Free Lila Shortcuts by Sarah Alderson Page A

squeezing hold of it. Next to me, Nate goes crashing to the floor, landing on top of the groaning man, who stops groaning altogether and falls silent.
    And then the room squishes on top of me and I think I must be on the floor too because I can feel the soft carpet like cloud beneath my cheek.
    After what feels like a hundred years the pain does start to fade and it’s like waking up from a coma. I feel like one of the characters in the Mexican soaps that Bill likes to watch when he thinks no one is around. I open one eye and see Nate still curled in a ball, with his arms wrapped around his head. He is lying with his face on the half-naked man’s belly, though the half-naked man is no longer half-naked but wholly naked, his towel tangled beneath him, and he has gloopy stuff dribbling out his mouth. Nate must have knocked him unconscious when he went crashing to the floor.
    I turn my head slowly, painfully, to the door and crank my ears. I scan the hallway outside. How long have we been lying here? Where is Alicia?
    I roll onto my knees and shut my eyes and silently I yell her name.
    But she doesn’t answer, or maybe it’s just that I can’t hear her, not through all the thick clouds of smog filling up my head. Everything is muffled. Then, in the distance – a sound.
    I stagger to the door, holding my head in my hands and behind me hear Nate start to make a whimpering noise.
    I press my ear to the door and squeeze my eyes shut again, trying to concentrate.
    And the noise rushes in like another explosion from that weapon, peeling back layer upon layer of skin and bone until it hits me right in the centre of my head and I fall right there to the floor and burst into tears because it’s Alicia I can hear. She’s screaming so loudly it is splitting my head in two. She is screaming without making any sense. She is screaming although no one can hear her but me.
    And my head is filled with images – of men holding her down. Men dressed all in black, and they’re hurting her, gripping her wrists, holding her by the ankles and the waist as she struggles against them, and they throw her gagged into a black car – I only catch glimpses as she sees it – a handle, a darkened window, a gun. And then a face.
    It’s Jack.
    Demos hasn’t come out and said he blames me and the thoughts in his head don’t say it either. He’s blaming the Unit. But it is my fault. And Nate didn’t argue with me about that as we stood outside the hotel, him still wearing the stolen bathrobe, both of us clutching our heads.
    So I need to be the one to get Alicia back. Which is why I’m standing outside Jack’s house right now. If I can get inside maybe I can find something useful – like a key to the base or a password or something – anything that might help us get Alicia back.
    I’ve been scanning the house for the last fifteen minutes. I’m peering tentatively through the letterbox trying to guess whether the alarm system is on or not because I do not particularly want to end up saying hello to the sidewalk, when I hear the slap of feet. I jump around.
    There’s a girl wearing jogging shorts and a t-shirt and sneakers and she’s standing at the bottom of the steps to the veranda. Sweat is pouring down her face. I’m not sure if it’s the same girl that I saw in Alex’s head the other night. That girl was younger and more blurry.
    ‘Can I help you?’ she asks, out of breath, squinting up at me.
    I do a quick mind-scan. She’s wondering who the hell I am. She decides that I look more like a Manga cartoon character than a neuroscientist, which seems like a very random judgement call.
    ‘You live here?’ I ask, confused, and wanting to check it actually is her – is this girl called Lila.
    ‘Yeah,’ she answers, wiping the sweat from her forehead and frowning at me suspiciously. ‘Can I help you?’ she asks again, more assertive this time.
    I bound down the steps. ‘I think maybe you can,’ I say, ‘I was looking for