The Sentinels of Eden, Books 1-4

Chapter 15

Chapter 14

‘Come on, Lainie, it’s the last thing we have left, we should at least try to get there more or less on time,’ Noah begged, throwing me his best dimpled smile as he peered around the corner into the bathroom. ‘Wow!’ he exclaimed, walking around me like he was inspecting a new car. ‘You should wear your hair down more often, you look incredible!’

‘Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how annoying it is when I leave it down?’ I grumbled, trying to flatten down some of the curls that were threatening to strangle me.

‘There really is a lot of it, isn’t there?’ he conceded as he pushed me aside to use the mirror to straighten his tie.

I shoved him back, brandishing the hair straightener like a cattle prod. ‘Just give me a few more minutes to try to tame it, I won’t be much longer.’ Another curl attacked the straightening iron like a python trying to swallow its prey and I scorched my fingers trying to untangle it. Noah just laughed at me. He knew I was dawdling because I was lacking enthusiasm. I usually enjoyed dances but only because he and I would always muck around so much. This time I had promised myself I would hold back, and prove I really could be mature by giving him enough space to find a new Claudia. But infinitely more distressing was the possibility of running into Bane. His mum was the local piano and singing teacher and she had taught her son to play keyboard and guitar. As a result he was usually called upon to play in the student band and I wasn’t confident that dropping out of school would have changed that.

A minute later, Noah kidnapped my hair straightener, forcing me to give up on my unruly mane and kiss Aunt Lily goodbye. She took a couple of hurried photos of us, complaining that she’d paid for my new gold dress and deserved a picture of me in it.

‘You make quite a striking couple,’ she said, and then stared at me meaningfully. The previous evening, after I’d explained to her who Bane was, she’d given me an uncomfortable lecture about behaving myself around Noah. She seemed to be under the impression that Bane’s animosity might somehow be caused by jealousy. As if maybe he saw us as something more than good friends. I thought about that one afternoon we had nicked Aunt Lily’s bottle of port, well over a year ago now. The make-out session that had resulted in the back of the shearing shed was never to be spoken of again. Nothing had happened since that day. No one had any reason to be jealous.

I ducked out the door before she could unleash any embarrassing innuendoes.

The hotel reception centre that the school had booked for our graduation dance was the classiest venue in town. That was a sad thought. It had been renovated the previous year so at least the silver textured wallpaper was no longer there. The dance floor was small but there weren’t many of us anyway so that was probably a good thing.

We were served a posh meal that had all the good bits sliced too thinly and propped up into little tepees, but it was tasty. Noah polished off his food in record time and looked wistfully at Tessa’s plate. She had manoeuvred her way on to our table by simply moving Taylor’s handbag to her own spot and ignoring the resultant complaints. Smiling sweetly, she offered Noah half her steak and I shook my head in disappointment. She was going to have to develop a better immunity to his natural charisma if she hoped to spend any time with him. Either that or starve. Personally, I would never have relinquished an eye fillet no matter how much he begged.

Towards the end of dinner the music morphed from a CD to the live band and sure enough, Bane stepped up to the keyboard. He was wearing a plain black shirt and black pants as if he was trying not to be noticed but I felt his eyes on me immediately. Forcing myself to eat rather than just fiddle with my fork, I finished my meal and sat humming along with the music. I didn’t know where to look. Luckily Taylor grabbed my hand and dragged me to the dance floor with the rest of her friends—probably so she could sneak back and steal my spot at the table—and I fumbled after her, gratefully attempting to get lost in a sea of gyrating high school graduates. Dancing cautiously, I concentrated as hard as I could on not tripping in my heels because all I could think about was what Bane would do if he thought I was about to go arse-over-breakfast-time on the dance floor. I could feel his broody eyes on me the whole time.

Half an hour later the band took a break and a CD came back on for the first of the slow dances. Noah sought me out and offered me his hand with a dramatic flourish, but I frowned in stern disapproval. He was supposed to be flirting with all the pretty girls.

‘Please, Lainie? You’re my best friend. I can’t not dance with you tonight. You’re being irrational.’

He caught my eye and refused to let me look away until I relented. He was right. We were adults now. Surely this didn’t need to be so complicated. In resignation I put my hand in his and curtsied, so he batted his eyelashes and curtsied back, and I laughed. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tessa staring at us with her lips pressed together. Her eyebrows were too delicate for me to tell if she was annoyed or disappointed. Probably both.

‘You’d better make it up to her, Noah, she looks upset,’ I remarked as we swayed our way to the middle of the mob.

‘I will, I promise. She can have me all to herself for the rest of the night after this,’ he smiled, twirling me around effortlessly.

‘Really? All night?’ I teased.

‘You know what I mean. Tessa’s nice. Did you know she volunteers with the Country Fire Authority? She’s smart, too,’ he said slyly.

‘Well of course she is. She’s not Claudia! And she’s clearly smart enough to have out-manoeuvred the three other girls that tried to sit at our table tonight,’ I pointed out. ‘Not to mention how incredible she looks in those heels. They must be five inches at least. Don’t let her stand on your feet when you’re dancing, whatever you do. And take care of her. She’s going to be in agony by midnight.’

‘So why wear them?’ he asked in exasperation.

‘So she can look you in the eye, pea-brain! How else is she supposed to get you to notice her instead of looking straight over the top of her head?’ Honestly, boys could be so dense.

‘Oh, I notice her all right,’ he replied with a grin, then saw my raised eyebrows and cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘Well, all the boys do,’ he clarified. ‘She’s almost as pretty as you are.’

I rolled my eyes at him. ‘You need to stop teasing me like that. People get the wrong idea. They think you mean it!’ Now that I was paying attention, I was beginning to see where Aunt Lily was coming from. Our easy-going banter could easily be misconstrued.

‘But I do mean it, Lainie! You look incredible in that dress, and the last thing you need are high heels to get anyone to notice you.’

I laughed in relief. Hearing him tease me about my height was much more acceptable.

We danced for a while in silence and when the music slowed to something very couple-friendly I refused to feel weird about it. He pulled me in against his chest and I let myself absorb the familiar feel of his presence as if I could store up his texture like a memory. I would miss the dancing. I didn’t think there would be many more opportunities for it in the future. He was one of the few people I could dance with who was taller than I was. It was hard to feel graceful if your partner was a head shorter than you. Regretfully the song ended and as we both looked around for Tessa I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I froze.

Deep breath. Even Bane wouldn’t pull any freaky crap in the middle of all these people, would he? I could do this. I would just speak to him like a mature adult. Easy.

But when I turned around, it was Jake Evans waiting nervously, not Bane.

‘Hi, Lainie. I just wanted to see if you were okay. You know, after yesterday.’ He scrubbed his fingers through his ridiculously high hairdo, presumably to mess it up more perfectly. ‘I’m really sorry about Frawley. I don’t know why he went after you.’

‘I’m sorry he died.’ It was hard to know what else to say.

‘He was just a stupid animal,’ Jake mumbled, sounding resentful. ‘And Bane was the one who hit him.’ There was just a hint of venom in his voice to reveal how upset he really was. Enough that it carried through to his next words too. ‘How did you do it, Lainie? Was it him or you?’

A noise came out of my mouth that could have sounded something like an answer if we’d known how to speak Chicken.

‘Was what her, Jake?’ came a dark voice from behind Noah. We all turned to see Bane standing nearby, glowering as only he could.

‘Her arm,’ Jake challenged.

‘The one that got covered in left over bits of your feral dog? She should charge you for having to dry-clean its blood off her dress.’

Jake’s ears turned the same shade of crimson as his shirt. ‘Are you trying to imply that all you did was wipe Frawley’s blood off her? And since when have you ever come that close to her without trying to spit at her, anyway? That’s bullsh—’

‘Okay! That’s enough, mate,’ Noah interrupted quickly. ‘This is the last time you two ever need to see each other, so how about we just leave things nice and friendly?’

Both Bane and Jake took a small step back, probably obeying Noah out of habit more than anything else. Then Jake took one last annoyed glance at me and walked off, pretending to have spotted a friend to talk to, while Bane continued to stand there with his hands in his pockets and look even more sullen than usual, impossible as that seemed. He eyed Noah warily, like he would watch a tiger that was about to attack at any second. It was not the sort of look Noah ever got from people.

I laid a hand on Noah’s arm. ‘It’s okay, I’ll need to face him eventually,’ I said.

He nodded, still looking troubled, but turned away to find Tessa.

I didn’t really know what to say to Bane so instead I tugged his hand out of his pocket and led him to the centre of the dance floor. It was the simplest way I could think of to stop him from talking. He looked stunned. We had never been even remotely friendly to one another, so inviting him to dance was clearly the last thing he expected from me. Everyone else who noticed us looked equally confused. Bane was one of those guys who was extremely good looking—especially with those gorgeous illegally long eyelashes—but far too intimidating for anyone to actually consider flirting with. Everyone knew he was slightly dangerous and unstable, and not in that sexy arrogant bad boy way either. He was the sort of guy that looked so surly and unsure of himself that parents automatically steered young children away from him on the street. As far as I knew no one had ever seen him dance. It was risky but I didn’t know what else to do. I simply wasn’t ready to talk yet.

An upbeat Preatures song began to play, and I breathed a massive sigh of relief that it wasn’t another romantic slow one, but as I let go of his hand and began to dance awkwardly, he frowned. Perhaps he thought I was somehow trying to embarrass him in front of everybody. So he just stood there. Perfectly still.

Just staring at me.

Bastard.

Was he really just going to stand there for the whole song while I danced around on my own with everyone watching us? It was mortifying. But just as I was about to stalk away in a huff, he reached for me, grabbed me firmly around the waist and pulled me in close.

For a couple of seconds, we both froze and I found myself blinking at his collarbone.

When had he grown so tall? Last year he had been in the front row of the class photo and didn’t seem to have any shoulders, but now apparently God had finally gotten around to finishing blowing him up. And how had he spent all that time up on stage and still managed to smell like fresh linen? The ridiculous observation didn’t do much to help me think straight as I felt a deeply disturbing sensation, like my heart had just reversed all its rhythms and was now beating backwards.

‘If we have to dance, let’s at least do it properly,’ he almost spat, and I didn’t get an opportunity to reply because he swung me around and led me in a complex pattern of movement that made no apology for the fact that everyone else had to move aside or be bulldozed by us. Furious, I didn’t even bother trying to think about how I was going to keep up. If he wanted to see me fall on my face then I was just going to have to make damn certain that I took him down with me. Relaxing into his firm grip, I let him swing me recklessly around and after a few moments I had to laugh when I saw that he was just as surprised as I was that we were still both upright. My backwards heart was thumping wildly, but it was actually not all that difficult to move in time with his audacious steps. So this was what it was like to have someone lead! Seriously lead. I was only an average dancer, and he swung me around as if he was challenging me to keep up, yet at the same time he always seemed to know when I was about to trip and supported me easily. His mother must have made certain his musical education had included some form of dancing to go with it. Did all professional dancers hold their partners this securely? I could feel the resonant heat of his skin like an intricate lace of energies, seeking, flowing … searching for something to heal? Cobwebs made of light and life coursed through me wherever our bodies connected—from his hands, his hip, his thigh—pure enough to taste.

Every pair of eyes in the room was fixed on us; I could feel them boring into my back. I couldn’t remember why that was a problem. At least it meant that the people around us instinctively began to give us space, because Bane certainly wasn’t trying to remain inconspicuous anymore. As he spun me to a breathless halt I was amazed to find that the song had ended. His hand trembled on my shoulder blade but he still held me firmly while we both stood there gasping, and I wondered whether his heart was doing the same weird thing mine was. The expression on his face was unreadable, sort of confused and cross and startled all at the same time, which made me want to laugh. For once I didn’t. Eyes of chipped ice held mine, as he in turn tried to gauge my mood. Pity I didn’t know it myself.

I bit my lower lip and extricated my fingers from his. ‘Can we go outside?’ I mumbled. ‘I think we’d better talk.’

Nodding grimly, he took my hand again and led me out the front door, attracting even more surprised glances from the other students. Practically yanking me along, he strode all the way down the street to a small playground, away from all the smokers and couples. I quietly hoped Noah was right about him trying to protect me, otherwise I was headed for a secluded area with someone who had recently pulled a knife on me … sort of. I started to have second thoughts.

Sensing my reluctance he let go of my hand and backed away from me, a puzzled expression on his face. ‘You aren’t in any danger. What’s wrong?’ He looked confused, then frustrated as he realised that he was the one I was worrying about.

Leaning forward, I peered at him in the dusky yellow light of the street lamp. ‘How do you know? How do you know whether or not I’m in danger?’ My inquisitiveness was quickly winning over my reticence.

He hesitated before answering, his hands finding his pockets again. A lock of velvet-black hair fell into his eyes as he lowered his gaze again. ‘Because I don’t currently feel like a junkie desperate for a hit,’ he said, clenching his jaw and looking down at his shoes.

I pondered that for a moment. He stayed silent. Annoyed, I realised he wasn’t going to volunteer any information and that I was going to have to steer the awkward conversation. Great. I sat down on the edge of a seesaw shaped like a bee.

‘Are you trying to protect me? From what? And why?’

He looked up sharply. ‘I have no idea. I just … need you to be safe. I didn’t even realise that’s what it was until yesterday. I’ve tried to stay away from you, I really have. I just can’t. It makes me sick.’

‘Physically sick?’ I asked incredulously, eyebrows reaching for the sky. He nodded. Oh great, how lovely. What was I supposed to say to that, exactly?

‘Um. Okay. So how close do you need to be?’

He looked down again. ‘It seems to be more dependent on time than on distance,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, if I’m in or near my car I feel more comfortable than if I’m on foot. Maybe because I can get to you faster that way. I’ve driven almost as far as Horsham before throwing up, but I can only walk as far as the grain silos on Tarin Street if you’re at home. It’s hard for me when you leave town.’

My eyes bulged. Man, he must have been struggling with this for a while. I had no idea it was so powerful, or so controlling.

‘When did all this start?’

He looked away, staring at the ancient swings, unable to meet my eyes. ‘It’s been getting stronger over the last couple of years. I’ve always felt … sort of … drawn to you, but you make me uncomfortable. I keep doing strange things when I’m around you so I try to keep my distance. It’s been getting harder.’ He looked accusingly at me. ‘I always know where you are. Exactly where you are. Why? Why you?’

I glared right back. ‘Why me? I’ve been asking myself that since primary school! Why do you always pick on me? What have I ever done to upset you? Why was it my locker you had to set on fire? Honestly? Until recently I thought it was about Noah … you know, because you act a bit like the girls in class would if they didn’t have any self-restraint …’ It was my turn to study my shoes.

He was quiet for a moment, then started to chuckle. I couldn’t remember ever hearing him laugh before, and I started chuckling too. I think we were both a bit desperate to see a funny side to the situation. He took a deep breath and the corners of his mouth twitched into an almost- smile.

‘No,’ he assured me, ‘this definitely has nothing whatsoever to do with your pretty boyfriend. You can keep him. I’ll keep as far away from you both as I can.’

Damn, I hated it when my aunt was right, although the idea that Bane was jealous was still taking it way too far.

‘He’s not my boyfriend. He never has been. Didn’t anyone notice him going all cow-eyed over Claudia? How can you have been at school with us all these years and not know we’re just friends?’

‘Whatever. Friends then,’ he said cynically. ‘I’ll still try to leave you alone. But please, could you, maybe, call me or something if you’re going to do anything … risky? It’s easier if I’m close. Or at least I’ll know not to do anything I need to concentrate on that day.’

If I didn’t already believe that there was something supernatural going on I would have told him where he could stick it. Instead I just felt kind of bad for him. He didn’t deserve this. We were both caught up in something completely outside our control. I thought about what Aunt Lily had said about being destined for him, which was laughable—I would have been less surprised to catch Noah knitting—but I thought I’d better at least try to get used to having him around.

I shook some tan bark out of my shoe. ‘Ben, what are your plans? Do you have a job?’ I asked.

His shoulders relaxed slightly, as if he’d actually been worried about my reaction to his request. ‘No, I’m still looking,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve been doing some odd jobs around town since I can’t go to the city to find work. I’ll find something though.’

I took a resigned breath. ‘Are you any good on a farm? We happen to be without our farmhand at the moment and some of the less urgent jobs are starting to pile up. My aunt and I could use some help if you’re interested. We’d pay you, of course, and feed you. I’ll ask if you can use Harry’s cottage until he gets back.’

He looked at me as if I’d grown an extra nose. ‘Seriously? Just like that?’ He blinked. ‘After everything we’ve … You would just invite me to come and live on your farm and work?’

How could I explain to him there was no real choice? I just smiled and nodded. I had found that usually worked well enough when I didn’t know what else to say. Just smile and nod. I wondered if there was a way I could just do that instead of having to tell Aunt Lily.