First Light (14 page)

‘I’ll wait here,’ said Mae, as if reading my mind. ‘You have any luck just wave me off.’

‘Why don’t you come in?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Na, I don’t think so. Mum would have a fit. Besides, I’m kind of seeing someone and I don’t think he’d like it.’ Even in the darkness I could see her blush.

‘You didn’t tell me. We’ve spent the whole day together.’ I knew she had new friends now, but it was painful to think we were growing apart. There was a time when she would have told me everything.

‘I know, but it’s not been long. I don’t want to jinx it.’

‘Who is it?’ I asked.

‘It’s Taz,’ she said proudly, toying with her hair.

I gaped. ‘Gym Taz? But he’s in his thirties!’

‘I know that,’ she said indignantly. ‘Thirty-two, actually. But I really like him. He’s hot, right?’

Taz was my kickboxing instructor – it explained why Mae had been coy about going with me and why he’d made such a fuss of me. He was very good-looking, but oh boy did he know it. Everyone knew he was a womaniser and had been with most girls in town his age, my sister being one of them.

‘He is hot,’ I said reluctantly.

‘Ronnie, you’re a fine one to talk about men that are bad for us.’

‘I know, I just, I didn’t know you liked him, that’s all.’

‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘You want to go see your boyfriend and let me know how you get on?’

I muttered that he wasn’t my boyfriend and got out of the car feeling dejected.
I could hear the music before I reached the door. Classical. Up-tempo. I recognised the song, it was well known, but I couldn't place it. My knowledge of classical music was limited at best. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. Laith was the only one in the kitchen.

‘Hey, Laith.’

‘Veronica,’ he nodded curtly.

‘Is Kal here?’ I asked, with my best attempt at light and breezy.

‘Nope.’

‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘Not tonight.’

‘Oh.’ I wondered if any of the others were around, but I could see I was getting nowhere asking the most socially inept of the group. ‘Okay. Well, when you see him please let him know I stopped by.’ I turned to walk back out, but his dark laugh halted me in my tracks.

He took the remote control and turned the music down a little. It was a polite gesture, but the look on his face told me he had meant it to be anything but.

'You like Nocturnes?'

'Um, yeah, I guess.'

'Of course you do.
Guess
, I mean.'

I had no idea what he meant. The song finished and was replaced with something else I didn’t know.

'You two must have so much in common. You like, let me guess –
Britney Spears
? And K listens to
Frederic Chopin
. Did you know that?’

'Where is everyone?' I asked, ignoring his insult. I didn't particularly like Britney Spears. Maybe two years ago, but I wasn't going to tell him that.

‘
You know, Veronica, you are somewhat delusional. You think that because K seems to have some ridiculous infatuation with you, that you’re special? Meeting him was every one of your worst nightmares combined. He’s dragged us to this hellhole and since we’ve been here he’s been on his best behaviour, but it’s all lies. You have no idea who we are and just how much we shouldn’t be here. We’ve stayed in this place too long and because of you we could all be in serious danger. And you’ll find he won’t care a damn about what happens to you if it means saving his own life.’

I tried to hold his gaze as he bore down on me, his dead blue eyes wide and rimmed red with rage. I wasn’t sure if he meant to hurt me or not, but I prepared myself to scream just in case. If the other boys were in the house, I was sure they would help me. At least I hoped they would. I couldn’t accept what he was saying, I couldn’t have been so wrong about Kal.

‘You’re poison, Laith. Leave me alone or I’ll tell Kal everything you’ve just said to me. How do you think he’d react to that?’

He smiled. ‘Go ahead. Why don’t you tell him now?’

I faltered. I didn’t know Kal’s whereabouts and Laith was enjoying that.

‘I can tell you where he is at this precise moment, if you like?’ He sat back, casually placing his hands behind his head. ‘You could learn something that might save your life. You want to know the truth don’t you, Veronica? Don’t take my word for it, go and witness with your own eyes just who we really are.’

Of course I accepted the challenge. I told myself it was so I could prove him wrong, but if I was honest, Laith was right: I needed to know the truth and so far Kal had told me absolutely nothing.

Mae dropped me home with a look that said I told you so, but when giving me a hug goodbye she told me the offer to stay with her family still stood. I thanked her and watched as she drove away in her new car.

It was seven in the evening, but it may as well have been the middle of the night it was so dark. I didn’t care. As soon as I walked back into the safety of my warm house, I called a taxi and made my way to the nearest train station.

15 – Assassin

I arrived at the docks wishing I hadn’t.
On my own in the darkness, all I knew for sure was that I was astonishingly cold and a long way from home. What was I expecting to see? From Laith’s words I couldn’t be sure what was going to happen, if anything.

It wasn’t long, however, before I saw movement from inside one of the big white yachts, just as Laith had predicted. My stomach lurched as I thought about what I’d done. This was it – no turning back. If he told me something bad about my father, I’d have to say goodbye to him. With that thought, I had to force my feet not to run. Finding out the truth about the boy to whom my happiness was bound so tightly made me numb with fear.

Dressed entirely in black, he leapt silently from the boat and hotfooted it along the jetty in my direction. Up until that moment I’d been annoyed, but my anger quickly turned to fear when I saw his urgency. As he ran, his feet seemed to barely touch the floor beneath him; he looked lighter than air. I was reminding myself to be angry – not impressed – when two huge German Shepherds launched themselves from the boat and gave chase along the docks. Kalen reached me, his eyes widening. A flash of anger clouded his features.

‘Dammit, Ronnie!’ he said.

He grabbed my arm and forced me to run with him. I said nothing; there was no time. Being chased by two savage dogs gave me the adrenaline kick I needed and I ran faster than I ever thought I could. But I knew we couldn’t outrun them. We reached a brick wall and I turned in horror, watching the two animals gaining on us, snarling and barking ferociously. I flinched against the wall, my heart pounding in my chest. Still holding me, Kalen glanced towards the black water then back to the dogs. Any second now they’d be mauling us... Then Kalen’s arms were around me, lifting me off the ground, tossing me like a rugby ball into the air. I gasped. Flailed. Cold air rushed past me. I heard the yelp of a dog before I hit the freezing water. What felt like a thousand needles pierced my skin all at once, evaporating into hundreds of tiny bubbles. I gasped for air as I broke the surface.

Wiping my eyes, I looked around desperately. The sound of waves licking the concrete walls made for an eerie accompaniment to the dark water.

Though I couldn’t see them, I could hear the dogs barking from somewhere above, the frustrated barking from animals denied their prey. If I hadn’t been so cold, wet and miserable I might have sighed with relief.

Treading water, I searched for a way out, when Kalen’s backpack slammed into the water a few feet from me. I looked up. Kal stood on the roof of a two-storey apartment block and threw himself into the air. His body rotated into a perfect dive and slipped into the river like an arrow from the night sky. The surface of the water remained as still as it had been before the impact, barely a ripple out of place.

Beside me, his head rose out of the water. ‘Can you swim?’ he asked harshly, his dark eyes glittering in the moonlight.

Bit late for that question,
I thought. But I nodded mutely, through fear of crying if I spoke. I wasn’t sure if the shock had truly hit me yet, but the tone of his voice had. I hated him being angry with me.

‘Good. Swim next to me to that pier,’ he pointed. ‘The police are coming. Be quick.’

The pier didn’t look too far. I took a deep breath, held back my rising panic and began to swim. Kalen was already up on the jetty and reaching an arm down to me as I neared it. With ease, he hoisted me up. His powerful hands ripped open the rucksack and from it he pulled a clear plastic bag containing a pair of khaki trousers and a jumper. He threw them to me.

‘Get your clothes off. All of them, except your sneakers. Get these on.’

‘What about you?’ I asked through chattering teeth. The sound of police sirens began to wail in the distance.

‘I’m fine, just hurry.’ He turned his back to me and I did my best to tear off my jeans and jumper that were already stiff with ice. Trembling, I pulled on the dry clothes as quickly as I could. Just performing normal functions was a struggle. I was colder than seemed possible.

Kalen appeared behind me and threw my wet things into the river. I thought fleetingly about my sister’s Christmas gift, but before I had time to dwell on it, he’d grabbed up the bag, my coat and my hand and started us running again.

The chill of the night air threatened to freeze my blood, but every time I wanted give up I reminded myself he was still in his wet things and it forced me to press on. It wasn’t long before we reached a grassy bank leading up to a back entrance to a train station, though I had no idea which one. He held back part of a broken fence. Without a word, I squeezed through the gap presented to me. Keeping my body so low to the ground that I could smell the wet grass under my nose, I made my way up towards the platform.

‘
Are we going to be okay?’ I asked when we sat down. ‘It’s freezing and you’re still soaking wet.’ I choked out my words. My chattering teeth gave away just how cold I was. He looked at me, troubled, then at the electronic clock above us that indicated the next train was in twenty-three minutes.

After a brooding pause he spoke, as if to himself. ‘No, this isn’t okay.’

Taking my hand again, he led us both quickly out of the train station and into the car park. Fortunately being the day after Christmas, nobody was working at the station. It was empty, bar us.

‘Wait here,’ he instructed.

He shot off into the darkness. Seconds later I heard a car approaching and a navy blue Mercedes came to a stop in front of me.

The door swung open and I peered in. ‘Did you steal this?’

‘Get in, Red,’ he answered darkly.

I didn’t need much persuading. The air was so cold outside I wanted the warmth of the car more than I wanted to be law abiding. I jumped in. The tyres screeched away from the kerb as I was still closing the door. At the mouth to the main road Kalen swung the steering wheel so the car spun and faced the opposite direction and we were racing along the motorway as smoothly as if I were being rocked to sleep.

‘The heater’s on,’ he said more kindly. ‘You’ll start to feel better soon, I promise.’

I nodded. The many questions cluttering my mind would have to wait until I wasn’t so cold. Despite the heating inside the car, however, my body didn’t seem to warm up. Thankfully, quicker than seemed possible, he cut the engine and I realised we’d reached my house. The lights were off so I knew Rachel had not returned, and for that I was grateful. I wasn’t sure how I would explain my clothing or my late-night guest without a huge fight.

Inside I took him up to my room and hurriedly showed him to the shower room. Then I ran into my father’s bedroom to find him some dry clothes before going to take a shower myself.

The water burned my skin at first, but I relished it after the cold. I dried, almost feeling back to normal and not being worried about dying of hypothermia meant I could consider exactly what we had just done. I’d been an accessory to car theft for one thing, but that was the least of my problems. Who the hell was Kalen Smith? We had broken the law, but how he’d done it made me think perhaps it was something he did on a regular basis. This could be a lot worse than I had imagined.