Don't Look Back (Warders of Earth) (3 page)

And better still, Mum owned our home outright.

It should have given me a sense of security but it didn’t; where had she found the money?

Pinching the bridge of my nose where the pressure had eased to a dull throb, I sighed.
What I wouldn’t give to have a normal life.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I pulled on my just-purchased-last-week, knee high, four-inch heel, black leather boots (and hell to walk in but what girl in her right mind could resist?). They’d cost me my entire pay packet but they were worth it. Wearing them, made me feel I could take on the world.

Hurrying along the hallway to the back of the house I pushed open the screen-door that led onto a small porch with three steps down into the massive back-yard. Grabbing the rail with one hand, I swung over and jumped to the ground. So much quicker than walking down some stupid steps. Lengthening my stride, I crossed the short patch of grass so dry, it crackled beneath my feet. A stark reminder of how long the current drought had lasted.

At the very end of the quarter acre allotment lay the vegetable gardens in rough regimented rows. For like, forever, Mum had insisted we grow as much of our food as possible. Every seed was retained and carefully packed away in row after row of airtight containers (mainly used jam jars or old cookie tins) and stored under the house. Beneath the shade of a mature mulberry tree, a rickety structure of corrugated iron and wire in one corner sheltered the hens from roving foxes at night. Their contented clucking as they pecked over the ground soothed some of the tension stiffening my shoulders.

Heat from the sun belted down; the air thick with no breeze to bring any relief. Rays from the late afternoon sun burnt through the thin cotton of my tee-shirt stinging my shoulders and bare skin as I strode down the gravel path beside the house and out the back gate. A short cut, which would delete an entire block from my walk and make the trip to the main street so much faster.

I hastened down another residential street, crossed a tarred road and hit the concrete pavement almost at a run. I checked the time on my mobile.
Shit, I should have been there by now.

I started to jog while my mind zeroed onto the subject that worried me every day. What I couldn’t understand was how Mum could function fine with everyday life and still go off on her wild tangents. She worked at the new supermarket on the check-outs most days and often sat up until the early hours of the morning writing articles for ezines on self-sufficiency, herbal treatments and remedies. It made it difficult to understand why she was so fixated on her crazy ideas and paranoia.

If it were anyone else but Mum, I’d be looking into drugs or heavy drinking but Mum never touched either.

One more corner and I hit Main Street which hummed and buzzed with life.

Kids on scooters shrieked and sped down the footpath. Harassed mothers pushed prams or bustled past with bulging carry bags in their hands. A ute cruised past, an excited blue heeler barking hysterically from where the dog sat on top of bales of hay in the back.

Quite a few of the shops were boarded up since the advent of the one and only supermarket, which had been built on a vacant block on the edge of town. But a few die-hard determined folk clung to their livelihood eking out a living from loyal customers.

On the next corner squatted the pub. The triple-story building towered over its neighbouring shops and even though times were hard in small rural communities it did a roaring trade.

Glad to be out of the heat, I stepped into the shade provided by the wide verandah that extended the width of the footpath and wrapped around two sides of the hotel. Wine barrels filled with flowering hibiscus shrubs were lined up against the walls and provided a softening effect against the old bricks.

I made a mental note to water the plants before I left that night as I pushed through the batwing doors and into the main bar. The clinks and bells of the pinball machines and the ribaldry of a group of men playing pool greeted me. The stink of stale beer combined with frying food filled my nostrils. My stomach growled. No time to grab something to eat. My shift had started ten minutes ago. No one paid any attention as I hauled my arse up onto the bar that spanned the length of the room. I swung my legs over and jumped down to the other side.

A grime-stained farmer in a dusty Akubra and sun-faded clothes shambled up to the bar.

“What’ll it be?” I smiled. Time to earn my pay.

Chapter 2 – WARDER

Several hours later, I cast a swift glance at the old railway clock nailed to the opposite wall. A quarter to ten. Thank heavens, fifteen minutes to closing time. I flexed my aching feet inside my boots that felt as if they’d shrunk at least one size from all my running up and down fixing drinks, serving food, removing glasses and used dinner plates and picking up chairs.
I was knackered. And those boots were definitely not work material.

Yawning, my gaze tracked to the door when a group of laughing people strolled inside. I froze. I knew most of this lot. Several were from my old high school and who should push to the forefront to sashay up to the bar a big Cheshire cat smile on her face, but Crystal.

Wait for it.

After pausing to eye me up and down, Crystal indicated her equally well-dressed friends. “Drinks all round, Tara. We’ll have martinis. That is of course, if you know how to make them. Oh, and make sure you use clean glasses. We wouldn’t want to catch anything.”

Longing to flick the tea towel I’d draped over one shoulder into Crystal’s face, I snapped my mouth shut and reached for the glasses under the counter.

“Make mine a beer thanks.”

Quiet even tones, distinctly male.

The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. I glanced up to meet a pair of ice grey eyes in a smoothly handsome face. My mouth dried.

His bad-boy aura made him appear older than what I suspected him to be; maybe two years older than my twenty. Three tops.

He leaned on the counter, hands clasped lightly together, his posture beautifully showcasing bulging forearms and wide shoulders. Even better, he wasn’t overly tall, maybe five foot ten or a tad over. I’d briefly dated a basketball player and had suffered cricks in my neck from looking up at him the whole two weeks we’d been together.

There was a tattoo on his upper left arm but it was hard for me to make out the pattern in the dim lighting. (I had a weakness for tattoos, they were on my ‘bucket’ list.) Anyway, I was too busy checking out the rest of him to care. Dressed in a tight black, v-neck tee and faded blue jeans and with slicked back blond hair and a day-old stubble lining a jaw any model would have given their left lung for, he looked like every girl’s dream come true.

Lean, mean and screaming city-tough, I wondered what on earth had brought him to a place so obviously way off his radar.

The expression in his eyes was cool, considering, as he locked glances with me for a long sixty seconds.

Words tangled in my throat.

Then he broke contact, straightened and half-turned to send a slow smile at Crystal who had plastered her bone-thin body clad in a white micro dress up against his back.

“Gorgeous, isn’t he?” Crystal purred, rubbing against him and tossing back her long, salon-blonde hair.

Clamping my lips together so I wouldn’t give into my longing to cut her down, I quickly attended to the drinks order. I poured the beer last and pushed the laden tray towards them.

“Card or cash?” I held out my hand.

Crystal rolled her eyes. “Plastic of course.” In a theatrical gesture she proffered her credit card.

“Keep it, this one’s on me,” said the stranger digging into his pants pocket to retrieve his wallet which he flipped open and picked out a fifty dollar bill.

“Isn’t Alex wonderful? We met on the station platform this morning when I was waiting for a package for Daddy. We hit it off immediately.” Crystal returned her card to her eensy clutch, closing it with a snap.

“Good on ya, mate. Cheers.” Kevin Brewster grabbed a glass off the tray.

Oh wonderful.
Kevin and I had had a brief ‘thing’ last winter until I’d broken it off. The guy did nothing but smoke weed.

He raised his glass high. Liquid sloshed over the side. A few drops splattered onto Crystal’s bare skin and she squealed.

Ignoring Crystal, Kevin added, “Hey, Tara, how’s it going? Haven’t seen ya since school.”

“I’ve been busy.” Avoiding Kevin’s spaced-out, red-rimmed eyes, I opened the cash register then placed the change onto the calculator. I couldn’t
‘read’
maths sums and equations but I was a wizard at arithmetic in my head and provided I didn’t have to write anything down. Picking up an already clean glass, I polished it with the tea towel.

“Yes, growing vegetables and pouring drinks makes for such a hectic life,” Crystal snickered. She ran a hand down the newcomer’s arm and fluttering her lashes, cooed, “Alex and his father have moved here from the city. I intend to make certain they receive the best possible welcome.”

“I bet,” I smirked.

The guy, Alex, swept that calm appraisal over me once more.

I raised my chin and stared back.

His lips tilted at the corner in a mocking smile and he turned his back, leaning against the bar while he lowered his head to murmur something in a low voice to Crystal.

My gaze immediately zeroed onto the tattoo on the back of his neck, easily seen since the guy wore his hair cut military short.

My heart hiccupped.

Goose-bumps rose on my skin as coldness flashed like an icy wind over me.

What to others might appear as a random squiggle of lines and squares in something that resembled an Aztec drawing, I saw a word;

WARDER.

Mum had mentioned the word,
Warder
.

Another coincidence?

The glass slipped from my hand and smashed onto the floor, showering splinters over the sticky tiles.

The guy spun round, narrowed eyed and pinned me where I stood with the intensity of his stare.

Move.

Act natural.

The words hammered into my brain. Feeling as if I lacked control over my muscles, I forced myself to crouch and retrieve the glass fragments. Hands trembling I cleaned up the mess and placed the remains into a bin.

Holding my breath, I straightened.

Looked around.

But the guy was gone.

***

Alex

Changing down to second gear, I turned off the road and my car glided to a stop in the wide concrete parking lot outside the new mechanic’s shop. I switched off the engine. In the sudden silence, the sounds of the night floated through the open window, the soft rustling of leaves and the creak of branches as a light breeze sighed across the land.

The muscle at the corner of my right eye twitched. A soldier had no right feeling lonely; not when the stakes were so staggeringly high. I had a job to do.

And not just any job.

This was the job of my life.

My defining moment.

What I’d trained, walked, talked and breathed for every moment since I could remember.

Before hauling my arse out of the car, I concentrated, filtering out the muted indistinguishable babble of the neighbour’s television, the screech of fruit bats fighting over the seeds in a nearby cocas palm tree, the barking of a lone dog further down the street.

All clear.

Satisfied, I climbed out and locked the door, giving my
‘baby’
an affectionate slap on its neon paint work as I passed.

Striding around the side of the concrete-block building I went through the gate then on into the narrow yard separating the business from the house. No welcoming lights blazed from the darkened windows. The air between the two buildings was stuffy. I took a deep breath, sucking down heat, the stink of garbage overlaid with the sweet scent of a scraggly rose bush that somehow managed to survive in rock hard ground and pitiful rainfall. A cat shot out from its hiding spot under the building and took off down the street, setting the dogs further along the road into a frenzy of barking.

Small towns.

All so similar.

I’d lost count of the number of places I’d scoured over the years searching for my mark. But now? Now we were close.

The knowledge sat satisfyingly deep in my bones.

And with what I knew was coming, in a matter of days I’d achieve my life’s purpose.

Or I’d be dead.

Nothing like no options to spur a man onto his goal. I grinned wryly.

The screen door was unlocked. I pushed it open and entered straight into a cramped living and dining area combined where a lone lamp radiated a dim light revealing the sparse furnishings. Tossing my keys onto the sideboard, I headed for the couch where I sank down onto the spongy cushions, wriggling my butt and enjoying the softness.

With my legs stretched out, I closed my eyes and took a moment to re-examine the events of the past few hours. Step by step I re-lived my every action, paying attention to the most minute of detail, looking for the slightest hint of a mistake.

There was no room for error in this mission.

A coolness trickled down my spine.

I knew without opening my eyes, my father had entered the room. Not pop. Not Dad. Occasionally I might get away with calling him, father. Nah, mostly it was ‘Sir’. Like any other soldier.

But, hey this was my life, I’d never known any other, never wanted any other.

I stayed where I was, not bothering to heave to my feet like I normally did. Then I frowned at my first ever whiff of rebellion wondering where the hell
that
had come from, what had triggered it.

My eyes snapped open to find him standing as if on parade in the doorway, his gaze cool and considering.

“Report,” ordered my father, Bob Garroway, Colonel Garroway of a secret army.

We’d been bred specifically for a dual purpose; to stand between our marks and those who would annihilate them until the alien armada arrived. Secondly, we’d be the conduit between our marks and the aliens who we’d termed ‘friends.’

Our alien ‘friends’ had named us
Warders of Earth
.

“There are a few possibilities. I’ve eliminated most of them. It now comes down to Crystal Chambers, Emma Andrews, Marnie Tolini.” I paused, thinking about my encounter with the babe behind the bar. My left hand curled into a fist.

My father’s stare dropped then zeroed back onto my face. “Good work. Do they suspect anything?”

“As far as I can tell at the moment, no. What about you? How are you going with your assimilation into the community?”

My father lowered himself into the armchair opposite. “So far, everything is going according to plan. You need to work faster, Alex. Our time is running out.”

“I know. I’ve sent word for Shay to lend a hand. One of the marks lives in Sydney. Shay will do a snatch and grab of her computer and phone. I realise its a risky move and one that may reveal our presence to the authorities but I felt it was necessary. When he hacked into her social networking links he found nothing. With luck this way, we’ll get access to a reasonable amount of data about her background and an insight into anything she may be hiding.”

“I find it interesting we were unable to identify the anonymous message we received pointing us to this location. Wallaby Creek would never have entered my radar otherwise.” My father’s voice was dry.

“Whoever it was must have exceptional IT skills.”

“Yes. I suspect we’re not alone in this town, Alex, although I’ve received no intel to verify my suspicions. They’re close. I can smell them.” His eyes fierce, my father held me with his gaze.

By
‘they’
, I knew he referred to our enemy, the Mundos Novus force; a zealous army with a single agenda – eliminate us and our marks. Why? I had no idea but I thought it had a lot to do with greed and power.

“Yeah, I’ve sensed their presence here too,” I muttered, then hesitated.

A strange reluctance gripped me until I shook off the unusual feeling with a twitch of my shoulders. The words felt as if I had to force them from my mouth.
What was going on here?
“There is another possible GMU.”