Tilting my head back, I launched myself up into the night. It felt good to be free – to be free of Potter calling me names and making jokes about me. He told me before he’d left that he had never meant to hurt me – but he often had. When Potter was around, I didn’t feel like I had a voice because his was so much louder than mine. But I did have a voice. I could think for myself and make my own decisions. I could survive on my own. And I didn’t only want to prove that to Potter and my friends; I wanted to prove it to myself, too.
Flipping over beneath those cracks high above me, I spread my wings wide and soared across the sky in the direction of Lake Lure.
Chapter Five
Kayla
Potter placed Kiera on the ground. He folded her arms over her chest. If it wasn’t for the black hole in her forehead, and the thick trickle of blood, she would’ve looked as if she were asleep. I tried not looking at her. I didn’t want pictures of Kiera dead in my head. It was like tempting fate somehow – like seeing into the future. I was still struggling to understand how Luke Bishop could be the Wolf Man. He had hurt me real bad once before. He had murdered me in the Hollows. That was a score I had yet to settle – but I would.
There was a clearing nearby. Hunkering down and brandishing his claws, Potter began to dig Kiera’s grave. His face was ashen and stern-looking. He didn’t speak and the silence was uncomfortable. Was he really unhappy at the death of this Kiera, or like me, did it create images inside his head of what was coming? It was almost like having a practice run on burying the person you most loved in the world. I thought about trying to remind him that the dead woman lying just a few feet away wasn’t his Kiera. But I got the feeling he knew that deep in his heart. So instead of saying anything, I knelt down beside him and began to dig away at the ground with my claws.
We worked silently in the shafts of moonlight that cut through the leaves and branches overhead. When the hole was just a few feet deep, Potter looked sideways at me and said, “We came looking for you and Sam. Kiera wanted to find you. But it was like you had vanished.”
“We did, I guess,” I said, my claws now caked with mud.
“So what happened?” Potter asked. “I thought the Teen… Sam had killed you.”
“Why would he want to do something like that?” I asked, but I knew why, because Sam was a wolf and Potter didn’t trust any of their kind.
Potter looked at me, then shaking his head and returning to the digging, he said, “Okay, so Sam didn’t kill you. Where is he now?”
“Back with his parents, I hope,” I said. “It wasn’t just me taking the photographs. Sam and I split. He took some and I took the others.”
“Sounds like what happened to me and Jack,” Potter said, as if talking to himself rather than me.
“Jack Seth?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Potter said. “Not now. I’ll tell you all about it later. I want to know how you disappeared. I want to hear about Sam’s parents and what exactly they got you to do.”
Scraping clogs of earth from beneath my claws, I leant back from the graveside and looked sideways at Potter. “Me, Sam, and Murphy were trying to save you,” I started to explain, remembering that freezing cold night in the snow-covered field. “We had all been in that stolen police van. Murphy had brought us in search of you and then we planned to go and find Kiera. It was then I heard you crying out in pain from a nearby field. I told Murphy I could hear you were hurting real bad. He stopped the van.”
“Was the old fart really that keen to help me?” Potter asked, raising one eyebrow in surprise.
“Within seconds, both Sam and I were out of the van and beside him. We all wanted to help you, Potter,” I told him, as he looked back down at the grave and continued to dig with his claws. He looked embarrassed somehow. It was like he had trouble believing that we all loved him enough never to let anyone hurt him, even though he was a pain in the arse like ninety-nine per cent of the time. “In the distance we could hear the howl of wolves. And over this, I heard something else – the sound of you crying out in pain, Potter.”
“I don’t think I was crying out, Kayla,” Potter said with a tut and shake of his head.
“Oh yeah, I remember now,” I said, glancing sideways at him. “You were doing the Hokey-Cokey as those wolves kicked your head in!”
“Okay, okay!” Potter sighed, raising his claws as if in defeat. “So I might have groaned once or twice…”
“Groaned once or twice!” I gasped. “You sounded like you were giving birth to a fucking beach ball!”
“Look, we don’t have time for your sarcasm,” Potter scowled at me. “Just get on with the story already. I just want the facts, not every detail. Christ, it’s like having a conversation with Charles-freaking-Dickens!”
“Okay, don’t blame me if I leave something important out,” I scowled back.
“I’m not saying miss out anything important, all I’m saying is I do remember how it felt to have a bloody good kick in the bollocks from a bunch of werewolves,” he said. “I don’t need to be reminded of that.”
Looking away so he couldn’t see my growing smile, I said, “Sam was on all fours. He looked more like a wolf than a boy. Even he wanted to save you, despite the fact that you’d done nothing but be mean to him.”
Potter grunted and continued to dig.
“Together, the three of us set off across the field in the direction of the screaming… sorry… groaning and moaning,” I said, fighting back my urge to smile. “Even Murphy, who is usually so careful about taking his police shirt off before getting into a fight, didn’t bother removing it this time. He tore it to pieces with his claws.”
“Really?” Potter said, shooting me a glance. He looked kinda pleased to hear this.
“Really, he just stood there flexing his muscles all manly-like, silver hair blowing in the wind,” I told him. “Murphy then shot into the air, wings springing from his back. I’d never seen him move so fast. I flew after him and Sam raced across the field below. I don’t think any of us had ever moved so fast.”
“Why then?” Potter asked me, looking down into the grave.
Staring at him, and placing one muddy claw over his forearm, I said, “Why do you think, Potter?”
He made no reply.
“Because we’re a team,” I said. “I know we all argue and fight amongst ourselves from time to time, and we might be cruel and say things that we don’t mean, but when all is said and done, we’re a family, Potter. And our family wouldn’t be the same without you. You’re the only family I’ve got and I’m not gonna let anyone fuck with it. You guys mean more to me than anything. No one gets left behind – I learnt that after Isidor…” I broke off. I didn’t want to think about Isidor. To do so still hurt way too much.
Potter covered my claw with his at the sight of my tears building in the corners of my eyes. “Thanks,” he said.
“For what?” I asked him.
“For coming after me,” Potter said. Then swallowing hard, he said, “Those wolves would’ve killed me if you, Sam, and the old fart hadn’t of saved me.”
“So you were in pain then?” I asked him, just wanting to be real for one moment.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“And you were crying out in pain?” I pushed.
“Probably, I can’t really remember now,” he said with a half-smile on his lips.
“Were there tears?” I smiled back.
“Don’t push your bloody luck, Kayla Hunt,” he said, standing up and brushing the mud from his claws. Then changing the subject, he looked down at me and said, “Give me a hand to bury Kiera, and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“I thought you wanted to hear about Sam’s parents,” I said, standing up.
“And I still do,” Potter said. “You can tell me all about them on our way to meet them.”
“But we can’t go there just yet,” I told him.
“Why not?” he said, scooping Kiera up into his arms.
“Because I’ve still yet to deliver these,” I said, taking the photograph of Kiera and her father from my trouser pocket, along with a bunch of letters Potter had once written for Sophie Harrison.
I thought that perhaps Potter might want to have had a few silent moments by Kiera’s grave, but no sooner had we dropped the last fistful of earth and filled the hole, he was striding away back through the trees. I ran after him, the photograph and letters stuffed back into my jeans pocket.
“Hey! Wait up!” I called after him. Potter had been silent since seeing the photograph and letters in my hand. Catching up with him in the lane, I gripped his arm, yanking him around to face me. “We need to talk,” I said.
“I don’t want anything to do with those letters or that photograph,” he said, leaning against the side of the red Mini parked in the desolate lane.
“Why?” I asked him. “They need to be delivered…”
“Says who?” he snarled, taking a cigarette from a crumpled packet. Holding it between his front teeth, he lit it and began to smoke.
“Sam’s parents,” I said right back.
“And what do they know, huh?” he said, smoke squirting from the corner of his mouth and up into the star-shot sky.
“They seem to know…” But before I’d had a chance to say anything more, Potter had started to talk again.
“I’ll tell you what I know about that photograph and the letters,” he said, sounding angry and resentful. “They cause Kiera nothing but pain. It’s me who takes that picture from her flat and gives it to her. Because that picture has come from this pushed world, it starts her thinking that perhaps her father is alive in this world – and that perhaps he hasn’t died of cancer like he did before the world got pushed. She goes looking for him, as you know. But what you don’t know is…” he trailed off.
“What don’t I know?” I asked, shaking my head at him.
“You took that picture of Kiera and her father, right?” Potter asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “They were standing at the front door of his house in this world.”
“That wasn’t her father,” Potter said, drawing on his cigarette. “That was her brother.”
“Brother?” I said, my head starting to spin. I took the photograph from my pocket again. “It’s a picture of Kiera and her dad. And besides, Kiera doesn’t have a brother…”
“That’s Jack Seth in that picture,” Potter told me. “He did that wolf-shit and made himself look like Kiera’s father.”
“But Jack Seth can’t be Kiera’s brother… he’s a wolf!” I gasped.
“And so is Kiera, well, half wolf at least, and half Vampyrus…” he tried to explain.
“I don’t believe it,” I said, staring down at the picture, now fearing I’d helped to set some kind of trap for Kiera.
“And those letters,” Potter started up again. “They bring nothing but despair and death…”
“To Kiera?” I frowned.
“To Sophie Harrison,” Potter said. “If it hadn’t been for those letters being posted through her front door, she might never have remembered me, which led to her death…”
“But Sam’s parents said it was a good thing that those people surrounding Kiera started to remember what the world was like before it got pushed by the Elders,” I tried to explain, but my mind felt muddled now and I couldn’t be sure of anything. “I had never meant for anyone to die. I thought I was helping, Potter. Just like this Lilly told you that the more people who remember, the more cracks will appear and the old world – the real world – will seep back through.”
“Well there seems to be a lot of remembering going on, but I haven’t seen too many cracks,” Potter snapped at me.
“I’ve seen them,” I told him. “That’s how Sam and I disappeared that night in the field. We went through a crack.”
“What crack?” Potter said, leaning away from the car and standing up straight as if I had his full attention.
“You wouldn’t have seen it,” I reminded him. “You were face-first down in the earth while those wolves stomped all over you head.”
“I meant when we went back in search for you,” Potter said, a sudden gust of wind blowing his dishevelled hair from his brow. “Kiera followed your tracks through the snow and they led nowhere. It was like you had vanished.”
“Exactly,” I said, looking at him.
Chapter Six
Isidor
I swooped over the trees that surrounded the lake. It seemed like a lifetime ago – a whole world ago – since I had last seen its black waters. The sun was rising over the snow-capped mountains that lay to the north in a horseshoe shape. The sun was a washed out pink, and it reflected back off the lake, making it look like a weak red wine. Dropping out of the sky, I landed on the shore. My wings rippled beneath my arms in the wind. I looked around to get my bearings. Where was the gap in the bushes where Melody had once made camp? Would it still be there – had it ever been there in this world? Untying my coat from around my waist, I put it on and covered my wings. I fastened my crossbow beneath the flap of my long coat so it couldn’t be seen. With my rucksack thrown over my shoulder, I set off along the shore. My boots crunched over the sandy pebbles. They were black and wet where the water lapped slowly over them. The world seemed so quiet. It was like I was the only one alive out here. I headed in the direction that I believed our camp to be. Looking up at the sky, I could see those cracks. They were fainter somehow, but still there. In the pale light, the cracks looked like a giant spider web cast over the sky. Then in the distance, I thought I could see the clump of bushes where Melody had once sat and taught me how to read, while we listened to music on the radio. Quickening my step, I headed toward the bushes. I drew in deep, cold breaths as I stood before them. My still heart sunk in my chest, as I could see at once that they were overgrown and thick with thistles and thorns. They had never been used as any kind of camp. With my head down, I turned and walked in the direction of the woods that surrounded the lake. There was one other place I wanted to check out before I made my way in to town. I wanted to see if the grate leading down into The Hollows was still hidden deep in the woods. The Elders had said they had sealed all of the entrances and exits leading in and out of The Hollows. My race had been locked away in the tunnels and caverns way below ground, blissfully unaware of the world above them. I had been separated from my species as some kind of punishment. But could the Vampyrus really have forgotten about the world above them? Hadn’t the Elders tried to get the humans, Vampyrus, and wolves to forget once before? But there had been one who had remembered – Elias Munn. What if another of the Vampyrus should remember? After all, it only took one.
I stepped into the woods and made my way between the pine and fir trees that stretched high above me. They blocked out most of the winter sunlight, making the world beneath the trees dark, damp, and cold. Nothing seemed to stir. I headed in the direction of where the grate had once been. I couldn’t be sure how long I walked for, and I wondered if I hadn’t strayed off in the wrong direction. Then, between the moss-covered tree trunks, I saw the path that headed in the direction of the road that led into the town of Lake Lure. From the path, I knew I would be able to locate the grate if it was there. I ran toward it, my rucksack bouncing against my back and crossbow swinging beneath my coat. Reaching the spot where the grate had once been, I dropped to my knees and brushed away the fallen pine needles and leaves with my hands. Just like there had been no camp, there was no grate either. But then, I was just about to give up and head into Lake Lure and the house that Melody had once shared with her mother, when I saw something. Like the sky above me, the ground beneath the dead leaves was covered in cracks. Again, they looked very much like a giant spider’s web. The cracks spread out from a centre point and formed a radius the size of the circular grate which had been there before the world had got pushed. I brushed my fingertips over the cracks, and in doing so, I noticed that the area where the cracks lay was concaved. The earth at this point seemed
to be hollowed inwards. It was like there had once been a hole but it had since been filled in. I stood up and stared down at the patch of earth. It looked like someone had placed a very larger cracked plate on the ground, then showered it with a fine layer of dirt. Like the sky, it looked as if it wouldn’t take very much force to break it apart. So standing on one leg, I raised my other foot, intending to bring it down on the cracked patch of earth, then stopped. There was a noise behind me, the sound of someone approaching. I lowered my foot and darted away, tucking myself behind a nearby fallen tree trunk. Making myself as small as possible, I peered over the trunk in the direction I had heard the noises. There were two police officers heading down the path from the direction of the main road. I knew that both were Skin-walkers in cop uniforms, because each of them had a berserker attached to a leash before them. The berserkers sniffed the path, then the air like two bloodhounds. The cops yanked on their leashes, and the giant wolves snarled as they stooped forward, dragging their razor-sharp claws along the ground.
Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) Page 3