Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson Page B

bathroom door slammed behind me and the shower started running before I realised what I was doing. I sank to my knees in disgust at myself. I couldn’t even manage to keep control of my ability. This day couldn’t get much worse. I stripped off my jogging gear and climbed into the shower, drenching myself and letting the grime run off me. Rachel’s perfect glistening smile and seductively half-closed eyes appeared in my head. Enjoy your babysitting. I was still fuming when I got out. I wiped the mirror with the back of my arm and looked at myself. I was no competition for Rachel. She was a perfect match for Alex. They had looked like a golden couple standing next to each other. And she had another major advantage that I lacked – he was allowed to date her.
    A knock on the door interrupted my musings.
    ‘Are you OK in there?’ Alex sounded tense.
    ‘Fine.’
    I could have sworn the doorknob turned a fraction of an inch.
    I got up before he could come in to check and yanked open the door. Alex was leaning against the frame. He looked tired, stress etched around his mouth. Babysitting me must be such a chore.
    ‘How are your hands and knees?’
    I had forgotten all about them when Rachel had appeared. Now I turned my palms over and saw the blanched skin flapping free in places.
    ‘OK,’ I said, walking straight past him to my room and closing the door behind me. He didn’t follow. I wondered if he would just hand over his duty to one of the ‘guards’ outside. I sank onto the bed, pulling the towel around me, and felt tears well up out of nowhere.
    The hairbrush on top of the dresser began to move, pretty much of its own accord. I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it until it was hovering in mid-air by my head. By then it was too late. It hurtled through the window like a missile. The smash, when it came, threw me sideways off the bed, glass splintering at my feet.
    I stood for one moment, frozen, waiting for Alex’s footsteps on the stairs and for him to burst angrily in on me – but nothing happened. I tiptoed to the door and eased it open. I could hear Alex’s voice but it was muffled. He was pacing the front veranda talking on his phone. Probably to Rachel. Organising a date no doubt, for when he was done with babysitting.
    I turned back into the room. This was my chance. I threw on a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and with one backwards glance at the football-sized hole in the window, I was out of there.
    I took the stairs as quickly as I could, jumping the step that squeaked the loudest. Then I snuck through to the kitchen, unlocked the back door, stepped out and closed it gently behind me. I put my flip-flops on as I went down the steps and ran to the bottom of the garden. I wasn’t sure what lay behind the house, probably another garden, but I planned to hop the fence and cut through to the road behind.
    I didn’t know where I was headed but the ocean seemed as good a place as any. At the fence, I peered back towards the house but there was no movement, no yelling, just a great big hole in the upstairs window. I grabbed a tree branch and hoisted myself up until I was perched on top of the fence and then I jumped down, landing in a crouch in the garden of a house almost identical to Jack’s. I ran quickly to the side of the house and edged my way down the alley alongside it, lined with rubbish bins. I peered around the house’s veranda on the lookout for any black cars with tinted windows but there were none, so I began walking westwards fast, towards Harbour Beach.
    By the time I made it to the main street, I was beginning to relax. There was no sign of Alex roaring around the bend on his bike to come and find me and bring me back. The bright green light of a Seven-Eleven over the way beckoned, so I crossed over and slipped inside the cool of the store, making my way down a skinny aisle towards the drinks.
    I grabbed a can of Sprite and headed to the counter to pay. A grungy-looking old man