The Hunted (12 page)

What?

‘I know, I know. The years seemed to have slipped by …’

‘Maybe we should tell her?’

My ears pricked up as I made a concerted effort to listen
to their hushed conversation.

‘Which part? Once we start where do we draw the line, Susan?’ George said.

‘Tell her what we do know for a start. She might handle it a lot better than the rest of us did.’ She paused. ‘I can feel her slowly slipping away from us. I knew it would happen, I know it should happen, but I can’t help feeling …’ She stopped again, shaking her head helplessly.

My heart started to beat faster within my chest. It almost sounded like they were talking about me. At least I hoped so. Maybe they’d let something slip about my past?

I moved in closer, trying not to breathe for fear that I may miss something important.

‘Elena’s a smart girl,’ Susan continued. ‘She’s already asking questions about her abilities and her parents. How long do you think it’s going to be before she demands the truth from us and how long before she runs into them and gets told everything, anyway?’

Oh my God. They
are
talking about me. They know something more than they were telling—I knew it!

So shut up and listen then.

I am. Why do you always have to argue with me?

You can’t argue with yourself.

Well, if you can’t, then why are we doing such a bloody good job of it?

‘She wouldn’t know what she was looking for,’ George answered, interrupting my internal debate. ‘Besides, we only have a few more months left.’

Susan shook her head. ‘For God’s sake George, look at her. She’s growing into an extraordinary beauty with every passing year. She already attracts far more attention than a regular teenage girl. She may not recognise them, but they will sure as hell know what she is the second they look at her.’

Hey?

‘They don’t know where we are and they definitely don’t know about Elena. That’s why the IMI gave her to us. She’ll be safe here and everything will still go according to plan.’

‘Then why are they heading up the coast then? And why have they asked to meet with us?’

George shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

Safe from what? What’s going on here?

‘I don’t like it, George. You know what she’s like. She constantly disobeys us. We can’t protect her from them if she strays from the IMI or the house.’

‘She’s grounded,’ he stated quietly.

Susan chuckled lightly and patted the top of his hand. ‘Since when has that ever stopped her?’

He frowned and leaned back in the chair. ‘Why do we need to protect her anymore? You saw what she did with those werewolves the other night.’

‘That had to be a fluke.’

He shook his head. ‘She had to have moved fast to slash at them like that. I’m mad at her too for taking such a stupid risk, but in the end we do have to realise that she isn’t one of us. Besides, what makes you think they would want to hurt her?’

‘You know why!’ she hissed at him. ‘If they caught scent of that inside her, it could turn out to be very dangerous for her and for us. It could ruin the alliance—it could start a whole new war, one far worse than the one going on now. If they knew we had her all this time and never said anything …’

Susan’s voice quivered, rising in pitch slightly as she placed a hand on her chest. She began to sob gently and George reached a hand out and covered hers with his own.

‘I don’t want to discuss this any further. At least not until we have any more news. Right now this is all speculation. The best thing for us to do is to watch Elena and make sure that she stays close by. We stick to the plan.’

What on earth are they talking about?

Susan’s sobbing died down as she wiped a finger at tear-rimmed eyes, but she nodded in agreement.

He pulled her gently to her feet and embraced her briefly before they made their way back into the house, closing the two noisy doors behind them.

I was frozen to the spot, unable to move. I had no idea what had just passed in their conversation. So much of it was too cryptic for me to decipher. Who were these people that were coming? Were they vampires as well? If that was true, then why did they need to keep me away from them?

It was abundantly clear that my parents were keeping a lot more from me than they were letting on, and too much information was now swimming around inside my head for me to simply let this go.

I would have to confront them and demand answers, just as Susan knew I might. And it had to be sooner rather than later. Tonight was not an option though. I still very much wanted to go to the rave with Kayla to divulge in ridiculous hormonal exploitations and dance until my feet were sore.

It’s all about priorities.

The best thing to do was to wait until tomorrow. At least then I could give this whole mysterious conversation a little more thought.

CHAPTER FOUR:

RAVE

T
ime moves by quite quickly when you think about it, particularly if your mind is occupied or sleep encumbers all thoughts and creates pockets of transient images that are easily forgotten.

I was actually no further along with resolving what to do about the conversation I had overheard earlier. I’d spent an hour thinking about it in great detail, and the remainder resting my eyes.

Sleep had unexpectedly consumed me, creating one of those empty pockets of time that absorb approximately a third of a human’s life. For two and a half hours my head was filled with unconscious thoughts and the passing whisper of dreams usually forgotten in the light of day. The shut-eye was an instant cure for my puffy eyes and gave me a glowing complexion and a renewed sense of energy, but no answers.

Luckily I had climbed back down to the comforts of my warm bed instead of passing out on the rooftop. I’d avoided any possible confrontations between my face and the hard ground below. Yay for me.

I glanced over towards the clock. The ever vigilant red neon light was saying that it was 11.14 pm. In a quarter of an hour Kayla would be parking her little white Ford Focus down the end of the street to wait for me.

She had to park far away from the property, but close enough not to draw any attention. My two gatekeepers (otherwise known as the parentals) had an eerie ability to hear, smell, and see when I was up to no good—I always had to ensure that my escape was flawless. Parking in the driveway with lights on, music blaring, and car doors opening and closing was not exactly the poster child for subtlety.

I stood there for a brief moment, clad in my laced pink underwear and bra and glanced towards my dresser.

Now, what to wear …

I snatched my denim slim fit jeans that were hanging over the back of my chair and slipped them on. The pockets were a little worn and there were the beginnings of wear and tear on the hems, but they were my favourite, not to mention comfortable and warm.

I leafed quickly through my drawers looking for something that would be suitable to wear tonight on the top half. I considered a few of my turtlenecks given the chilly weather, but decided against it—too hot for dancing. I decided on a red three-quarter length sleeved T-shirt with a gaping neck line as a compromise.

I gave the red piece of cotton the once over before slipping it over my head and smoothing everything into place including a couple of stray ringlets.

I ran my eyes over myself in the mirror and smiled appreciatively.

Not bad! Now if only I could figure out what to do with this hair. Should I put it up or wear it down? No, keep it down. It’ll hide the ringlets if I get hot and sweaty from dancing.

I quickly brushed the chocolate brown mass of hair that fell just below my shoulders, trying to iron out some of the more stubborn ringlets that had already begun to form and that my fingers could not tame.

My hair was generally pretty straight and did what I wanted it to—unless of course if it rained, in which case I would then amass an annoying bundle of ringlets around my neck line. Sweat was also an issue. It tended to cause all kinds of havoc with said ringlets and I’d been tempted on more than one occasion to just chop the whole lot off.

I cocked my head to the side, looking at myself in the mirror to see what else could be done to improve upon the reflection staring back at me. Kayla would probably have a barrage of ideas right now, all of them involving more make-up and skimpier outfits to compliment what she called my ‘rockin’ body’.

I suspected as a trainee designer, Kayla was so used to slapping paint colours all over people’s homes, that she felt the same skills could be easily applied to my face. I just wasn’t comfortable with testing the theory.

But I had been fortunate enough to be blessed with great skin. I had a small trail of freckles that graced my nose and both forearms, but these were unavoidable thanks to the tropical Queensland sun.

I ran a brush through my hair a second time and then glanced towards the clock again.

Crap!

Kayla would be waiting for me by now.

I turned to my dresser and grabbed my shoulder bag and tube of strawberry lip balm. With my index finger, I glossed some of the delicious tasting balm over my lips and stashed it inside my bag for later use. I also grabbed my knife and put that inside the bag too—better safe than sorry.

I looked over at my window, my ever favourable escape point, and started to shake my head in a self-depreciating manner. Cold night or not, I shouldn’t have closed the window after climbing back down from the rooftop earlier. It was a rookie mistake, and one I hadn’t made in quite some time. The problem was that the window was just so damn noisy. It always had been, but I didn’t have much choice but to use it.

I couldn’t go out the front door, regardless of the angle of approach or my stealthy abilities—I always set off the sensor light. Plus, it operated on a one hundred watt globe. The light would always stream in through the living room windows like Fourth of July fireworks and straight through to Susan and George’s bedroom, so my only chance of successfully escaping still weighed heavily on the first option.

The window.

The window of course was more than fine for escaping, but getting back in again was an entirely different matter. I was going to have to enter via the laundry window when I got back.

I had tried climbing the guttering system outside my window once to see if I could get back into the house that way. It was a disaster. Not only was I wounded from the fall, if only for a moment, but the plastic piping dislodged itself from the main gutters, ripping away from the side of the house and taking some of the older timber boards with it. Needless to say my parents were not pleased, and that was putting it mildly.