Free Losing Lila by Sarah Alderson Page A

what he was saying.
    Whatever we all had that made us this way, it was genetic. Everyone seemed to agree on that. But no one knew how many people had the gene, or how many people it was active in. I had it but Jack didn’t – why that was, was a total mystery. But perhaps not to my dad.
    ‘And more than any person on the planet,’ Demos continued, ‘Michael’s got the incentive to find the answers. They don’t even have to pay him.’
    ‘So, what? They’re waiting until he cracks the cure or whatever the hell he’s doing and then they’ll steal it? I don’t get it. They don’t want a cure. They don’t want to destroy the gene or whatever the hell it is that makes us this way, they want to generate it. They want to create more people like us.’
    ‘The science is the same,’ Alex said, glancing at me, but his thoughts were miles away, already evaluating what new mess we were in. ‘To fix something you’ve got to understand first how it works. Your dad thinks he’s making things better. But really he’s making it worse.’
    ‘Why didn’t you stop him if you knew that the Unit were wanting to steal his work?’ I yelled at Demos.
    ‘Stop him how exactly?’ he asked.
    ‘Er,’ I looked at him like he was lobotomised, ‘you know that little ability you have? Could have been useful, don’t you think?’
    Demos rolled his eyes at me. ‘I couldn’t spend my life following your father around freezing him. I do have other things to do. And besides, he thinks I killed your mother so he’s not likely to listen to anything I have to say, is he?’
    I scowled at him. I didn’t want to listen either. I got up and walked unsteadily to the door.

10
    Alex dropped onto the sand next to me a metre or so away. I glanced over at him. He was sitting like me with his knees drawn up, his arms wrapped round them, staring out at the sun as it melted into the sea. The beach was completely deserted. I stopped toying with the leather bracelet wrapped round my wrist and shifted in the sand towards him until I could rest my head against his arm. He reached out and curled his fingers through mine.
    ‘I just can’t believe my dad has been working on this all this time,’ I murmured. Alex didn’t say anything.
    ‘And I don’t know how to feel about it. Or the fact he’s trying to cure me. I don’t want to be cured, Alex. There’s nothing wrong with me.’
    He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, a smile twitching at the side of his mouth. ‘Debatable,’ he said. I kicked sand at him and he pulled me down so we were lying flat on our backs, looking up at the purple sky.
    ‘Why’d my dad have to come back?’
    ‘Same reason you’re going back. Same reason I gave you. When you love someone, you don’t have a choice.’
    I turned my head to look at him and he held my gaze. I felt tears pricking the back of my eyes and turned to stare up at the sky so Alex wouldn’t see.
    ‘I should go back and apologise to Demos for storming out like that,’ I said, making no move to get up.
    ‘Tomorrow,’ Alex answered. ‘I talked to the others. I told them your plan. They thought it might work. But we’ll discuss it tomorrow and everything about your dad, because first I need to do something.’ He pulled me closer towards him until our lips were almost touching.
    ‘What might that be?’ I managed to stutter, closing my eyes, anticipating the warmth of his lips against mine. But the kiss didn’t come. I opened my eyes. Alex had jumped to his feet.
    ‘Swim,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Come on.’
    ‘Swim?’ I pouted, unable to hide my disappointment that he wanted to swim rather than make out with me.
    Alex pulled his T-shirt off in one swift move. My eyes fell straightaway to his chest – which was tanned, smooth and ripped with muscle, and which, when you studied it as I had done, in fine detail, you discovered wasn’t a six-pack but actually a twelve-pack. My eyes flitted to the shadowed hollows where his