Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, Australia
Luke squeezed his eyes tighter to block out the light and threw a pillow over his ears to mute the sound of wind and rain buffeting against the windows. He tried everything to remain in dreamland a little longer. But it was the cat that finally woke him.
At first he felt a soft push, a gentle smudge against the side of his nose. He moved to roll over, and a needlepoint of pain snapped his eyes open.
‘Hey!’ he yelled.
Still within paw distance, the sapphire eyes of a Siamese cat regarded him disdainfully. He sat up.
Oh, wow.
It had been too dark last night to see much beyond the windows of Georgia’s house. When he’d climbed between these lush sheets he’d been so exhausted that it hadn’t registered that he was about to fall asleep in a room with one of the most expensive views in Australia.
Carefully negotiating the cat, who was cleaning itself haughtily, watching every move he made, he dropped onto the lush carpet and moved over towards the windows.
Despite, or maybe because of, the rain, he had never seen a more beautiful sight. There was nothing between his bedroom and Elizabeth Bay but a rolling green lawn and a turquoise swimming pool. Perched right on the edge of the harbour, the pool seemed the epitome of excess, as though to prove to the world that the owners of this mansion could have absolutely anything they wanted – a whole ocean to swim in, and a swimming pool, just because.
Super-yachts, moored in the bay, rocked and rolled in the wind, while rain speared into the sea around them. And although last night he’d been aware that this home was on a well-populated street, he could see no other house nearby. The tropical gardens hid the mansion from view, as though this was the only house in the world.
He stretched and wondered where Zac had slept. Wherever it was, it was infinitely better than Dorm Four. This room alone could have held the beds of the whole of Section Six. He walked around, opening drawers, peeking into cupboards. One of the doors opened onto an opulent private bathroom, and when he noticed some super-huge towels he’d at first mistaken for blankets, he decided to take a shower.
Under the double-headed steaming shower jets, he wondered whether Georgia’s father really was in prison. He’s probably just on a business trip somewhere and she figured the gaol story matched better with her piercings and attitude. Either way, Daddy wouldn’t be terribly thrilled that little Georgia had brought home two escapees, one of them a psychopath to boot.
Luke wanted to not care about that label. He’d never cared about the psychiatric pigeonholes they’d tried to shove him in before. But he still felt weird about what he’d read in his file. Also, being ripped apart from his twin sister and thrown away by his mother pretty much sucked. But why did she have to call him Lucifer on top of that?
The devil. Who would name their baby after the devil? She must have really hated me, he thought. Or else she was insane. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.
He dried himself off and stepped back into his jeans. Having only one set of clothes was going to get old pretty soon. He’d have to do something about that first up. Although he wasn’t particularly worried – money was never too hard to come by.
He wondered whether his sister had grown up in homes similar to his own. Or had she been raised in a place like this? Did she get lucky and have one set of adoptive parents? Or had she been passed around from one whack-job to the next, just like him? Maybe she’d grown up just down the road from him in Campbelltown. They could have gone to school together and not even known it. Not that he ever really went to school very often, but still…
Did she know he existed? Did she know and not care?
Suddenly, he really wanted to know the answer to the second question.
What if he was the way he was because there was a part of him missing? What if she was that missing part?
He knew, suddenly, that he had to find her.
Luke found Zac squatting in the hallway outside his bedroom. He’d been wondering whether Zac had actually even bothered to stay here last night. Now that they were out of Dwight, there were probably plenty of places Zac could go. He’d mentioned brothers. He must have had friends or family he could hide out with.
But Zac was there, waiting patiently at his bedroom door.
‘Don’t you ever sit like normal people?’ said Luke.
‘I’m comfortable like this,’ said Zac.
‘What is a vegan, anyway?’ said Luke.
‘What’s that got to do with how I sit?’
Luke shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You are weird, though. What are you doing in the hallway?’
‘I don’t like it here,’ said Zac.
‘Yeah, I can really understand why you feel that way, Zac,’ said Luke. ‘I mean, it really is rundown and dirty, and there’s hardly any space for us. I suppose it would have been much better to sleep under a bridge or out in the freezing rain last night.’
‘Have you seen the cats?’ said Zac.
‘I’ve seen a cat.’
Zac gave him a meaningful stare.
Luke laughed. Cats? Now he doesn’t like cats?
‘You’re freaking me out, Spiderman,’ he said, reaching down a hand and dragging Zac to his feet. ‘Where’s our host?’
Zac shrugged. ‘When are we leaving?’
‘Where do you want to go?’ Luke began walking down the hall, towards the kitchen.
‘Where do you want to go?’ said Zac.
‘I want to find my sister,’ said Luke.
‘Agreed,’ said Zac. ‘I think we need to do that, fast.’
Luke stopped walking. Suddenly, thoroughly, he’d had too much of the riddles. He turned and prodded Zac in the chest with his forefinger. Hard.
‘We’re not going anywhere, Nguyen,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m going to take off right now and have nothing to do with you, unless you tell me who you are and who you think I am. And why you’re so interested in helping me find my sister.’
‘Deal,’ said Zac, moving back a step. ‘I think I now have something I can tell you. I really didn’t know before why I was sent to help you, but if you are who I now believe you are, you’re gonna need all the help you can get.’
Zac turned and began walking.
‘But if you ever poke me in the chest like that again,’ he said, throwing the words back over his shoulder, ‘you’d better be prepared to live with only nine fingers.’
They found Georgia upstairs in a decked-out lounge room ranging across half of the middle level of the home. The entire back wall of the room was glass, looking out over the harbour. Georgia curled cat-like on a sprawling red leather lounge, her eyes on a massive flat-screen, killing aliens with the gaming control in her hands.
Another haughty Siamese cat sat on an armrest next to her, staring down its long nose at them. A black-and-white cat sat like a miniature panda beside her, cleaning its belly. It raised its lime-green eyes to judge them, and then resumed its duties with particular gusto.
‘Well, don’t you ladies sleep forever,’ Georgia said, without taking her eyes from the screen. ‘Help yourselves to whatever you want in the kitchen.’
Luke figured they may as well eat before they left, so he and Zac headed back downstairs. He cracked the door of the fridge and leaned in. A giant chocolate cake beckoned at face height. There were strawberries, a cling-wrapped bowl of fried chicken, a two-litre bottle of chocolate milk and half a leg of ham.
‘This place,’ Luke said. ‘I love this place.’
He pulled out the ham, a jug of orange juice and a block of Swiss cheese.
‘What can you eat?’ he said.
Zac peered over his shoulder into the fridge. ‘Just pass me the strawberries,’ he said. ‘And I’ll have some toast.’
‘How do you live like that?’ said Luke. ‘Not eating meat?’