Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

Author:Sarah Alderson [Alderson, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780857071965
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2011-08-03T22:00:00+00:00

18

When I opened my eyes I was staring at the seat buckle, my head and body twisted into the side of the car door and my hand resting on the handle, as though in my sleep I’d been trying to hide, or escape.

I glanced up and out of the window. We weren’t moving anymore, we were just sitting on the side of the road as the dawn broke around us. There was no movement, no people, no cars and no noise – it was like the hiatus between breaths. I tried to work out where we were.

It looked like a desert town, flat and arid with dust already layering the windscreen, and even at this hour the road was throwing up a long-distance shimmer. Through the tinted window I could see a couple of buildings, mainly hardware and building supply stores spaced out at intervals. I had no idea what we were doing here other than maybe that Alex had pulled over to sleep.

I shifted slowly in my seat and turned towards him. He was staring out of his window and I felt both relief that he was still in the car and a shot of pain when I remembered that he wasn’t here out of love or friendship but out of some dubious code of honour. That’s what he had meant when he’d said he had no choice. It was so obvious. And so Alex.

I followed his gaze across the street. We were sitting opposite a second-hand car dealership. About forty cars plastered with ‘for sale’ signs were lined up facing us, like the start of a gumball rally.

We sat in the silence of the car, the air conditioning running, for another hour and forty minutes. Neither of us said a word. I brought my legs up onto the seat and sat there holding them, freezing but too scared to touch the buttons in the car or to open my mouth. I tugged at my dress to try to pull it over my legs and realised the seam had split up my thigh. My knees were hatched with blood and dirt. There was a small rent in one of the straps too which looked like it might at any moment lead to a wardrobe mishap. I remembered my flying tackle from the night before and glanced quickly over at Alex, remembering the hatred I’d seen in his face when I’d been standing on the porch. What would he have done if he’d reached me?

Eventually, things picked up a pace, like someone hitting the forward play button. A car pulled up outside the car dealership and a man in a short-sleeved shirt and golf trousers got out and unlocked the double padlock on the chain-link fence. He pulled into the lot and Alex started the engine.

I pushed my feet down off the seat as he drove across the road and into the dealership. I had an idea of what he was about to do and I was guessing Jack was not going to be too happy about it.

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