The Sentinels of Eden, Books 1-4

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Friday afternoon was stinking hot to the point where we could have easily cooked eggs on the pavement. We were all dressed formally for our school graduation ceremony and our assembly hall wasn’t air conditioned. Some of the parents in the seating at the back were nodding off by the end of Mr Davis’s address. I couldn’t believe this was the last time we would have to sit through one of his speeches. Most of the girls looked teary as the ceremony ended and I became heartily sick of girls coming up to me for soggy hugs, congratulating me on making school dux and trying to make me promise I would f*******: them every day.

Eventually all the students headed down to the river for a quick swim before the after-party at the pub.

Noah made it into the water first, courtesy of the fact that he didn’t bother to take off anything but his shoes. He and the other boys just dive-bombed in off the bridge. Loudly. We had all swum there for years and knew where it was safe to jump. I stripped down to my bathers, while on the riverbank the other girls squealed about how cold it was and that they couldn’t possibly get their hair wet before the party. Which was probably just as well because there were a lot of bikinis that looked unsafe for any sort of decent current strength. Ridiculous.

The short moment of free-fall from the bridge was delicious, but as soon as I hit the water I realised I had a serious problem. The water was energising, but the music rippling through it was so overpowering that I burst into tears. The agony of its cry ripped through me like a shockwave. Lost! Something so lost, yearning to find … someone? So alone. So sad … With shallow gasps I floundered back to the riverbank, slipping painfully on the rocks. Trying to avoid eye contact with anyone, I scrambled up on to the rough grass, trembling and hoping no one would notice my tears given that I was wet through anyway.

Noah did. He followed me out. He always seemed to know when I was trying to hide something.

‘What’s wrong, Lainie?’ he asked as he sat next to me on the grass, his jade eyes brimming with concern.

‘Nothing, I’m fine. You go enjoy playtime. I’m just going to lie in the shade for a while,’ I said as I rummaged through my bag for my towel and sundress.

‘Can I get you some water?’

‘No thanks, I drank enough of the river.’

‘Ah, Lainie, that’s not really the best idea when there are eleven sweaty guys swimming in there.’

Groaning, I lay back and tried not to think about it.

‘I think I might stay out of the water for a while anyway so let me know if I can get you anything,’ he offered, taking off his drenched shirt. He looked a bit uncomfortable.

‘Really, I’m fine, Noah, stop worrying. Go and show your abs off somewhere else.’ I was confused and grumpy and struggling to keep my attention away from the dirge echoing around my skull.

Shrugging, he got to his feet and went off to join the game of footy that had inevitably started up. He looked about as tired as I felt, although he was hiding it well. The searing heat was obviously getting to him too.

The late afternoon sun reflected in the beast’s eyes. We crouched, facing each other, muscles tense and both staring hungrily at the prize. Under no circumstances was I going to allow the beast to have it. It was mine to protect, and my will was stronger because I had a far greater appreciation of what it was worth. It was awe-inspiring, legendary. Battles had been fought over it, the battle songs known by all.

The prize rolled, arcing slightly, but neither of us allowed the movement to distract our concentration. I was good at this game but my opponent wasn’t the same species I was used to. My usual opponents didn’t generally growl quite so convincingly, or raise their hackles to such a bristly ridge of tan fur. The slobber wasn’t new though, sadly.

Jake’s dog growled again, so I did too. His language was clear. My ball. Back off.

I crouched even lower until the end of my thick plait was trailing in the dust. The late afternoon sun still had a bite and I could feel the back of my neck burning. My fingers pressed against the hard soil, painfully trying to support my weight but I couldn’t move because my face was already way too close to the animal’s yellow teeth as it was. The dog looked like a Besser brick on legs. The sort of creature that could be three days dead and still keep its jaws locked around a rabbit.

My ball. Mine, I told it silently. Your voracious instincts will only ruin it.

Noah’s voice entreated warily from behind me. ‘Lainie, let it go. We should probably start getting ready for the pub anyhow.’

He almost sounded worried.

‘My ball,’ I growled, and Noah made a frustrated sort of gargle in the back of his throat.

At the sound of my voice the animal took its gaze from the prize to stare at me instead, growled again, and I made the mistake of looking straight back into its cold black eyes. Direct eye contact with a predator was not ideal and the creature had just shifted the game to much higher stakes. In retrospect, growling back at it had possibly not been the smartest idea. I was a threat now, and it was too dangerous for me to look away. The beast’s lip curled upwards and a nice gooey trail of saliva dripped from its mouth. I almost expected the grass it fell onto to hiss and dissolve and for a second I was sure I could see a dull red glow behind the animal’s irises.

Then one front paw twitched and I very nearly flinched away. My heart rate doubled.

Behind me, Noah was calling to one of the other guys who had started the impromptu game. ‘Chuck us that tennis ball! Lainie’s about to become puppy food!’

A few more tense moments passed, during which I wondered whether I should have made out a will, or if Aunt Lily would just toss all my stuff onto the next bonfire the way she often threatened to. But then out of the corner of my eye I saw a tennis ball begin to bounce, enticingly close.

‘Here, boy. Check this one out,’ Noah tempted. ‘It’s smaller but very tasty. Like a teeny, tiny little kitten.’

A tail swished, and it definitely wasn’t mine.

When the tennis ball bounced right under its nose, the animal’s canine consciousness just couldn’t resist. It flicked its eyes away from me for just a second, and I shuffled back. Noah caught the tennis ball again and threw it as hard as he could along the riverbank. The Staffy took off after it, its muscles bunching with far too much power for its short strides. When it captured its prey the dog kept running, off into the bushland.

Dusting off my sundress, I watched it disappear, shaking my head in disdain at its cowardice.

My friend acknowledged my fierce bravery with a slap across the back of my head. ‘What was that all about?’

It was a very good question. While I’d been messing around with the guys, pretending to have far more energy than I really did, I’d been thinking about Kolsom, and our farm, my home, and how easy it could be for them to just decide to start mining wherever they wanted, and how I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to kick them out. Then the dog had bounded in and stolen the footy and my surge of possessiveness may have gotten a little out of hand.

Instead of answering Noah, I picked up the liberated ball and cradled it to my chest, growling at him with one lip raised when he reached for it, which made him laugh.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he asked, crouching slightly as he prepared to tackle the ball from my grip.

I tossed it to him. ‘Not really. I’m kind of stuffed,’ I admitted. ‘I might just go and get changed.’

He kicked the ball back to its real owner, who had been waiting patiently. ‘Good plan. I’ll just go and apologise to Matt for losing his tennis ball and then I’ll join you.’

It was now late enough in the afternoon that the thirsty wind gusts had begun to settle and most of the local students had long since gone home to get ready for the evening’s festivities. My legs trembled as I trudged up the hill to the bridge, where I saw Jake whistling for his dog. I pointed vaguely in the direction I had last seen it, and then crossed the street towards Noah’s ute where I had packed my clothes for the evening along with a bag of frozen oranges—not that they would still be frozen after an afternoon in a hot car. I needed a dose of … whatever it was that I needed. Of course, I made it most of the way there before realising I would need the car keys. No one usually locked their cars in our town but Noah had started to do it after Nicole had taken to driving off in it while no one was looking. I turned back and whistled to him, the sound cutting across the noise of the river. One of the other guys heard me and tapped him on the shoulder, so I tried to signal that I needed his keys. All I got in response was a frantic waving of his arms. Did he really expect me to walk all the way back down again to get them?

The heartbreaking sound of a poor abused engine being over-revved intruded on our game of charades, and I twisted around to see where it was coming from. A faded blue sedan spun out of a side street and swerved into the main road, the angry squeal of its tyres sounding alien in the quiet afternoon. Stupid bogan drivers. With mindless unbelief, I watched it straighten and aim straight for me. I dodged to the right. It swerved the same way. So I stumbled left, and it followed me. It was like one of those awkward moments with an oncoming person in a busy shopping centre, only the sedan was travelling a heck of a lot faster than I was.

Snarling violence filled my ears.

Blue metal filled my vision.

The snarling sound grew into vicious growl inside my head as the mechanical blue beast charged for my throat and I felt something tug at my arm, but all my attention was focused on the death machine coming for me as I scrambled backwards, tripping over my own feet.

The car skimmed past me, its metal skin hot where it brushed against my shoulder as I fell.

An interrupted yelp and sickening crunch sounded simultaneously in my stunned ears, and I rolled back up to my knees just in time to see Jake’s poor dog slide across the bitumen. Screaming brakes didn’t quite save the sedan from mounting the kerb and hitting a street bin with a horrible metallic crunch.

Everything froze, and for a crystalline moment all I could see was the motionless form of the poor dog lying on the road, its limbs sticking out like spider’s legs and its neck bent sickeningly. When I found the courage to look away, the sedan driver was stumbling out.

Bane.

Somehow he managed to look furious and terrified at the same time. Wearing old shabby jeans and a ripped T-shirt, he was sweat-soaked and shaking. He didn’t even glance at the dog as he slammed his door shut and strode towards me.

‘What the HELL is the matter with you!’ I yelled. Any residual sympathy I’d had for him leaving school flew out the window with his apparent total lack of concern for what he’d just done. Finally forcing my limbs to move, I stood unsteadily and turned my back on him. I needed to see if the dog was alive.

Jake got there first and keened his grief-stricken conclusion. I stammered out something that sounded consoling, but I was too shaken to make much sense.

‘Are you all right, Lainie?’ Distress filled Jake’s eyes as he looked up at me. His skinny arms lifted the heavy animal and I could see fresh blood smear across the half unbuttoned white shirt he’d worn for graduation. ‘I don’t know what got into him, he used to be so gentle. A bit of a boofhead and all, but always gentle! Lately he’s been acting so weird, and it’s not like him, I promise!’ He held the beast’s head on his lap, rocking back and forth. ‘Bane, mate!’ his voice cracked as he looked up. ‘I tried to catch him but he was too quick, I’m so sorry!’ As he spoke, Jake cringed away from the crazed dropout as he approached.