The Hunted (18 page)

Lucas touched a hand to the small of Kayla’s back and propelled her towards her car. She shrugged his hand away and then shoved him hard in the shoulder for touching her.

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. At least it meant she wouldn’t be sexually corrupting him anytime soon.

Ugh.

George opened the back door of our Forrester and motioned a quick snap of his fingers for me to get in.

I scrambled in and the door slammed shut behind me, barely missing my feet in the process. I waved sadly at Kayla through the passenger window mouthing the word ‘sorry’ as Lucas drove the car right past us and out onto the dirt road leading back to the highway.

She half-heartedly waved back and then she was gone.

*          *          *

‘Tell me something—did you honestly think you were going to get away with this?’ George said as the Forrester turned left onto the highway back into Cairns, following closely behind Kayla’s Ford Focus.

I would have if I didn’t have a brother.

‘I wasn’t aiming to cause trouble. I just wanted to go to this rave and I knew you wouldn’t have let me go,’ I said in a dull voice.

He laughed bitterly. ‘You do understand what the word
grounded
means, don’t you? Because I’m seriously beginning to doubt your intellect, Elena.’

‘Hey,’ I said defensively, ‘I didn’t take one step through the front door.’

I watched as George’s face went beetroot red and his hands quivered with rage. My lips moved in sync with his as I silently mouthed his usual line of retort along with him.

‘Are you smart mouthing me, Elena Manory?’

‘No,’ I answered carefully, shrinking into my seat as I watched his hands clench the steering wheel tighter. ‘I was merely pointing out that I hadn’t technically broken the rules of my grounding.’

George slammed his foot on the brake and pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the road.

Uh-oh.

He unclipped his seat belt and spun around in the seat to look directly at me.

I automatically pulled my legs in as far from slapping distance as possible. Though he hadn’t actually smacked me since I was a little girl, I wasn’t about to put it past him when he was in the middle of ‘meltdown’ mode.

Susan also unclipped her belt and turned in her seat to face me. There was disappointment written all over her face. I tried to figure out which expression was worse. Was it the beetroot man, the scary angry mum, or the general air of disappointment? Probably their disappointed looks. Those looks meant that I had failed at something and I didn’t like failing, not when I was naturally so good at everything I tried my hand at. Well, except for obeying rules and maths. But who needed algebra anyway? And rules? Rules were made to be broken.

‘Do you even understand how much danger you put yourself in sometimes?’ George stated stiffly, though his voice was relatively quiet. ‘Any number of things could have happened to you and nobody would have known where you were to help. Can you understand how foolish that is?’

I swallowed. ‘I understand your concern for me, really I do, but it’s misplaced. It’s just a party. There was no lurking danger amongst that group of kids except the inevitability of intolerable hangovers and a slight fear of teenage pregnancy.’

‘It’s not a joke, Elena.’

‘Who’s laughing?’ I said seriously, containing a smile. ‘Unprotected sex amongst teens is becoming a real problem.’

He growled and looked over to Susan. ‘You try talking some sense into her before I knock her block off.’

Ha-ha. You have to catch me first.

‘Elena …’ Susan said, softly but sternly. ‘You can’t keep sneaking out like this. You know that there are things in this world that could seriously threaten your existence, yet you continue to take risks. We don’t mind you going out and having fun. We only ask that someone accompany you on said occasions.’

‘Well, that just sucks the fun right out of it.’

‘Elena!’ she hissed, all semblance of patience gone. ‘You have seen what the Vânâtors can do to someone. You’re not
infallible. You may be able to heal from any injury, but you are still essentially human, for now, and therefore are vulnerable to their attacks. Not to mention the other creatures lurking around at night.’

‘You mean vampires?’ I said flatly.

George and Susan passed a look between them.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

George swivelled in his seat, re-buckled his seat belt and pulled the car back onto the desolate highway. Even after a five minute hiatus from driving, we’d still undoubtedly catch up to Lucas quickly. That boy couldn’t drive for shit.

Susan, on the other hand, remained exactly where she was, blinking at me in confusion. ‘What are you talking about exactly?’

I thought about slapping her forehead and saying ‘you damn well know’, but I resisted the urge. Instead, I just went with calm and rational—a massive leap for my personality, but it was the only way I’d get any answers. ‘I’m talking about the conversation I overhead you and George having earlier tonight.’

She blinked again. ‘How much did you hear?’

She isn’t even going to deny it.

‘Enough.’

She nodded and twisted back around in her seat, probably so she could avoid my eyes and figure out some brilliant story she was hoping I’d swallow. ‘Right now we shall discuss just exactly what you
won’t
be doing over this next month, and I guarantee that I will be specific enough that you can’t twist my words to suit yourself.’

I sat forward in my chair and looked at both of them in confusion. ‘I’m sorry—did you just hear what I said? I overheard your conversation.’

‘We heard you.’

‘So, what? We aren’t even going to discuss this even though it clearly relates to secrets you’ve been keeping from me?’

Susan shook her head. ‘When you learn to act like an adult then maybe we’ll start treating you like one. Until then, we will keep these things to ourselves.’

‘That’s hardly fair.’

Susan’s eyebrow rose slightly as she turned to look back at me. ‘And you think that your blatant disregard for our house rules is fair?’

‘It’s not the same thing,’ I said, sounding defeated. God, was that a whine in my voice?

‘Shall we begin?’ she said calmly, looking over to George and smiling.

Smug bastards.

I’d been outplayed.

‘You’re still grounded. Nothing is going to change that. I’m just going to make it a little clearer for you to understand. I’ll even have a contract drawn up by Vincent if the fine print is something you feel is negotiable, which, trust me … it’s not.’

Vincent was one of The Protectors at the IMI, and one of my many trainers, not to mention a kickass lawyer that very rarely lost a case. If Susan
was
getting him to draw up a contract then I was stuffed.

I sighed noisily and slammed my body angrily back into the car seat. I turned to look out of the window.

She continued, ‘Grounding explicitly applies to the restrictions of your comings and goings that have not been pre-approved by either myself or your father. That includes the use of
every
exit and entry point in the whole house, doors and windows included. There will be no phone calls in or out to friends. No internet or MSN—the computer is completely off limits unless necessary for home studies. And Kayla will be forbidden to step foot in the house during this period,’ she paused. ‘Oh yeah, and the biggest rule of all … no parties.’

‘But—’

‘Don’t interrupt me! I’m not finished,’ she chided. ‘You will go to the IMI everyday with us as usual, and when your studies are complete you will work on extra training with Peter and Vincent. Saturdays you may go to work, but we will drop you off and pick you up. Sundays are no longer a free day for you to do as you please—it will be the day you do some of the housework.’

‘So I’m a slave?’

She shot me a look. ‘If you defy us again, Elena, I’m going to padlock that bloody window of yours shut and you will face harsher consequences than you have today. Am I making myself clear?’

I scowled. ‘Crystal.’

Neither I nor my parents spoke for the remainder of the trip.

When our car pulled up outside of Kayla’s house, the lights were all on inside. I could see Mrs. Johnson pacing frantically, wearing a nightgown and hair curlers in front of her living room window, a lit cigarette in one of her hands.

We had arrived a few minutes after Lucas. Kayla was already storming off towards the house, leaving Lucas standing in the driveway by the car, his eyes on the ground and his hands buried in his pockets.

Damn shame. It would have been good to see him get his ass chewed out by Kayla.

The front door opened before she could use her keys to unlock it. Mrs. Johnson’s hand shot out into the darkness to grab Kayla roughly by the arm, pulling her inside the house and slamming the door loudly behind them. I could hear their dog Rufus barking loudly from inside the house, trying to join in on the commotion, though I doubted that his barking was going to outdo Mrs. Johnson when she really got stuck into it.

Lucas walked around to the other passenger side door and got into the car. He buckled in and then sat staring out the window in stony silence. He had obviously not liked Kayla’s outburst.

We arrived home just ten minutes later. I was the first one out of the car and the first one into the house.

I raced up the stairs to my room and slammed the door behind me. My back slid down the smooth timber of the door’s surface until I was sitting on the floor, my head buried in my hands.

How could they withhold information from me, knowing that I already knew they were keeping things from me? How could they use this knowledge as a weapon against me to make sure I obeyed like a good little girl? Didn’t I have a right to know what was going to happen to me? How do you behave like an adult anyway? Was I supposed to start wearing tweed overcoats and loafers and comment on subjects such as rising interest rates and housing prices?

I rubbed at my eyes and sighed. What they wanted from me was going to be a tough gig. Obeying the rules was one thing, but keeping my mouth shut? That was another thing entirely. Being a smart ass was imbedded in my DNA.

I rubbed at my tired face again and then stood, deciding that the information that they had about my past was far more valuable than my current social life. For a while at least it’d be worth the effort of at least acting mature to get what I needed out of the situation. I could live without parties. I had done it before I had met Kayla, and since I was forbidden contact with her in the next month it shouldn’t be too difficult to obey house rules. As for my mouth, I’d at least try to bite my tongue. I couldn’t promise much more than that.

I kicked off my jeans and threw them into the corner of the room. The singlet, bra, and underwear I had been wearing soon joined them. Naked, I padded over to my dresser and pulled out a clean pair of underwear, a night shirt, and slipped them on quickly, just realising that the window was still open.

It was a good thing that no other neighbours had second story homes around us and that our garden was overgrown enough to provide plenty of coverage.

I quickly flipped the light switch off and hopped into bed.

I pulled the covers right up to my chin. The air blowing through the window was ice cold, but I was far too lazy to get out of bed again to close it.