Dangerous Games (2 page)

‘Tell me about it,' Finn said. ‘But there was this other time –'

‘So anyway,' Ben interrupted, ‘was this just a social call, or did you have a reason for hauling us out here?'

‘Actually, I did,' Finn said, looking slightly put out. ‘If you guys have been on your own for a while, you probably don't know how to find agents of order, do you?'

‘Find them?' I echoed, surprised. ‘No.'

‘How about identifying white circle locations?'

‘You can do that?'

‘Sure,' Finn said. ‘It's easy once you get the hang of it.'

‘Can you teach us?' I asked eagerly.

‘Of course,' Finn said, smiling at me. ‘That's why I'm here. To share the knowledge.'

My stomach flipped over with excitement as I imagined spending my weekends with Finn, talking about destroyer stuff, learning new skills, hearing his stories about this world I'd been dragged into. Actually, I didn't really care so much about learning new skills, but I liked the idea of hanging out with Finn.

‘Wait a minute,' Ben said. ‘Why would we want to know how to find agents of order?'

‘Well, it's obvious, isn't it?' Finn replied. ‘Know your enemy. Be prepared. So you can be ready if they ever decide to come after you again.'

‘So you're not suggesting we go after them ourselves?' Ben asked.

‘Well,' Finn said, ‘that's up to you, isn't it?' He paused,
looking at Ben. ‘I don't blame you for being scared. You two have been on your own for a while. Of course you don't want to put yourselves in danger.'

‘I'm not scared,' Ben said scornfully.

I glanced at him in surprise. Even if he was insulted – and he looked insulted – he was usually much too cool to react so strongly to anything.

‘Right,' Finn said dismissively. ‘The point is, you
are
in danger. So what are you going to do about it?'

I felt a little tingle of nervous anticipation run through me, as if the forces of destruction had sat up and waved at me, and I heard myself say, ‘We're in.'

Ben looked at me, exasperated. Finn caught the look, and said, ‘What about you, Ben? Do you need some time to think about it?'

‘No,' Ben said. ‘If she's in, I'm in.'

‘Cool,' Finn said, and his smile shone on me again. ‘It's been great meeting you guys.'

‘Yeah,' I said eagerly, ‘same here.'

Ben didn't say anything.

‘We're so lucky to have met him!' I said, as Ben pulled out into the traffic and started heading home. ‘I can't wait to find out about all the other destroyers. He's met so many and we've never met any. I wonder what they're like?'

Ben said nothing.

‘It sounds like he knows heaps of stuff we don't,' I continued. ‘Wouldn't it be amazing if we really could find out where the agents of order are and what they're up to?'

Ben snorted. ‘He's all talk,' he said dismissively.

I turned to him, surprised. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Don't tell me you were taken in by all his crap,' Ben said, sounding amused.

‘What makes you think it was crap?' I demanded.

‘Well, because it was crap,' Ben said.

Normally Ben was pretty cluey about people. But this time my heart rebelled. Finn knew stuff. He was special. And I wanted to know more.

‘But why would he tell us he could do all that stuff if he couldn't?'

‘Trying to impress us. Needs to feel important. I don't know,' Ben said.

‘You didn't like him much, did you?' I said.

‘The guy's an idiot. Who goes around blowing up houses?'

‘I've seen your friends,' I said. ‘You don't have a problem with idiots.'

Ben glanced at me, looking a little exasperated. ‘All right, I don't trust him,' he said.

‘Why not?'

‘I just don't.' He paused. ‘The way I see it, there are people who go looking for trouble, and people who don't. Finn's the kind who likes to go looking for it. The problem is, if you go looking for trouble, you usually find it. And I don't want to get dragged into it.'

‘Then why did you agree to join in?'

‘Why do you think?' Ben said, sounding annoyed.

‘I don't know, that's why I'm asking.'

He shot me a look. ‘Because I don't trust that guy to look after you.'

‘I don't need anyone to look after me,' I said, offended.

‘I know you don't,' Ben said, and there was obviously a second part to that sentence, but whatever he was thinking he didn't say it. ‘I'm just worried he'll get us both into trouble – and I wouldn't count on him to get us out again.'

I was still annoyed at Ben for suggesting I needed my hand held. ‘If you're scared,' I said, ‘then you don't have to be involved.'

‘Of course I'm scared,' Ben said. ‘And you should be too. You don't know what it's like to have someone you care about get neutralised in front of you.'

I felt a little ashamed of myself then, for I knew better than anyone how brave Ben could be. But all I could think about was Finn, and the way something sparkled inside me when he smiled. ‘Well, I want to learn everything I can from him,' I said. ‘Knowledge is a good thing, right?'

Ben just snorted sceptically.

We drove the rest of the way home in silence.

T
hat night I went to the movies with Mina and Celeste. Once upon a time I spent just about every weekend hanging out with my best friend Soph, but just lately it seemed like there was always some new family thing she had to do, so I hadn't seen much of her outside of school for a while.

We went to see a romantic comedy which Mina had chosen because it had her favourite actor in it, but it was both not very romantic and not very funny, so by the time we came out of the cinema we were all in need of further diversion. Saturday night was the busiest night of the week at our local multiplex and the cinema foyer was packed, but it wasn't so packed we didn't notice an unexpected sight: Soph coming out of one of the other cinemas.

The first surprising thing about this was that Soph didn't look like the Soph I knew. She was dressed up like one of the scary girls who hang around the skater boys, wearing tons of black eye make-up and showing plenty of midriff. The second surprising thing? She was hanging out with a skater boy. He was the kind of boy who was guaranteed to give parents nightmares: he had an eyebrow piercing and
spiky black hair, he was dark and tall and
older
, with a sly, dangerous smile and a chicks-dig-me expression. He also had really terrible skin, but I guess you can't have everything. And from the way Soph was looking at him, I could tell she was completely mad about him.

‘Who the hell is that?' exclaimed Celeste.

‘I have no idea,' I said. Gobsmacked doesn't even come
close
to the way I was feeling.

‘Should we spring them?' suggested Mina gleefully.

We all stared at them for a moment longer. This was clearly a date, and something told me it wasn't the first date either. As I watched them together I knew, without a doubt, that Soph would not take it well if we crashed her party. But before I could say anything, Mina and Celeste were waving and calling out and Soph was busted.

‘Hi!' trilled Mina and Celeste, rushing up to Soph.

Soph froze, and then she saw me and a wave of guilt rushed across her face. ‘Hi,' she said.

‘Who's your friend?' asked Mina playfully.

‘This is Draz,' Soph said, rather unwillingly. ‘These are my friends.'

‘Hi!' we all said again. Mina and Celeste were studying Draz with the unashamed intensity of schoolkids watching animals shagging in a zoo.

‘Hey,' Draz said, giving us a glance that instantly dismissed us.

I decided to play it cool.

‘What have you been to see?' I asked, addressing myself to Soph.

‘
Strike Force 2
,' Soph said.

‘Right,' I said nonchalantly, as if Soph went to see
muscle movies about guys with guns all the time. ‘How was that?'

‘It rocked,' Draz said.

‘It rocked,' Soph agreed.

‘We've just seen
Say It With Flowers
,' Celeste said. ‘It was crap.'

‘It wasn't that bad,' said Mina, who'd chosen it.

A silence fell. Mina and Celeste were still staring avidly at Draz, but Draz was growing impatient.

‘Are we done?' he asked Soph.

‘We've got to go,' Soph said.

She looked at me for a moment, and I knew she was embarrassed, but there was nothing to be said just then.

‘Catch you later,' she said, and let Draz whisk her away into the crowd.

For a moment, none of us said anything.

‘
Well
,' Mina said finally, ‘that was unexpected.'

‘Did you know Soph was seeing somebody?' Celeste asked me.

‘No,' I said.

‘Come on,' said Mina. ‘Soph tells you everything.'

‘Clearly not,' I said, trying to put a brave face on things.

Celeste gave me a sympathetic look. Mina looked like she could hardly wait to get on the phone and start telling people all about it.

‘We'd better go,' Mina said. ‘My dad gets crabby if I'm late.'

Mina and Celeste yakked away about Soph's new man
as Mina's dad drove us home. Who was he? Where had she met him? How old was he? Was it serious? And why would Soph have kept it secret?

I stayed quiet. The initial shock of the discovery was gradually turning into disappointment, hurt, and anger.

I couldn't believe she'd been keeping something like this from me. This was
major
. Soph was my
best friend
. And what's more, I couldn't believe I hadn't
noticed
.

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to realise that all the signs had been there. There had been mysteriousness about what she was up to on Saturday nights, unexplained unavailability on weekends. Not quite so many after-school phone calls. It had clearly been going on for a while, and I'd missed the whole thing.

Then I remembered a conversation I'd had with Soph at school earlier that week. At the time I'd thought it was just Soph being Soph but now I realised it had been significant, if I'd only been paying attention.

‘I'm thinking of inviting some boys to my birthday party,' Soph had said.

‘Which boys?' I asked, astonished.

‘Well, I don't know,' Soph said. ‘What do you think of the idea in general?'

‘But you can't invite boys
in general
,' I objected. ‘You have to be specific.'

‘I just think,' Soph said, ‘since I'm turning fifteen, it might be time to start having boys along to my parties.'

I have never had a boyfriend. Neither, as far as I know, have most of my other friends. Soph is the only one of
us who's dipped her toe in the water: there were (1) the two weeks she went out with Darren Churchill, (2) the short and mysterious relationship she had with Kane Grey where the two of them never actually spoke and the entire relationship was conducted through text messages, and (3) the thrilling near miss with Ravi the Love Rat, who she snogged twice but then he turned out to be, well, a bit of a Love Rat, so she turned him down. There had been no-one in Soph's life since then.

‘So who've you got your eye on?' I asked.

‘Nobody,' Soph said.

‘Come on,' I said. ‘There must be somebody. Who do you want to invite to your party? Is it Simon?'

‘Simon?' Soph spluttered. ‘Are you kidding?'

‘I thought you thought he was cute.'

‘He is,' Soph said, ‘but have you ever
talked
to him? The lights are on, but there's nobody home.'

‘What about Jeremy?'

‘Hello. He's got a girlfriend!'

That, I thought, had never stopped Soph in the past, but I chose not to say so.

‘Dev?'

Dev was one of the hottest guys at our school. Soph wasn't afraid to aim high.

‘Meliss,' Soph said. ‘Be serious.'

‘Is it someone from our year?'

‘Are you kidding? They're all cavemen or children.'

‘Well, who then?' I asked, exasperated.

‘They don't have to go to our school,' Soph said. ‘For example, you could invite Ben if you wanted.'

‘No I couldn't.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because – because –'

‘I know, I know, you've got this special relationship and it's not like that and blah blah blah, but you know what? I reckon it could be if you wanted it to be.' Soph leaned forward, looking at me earnestly. ‘Ben's a fantastic guy. And I swear, you'd only have to make the first move and it would be totally on for young and old. Trust me on this, Meliss. He's into you.'

‘He's not.'

‘Meliss,' Soph said, ‘it's me. You guys have chemistry like you wouldn't believe.'

‘We don't,' I insisted. ‘Well, we do. But it's not
that
kind of chemistry.'

Soph rolled her eyes in frustration. ‘There is no other kind! I think you should invite him to my party, I really do.'

‘No, Soph.'

‘He came to the social, didn't he?'

‘That was different.'

Soph huffed through her nose, annoyed at me.

‘And anyway,' I said, ‘since when are your parents going to let you invite boys to your party? I thought you weren't allowed to have a boyfriend until you were sixteen.'

‘They wouldn't have to know,' Soph said. ‘They're talking about going out for the evening and letting us have the house to ourselves.'

For her fourteenth birthday, Soph's parents had hired a karaoke machine, and me and Soph and our five other best friends sang daggy songs and ate cake and popcorn
and skolled Coke until we were bouncing off the walls. By the end of the night – it was a sleepover – we'd all lost our voices and Mina had been sick. Soph's house was split-level, so the parents' bit was separated from the kids' bit, but there are some sounds that can penetrate three feet of concrete, and karaoke is one of them. I could totally understand why her parents wouldn't want to be around for a repeat performance.

Only, by the sounds of things, Soph wasn't planning on a repeat performance.

‘Are you seriously going to invite boys?' I asked, with a sinking feeling in my stomach. Last year's party had been an absolute blast, but nothing would be the same once we let boys in. How could you let your hair down and have fun with boys around? Bad enough if they were the idiotic boys from our year, but a squillion times worse if they were older guys. Older
hot
guys. I couldn't imagine anything more mortifying. What would I wear? What would we do? What would we
talk
about?

But Soph just laughed. ‘Nah,' she said. ‘It was just a thought.'

But now – now that I'd seen Soph with Draz – it all made sense. Soph wanted to invite him to her party and she'd been testing the waters to see how we'd cope. I guess she must have decided we weren't ready for that yet.

No. She'd decided
I
wasn't ready for that yet.

‘What did you think about the way she looked?' Mina asked.

Celeste and Mina had finished speculating about Draz and were now dissecting the surprising change in Soph's appearance.

‘I thought she looked good,' Celeste said, but thoughtfully, as if she still had reservations.

‘But aren't her parents really strict?' Mina asked. ‘I thought she wasn't even supposed to wear make-up.'

‘She's not,' I said. Soph's parents made exceptions for special occasions, like the social, but I doubted whether tonight's outing fell into that category. In fact, I doubted whether they even knew she was out. Especially out on a
date
. With a
boy
.

‘And what about her abs!' Mina exclaimed. ‘Who knew Soph had abs?'

‘I get the feeling there are a few things we didn't know about Soph,' Celeste said gravely.

You could say that again.

Soph called me on my new mobile just as I was getting into bed.

‘Hey Meliss, it's me.'

‘Oh. Hi.'

‘Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was going to, really.'

‘It doesn't matter,' I said, although of course it did.

‘I was just waiting for the right time.'

‘When would that be?' I asked sarcastically. ‘Just before the wedding invitations went out?'

‘I haven't been seeing him that long,' Soph said, sounding a bit annoyed. ‘I didn't want to say anything until –'

‘Until what?'

‘Well, until I was sure.'

‘So how long have you been seeing him?'

‘Three weeks and two days.'

‘
Three weeks?
'

Soph wasn't usually capable of keeping a secret for three minutes, let alone three weeks.

‘I didn't think you'd be interested in listening to me yammering on about him, that's all,' Soph said defensively.

Me, not interested? Hadn't I been there every step of the way during her seduction of Ravi, all-round hot guy? Hadn't I been completely and utterly supportive, even though I'd suspected from the beginning he was a bit of a creep? Okay, maybe I'd refused to help her out by blasting Ravi's girlfriend, Vicky Lind, but I'd been there for all the rest of it. But this time round she hadn't said a word to me. I had no idea she even had her eye on Draz, let alone that she was
seeing
him. She'd cut me out of the loop completely.

‘Of course I am,' I said. ‘He's your boyfriend. I want to know all about him.'

‘He's not my boyfriend,' Soph corrected quickly. ‘We're seeing each other, but he's not my boyfriend.' She paused. ‘You really want to get to know him?'

‘Of course.'

‘Then why don't you come out with us tomorrow?'

‘Out where?'

‘We're going down to the skate-ramp at the park. You could come and hang with us. It'll be fun.'

‘Okay,' I said, although I wasn't sure it sounded like my kind of fun.

‘Draz is a great guy,' Soph promised. ‘You're going to love him.'