Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

was made up of steel-tipped stiletto heels.
    I felt my heart cave in. She was so impossibly beautiful that Alex had completely forgotten I existed.
    ‘Why, hello, Alex,’ Rachel said, flicking her straight blonde hair over her shoulder. Her voice was husky, with a hint of the South.
    I suddenly became very aware of how I looked. My clothes were like sticking plasters against my skin and I longed to rip them off and get into something clean, if only so I didn’t feel so much like a sewer rat standing next to an arctic fox.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ she drawled, her long vowels tripping over themselves to keep up. Her lips were glazed like morello cherries.
    ‘Just been for a run,’ he said.
    Remembering I was there, Alex turned suddenly to look for me, seeming surprised that I was standing so close behind him. He moved out the way and Rachel’s gaze fell on me like a searchlight beam.
    ‘This is Lila,’ he said, ‘Jack’s little sister.’
    Little? It felt like he had given me a paper cut down the length of my body.
    Rachel’s gaze flicked over me, from my filthy trainers to my sweat-streaked, sun-baked face. For a brief moment she looked like she had just broken a tooth, but then she threw me a huge pearly-white smile and held out one manicured hand. ‘How lovely to meet you. Jack’s told me so much about you.’
    I really wanted to say that he hadn’t told me anything about her, but I bit it back and politely shook her hand.
    ‘Rachel works with the Unit,’ Alex explained, smiling. ‘She’s our boss.’
    I did a double take. She was the boss? She got to order Alex around? The reasons for hating her were piling up.
    Rachel discarded me with a subtle turn of her shoulder and focused her gaze back on Alex, fixing him with her enormous cornflower-blue eyes. I looked back and forth between them, half a foot shorter than them both, feeling like a child being ignored by its parents.
    I must have sighed, or maybe he heard the noise of my heart blowing up, because suddenly Alex glanced at me. ‘I’ve got to get Lila inside,’ he said and made to move off. ‘I’ll see you later, Rachel.’
    Later? Another paper cut. This time it left an open wound.
    ‘Bye, Alex,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you. Enjoy your babysitting.’
    It took a second before the comment sank in and when it did I drew in a sharp breath. My cheeks started to flare. I refused to turn back to look at her but I risked a glance up at Alex and caught the tail end of a frown. His mouth was set in a line. He threw me a glance too, no doubt to check whether I had picked up on the comment. When he saw me looking he shook his head dismissively as if to say Just ignore it.
    Then two things happened almost simultaneously. A screaming, thunderous, splitting noise ripped through the sky. It seemed to flatten everything to the ground with its vibrations. And then, with bewildered shock, I realised that it wasn’t the noise flattening me, it was Alex’s weight pressing me hard into the ground. I was on my knees and Alex was bent over me, pinning me to the floor, his arms braced against my head and his chest angled against my side. I couldn’t work out why at first, my only thought that he had been hurt, but just as I started to panic and push against him, Alex uncoiled and stood up, pulling me harshly up with him.
    The noise was still piercing my eardrums, making my brain feel like it was being spliced in two, and everything seemed to have slowed down. I could see the men from the Unit running in different directions. It was like watching them through strobe lights. Some had their guns in their hands and some were reaching to unholster theirs. It took me several seconds to put two and two together. The noise, the panic, the guns – someone was attacking them. Us , I realised with shock.
    I was being jerked forcefully away from the noise, which was coming from the building. Alex’s grip was a steel tourniquet around my arm and he was holding me