Dead Statues (18 page)

Above the sound of his desperate pleas, I heard what sounded like running water. I looked at my father and could see a dark patch growing on the front of his boxer shorts, and a thin stream of urine running down the inside of his leg.

“Oops!” Seth grinned.

“Leave him alone!”
I roared, again fighting against the chains which fastened me to the chair.

“Why?” Seth barked back. “He means nothing to you. You said he wasn’t your father.”

“He is my dad!” I screamed back.

“Please let him go. He has nothing to do with this.

It’s me you hate. It’s me you want to
punish
.”

“Kiera,” my father sobbed in pain and fear.

“You can end this right now,” Seth roared back. “Choose between your father and Potter!”

“I can’t,” I sobbed, lowering my head.

“Please, can’t you just stop this?”

“Which is it to be?” Seth pushed.

I heard my father scream out in pain like a wild animal. Seth was raking his long, jagged fingernails across my father’s stomach. His flesh came away in bloody strips.

“Who do you choose?”
Seth roared over the sound of my father’s deafening screams.

I thought of Potter, and despite what I knew, what Seth had showed me, I couldn’t deny the feelings I had for him. However much he had hurt me, lied and deceived me, I couldn’t let him walk into a this trap. In my mind all I could see was his cranky smile, that obnoxious look I so often wanted to wipe from his face, and hear the cocky remarks that spewed from his mouth. I thought of all the times we had made love, and a part of me couldn’t believe that none of those feelings had been real. However much I thought I hated him, I didn’t. I loved him, and had since that first time he had winked at me and called me “Tiger” back in The Ragged Cove. I couldn’t give him up.

“Who do you choose?”
Seth roared at me again, over the cries of my father.

I looked across the room, and just wanted to be held by him again, just like we had so often done before. I remembered the nights, as a child, sat on his lap while he read fairy tales to me. I could see him sitting by my bed, soothing my nightmares away. I could see myself holding his skeletal hand as he cried out in pain, begging for painkillers as the cancer slowly ate him up, piece by piece. As I now stared at his tortured face, tied to the chair, his flesh being slowly peeled from him, I couldn’t rid my mind of those memories of my father in his hospital bed, screaming in pain.

“Stop it!”
I shrieked, just wishing I could block out my father’s screams.

“Who do you choose?”
Seth screamed back.

“Please,” I sobbed, dropping my head again.
“I beg you.”
Then, looking at the floor, feeling the chains around my wrists and ankles, and the sensation of my skin starting to crack, I could
see
something – something I hadn’t seen before.

Slowly, I raised my head. I looked across the room at Jack Seth and matching his stare, I said with the upmost defiance, “My name is Kiera Hudson – who are
you
to make me choose?”

In my heart, I had made my choice. The only way I would save Potter
and
my father, was if I became a statue.

‘Dead Seth’

Book 4 in Kiera Hudson Series Two Coming November 2012!

Turn over to read the first two chapters from Tim O’Rourke’s new bestselling series
‘Moonlight’

Moonlight
(Book One in The Moon Trilogy)
By

Tim O’Rourke

“Don’t hurt me,” the girl sobbed,
mascara-stained tears striping her cheeks.

“Shhh,” he whispered in her ear, liking
the sound of her heart beating against him. It
had all been so easy. She had come with him
just like that. Girls like her always did. The
ones with the low self-esteem, the girls who sat
alone in the corner of the nightclub while their
friends danced in the centre of the dance floor.

Men hovering around them like flies around
shit. They were all shit. However, the girls in
the corners were different.

They would giggle as he complimented
them. They weren’t used to that – it
embarrassed them – but boy did they enjoy
hearing what he had to say. Of course they did
– no one paid them compliments – no one
noticed them, they were hidden in the corner.

He noticed them though, he had noticed her.

She trembled before him, wishing now
that she hadn’t had so much to drink. Her
knees didn’t knock together because of the
Smirnoff Ice the guy had plied her with. They
knocked together out of fear. She had never
been naked in front of anyone before – she’d
never had reason to. No one had asked her to
take off her clothes like he had. His voice had
been soft – coaxing – as her dress fell to the
floor. At first she had giggled and covered her
flesh with her arms, but he had gently pulled
them away. That gorgeous smile of his had told
her that it was okay - he liked her - he really
did.

Oh, yes.

He eyed her. So much flesh, he smiled
to himself. Enough to go around.

“Please just let me call my mum,” the
girl sobbed in his arms.

He held her gently and smelt the fear
which leaked from her in waves. His heart
quickened just like hers.

“My roommate will be back soon,” the
girl whispered, squirming against his smooth
chest. She secretly knew that her friend
wouldn’t be home until morning, and by then,
she would be dead. She knew that and she
wanted her mum. Just to speak to her, to hear
her voice one last time. “Please...” she
whispered, looking up into his dark eyes.

His eyes hadn’t been so dark in the
nightclub. Back there, they had twinkled as he
had flirted with her as he had whispered all the
things that she’d always longed a boy would
whisper to her. His mouth had been different,
too. In the unlit corner of the nightclub, his lips
had felt soft like new-born skin as they had
brushed over her cheek, making her skin
tingle. Now, in the gloom of her room, his lips
seemed to have stretched somehow, as if pulled
up behind his ears, and all the girl could think
of was Heath Ledger disguised as the Joker.

It wasn’t just the guy’s lips; it was what
lay behind them that told the girl she would
never hear her mum’s voice again. The two
ivory-looking points jutted from his black gums
like blades.

There was a noise and the girl glanced
up. It was the sound of her bedroom door
being pushed open. She was saved; her
roommate was back already! She peered over
his shoulder and looked towards the open
doorway, her eyes brimming with hope.

“Who are you?” she breathed, she was
now wanting her heart to stop and put an end
to the suffering she knew was going to come.

The figures standing in the open
doorway stepped into the room. Both were
young, no older than twenty-five. One male,
one female. They ignored her question and
spoke to the other.

“You have done well,” the male said,
his lips seeming to spread up and open across
his face, revealing a set of razor-sharp teeth.

“I haven’t come to talk,” the female
said. “I’m ravenous.”

With his arms still wrapped around the
trembling girl, the man looked back at the
others, and with a smile, he said, “Let’s eat
then.”

The girl closed her eyes at the sight of
the freaky-looking mouths which lunged at
her. A warm sensation raced through her body,
and with it came a numbness and total
darkness.

The three of them fed. They gorged
themselves until they could eat no more.

Thaddeus Blake sat with his back to the river and spied through the heavy traffic. He watched the young girl, who sat hunched on the steps of the Embankment Tube Station. The February evening was bitter, and Thaddeus Blake watched as she tucked her dirty hands into the sleeves of her worn sweater. This was the seventh night he had spent sitting across the road from her, looking on as she implored the passing commuters to part with some spare change. Most ignored her whilst looking straight through her skeletal frame. The odd few did toss her coins, but others, usually older men, would pause beside her as they shared a few discreet words. The girl would become angry and start to shout at them.

Her words were drowned out by the sound of passing night buses and taxis.

Sometimes, when she collected enough for food or a drink, she would disappear.

Thaddeus would continue to wait in the dark, neatly dressed in a near black suit, crisp white shirt, with a blood-red silk tie. Hands laced in lap, legs crossed at the ankles, he would wait for her to return. She always did, sometimes after only a few minutes where she would resume her position on the steps. On two occasions she had been accompanied by a younger girl - fourteen-years-old, perhaps? He couldn’t be sure. She was scruffy-looking too - but unlike the other, the younger girl would sometimes sway on her feet, toppling over and collapsing onto the ground, consumed by drugs or alcohol - probably both.

But tonight, the older girl who had fascinated him so much was alone and having a rougher time than usual as she sat curled up, rocking back and forth in the cold. The commuters passed her by in busy streams, seeking the warmth of pubs, clubs, or the warmth of their lover’s bed. Thaddeus pulled up the sleeve of his suit and read the time. It was just past eight. He would give it another two hours or so, and then he would approach the girl.

Thaddeus spent the next two hours dining at a restaurant just off Trafalgar Square. For a man of medium build, he could be known to eat a hearty meal, and tonight he had put away two very rare sirloin steaks with a side order of ham, a large plate of fried potatoes and sweet peas, finished off with a giant serving of blueberry pie. As a rule, he drank very little, wanting - always needing - to keep his wits about him. But tonight he had consumed three glasses of red wine. After his meal, he sat for a short time, smoking a cigarette in the dimly-lit restaurant with the smell and taste of fresh tobacco curling up from his full lips and lingering around his slender fingers.

He arrived back on the opposite side of the road from the Embankment Tube Station at just past ten. A chill wind had picked up and it ran its icy fingers through his messy-looking hair. He spied the young girl, who was still there, now standing faint and tired-looking against the white stone of the building. Thaddeus lingered for several minutes more, then gracefully crossed the road at the traffic lights and approached the girl.

She stood facing away from him, her long, matted hair whispering about her shoulders and hiding most of her face. Thaddeus came alongside her and stopped. Feeling his presence, she turned, and through her long fringe, looked up into his face. She figured on first sight that he couldn't be more than twenty-five years in age, but he could have been older. It was his eyes, she thought.

They were two dark brown spheres, set deeply into his face. They were alive and sparkling in the light from passing traffic. They generated such life, they made the rest of his face look worn and tired somehow. The pallor of his skin was so very pale, she wondered if he were not ill. His lips were full in colour though, so very dark. A wave of untidy hair framed his face. It didn’t look a mess by accident; he had styled it that way. The lower half of his face was covered in a few days’

stubble, which had been neatly trimmed.

After what seemed like time unknown, she broke her study of the stranger’s face and moved slightly away from him. She wasn't scared, but she knew these city types would rather not be seen with a tart, even if they did try and buy sex from her. That was a secret they kept hidden away in the backs of cabs, cheap hotel rooms, down infested alleyways, where if they could, they would leave her with their dirty secrets and return home to clean sheets and their even cleaner wives. She knew a lot of girls - and some boys -

who did such things. Not her though - not ever.

She would rather have starved.

Looking away from him, she said, "What do you want, mister?"

Still looking at her, Thaddeus replied, "Just a few hours of your time."

No one had ever asked her for a few hours before, and she became a little nervous. She hid it well and said, "Get lost, mister. I’m not for sale.”

"Money isn't a problem, whatever you ask," he said back, his eyes still fixed on her, and even in the bitterly cold wind he could smell her. It was a musty, sweaty, unclean smell, and he wanted to cover his nose with his hand.

She felt nervous; something wasn’t right.

The girl couldn’t help but wonder why this well-to-do type was offering her money like this, when all he had to do was call up an agency and get himself a proper tart.

"No, sorry, mister, that sorta thing isn’t my bag."