Dead Water (7 page)

I
couldn’t go on without it. I would be lost without music. I needed
those songs to listen to when I couldn’t sleep, when I felt
unhappy, when I tried to make sense of each new day. I had to go
back for it. I would fly if I had to. But what if I started to
crack up again? What if I fell out of the sky like I had done
before? Potter and Murphy wouldn’t know where to find me. I would
tell them then.

“
They’re not going to agree to go all the way back there,” I
muttered, starting to feel panicked. “That place would be swarming
with Skin-walkers by now. Murphy would say it was too
dangerous.”

I looked
at my claws, touched my face, and checked the flat of my stomach
for any signs of those cracks. There weren’t any – but that didn’t
mean they wouldn’t return at any time. I couldn’t risk dropping out
of the sky like a stone. But I had to go back. I had to risk it.
Turning, I reached for the door and opened it and gasped out loud.
Potter was standing in the darkness outside my door.

“
Where are you sneaking off to?” Potter asked.

Chapter Ten

Potter

Kiera
stood in the open doorway. The dull light from within the caravan
made her wings sparkle as if showered with glitter. She looked
breathtakingly beautiful – like a dark angel standing before me.
Her thick, dark hair shone blue, her pale skin like perfectly
smooth marble, and her breasts so pert I could have hung my coat
from them. The last time I had seen her look like this was when we
had made love in the summerhouse back at Hallowed Manor. I just
wanted to hold her in my arms again, to feel her soft skin and
wings against mine. I desperately wanted for both of us to be
together in our true form. Whatever Kiera truly was, half-breed,
half and half, there was no mistaking she was the most beautiful
creature I had ever seen.

Fighting
my first instinct to race up the steps and hold her in my arms, I
took a deep breath and said, “Where are you going?”

“
Nowhere important,” she said.

“
So unimportant you forgot to put your clothes on and hide your
wings?” I half-smiled at her.

Realising she was standing naked in the doorway, Kiera
gasped, letting her wings fold about her like a blanket. She
stepped back inside. I climbed the steps, entered the caravan, and
closed the door behind me.

“
Did I invite you in?” she asked, standing before me, now
hidden beneath her wings.

“
I just wanted to talk, Kiera,” I said.

“
Look, I don’t have time to talk now,” she said impatiently.
“It will have to wait until tomorrow.

“
What do you mean you don’t have time?” I asked with a frown,
sensing that she wanted rid of me. “What else have you got planned
in the middle of nowhere?”

“
If you must know, I left my iPod back at the van and I’m going
to go get it,” she said, staring at me.

“
Have you lost your mind?” I asked, not wanting to sound
belittling in anyway. I knew how important her iPod was to
her.

“
I can’t go on without it,” she said, a desperate look in her
eyes. “I need it back.”

“
You can’t, Kiera, that place will be swarming with wolves by
now,” I tried to convince her.

Looking
close to tears, Kiera said, “But I’m lost without being able to
listen to music.”

I put my
hand in my pocket and wondered if for once I hadn’t been cut a
break. I had planned to use the iPod I had found to hopefully woo
Kiera back, but this turn of events was working out far better than
I could have ever imagined.

Slowly,
I took my hand from my pocket and said, “You don’t have to feel
lost anymore, Kiera.” I uncurled my fist to reveal the
iPod.

Kiera
looked down at it then back at me. “Where did you get that?” she
breathed.

“
The wolf-boy who helped set me up with that teacher, Emily
Clarke, had it. He used FaceTime on it so you could see me with
her,” I explained, offering it to Kiera.

Slowly,
Kiera reached out and took it from me. She turned it over and over
in her hands. She dragged the tip of one claw over the crescent
moon logo on the back of it.

“
There weren’t any songs on it,” I told her. “So I downloaded
one for you.”

Kiera
looked at me. “Really? What song?”

“
Listen to it when I’m gone,” I said, fighting the urge to
break her stare. I was never very good at this sort of thing. But I
kept hearing Murphy’s gruff, angry voice in my ears. “The song says
how I feel.”

“
About what?” Kiera pushed.

“
You,” I said back.

“
Why can’t you say it?” Kiera asked.

“
Because I don’t know how many ways I can say I’m sorry to you
for what I’ve done,” I started to explain. “Murphy says words
aren’t good enough. He said I have to show you, but I don’t know
how, Kiera.”

“
You’ve spoken to Murphy about us?” Kiera asked, sounding
cross.

“
No, he spoke to me about us,” I said. “I guess he was sick of
seeing me wandering around like a tit in a trance.”

“
What did he tell you?” Kiera asked, some of the frostiness
leaving her voice.

“
The truth,” I said, looking straight back at her. “It was only
what I already knew in my heart, but was too arrogant to admit. I
haven’t treated you right, Kiera, and I’m ashamed of that. But
although I’ve hurt you, I never meant to. That was the last thing I
wanted to do.”

“
And what about now?” Kiera asked, her voice soft like a
whisper.

“
What do you mean?” I said.

“
Now that you know I’m half wolf – doesn’t that change how you
feel about me?” she asked, her voice sounding kind of scared. “I
know how much you hate wolves.”

“
But I don’t hate you,” I tried to convince her.

“
I’m not who you thought I was,” Kiera said, a single tear
spilling onto her cheek and sliding slowly down her
face.

I wanted
to go to her, but I stopped myself. I didn’t know if she was ready
to be held by me just yet – if ever again.

“
I was stupid to have given you my heart,” Kiera
whispered.

“
Don’t say that,” I said, I couldn’t bear it. “Never say that,
Kiera.”

“
Why not?” she asked, arming away that single tear from her
chin.

“
Because I couldn’t give a crap if you were half toad and half
orangutan, I would love you all the same,” I desperately tried to
convince her. “I might not have a heart anymore, Kiera, but it
aches all the same to see you so sad. I’m so sorry for how I have
treated you.”

Kiera
looked at me, her face now streaked with silent tears. “You think
you can come in here and say all the right words and it will make
it all better? It doesn’t work like that,” she
whispered.

“
Why not?” I asked.

“
Because I’m scared,” she said.

“
Of what?”

“
Of giving you everything, only for you to hurt me again,”
Kiera said, choking back her tears.

“
But I’m scared, too,” I told her.

“
What have you got to be scared of?” she asked me, her wings
gleaming black and folded tightly around her like a
shield.

“
Of never being able to hold you again,” I confessed. “I’m so
fucking scared, Kiera, I might have to spend the rest of my life
without you being the most beautiful part of it. Over the years
I’ve been hunted, chased, beaten, even murdered, but nothing has
made me feel as scared as I do now. I should have known better than
to break your heart. But it’s done now and I don’t know how to mend
it.”

Slowly,
I turned away. I couldn’t bear to look upon her tear-stained face
anymore, knowing it was me who had made her cry. I opened the door,
stepped back out into the night and left Kiera alone.

Chapter Eleven

Kiera

With my
wings still folded around me, I went to the bedroom and lay down on
the bed. I drew my knees against my chest beneath my wings. My body
shook with sobs. Half of me wanted to go to the door and call
Potter back. I wanted to take him beneath my wings and let him make
love to me. But the other half of me, the half that was scared of
the hurt that being in love could bring, refused to give me the
courage to go after him, however much I wanted to.

As if my wings were a blanket, I hid beneath them, too scared
to come out again. Being in love with Potter was so hard. It was
like an obsession, and that’s what I truly feared. I knew I would
never stop loving him, but that just opened me up to a world full
of hurt. That’s what guys like Potter brought to the party. But I
couldn’t imagine my life without him. My feelings for him hadn’t
really changed. If I searched them, I knew I had fallen in love
with him the moment he had opened his arrogant mouth and called me
Miss Marple. Luke had been nothing more than a distraction for me –
a Band-Aid temporarily holding back the flood of feelings I
secretly had for Potter. Potter had always been the man I had
wanted. And I still wanted him now – the pain he had caused me
hadn’t changed that. I hated myself for feeling how I did. So why
didn’t I just take him back? Because I knew Potter wasn’t mine to
have. He was Sophie’s – he always had been, and always would be.
The Elders had told me I wouldn’t go back with the others. This was
a one-way trip for me. They had shown me those statues of my
friends. I had seen Isidor with Melody, Murphy with his daughters,
Kayla with Sam, and Potter with Sophie. Ultimately, they were going
to be together. Not in this
pushed
world, but the one they were going back to when I
put this mess right.

So
however much my body ached for Potter, I knew, just like I had
fought my cravings for the human red stuff in the zoo, if I gave in
to them, it would only lead me down a nightmarish road of despair.
However hard it was for me, I had to let go of Potter – he wasn’t
mine to take. I could give in and be happy with him again for a
time, but that would be selfish of me. My friends would never go
home; they would never get the chance of being together again. I
wanted that for them. The hardest thing for me to do was to give
away the man I loved to another, but harder still would be to see
my friends unhappy.

Deep down, I knew I couldn’t really hate Potter for going in
search of Sophie again. It just proved to me, just like the Elders
had said, they were meant to be together. Did he
really
choose to go in
search of Sophie? Or was it just the world trying to
push
itself back into
place again? Potter just didn’t realise that yet.

Beneath
my wings, I uncurled my claws from around the iPod that Potter had
given to me. I pressed the ‘Music’ icon. Just like Potter had said,
there was only one song downloaded onto it. It was the song Potter
had chosen for me. I slowly unwound the earphones that had been
wrapped around the bottom of the iPod and pressed them into my
ears. With my eyes shut tight to stop the on flood of tears, I
listened to ‘Annie’s Song’ by John Denver.

With the
song set on repeat, I listened to the words of that song, which
Potter had so carefully chosen. The music spoke of forests. In my
sleepy mind I pictured the secret forest we were heading to and the
Dead Waters which were hidden there. John Denver sung about
mountains and I could see them in my mind. The peaks were dusted
white with snow. Set between the mountains there was a small town.
The streets were narrow and cobbled. I had been there
before...

Chapter Twelve

Kiera

...I made my way through the throng of people who crushed
themselves in the town centre. There was a fountain, and I’d seen
it before. I had been here with Kayla and Isidor after escaping
that zoo. I was once again in the town of Wasp Water.

Tudor-style houses lined each side of the narrow streets.
People leant out of the upper windows, all looking in the direction
of the town square. What was drawing their attention to it? What
were they so desperate to see? The others crowding the narrow
streets were just like me. All of them had bright hazel eyes, which
burned in their sockets. All of them were wolves. I blended in with
them. None of them knew they were being infiltrated by
me.

I wedged my slender frame through the crowds, slipping
beneath waving arms, and between bustling bodies. The crowd buzzed
with an excitable current, and in the distance I could hear a voice
bellowing through a loudhailer. The voice sounded hissy and broken.
But it stirred the crowds, bringing them to a feverish excitement.
Desperate to find out what was causing such elation, I forced my
way into the town square. The fountain had been reduced to rubble,
and in its place had been erected what looked like a raised wooden
stage. In the middle of this there was a guillotine. It stood tall,
its silver blade gleaming in the morning light. Dried blood covered
the edge of it, the sides, and the floor of the wooden structure.
Before the guillotine sat a large metal bucket. It was then I
understood why the crowds of wolves were so excited; they had
gathered to witness an execution.