Dead Statues

by Tim ORourke

Page 20

 

  “I see enough,” I said back.

  Then, reaching into the breast pocket of his denim shirt he said, “I want you to see this. I want you to see what your beloved Potter is really all about. ”

  Seth thrust an iPod under my nose. I saw the crescent-shaped moon logo, then looked away.

  “Frightened of what you might see?” Seth taunted me. “Told you about Sophie, did he?”

  “Yes,” I nodded, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of thinking Potter had kept secrets from me. “They used to be lovers – he told me that. ”

  “Did he tell you that he went looking for her as soon as he came back to this world?” Seth teased.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Did he tell you what fun they had?”

  “He told me she was dead,” I said.

  “Before that?” he pushed.

  “I don’t care,” I lied, and he knew it.

  Seth chuckled, making that sound again, as if he were choking on straw. “Did he tell you why he killed Eloisa?”

  To hear her name, I couldn’t help but turn to face Seth again.

  “Potter didn’t tell you why he ripped her heart out, did he?” he smiled just inches from my face.

  “He told me he killed her because she was a child killer,” I breathed, feeling sick.

  “I’m supposed to be a child killer and he didn’t rip my heart out, did he?” Seth said, and this time he didn’t smile, he looked intently at me.

  “What other reason could there be?” I asked him, fearing that I already knew the true reason in my heart.

  “Because they had been lovers,” he said softly. “Potter was scared you might find out that he had had sex with her. He didn’t want to destroy the illusion he had created for you. ”

  “You lie,” I whispered, but all the while remembering how Eloisa had always seemed to hang around Potter in the town of Wasp Water. I tried to push the memories I had of seeing them together away, but I couldn’t. As if those light bulbs were popping inside my head again, I saw. . .

  . . . Potter leaning against the custody block wall. Eloisa towered behind him, her perfectly shaped legs seeming to go on forever in a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Her long, blond hair spilled over her shoulders and down the front of the black jacket she wore. Her skin was pale, but this only highlighted her blood-red lips and golden eyes. I couldn’t help but notice how close she stood beside him, and I didn’t like it.

  “Good to see you back in the world of the living, sweet-cheeks,” he said, coming towards me.

  When he was close enough, I rolled my arm back, then punched him straight in the face.

  His head rocked back on his neck, and the cigarette which had dangled from the corner of his mouth span away. “What was that for!” he snapped. “I’ve been trying to save you!”

  Then, gently touching Potter on the shoulder, Eloisa said in the sickliest sweetest voice that I’d ever heard, “Sean, I’ll go and find Jack, you two look as if you need to talk. ”

  Then she was gone, striding away on those damn legs of hers.

  “Sean!” I hissed. “No one ever calls you Sean!”

  “It’s my name,” he snapped back.

  Those memories I had of Potter and Eloisa at the police station flashed brightly inside my head. I closed my eyes, screwing them shut, hoping they would go away. The bulbs of light inside my mind popped and flashed as if blinding me. In them I saw me and Potter standing alone in the police station at Wasp Water. . .

  . . . “What’s gotten into me?” Potter scoffed. “If I remember rightly, you smacked me in the face the moment you laid eyes on me!”

  “Where do you get off on making decisions for me without even asking?” I roared.

  “What decisions?” he shouted back.

  “Deciding that I’m to go off hand in hand into The Hollows with that killer, while you go off to rescue Luke with that walking pair of breasts on legs!” I hissed.

  “Breasts on legs?” Potter said, nearly choking on a throat full of cigarette smoke as he stifled his laughter. “You mean Eloisa?

  You’re jealous and that’s what this is all really about,” Potter smiled. “You’re pissed because I’ve been spending time with her. ”

  “Oh, please,” I groaned, “Why don’t you take your head from out of your own arse and. . .

  . . . In those flashes of light I saw Potter lean in to kiss me, but then at the last moment, before our lips had met, he turned, as if to look at another. Lights flashed inside my mind and. . .

  . . . Without saying a word, Potter walked directly towards Eloisa. She smiled at him and her eyes twinkled. Potter’s face looked grim and his eyes a dull black. Then, so quick if I’d blinked I would have missed it, Potter shot his arm out and thrust his claw into Eloisa’s chest. It all happened so fast that Eloisa still had that smile on her face as Potter ripped out her heart. She looked at him as if to say something, but all that came out of her mouth was a thick jet of black blood. Eloisa fell forward, crashing face first onto the floor of the hangar. . .

  . . . I felt my face being slapped. I opened my eyes to see Jack Seth staring at me.

  “You remember, don’t you,” he breathed into my face, and I recoiled at the stench of his hot breath. “You are seeing, aren’t you? You know what I say is true. Your beloved Potter and Eloisa were lovers. ”

  “You lie,” I said, feeling sick and faint.

  “It’s not true. ”

  “Did Potter ever tell you what happened at the Wolf House?” he smiled at me.

  “The Wolf House?” I asked, feeling numb and confused.

  “Of course he didn’t,” Seth said. “Why would he? Because that’s where Eloisa and Potter first met. Where they first had sex together. How happy he must have been when the gorgeous Eloisa walked back into his life. And where were you when that happened? In a fucking zoo – being treated like an animal. Why didn’t Potter come and rescue you like he promised? Because he was too busy fu. . . ”

  “Shut your face!” I shouted at him, not wanting to hear any more. If my hands were free I would have covered my ears so as not to hear what he said. Deep inside of me I remembered asking Potter why he hadn’t come to save me from that zoo. . .

  . . . “Now I can see why you took so long in coming to find me!” I shouted. “You were living it up with her!”

  “Her?” Potter said, looking now somewhat bemused. “Eloisa, you mean? She’s not so bad. ”

  “Well you’ve definitely changed your tune,” I spat. “Only a few weeks ago you were babbling on about how you could barely forgive a girl for having hairy armpits let alone a hairy tongue!”

  . . . How had I been so blind? I screamed inside. Seth had been right – I hadn’t seen shit. If Seth had been right about that, was he also right about what he had told me about Potter and Sophie?

  “You know I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “You feel it in your heart. ”

  “I don’t have a heart,” I whispered back.

  “And neither can Potter for hurting you like this,” Seth said, his voice now sounding as if he actually cared for me. “But still he hurts you and you just don’t see it, Kiera Hudson. ”

  “What do you mean?” I said, lifting my head to look at him.

  “Look,” he said, holding up the iPod for me to see. “Again, you are trapped and in pain, desperate for the help of the man you love. But just like Potter left you in that zoo so he could be with another, he once again betrays you. ”

  “With who?” I breathed looking at the little flat screen which had been set to face time.

  “Take a look,” Jack sighed with a smile.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kiera

  The screen flickered into life. I could see what looked like an empty barn. Whoever was filming the scene was doing so covertly and was hidden. The door to the barn swung open and I saw Potter. S
omeone followed him inside. The light was poor, and at first I couldn’t see who it was. They were female. I watched in silence as Potter went to a stack of hay, reached up and took two bales of hay which he scattered on the floor to make what looked like some kind of bed.

  The woman stepped closer into view, and my skin turned cold. Potter sat on the hay, then reaching out, he asked Elizabeth Clarke to sit down next to him. I looked up at Seth.

  “What’s he doing with that school teacher?” I gasped. “She’s a friend of yours isn’t she? A wolf. ”

  “And don’t we now know that Potter likes himself a piece of wolf,” he smiled back at me.

  “But why would he. . . ” I started.

  “Shhh,” Jack hushed. “Let’s see if I’m right about Potter. ”

  I looked back at the iPod.

  “I love you,” I heard Potter tell Elizabeth, her golden hair hanging wetly about her shoulders.

  “Do you?” she asked him.

  “Yes,” Potter said, and I thought I was going to be sick again as I heard him say that to her. Is that what he had said to all of us? Eloisa, Sophie, and me?

  “You have a funny way of showing it. I know you used to love her ,” Elizabeth said.

  Was she talking about me? I wondered.

  “I thought I did once, but after meeting you, I knew that the feelings I had for her were nothing compared to how I feel about you. It’s you I want,” I heard Potter tell her.

  However much it crushed me inside, I knew he was talking about me. God, he was good.

  “Turn it off,” I snapped at Seth.

  “Watch,” he insisted.

  With tears beginning to blur my vision I looked back at the screen.

  “How do I know you are telling the truth?” I heard Elizabeth ask him, her lips covered in bright red lipstick.

  “Look, I’m not very good with words,”

  Potter told her. Then I watched with tears streaming down my face as he reached out and took Elizabeth’s hand. He kissed it, and then pressed it against his cheek. “I love you so much,” Potter told Elizabeth.