Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) (3 page)

One of the
berserkers lunged at Jack’s throat from behind. In the very same instant, Jack took hold of one of the levers and
pushed
. From beneath the bench, I watched Jack, judder and shake in and out of existence. One moment he was there, then gone, then suddenly back again. Jack became translucent, then solid again. The berserkers snarled and cringed backwards. The music grew louder still until it sounded like thunder. The berserkers howled as the waiting room shook so violently, the walls started to crack open and parts of the roof fell down upon them. The floor beneath me started to shake so violently, I started to lift up then fall down again.

I looked back at the le
vers but Jack had now gone and the berserkers where howling and whining. The noise of their barks and cries sounded different now. They were no longer the cries of a depraved hunger and a lust to kill, but fear. The waiting room continued to shake in its foundations as huge lumps of brick and plaster flew through the air, showering the berserkers in masonry and dust.  With their long claws dragging against the ground and their snouts in the air, the berserkers cowered back toward the door, which was now hanging from its hinges. The thunderous roar of the music continued and I covered my ears with my hands, beneath the bench. I watched the berserkers flee the waiting room and disappear back out into the night. The sounds of their howling were soon swallowed up by the deafening roar of the music. But it was as I dared to peer out from beneath my hiding place, I realised it wasn’t the music coming from the tiny radio that was causing such massive vibrations. The noise was coming from outside – beyond the waiting room. With the berserkers now gone, and the waiting room collapsing all around me, I staggered to my feet and went to the door. I stood in the opening and stared up at the night sky. Looking upwards, mouth open, I wondered whether Jack had done some damage to this
pushed
world.

“What have you done, Jack Seth?” I breathed
, staring up at what looked like faint cracks appearing in the night sky.

Chapter Three

The Photographer

With his black eyes bulging in their sockets, he looked at me, his mouth opening and closing as if struggling to find the right words.

“She wasn’t
Kiera
,” I told him, also reminding myself of that fact. “She looked and sounded like Kiera, but she wasn’t… not
our
Kiera, Potter.”

He looked down at her,
then let her lifeless body roll gently onto the ground. Staring up at me, and as if still struggling to find the words, he stood. Taking a cigarette from his trouser pocket, he lit it, and drew deeply, filling his lungs with hot, grey smoke.

“So it was you…” he said, blowing smoke from his nostrils.

“What was?” I asked him.

“You were… you
are
the photographer we’ve all been looking for?” he said, his jaw locked rigid as he stared back at me.

“Yes,” I said, unconsciously touching the camera around my neck.

“Why?” Potter breathed, his eyes not leaving mine. He looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to trust me.

“To help you,” I tried to explain, but not knowing where to start. “I did it to save Kiera – to save all of us.”

“To save us?” Potter said, taking a step closer, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, one eye closed against the trail of smoke. “Do you have any idea how much pain you’ve caused us? How much pain you’ve caused Kiera.”

I met his stare and said, “The last time I saw you, Potter, you were getting the ever-loving shit kicked out of you by a bunch of wolves masquerading as cops. You looked to be in quite a lot of pain back then.  I couldn’t have hurt you any more than they were.”

“Don’t you know what you’ve done?” Potter said, flicking the end of his cigarette away and lighting another almost at once. “You’ve fucked things right up, and that’s just what the Elders wanted. They feed off our pain. That’s how they survive. They’re nothing but a bunch of leaches, Kayla.”

“I haven’t been working for the Elders,” I told him.

“Who then?” Potter snapped. “Who asked you to take the photographs?”

“Sam’s parents,” I told him.

“Sam’s parents?” Potter almost seemed to wheeze over a throat full of smoke. “Who the fuck are Sam’s parents?”

“You know, my friend, Sam Brook,” I reminded him. “The boy you like to ridicule by calling him Teen Wolf.”

“I know who Sam is,” Potter sighed with exasperation. “What I want to know is, what the fuck has his mummy and daddy got to do with all of this?”

“A lot, I think,” I said.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Potter said, sounding confused and angry now.

“It means that like us, they are trying to defeat the Elders and put everything back as it should be. Put the world back to how it once was,” I told him.

“How?” Potter said, eyeing me with that suspicious look again.

“They know that Kiera is this dark angel the wolves have been waiting for,” I started to explain. “And they know if they can get her – get all of us – to unravel our past lives, then cracks will start to appear in the fabric of this world and the old world will start to
push
back through.”

Potter looked at me as if something I had just said had struck some kind of chord deep inside of him. “So Lilly was right?”

“Lilly?” I asked, one eyebrow raised. “She’s not another one of your…”

“My what?” he snapped.

“Women?” I sneered back, knowing how much he had hurt Kiera in the past.

“No!” he said, looking shocked. “Lilly, or sometimes known as Pen, is definitely nothing to do with me – she’s a wolf. And besides, Murphy’s been there.” Potter almost seemed to shudder at the thought.

“Murphy has a girlfriend?” I asked, suddenly realising a lot had happened since I’d disappeared that night in the field with Sam.

“I guess,” Potter said, scratching his head. “Look, Murphy’s sex life isn’t the most important thing right at this moment. What does matter is whether Sam’s parents are really trying to help…”

“They are,” I cut in. “They want what we want.”

“And what’s that?” Potter looked at me.

“The world to be
pushed
back,” I said.

“But why?” he shot back. “What difference does it make to them?”

“Because they are human and they remember what the world was like before the Elders
pushed
it,” I told him.  

“And where are they now?” Potter asked
, that look of mistrust still clouding his dark eyes.

“At a station,” I said.

“Now there’s a surprise,” he grunted, pitching out his cigarette. Then, leaning down, he scooped Kiera’s body up into his arms.

“What are you doing?” I asked, knowing that there was still so much to do.

“I’m going to bury Kiera,” he said, heading towards the trees. Then, glancing back over his shoulder, he added, “And you’re gonna help me. After all, it was you who killed her.”

“But…,” I said, heading after him.

“We can talk while we dig,” he said, disappearing into the darkness amongst the trees.

Chapter Four

Isidor

The cracks were faint, like those you would see running down the side of an ancient porcelain teacup. But they were there and they stood out against the vastness of the dead
, black sky above me. They shone white, like someone or something was shining a light against them. It looked like the sky would break inwards if
pushed
too hard from the other side. 

The waiting room slowly began to stop shaking and crumbling all around me. Whatever reaction Jack had caused by
pushing
on the levers had started to settle. The roof now had large holes torn into it, and when I looked up, I could see those illuminated cracks covering the night sky. Holes had appeared in the walls, and I could see through them and into the restrooms next door. Piles of rubble and dust covered the floor. Kneeling down, I reached beneath the bench and snatched up my crossbow. My rucksack lay on the other side of the waiting room. The strap looked like a snake, twisting out from beneath the rubble that had fallen on it. I pulled my rucksack free and it felt empty and light. The only things I had inside was a copy of
Harvey Trotter & The Dragon’s Throne
by
K.J. Dowling,
a
Maggot Frogskin
comic book and some spare bolts for my crossbow. I picked up the radio and shook it. There was no music now. I placed it in my rucksack and threw it onto my back. I went to the door of the waiting room and peered out into the night. The wind that blew across the valley was cold, and the rain had come back. It seemed as if the rain drops were leaking through the cracks. I looked along the platform and could see that this too had fallen away in places and now covered the tracks. I thought of my friends as they headed up into the mountains on that train. I could have gone after them – followed them – but I didn’t want to. I wanted to find Melody Rose. The urge to do so now was greater than ever. It was our destiny we should find each other – even Jack Seth had believed so. A wolf like Jack Seth wouldn’t have given up his life to save a Vampyrus like me unless there was a vital reason.

…
I want you to go and find your friend, Melody Rose,
Jack had said.
She’ll be waiting for you, trust me.

What did Jack know about me and Melody? No one had known anything about her until I’d told my story tonight to my friends as we
had sheltered from the storm in the waiting room. Had Jack been listening to me from the shadows of the platform? If so, had he been so moved by it he now wanted me to go and find Melody? I doubted that very much. Jack wouldn’t be moved by anything, especially not my story. So was it a trap? No, it couldn’t be. Jack wouldn’t have given up his life just to trap me. There must be some greater reason I was meant to go and find Melody. What could that reason be, other than to mend my own broken heart? I guess I would never know, unless I found her again. But where to start looking in this
pushed
world? And even if I found her, would she be the same girl I had known all of those years ago? She had definitely grown up into a beautiful looking woman. I had been able to see that in the picture before Jack had destroyed it. But where had that picture of us been snapped and by whom? It must have been taken in this
pushed
world. The last time I had seen Melody we had both been fourteen years old – just kids. Perhaps the picture gets taken when we meet up again? We both looked happy in that photograph, so she must have remembered me from the world before it got
pushed
.  Maybe not so much had changed about Melody? Perhaps she was very much like the girl I had once known, and being pushed hadn’t changed her that much. If that was true, then perhaps the Melody from this world lived in the town of Lake Lure, just like she had before. Taking off my coat, I tied it about my waist. It trailed around the backs of my denim-clad legs like some weird kilt. The cold night air blew hard against my naked chest and icy droplets of water stung my flesh. I spread my arms apart on either side of me and let my wings uncurl. The tattered black membrane hanging beneath each arm fluttered in the wind like sheets hanging from a washing line. Potter had told me it was too dangerous to fly in this world for fear of being seen by the wolves. I was only to fly if my life depended on it. But Potter wasn’t around anymore to tell me what to do. Before he had left me for that train, he had told me he loved me as if he was my brother – my older brother. But it was about time he let his kid brother make his own decisions – right or wrong.

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.

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.