Free The Hunted by Kristy Berridge

and then laughed begrudgingly. ‘At least the other story sounded more believable.’
    I grinned. Kayla was human through and through. She had no idea about my heritage or what my ‘family’ did, and I was hoping to keep it that way.
    ‘You still want me to pick you up for work this morning?’
    I almost began groaning all over again. ‘Yeah thanks, that would be great. My family appears to have gone AWOL.’
    ‘Righto, well I guess I’ll see you in about twenty minutes then,’ she said, sounding bored.
    ‘Hey Kayla?’ I asked, just before she hung up on me.
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘What were you ringing me for anyway? It couldn’t have been just to scold me.’
    ‘Nothing in particular. I just wanted to tell you about this really hot guy that came into the store yesterday.’
    ‘That was it?’
    She huffed. ‘Can you think of anything more important than a hot guy?’
    I laughed in spite of myself. I could think of a million things actually. Boys weren’t exactly high up on my list of priorities right now. I had had one boyfriend in my whole life—his name was Stephen, and that turned out to be a total mistake—a waste of my time. The guy was a paranoid, possessive, delusional jackass.
    Enough said.
    ‘Okay. I guess you’ll tell me all about it when you pick me up then.’
    ‘No doubt,’ she said, giggling as she hung up the phone.
    I smiled as I slipped my mobile into my back pack and threw it over my shoulder before heading back downstairs.
    I grabbed the Coco Pops from the pantry and a clean bowl and spoon out of the dishwasher. I made light work of my breakfast as I waited for Kayla to turn up.
    I hated this time of the day on a Saturday. It meant that I still had eight hours left before the end of my shift. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my job. In fact, working in the little boutique homewares store was actually quite nice compared to other jobs out there. I certainly couldn’t see myself handing out burgers through a drive through window or checking groceries at the supermarket. That meant far too much customer interaction for my liking, and a lot of unnecessary smiling.
    It was bad enough that for eight hours on a Saturday I had to make believe that scented candles, vases, platters, furniture, and scatter cushions were the most important elements to making a house a home. Not only that, I had to lie to Kayla in every conversation that we had about everything that I did and about everyone that I knew.
    She was a good friend, probably my best. But since she was pretty much my only friend outside of the IMI, I treasured her dearly, and hated the fact that she had to remain ignorant.
    But it was safer for her this way. Besides, if she ever knew what I actually was and the things I was trained to do, I couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t scream and run for the hills.
    I took my empty bowl back over to the sink and washed it up and set it on the draining board. It wouldn’t be long before Kayla got here.
    I grabbed my back pack from the dining room floor and wandered into the living room. I plonked myself down onto the sofa, grabbed the remote for the television and switched it on.
    Cartoons.
    Ugh, I hate cartoons.
    I flicked through the channels until I settled on the news. Nothing particularly exciting going on in the world at the moment. It was the same old thing—fighting, killing, global financial crises and terrorists. On reflection, all that stuff must have been pretty scary to the humans, given that terrorists were like their version of the supernatural. The UN would have an absolute coronary if they discovered there were worse things out there than suicide bombers and weapons of mass destruction. Not that those things weren’t shocking. I’d watched the news, seen the damage that hate between humans could cause. But if they only knew that an army of vân â tors alone could pretty much wipe out the planet if they so desired it …
    Ugh, who am I kidding? People always find a reason to hate