have worn it every day, whatever the weather, never mind the occasion. I
didn’t even care if Nate was in the room watching us right now. Thoughts were becoming incoherent, my brain disintegrating as thousands of pleasure signals tangled up my synapses.

Alex’s fingers were wrestling with the buttons on my dress and I was fumbling with his T-shirt, trying to tug it over his head when there was a loud thud on the door. At first I thought it
was my heart, which was drumming loud enough in my ears to deafen me, but then came another thud, and the door rattled on its hinges.

We both sat bolt upright on the bed.

‘Did you order room service?’ Alex asked, pulling away from me.

‘No.’

Another knock shook the door frame. Alex jumped off the bed, grabbed his gun from the dressing table and stepped between me and the door. A surge of adrenaline flooded my system and I started
scanning the room for objects I could hurl before the synapses in my brain untangled themselves and reason kicked in, telling me to relax. There was no more Unit. We were safe. It was probably just
the bell boy.

Two months ago Alex and I had been on the run, barely sleeping, living out of a bag, desperately trying to stay one step ahead of the Unit and, although I had thought I’d dealt with it,
clearly the memories weren’t too far beneath the surface, because a knock at the door was all it took to pitch me right back into fight
and
flight mode.

Another bang. My eyes settled on the minibar sitting squatly beneath the writing desk on the other side of the room.

At the same time, Alex was edging towards the door. He glanced through the spy hole, and I watched his shoulders sink. Holstering his gun, he drew a deep breath and before I could ask him who it
was, he had yanked open the door. It took me a second to process that it wasn’t the bell boy standing in the hallway. In the next second, the minibar was hurtling across the room, the lead
snapping out of the wall and tearing after it like a comet’s tail.

Alex let out a yell and I brought the minibar to a flying halt an inch from Jack’s nose, the cacophony of bottles and cans smashing into each other as they bounced around inside having
drowned out Alex’s warning yell.

‘Good to see you too, sis,’ my brother said, ducking and grinning up at me from beneath the levitating mini-bar.

‘If you’re not careful, this mini bar is the last thing you’ll ever see,’ I growled in answer.

‘Bring it on. The white goods are no match for me.’

I clamped my lips together and with as much dignity as I could muster sent the minibar gliding back into place beneath the desk, making a mental note not to open any of the cans inside it any
time soon. I turned back and glared at Jack who was still standing there grinning at me like an idiot who’d just lost his spare brain cell.

It was one of life’s many injustices that Jack was not only older than me and believed therefore that this put him in charge, but that his power indisputably beat mine (though I’d
sooner die a virgin than admit that to him). Jack could heal from any injury . . . as far as we knew. We hadn’t gone as far as shooting him in the head or hacking off a limb to find out
– though I had been sorely tempted on several occasions.

I could make fire and water obey my command, I could move objects the size of elephants. I could probably even move an actual elephant (one day I needed to try that). But I couldn’t heal
myself from a bullet wound or bring people back from the dead. Jack had a miracle power. Mine was just kind of
meh
by comparison.

Jack pushed past Alex into our room, stopping short when he saw the mussed up bedcovers on our four-poster bed. He shook his head and shot a pointed look in Alex’s direction. It was only
then I noticed something red out the corner of my eye. I spun towards the door.

‘Amber!’ I yelled, jumping off the bed and sliding past Alex, out into the hallway where a slope-shouldered Amber stood leaning against the doorjamb, her red hair flaming around her
head in loose curls.

She smiled wanly at me. ‘Hey, Lila.’

After spending six weeks with us on the boat, Amber’s colour had finally returned to her cheeks and the haunted expression behind her eyes had begun to fade. But grief left indelible
marks, that much I knew, and I wondered how long it would take for her to get over what had happened, or if in fact she ever would. I was glad that she had stuck around though, and I guessed a
little part of me was grateful that she was giving Jack something else to focus on besides me. He clearly had developed something of a crush on Amber, though I presumed she wasn’t anywhere
near ready for a new relationship.