Free Lila Shortcuts by Sarah Alderson Page B

Jack.’
    She sighs. ‘I’m his sister.’
    It is her! Jack didn’t send her back to London after all. Demos will be happy about this.
    ‘Nice to meet you, Jack’s sister,’ I say, ‘I’m Suki.’ I hold out my hand, wincing internally as I remember that’s how we got in this situation to start with. Me introducing myself. I really need to get an alias and stick with it.
    ‘Hi, I’m Lila,’ she says, taking my hand. ‘So, um, should I tell him you called round?’
    I almost don’t hear the question because I’m focusing so hard on all the images swirling around her head, trying to make some sense of them. She’s disappointed with Jack, thinking something about a leopard not changing its spots and then I catch a glimpse of Alex. And then another glimpse – the memories of him are everywhere, overlaid like blankets – the strongest one, the most recent is of his hand on her thigh, he’s crouching looking up at her and I feel my own heart stutter in my chest. But then, interrupting all of these memories, cutting right through them, is an image of a knife hanging in mid-air, its pin-point end scraping the white of an eyeball as though about to skewer it.
    And I blink at her.
    She’s one of us. She’s a psy. This girl Lila, Jack’s sister, is a psy.
    I haven’t let go of her hand, and she’s tugging at it now, trying to pull away and I realise I’m grinning at her like a lunatic. And then the thought comes to me – if the Unit are hunting us, then surely once they find out about her, they’ll be hunting Lila too?

RECRUITING JACK

Seventeen. She’s only seventeen. I don’t care what Alex says. She is still a kid. And there’s no way this is about a boy.
    And if it is about a boy then I’m going to kill him. Forget about Lila being on the next flight back to London, I’m going to be on it. I let my eyes slide around the arrivals terminal, scanning faces, looking for any suspicious movements, anyone out of place. It’s automatic, I’m barely aware I’m doing it. In the years after my mum died I kept seeing her wherever I went. I’d spot a blonde woman in a crowd and my heart would leap like someone was yanking it on a string. Then a stranger would turn and my heart would plummet to the bottom of my chest as I realised all over again that my mum was gone and I was never going to see her again.
    I stopped seeing my mum’s face the day I was shown a photograph of Demos. Now it’s his face I see everywhere I go.
    I flex my foot and feel the comforting pressure of the gun in my ankle holster. I wish I was wearing my shoulder holster too but I figured flashing a weapon would freak out Lila as well as airport security. And besides, a gun offers a false sense of security. I wish The Unit’s weapons developers would pull their finger out and get on with whatever it is they’re developing because going up against Demos and his crew with just bullets and grenades is like going up against King Kong with a toy truncheon and I’m getting sick of trying and failing to get close to him.
    As I watch the bleary-eyed travellers wheeling trolleys through the sliding doors then throwing themselves into the arms of waiting friends and lovers, I wonder for the five hundredth time since Lila sent me that email, what the hell is going on in her head. Then I get hit with a wave of guilt – because if I were any kind of a brother I would know. I would know because I would have bothered to ask. I am a shit brother. I know it. Alex emails her and speaks to her more than I do. But, truthfully, I just don’t know what to say to her anymore. I can’t talk to her about what I do for a job, and seeing how I don’t have anything else going on in my life except for my job it limits the conversation quite a bit. Talking to Lila about her life just reminds me of how much I’ve failed her. Firstly by letting her go to England. Secondly, by not being there when mum died, and thirdly by failing so far to find the guy who did