Dead Statues (7 page)

“Well it’s a shame you didn’t tell her that,” Murphy said, shrugging my hand free.

“Perhaps she would’ve stayed.”

“Kiera hasn’t gone because of anything I’ve said or done,” I told him. “She went because of her father.”

“Jesus, Potter,” Murphy groaned. “I worry about you sometimes. She left because of you and that tart, Sophie.”

“Sophie wasn’t a tart,” I cut in.

“You’re very defensive about someone you couldn’t give two shits about,” Murphy eyed me.

“Look, I’m not taking the blame!” I shouted. “This is your fuck-up as much as mine.”

“How do you figure that?” Murphy frowned.

“You were the bright spark who thought it would be a good idea to keep all of this shit from Kiera, not me,” I reminded him. “It was you who said not to tell her you were back. You didn’t even break the news that you were back gently. Oh no, you had to turn up in a big white police van, with sirens screaming and lights flashing and shouting out about the Muppets. Fuck knows what the Muppets have to do with any of this!”

“It was
you
I was calling the Muppet!”

Murphy roared, and prodded me twice in the chest with his forefinger.

“I ain’t no Muppet!” I shot back, my chest feeling numb from where he had jabbed at me.

“Oh no?” Murphy hissed. “You could’ve fooled me. You went screaming across the roof of that train like fucking Beaker. All you needed was the bright orange hair and I would’ve never known the difference.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, we were being chased down by a pack of berserkers who wanted to tear our freaking heads off!” I roared back.

“What else was I s’posed to do?”

“You’re not meant to be drawing any unwanted attention to yourself, and here you are, running around like The Terminator on crack,”

Murphy said. “And another thing! Who’s the wolf? I thought you hated wolves!”

“I do,” I snapped back. “Letting him tag along wasn’t my bright idea. It was Kiera’s. I think Kayla’s gone and got herself all loved up!”

“What’s he like?” Murphy asked.

“Who?”

“The Wolf!” Murphy growled. “Who else did you think I was talking about numb-nuts?”

“I wouldn’t trust him,” I said.

“Why not?” Murphy asked, cocking an eyebrow at me.

“Because he’s a freaking wolf! Why else?”

“We’ll see,” murphy said thoughtfully and walked away.

As we neared the van, I could see Kayla and the wolf-boy sitting next to each other by the open doors, their legs dangling out of the back.

Both of them were watching us as we approached. Kayla looked pale, her sprinkling of pink coloured freckles standing out like a rash in the cold.

Looking at the boy, Murphy said, “We haven’t been introduced. My name is...”

“Kayla has just been telling me all about you,” Sam cut in, his voice like a soft growl. “She told me you were once eaten by wolves.”

“That’s right,” Murphy said eyeing him.

“It’s a good job for you I don’t keep a grudge.”

Then Murphy was gone, climbing back into the van behind the driver’s wheel.

“But I do,” I said, looking at Sam, knowing that most of the troubles in my life had a wolf hidden not too far behind them. I left them sitting at the back of the van. As I reached the passenger door, Kayla called out to me.

“Potter, is Kiera coming back?”

Without looking back at her, I said, “I hope so, I really do.” I climbed into the cab of the van, and swung the door shut.

Kiera

With my coat wrapped about me, and my hands thrust into the pockets, I made my way across the field, leaving Potter and the others behind me. Murphy had given me twenty-four hours to see my father and get back. I would take as long as I needed – who was he to make up the rules? How could they both have kept such secrets from me? Who did they think they were?

At twenty years old, I didn’t need them deciding what I should or shouldn’t know. I had a right to know that my father was alive here – even if Murphy said I had no rights in this
pushed
world.

I just wanted to see my father again, to know that he was all right, to know that he was alive. The need to push those last memories of him crying out for pain relief would be pushed aside, buried, if I could only see him again, looking well – alive.

That’s all I wanted to do; just to see him again.

Who wouldn’t want to do that if they were given another chance? How many wouldn’t want to go back and be able to say all the stuff they wished they had said to their loved one before it had been too late – before they had been taken from them? I was no different from anyone else, other than I had been given a second chance – an opportunity to see my father again. If I didn’t, it would haunt me whether I stayed in this
pushed
world or not. I would spend my time here like a restless spirit. How could I rest knowing that my father was out there somewhere, within reach of me? It would drive me mental. It would drive me insane quicker than the need for blood does when it comes. It would be like that itch deep inside of me, which eventually turns into a craving, a hunger that can’t be quenched until blood is washing over my tongue and cooling my throat. I had to see my father again – despite Murphy’s and Potter’s warnings.

Who was Potter to give me advice anyhow? I wondered, climbing over a wooden fence which circled the field. He hadn’t wasted any time in going in search of Sophie. Why had he done that? Because he was still in love with her, right? I didn’t care what he said, what excuses he made. The fact he went looking for her, before anyone else, said that he still had feelings for her, and I guessed he always would. Sophie was Potter’s first true love, and did we ever forget them? I couldn’t be sure – Potter was mine.

Would I be able to shirk off the feelings that I had for him so easily? Probably not. Even though he was a complete cock at times – I knew there would always be a small part of me that felt something for him. That’s what I hated, though.

He had hurt me, deceived me; and although my feelings towards him were ones of distrust and hatred, I knew that deep inside of me I was still very much in love with him. It was hard to admit that, as it hurt to do so.

On the other side of the fence, I stumbled across a narrow path cut into the grass. It spiralled downwards and away to a small crop of trees. I looked back, and the police van and the others had gone. Feeling alone now, I faced front and headed towards the trees. With the wind tugging at my long hair, I bent forward into the wind.

Had he slept with Sophie again? I wondered. What did she look like? Potter had told me deep below the Fountain of Souls, as we lay chained together, that she had been beautiful. He told me about those letters, the ones in which he had pleaded for her to come back to him. I should have seen the signs back then. For someone who saw too many things sometimes – I had been blinded by him back in those caves. That had been the first time we had made love, our hands manacled together. Had we made love though? I thought we had, but did Potter feel the same? As he had sex with me, was he thinking about me or her – Sophie?

I headed towards the trees, feeling sick with jealousy and hurt. I felt stupid and used. How could I have been so naive? If Sophie had been in those caves with him instead of me, it would have been her he would have made love to. It would have been an act of love – not out of fear and desperation at the thought of dying. That one final act bringing us together before we died – or so we believed back then.

I tried to push the thoughts of paranoia from my mind, but as I neared the trees, those voices of doubt just wouldn’t keep quiet. I tried to tell myself that Potter did love me, that there had been other times when we had been together – made love and it had been intense – it had been real. I tried to conjure all the times Potter told me how much he loved me while making love. There was the time in the summerhouse just before leaving Hallowed Manor. We had made love on the floor, and over and over again, he had told me how much he loved me. He had let me drink his blood, and he had drunk mine too. Then stopping up short, my skin turned cold and my stomach lurched.

“Oh, my God,” I breathed aloud.

Moments before making love on the floor of the summerhouse, Potter had returned from her – from being with Sophie. He had led me away from the statue I had been looking at in the rain.

Potter had taken me into the summerhouse, and as he had peeled my wet clothes from me and laid me down on the floor, he had been thinking of her.

All the time he must have been thinking of Sophie.

Potter had come straight back and tried to bury his own guilt and shame by having sex with me. I screwed my eyes shut as those images of us together taunted me.

I could remember Potter had been unusually gentle, covering my face, neck, shoulders, breasts, and stomach with soft kisses. I could hear the sound of the rain drumming against the summerhouse roof, and the gentle rise and fall of our breathing.

“I love you, Kiera,”
he had whispered against my cheek as he lowered himself onto me.

“I love you, too,”
I smiled, running my hands through his untidy hair. Then those images changed, and it wasn’t me I could see beneath him, it was Sophie, and I was nothing more than the statue outside in the rain, peering in through the window.

With my stomach cramping, and feeling sick at the images of them together, I leant forward and gagged. A thin stream of vomit swung from my chin, and tears rolled down the length of my face. I armed the vomit away and sucked in two large mouthfuls of air. I staggered off from the path which entered the crop of trees.

With my legs feeling like jelly beneath me, I fell against a tree and slid down the length of its trunk.

I pulled my knees up against my chest, and covering my face with my hands, I cried. How could Potter hurt me like this? What had I done to deserve it?

I rocked backwards and forwards slowly beneath the canopy of trees and I couldn’t care if I never saw Potter again. There was only one man that I wanted to be held and comforted by right now, and that was my father. Wiping snot from my upper lip and the tears from my cheeks, I stood up. I wouldn’t waste another tear on Potter – he didn’t deserve one of them. With the trees offering me a place to hide, I loosened my coat and released my wings. I trampled slowly over the mush of fallen leaves until I found a hole in the branches above me. The morning sky looked white, like a bed of snow. Spreading my wings, I tilted my head back, pressed my arms flat against my sides, and shot up into the sky, hiding myself and the pain amongst the clouds.

Potter

Murphy drove the police van to the rear of a rundown-looking cottage. The outside was weather-beaten white, but most of this was hidden by blotches of yellowy-green moss and ivy. The roof slated downwards and was covered in thick rows of grey slate. There was a chimney which leant to one side and looked as if it might just collapse into a pile of brick and dust at any moment.

“It’s nice to see that you’ve kept up your high standards of living,” I said, peering through the mud-splashed windscreen.

“The rent’s cheap and it’s remote,”

Murphy said, steering the van into an equally rundown-looking ramshackle of a barn. He killed the engine and climbed out, a trail of pipe smoke drifting out behind him. Once out of the police van, I followed Murphy, Kayla, and Sam out of the barn. Murphy swung the heavy-looking doors closed and headed towards the cottage. He took a key from his trouser pocket and opened the back door.

The kitchen was poky, but snug-looking.

There was a cooker and stove, a sink, and a small, round table with chairs. Tatty-looking curtains hung over grimy windows, and Murphy pulled them shut, even though it was still morning. The kitchen was thrown into semi darkness. There was a lamp on the table and Murphy switched it on, but it did little to lighten the gloom. Murphy kicked off his mud-stained slippers and stood before us in a pair of threadbare socks. The big toe of his right foot stuck out through a hole in them. He left the kitchen and we followed him into a small living room. There was a dusty-looking two-seater sofa and a couple of mismatched armchairs. A staircase on my right disappeared up into darkness. Part of the stone floor was covered with a faded rug. Murphy knelt down before a stone fireplace set into the wall. The grate was piled with logs. We watched as he took some sheets of newspaper from a pile next to the fireplace. He rolled them up, twisting their ends into points. Then, taking his lighter from his shirt pocket, he lit the pieces of newspaper, and then stuffed them between the gaps in the logs.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said, once the logs started to smoulder.

Plumes of thick, grey smoke started to billow up the chimney and the room began to warm. Kayla and Sam sat next to one another on the sofa, a cloud of dust flying up from the cushions. Kayla placed a hand over her mouth and coughed. I sat in one of the armchairs.

“Soup anyone?” Murphy asked, looking at us, brushing soot from his hands.

“That would be great,” Kayla said with a half-smile. By looking at her face, I guessed like me, she saw little point in eating anything other than the red stuff. Food had lost its taste since coming back from the dead.

“I’ll have some,” Sam said.

Murphy looked at me and I shook my head.

“Suit yourself,” he grunted and went to the kitchen.

There was the sound of pots and pans clattering together. We sat in silence, watching the growing flames, until Murphy returned a short time later. He carried a pot by its handle and three mugs. Murphy hung the pot over the fire and placed the mugs on the small table next to his chair.

“This is all very cosy,” I said, “but what next? We just sit and wait?”

“I said I would give Kiera twenty-four hours and I’m keeping my word,” Murphy said, the soup now bubbling away over the fire.

The smell of it made my stomach lurch, but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat anything.