Tormenting Lila (4 page)

So I wouldn’t have to witness that I squeezed out of the crowd and went to get some air. I glanced around the bar area looking for Amber to see if she wanted some company, but she was
nowhere in sight. There was only the English girl, Ren, sitting on her own at one of the far booths by the door, staring into the depths of a dirty glass as though trying to divine her future from
the dregs. I remembered that feeling well and hoped she managed to figure it out without too much drama.

I wandered outside to see if Amber was waiting for us there, but the street was eerily deserted.

‘Amber?’ I called quietly into the darkness.

There was no answer. I turned to head back inside when there was the sound of gravel crunching in the parking lot, and a muffled cry made me whip back round.

Before I could stop to consider what I was doing I had started running, adrenaline flash-flooding my system. The thought briefly flitted through my mind that I should be fleeing danger, not
throwing myself head-first into it, but something had shifted in me since the fight with Stirling Enterprises. I’d learned that nothing ever came from running away.

As I sprinted, I was already scanning the lot, looking for something – anything – I could turn into a weapon. There were only cars though, rows and rows of cars. A scream sounded
from somewhere at the far end where trees pressed against the starless sky. Was it Amber? I couldn’t tell. Shadows blotted the treeline – movement blurred out of the corner of my eye,
and suddenly a burst of red flamed against the darkness . . . I skidded to a halt and dived between two cars as I recognised Amber’s hair.

‘Amber?’ I shouted.

To my right a shadow leapt towards me. I ripped a wing mirror free from a Jeep and spun it into the sky above my head, bringing it to a shuddering halt in the air as Amber stumbled towards
me.

She fell into my arms. I caught her, almost collapsing under her weight and twisted her away from the darkness, looking over my shoulder into the shadows, trying to see who was out there.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, he came up behind me . . .’ Amber shuddered. Her fingers bit into my shoulders. She pulled away, standing upright, but her breathing was unsteady and she was
shaking. The wing mirror hovered above us still, spinning like a top.

Just then a branch snapped underfoot close by, leaves rustled. Someone was pushing through the bushes, trying to get away. I bolted after them but Amber caught me by the arm and yanked me
back.

‘No!’ she yelled. ‘Don’t.’

I whipped around, blood roaring in my ears, ready to argue. But the expression on Amber’s face stilled me. She looked petrified and a streak of blood running down her cheek brought me up
short. She shook her head at me, her eyes wide.

‘Lila!’

‘Amber?’

We both jumped. Alex and Jack were sprinting towards us across the lot, Suki and Nate skidding behind them.

‘I heard you both,’ Suki panted.

‘What’s happening?’ Alex asked, his voice tense. He and Jack had switched straight into Unit mode. They’d drawn their guns and as soon as they got close they took up
flanking positions around us, facing out towards the dark. Jack cut a glance in Amber’s direction and did a double-take at the sight of the blood pouring down her face. He grabbed hold of her
and spun her towards the light from the street, his hand under her chin.

‘Who did this to you?’ he growled.

‘Some guy attacked her.’

‘Who?’ It was Alex asking.

Amber shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it the Unit?’ I asked, suddenly feeling the ground tilt beneath my feet.

‘It’s not the Unit,’ Alex said, his hand finding mine and squeezing. ‘If it was the Unit it would have been a co-ordinated attack with weapons. Besides, the Unit’s
gone,’ he murmured. ‘They can’t hurt us any more.’

‘Did you get a look at whoever it was?’ Jack asked.

Amber shook her head. ‘No. I didn’t even feel him until he was right on me.’

Alex turned to Suki. ‘Suki – you hear anything? Is there anybody out there?’

Suki tipped her head to one side. ‘No. I can’t hear anything.’

I could feel the tension in Alex, he was vibrating with it. Jack’s jaw was pulsing. The two of them wanted to give chase, hunt down whoever had attacked Amber, but I could tell they were
torn. They didn’t want to leave us.

Jack took a step towards the trees but Amber grabbed for his hand. ‘Please don’t go. Don’t follow him,’ she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. Jack scowled.
‘I mean it, Jack,’ Amber said, staring up at him, her bottom lip trembling. ‘I know evil. I know it more than any of you do. I
see
it every day. Every time I walk down
the street I pass people who are thinking such dark thoughts I can’t believe they’re not behind bars. But this . . . person,’ she swallowed again. ‘I’ve never felt
anything like that before. I couldn’t fight him off. Usually—’

‘Shhh,’ Jack whispered, suddenly pulling her towards him. He placed his hand over the cut seeping blood above her eyebrow. Amber winced. Jack closed his eyes. A few seconds later he
removed his hand and I blinked in astonishment. There wasn’t a single blemish or mark visible, just the blood now dried and smeared a little on her cheek. Amber pressed her fingers to her
temple and then held them in front of her face. Her eyes flew to his and she stared at him, speechless.

Jack shrugged, a smug smile playing on his lips. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and let his fingers linger there. A soft smile broke on Amber’s lips.

‘Guess we’re bunking in with you guys tonight,’ Suki whispered in my ear.

I pressed myself against Alex’s side and closed my eyes. I’d thought that now the Unit was gone and life had returned to normal I was safe, and that everyone I knew was safe too. But
that wasn’t the case, was it? There would always be people as bad as Richard Stirling in the world.

We stood there in a subdued circle, none of us willing to turn our backs on the darkness. I glanced at my brother with his arm around Amber, at Alex who had one hand on his gun and the other on
me, at Suki and Nate holding hands and, with a jolt, I realised that even though there were countless bad people in the world (and I always seemed to cross paths with them), there were also good
people, people who were fearless and loyal and who never turned their backs, but who always chose to fight.

Three days later

The Inquirer & Mirror

Nantucket’s newspaper since 1821

A girl was attacked on Dionis beach last night. The girl, aged 18, was working as a nanny for a Boston family and had spent the night with friends at
popular Nantucket venue The Ship. It’s believed she was abducted while walking home alone later that evening.

Police responding to another disturbance in the area discovered her partially-clothed body among the dunes. She was air-lifted to hospital in Boston where doctors describe
her injuries as critical. There is mounting speculation, that the girl was attacked by the same person who murdered 19-year-old Brazilian nanny Juliana Da Riva last summer.

Da Riva’s body washed up on Dionis beach but police have refused to comment on whether there is a serial killer at loose on the island targeting nannies.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and stared wide-eyed up at Alex. ‘It’s the same guy, isn’t it? The same guy who attacked Amber?’

Alex, reading over my shoulder, nodded. ‘Looks like it.’

‘Oh my god,’ I whispered. ‘What if it was that girl?’

‘What girl?’

‘The girl – the English girl who was at The Ship. I heard her introduce herself as a nanny. What if it was her?’

‘We told the police. We did what we could,’ Alex told me, but I knew he was wondering too whether we should have done more,
could
have done more.

‘They’ll catch him, don’t worry,’ Alex said, pressing his lips to the top of my head. Beneath us, the engines thrummed angrily. Suki and Nate stood leaning over the
railing of the boat, throwing bread to the seagulls overhead.

Jack walked over then, carrying two styrofoam cups of coffee. Amber was behind him. They sat down beside us on the plastic bench seats and we stared out in silence at the choppy waves of the
Sound and Nantucket, receding to a dot on the horizon.

Jack nodded at the newspaper I was holding. ‘Now aren’t you glad I showed up? I told you Nantucket was a dangerous place.’ He yawned and stretched, one arm resting on the back
of Amber’s chair. ‘I’m not letting my little sis out of my sight from now on.’

I felt Alex tense beside me and squeezed his hand. ‘Allow me,’ I whispered, swivelling my eyes in Jack’s direction . . . and to the steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

Meet Ren, Tyler, Parker and Jesse this summer in
The Sound,
out August 1st.

THE SOUND

What she doesn’t count on is falling in with a bunch of party-loving private school kids who are hiding some dark secrets, falling (possibly) in love with the local bad boy,
and falling out with a dangerous serial killer . . .

I’m running, running blind. Into the dark. Into the woods. Ricocheting off branches, tripping over tangled tree roots, gripping my arm as I stumble on, sobbing. Are those
his footsteps coming after me or is it the wind? A bird? An animal?

I come to a flying halt and crouch down in the dirt, trying to listen. Is he following me? But my breathing is so loud and laboured it’s all I can hear. That and the wild drumming of blood
in my ears. My heart is no longer a caged bird but a dozen bats trying to burst free. I close my eyes and try to sink down into the dark.

My fingers burrow through sandy soil, damp leaves. I want to claw my way deep into the earth, roll beneath the leaves and bury myself. I want to sob and scream and melt and turn to smoke and
vanish. When I open my eyes the world spins, recedes then rushes back in.

‘Ren!’

His voice yells my name. Over and over. Filling my head with the sound of it and tearing apart the night.

I need to stand up. I need to run. But I’m frozen. My back is slammed against a tree. My lungs are beginning to close down. I try to suck in a breath but it gets stuck and all of a sudden
the sky looms darker and larger overhead, the stars fuzzing out of focus and dissolving into the blanket sky.

A crunch.

I shrink back as far as I can, feeling the bark of the tree scratch a bloody trail across my shoulder. I bite my lip, choking off the scream that is fighting to burst out.

He is out there, holding his breath as I hold mine. Ears pricked, eyes scouring the darkness. I can sense him there waiting, just a few feet away, his head tilted as he listens, and I can no
longer balance my weight on the balls of my feet. My knees are going to give, my arms are shaking.

Tears are slipping noiselessly down my cheeks as my eyes dart left and right strafing the darkness. I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black out here. In the distance the roar of the
ocean seems to be calling to me, whispering my name, urging me to make a run towards it.

A twig snaps to my right.

I haul myself to standing in that same second and then I am running, ignoring the shooting pain in my arm and the sting of branches slashing at my face. All I can hear now is a roaring in my
ears.

And behind me, coming closer,
his
breath,
his
footsteps and the heat of him rising like a mist. My feet hit something soft. I’m on the beach. The trees have given way to
sand dunes. The ocean sounds wild and close. If I can only make it there . . . because where else is there to run to? And then suddenly my foot hits something sharp, a rock buried in the sand, and
I’m flying, falling fast, and I land hard, my ankle twisting, and I let out a yell that I try to smother with my other hand. I roll onto my back, kicking at invisible hands. I try to draw my
legs up to my body, to curl into a ball, but my ankle explodes in pain and I can’t move it. And I whimper, not because of the pain but because fear floods my tongue and it’s as foul as
earth and it’s fear which is closing up my throat as surely as his hands sliding around my neck and squeezing.

I want my mum. And I sob her name out loud into the darkness, and over the sound of the ocean roaring I hear his breathing, loud and heavy and excited, coming close.

But the thought of my mum is enough to push back the fear and let the rage in. And I’ve never felt such rage before. It almost cancels out the fear, roaring inside me now as deep as the
ocean.

I start scrabbling desperately for something – anything – to use as a weapon.

My hand sinks into the dune, trying to find the object I tripped on, and my fingers close around a rock, heavy with jagged, sharp edges. I draw it into my lap and sit there clutching it as the
tears stream down my cheeks.

My breathing is coming in little gasps now. I’m struggling to force air down into my lungs – they’re on fire from the inside, smoke-filled and layered with ash. My fingers are
starting to tingle. My lips are going numb.

And then he appears, a dark shape against the sky, and the rock slides out of my hand and falls with a muted thud to the sand. I open my mouth to scream but I can’t because my throat has
squeezed shut and there’s no air left in my lungs.

And the last thing I see, before the darkness drowns me completely, is him.

I’ve never held a baby so when he hands me this squalling red thing I just stare at it.

‘Can you take Braiden?’ he says.

The baby has a name. This doesn’t make holding it any less terrifying. But I reach out and say ‘sure’ and next thing I know I’m holding a baby. And mother of all
surprises, the baby – Braiden – stops crying. He not only stops crying, he reaches for my hair with fat little fists, tugs on a loose strand and gurgles happily at me.