Afterlife of Alanna Miller Page 5

  I glanced around and pointed at an Asian girl in a miniskirt. "That one's a nine."

  He responded, but I didn't hear the words. I'd found the perfect ten and she was crossing the road toward us.

  I could see hundreds of commuters and people handing out flyers, him and his smoke curling out the window, and then nothing but her. She pushed her sunglasses back onto her face, but her eyes had seemed to stare right back at me, as if she could see me through the tinted windows. Huge, dark, soulful eyes that I wanted to swim in. She was little, but not a kid. I can't say how I knew. It was just the way she carried herself. The way she walked, moved, her expression...I mean, she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. She could've been a teenager, and I found out later that she was, seventeen going on eighteen, but she didn't act it. She walked across the street like she owned it. Like it was her own personal dance floor.

  I heard the car door open and didn't care. I just wanted to watch her as she rounded the car to the footpath beside it. And she stopped. Someone opened the door on the other side from me and I saw her lean in. My heart leaped when I wondered if she wanted to speak to me. And why.

  I was face to face with her and she smiled. My heart stopped and I think my brain did, too. Miss Ten-Out-of-Ten beaming at me like I was her hero, before it all went wrong.

  She hit her. Laura hit her and the smile was gone when Miss Ten landed in my lap. Her sunglasses were gone and those huge eyes begged me for help. I grabbed the door handle – the useless, child-locked door handle – and yanked, but I couldn't get out. I was trapped in the back of my own car with her and I heard Laura gunning the engine, pulling my car out into traffic. Leaving just a sparking cigarette butt behind as we drove off.

  The girl was gasping for breath, not screaming, but the windows closed before she tried to. And when she did, it wasn't with raw panic like she was scared. Shit, she screamed insults and orders. She was furious and in my lap. You would have laughed at me. I was terrified of this girl half my size.

  And then she gave me hope. Instead of diving for me, she attacked the bloke in the passenger seat. I wanted to tell her to get the gun, but he moved too fast. He hit her.

  You know I've never seen a woman punched before? Oh, I've seen them in the ED at the hospital, after domestic violence and stuff, so I know it happens, but I've never seen a bloke cowardly enough to hit a woman. And he just didn't care. Punched her right in the face and she landed back on me.

  I could feel her shaking. She was hurting and terrified and she didn't even whimper. Nope, no tears either. It was like this tiny girl was steel all the way through. She was perfect and I was in love.

  And then the big bloke shoved a rag over her face and tried to smother her with it. He was twisted right round in his seat, pushing her down against me as he knocked her out with chloroform, the way we did rats in the labs at uni. I tried to push him away from her, to help her, but his words stopped me dead.

  "It's her or your sister. Your choice," the bloke told me.

  I didn't know her. I didn't know what she'd done, or not done, and I couldn't handle losing Chris, too. Not after losing you. And there was my lifeline, Laura, the woman who'd promised me vengeance. Surely she'd help her, just like she was helping me.

  Then it was too late. She stopped fighting and went limp. He held the sweet-smelling rag over her face for another minute, just in case, but she wasn't moving. Down rolled the window and he lit another cigarette, the smoke streaming away as we headed down the freeway again.

  I'm not entirely a bastard, I swear. I didn't trust Laura completely, so I grabbed my phone and texted my boss again. I couldn't just cooperate with kidnapping. I told him what had happened and asked for help. Backup to help me save this girl.

  He sent me the same orders back. Told me to cooperate with them until he contacted me.

  And I did. It was all my fault. I know now that she was the one who drugged me and trusting her was a mistake from the beginning. Shit, trusting anyone in this mess was a mistake. And that poor girl, the perfect ten, will hate me for the rest of her life because I didn't save her from them.

  It's my fault they chose her. My perfect ten was enough to condemn her to torture and rape and almost death because they made me pick their victim. And I picked her.

  I wanted to be her hero – everything she wanted. Instead, I was the villain's sidekick, not even important enough for her to know my real name.

  Can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?

  THIRTEEN

  There was no signature at the bottom, but I knew it was from Nathan. How'd he get my email address and why was he suddenly sending me his traumatic memories?

  I checked it again. No, he hadn't sent it to me at all. He'd sent it to an email address I didn't recognise. What the hell? And there was a whole series of them, dating back over the last few weeks – all of them unopened, with the same subject line.

  I lowered the lid and it wasn't silver like mine – this one was pink. This wasn't my laptop. But I did recognise it. This had belonged to Nathan's sister, Alanna. He'd written the email to her, and in the last few days, too. But Alanna was dead – or that's what I'd thought. Had she been hidden in witness protection, too? If she had, then she'd surely responded to this email or one of the ones before it. Or was someone else using her account now?

  I scanned the list of sent ones and figured the top one was as good a place to start as any, even if it had been sent six years ago. Well, the email subject was:

  Nathan is a whore

  I couldn't resist. I opened it to read the rest.

  Do you think Nathan will ever manage to stick with a girl for more than a night? I'm seriously starting to worry about him. At the rate he's going, he'll sleep through the entire med student body before he graduates. I hope he doesn't get anyone pregnant.

  I've tried talking to him, but he just laughs and says I'm his idea of the perfect woman, but twincest is just gross, so until he finds my double, he'll have as much fun as possible.

  Careers day today. Nathan was supposed to help out with handing out flyers and stuff, but he never turned up. I gave a presentation to all the high school students about how great it is to study to be a doctor, but I wondered if most of them knew just how much hard work would be involved. Some of them looked like they were in it for the money or because their parents told them they had to.

  There was this one girl, though...she looked about twelve years old until she opened her mouth. It turned out she was only a few months shy of graduating high school and she had her heart set on medicine. Something about her intensity and the way she spoke...it reminded me of me, before I started studying. Kind of starry eyed and all, but like she had the steel to keep going even when things seemed impossible. She had this one line...about how she could save someone's life and that would make all the years of study worth it. I wish I could have summed things up so well – actually, I used the line in my presentation. It just sounded so good...

  As I watched her in the audience, I wondered what would happen if Nathan actually turned up for once and saw her. Or if he met her at uni. She looked like exactly the type of girl he goes for – hell, the opposite of me in looks as she was small and dark. And she had these huge eyes that just kind of drew me in. Really pretty, too.

  Wishful thinking, I guess. Wishing that Nathan would treat women as more than an evening's entertainment. What'll happen when he meets a girl with the guts to tell him to go to hell instead of giving in to him?

  I swear he's scratched his car again. There's red paint on the letter box, like he scraped it along the side. If you...

  I jabbed at the mouse to close the email. I didn't need to scroll down to the signature to know this email was written by his sister Alanna. I could see her face, beaming at me beside Nathan's as they stood on a Rottnest boat on the computer's desktop background. I stared at the happy picture of her with Nathan, my heart twisting and breaking at the thought of what had happened to her, then to him. Tears blurred my vision as I
changed the computer settings to take the heartrending picture of happiness away, leaving only the blue default background.

  The funny part was that I remembered that day at uni. How could I forget the day I met her?

  FOURTEEN

  My friends had gone to lots of different sessions and looked at everything. They didn't think they had much chance of getting into medicine and the presentation was at the same time as one in Fine Arts that included a live demonstration they all wanted to see, so in the end I'd been the only one to go to the session on studying to be a doctor. I knew this was what I wanted and in a matter of months I would start medical school, or an acceptable pre-med alternative until I applied for graduate medicine.

  I felt self-conscious as I walked into the empty lecture theatre, smoothing my wool school uniform skirt over my stockings and wishing I could wear something warmer in winter. It was dark in there, with most of the light coming through the open doorway at the bottom, near the projector screens at the front. I walked down the stairs slowly, trying to decide where I should sit.

  I chose a seat three rows from the front, right in the middle. I sank into it, dropping the obligatory showbag full of brochures and cheap plastic pens covered in logos onto the floor beside me. I settled down to wait the remaining time before this presentation was due to start.

  Almost as soon as I sat down, a tall, fair girl came in through the bottom door. She headed to the lectern and flicked a sequence of switches, bringing the projector screens to life. She watched them nervously, glancing at her watch and then returning her gaze to the screens, her back to me.

  She pulled up the presentation, called, "Why Study Medicine With Me?" before she turned around. She looked up, closed her eyes, and started to speak.

  She delivered the entire presentation very quickly, moving the slides in perfect sequence, all with her eyes closed.

  I wondered why she would start so early and run through it so quickly, especially when I was the only prospective student in the audience, but I was too shy and uncertain to say anything.

  When she finished, she returned to the first slide and took a deep breath, her eyes on the screen.

  Next, she walked deliberately over to the bank of light switches by the door and flicked them all on. The dim lecture theatre blazed with light that made me blink at the sudden change.

  Her chin held high, her back very straight, she marched back to the lectern and took another deep breath, this time facing the empty lecture theatre. As she started to exhale, her eyes met mine and her breath left her in a sudden rush.

  "Oh hell," she blurted out. "How long have you been sitting there?"

  I didn't know what to say. "Not very long," I squeaked out.

  Despite my vague reply, she seemed to grasp the situation better than I had. Her expression cycled from surprise to embarrassment to hilarity before I even understood what was funny.

  Laughing, she responded, "Well, I doubt you'll sit through my presentation again, when you just got the nervous version in five minutes instead of the slow version in twenty!"

  She stepped onto the first row of seats. In two strides, she stood in the row below me, her eyes level with mine.

  "I'm Alanna Miller, a final year student." She smiled, holding her hand out to shake mine.

  I remembered my manners and shook her hand, telling her, "I'm Caitlin." I didn't know what else to say.

  She tilted her head slightly to one side, her smile shrewd now. "So, why are you here a full fifteen minutes before you need to be?"

  "I want to study medicine." The words were out of my mouth before I'd realised I was going to share any personal information with this friendly stranger.

  "Not everyone gets in and even then, not everyone finishes. You have to get top results in Year Twelve. Then you have to keep working really hard all the way through the course and after it. It takes a long time and it's a hell of a commitment." She looked wistful. "If you fail a single unit, you have to retake the entire year of units, so it takes even longer. Why would you volunteer for that?"

  Most of this wasn't news to me, but I was surprised by her honesty. Wasn't she supposed to be advertising the course? She looked like she was laughing inside while her expression was serious.

  I took a deep breath before trying to voice the words I'd told myself countless times, but never spoken aloud. "One day I could save someone's life and that will make it all worth it."

  She laughed again, nodding knowingly. "You sound like me, before I started. I bet I'll see you at all the med school parties next year."

  Having been unusually open, I felt brave enough to ask her a personal question. "But if you're in your final year, won't you be an intern next year? Why would you go to parties with the students after you finish?"

  She bit her lip briefly before she spoke. "My brother had to repeat a year, so he'll drag me to all of them. He says he has a better chance of picking up if girls know he has his sister with him." She looked me up and down, as if trying to guess my dress size. "You're really pretty. He's definitely going to be interested in you."

  Wonderful. There were himbos at med school, too. But this one would be at least five years older than me, so he probably wouldn't bother with me. "What advice can you give me about him?"

  "Tell him to take a hike or you'll kill him if he so much as touches you!" She lowered her voice considerably. "My brother is the king of the one-night stand and his reputation precedes him. I can't imagine why most girls bother with him unless that one night is really amazing. I've seen him on the pull – he's the most charming man you could meet, talking some girl into coming home with him, but by the next morning she's gone and he's forgotten her name. The day he drives a girl home or even makes breakfast for her, I think I'd die of shock."

  I shrugged. He didn't sound like anyone I'd bother with. "What's his name and what does he look like?"

  "He's my twin, so he's a bit taller than me, but his hair's the same colour." She looked mischievous. "I'll introduce you to him at the first party I see you at next year. I want to see Nathan's face when he meets you!" She gave me one last conspiratorial grin as she took a flying leap over the bottom row of seats to the front of the lecture theatre.

  She turned to face the half-full lecture theatre with a professional smile and proceeded to tell everyone else why they'd want to study medicine with her.

  And at the time, I'd listened, spellbound, without a second thought for her charming brother.

  FIFTEEN

  An irritating buzz dragged me out of my memories. I rose and found the intercom unit. "Yes?" I asked tersely.

  "My name is Craig and I have a Woolworths Online delivery for Miss –"

  "Yes, that's me. I'll open the gate for you. Mine's the one up the top at the north end."

  "Uh, which way's north?"

  I sighed. It wasn't his fault he didn't know – I wouldn't know either if it hadn't been a selling point of the apartment. "Can you see the one on the top floor with the door open and an arm waving out of it?"

  "No...oh, wait, yeah, I can."

  "That's me. I hope you have a trolley that can handle three flights of stairs, because your service said door to door delivery."

  "Yes, miss, it can. It's in the special instructions for this order. I'll be right up with your groceries."

  Thank God for online food shopping. If only it'd been available when I first reached home from hospital all those years ago – but if it had, I might never have left the house once I got home. I might still be a prisoner in my own home, terrified to go out and seize the life the world had waiting for me.

  "Miss? I'm going to need to see some ID. There's alcohol in this order and I can't deliver it unless I know you're over eighteen."

  I laughed and dug out my freshly-minted WA driver's licence – complete with my new title.

  "Doctor? You look too young to be a doctor." He squinted at me as if he thought it might help to make me look older.

  "That's what my patients say, t
oo. I'll take that as a compliment because I feel about twice my age after the day I've had. I hope there's lime and soda in there to go with the vodka." I peered into the nearest crate, but it only contained boxes, no bottles.

  He checked the printout in his hand. "Yes, lime cordial and sparkling water. Everything just as you ordered, doctor." He nodded at the darkness behind me. "Where do you want this?"

  I pointed. "The kitchen bench, please."

  The immaculate marble countertop soon vanished under an avalanche of plastic bags and Craig stacked the empty crates with a loud crack before bumping the trolley down the stairs.

  I closed and locked the door behind him, then proceeded to put my purchases away. Maybe cooking dinner would take my mind off the haunting memories of the Millers.

  Or maybe it would just make me want to delve deeper into the past of Alanna's life and Nathan's nightmares.

  SIXTEEN

  After dinner, I gave in and read another one of Nathan's emails to his sister, tears dripping down my face as I knew for certain that Nathan needed help.

  Sometimes I dream about the day I kidnapped Caitlin. It always starts in the car, with her unconscious weight on me. Sometimes I can smell the chloroform and I've lost count of the number of times I had to watch him dose her with it, pinning her against me as she struggled.

  I've tried talking to her and apologising for what I knew would happen, but the drugged girl never acknowledges me. Maybe because she never did in reality.

  They made me pat her down and check her for weapons. She didn't even react when I slipped my hand into her pocket, she was that deeply asleep. I'd gone through her handbag when they weren't looking, admiring the triumphant look on her driver's licence photograph. She must have passed her driving test on her first attempt, I remember thinking. Caitlin Alana Lockyer.