by Tim O'Rourke
Table of Contents
Chapter Zero
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Annora Snow
(The Girl Who Travelled Backward)
Kiera Hudson Series Four
Book One
By
Tim O’Rourke
First Edition Published by Ravenwoodgreys
Copyright 2018 by Tim O’Rourke
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Story Editor
Lynda O’Rourke
Copyedited by:
Carolyn M. Pinard
Contents
Chapter Zero
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
For Lynda
More books by Tim O’Rourke
Kiera Hudson Series One
Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1
Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2
Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3
Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4
Wolf House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5
Vampire Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 6
Kiera Hudson Series Two
Dead Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1
Dead Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2
Dead Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3
Dead Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4
Dead Seth (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5
Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6
Dead Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 7
Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 8
Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 9
Dead End (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 10
Kiera Hudson Series Three
The Creeping Men (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 1
The Lethal Infected (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 2
The Adoring Artist (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 3
The Secret Identity (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 4
The White Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 5
The Origins of Cara (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 6
The Final Push (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 7
The Underground Switch (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 8
The Last Elder (Kiera Hudson Series Three) Book 9
Kiera Hudson Series Four
Annora Snow (The Girl Who travelled Backward) Book 1
The Kiera Hudson Prequels
The Kiera Hudson Prequels (Book One)
The Kiera Hudson Prequels (Book Two)
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Vampire Twin (Pushed Trilogy) Book 1
Vampire Chronicle (Pushed Trilogy) Book 2
The Alternate World of Kiera Hudson
Wolf Shift
The Beautiful Immortals
The Beautiful Immortals (Book One)
The Beautiful Immortals (Book Two)
The Beautiful Immortals (Book Three)
The Beautiful Immortals (Book Four)
The Beautiful Immortals (Book Five)
The Beautiful Immortals (Book Six)
The Laura Pepper Trilogy
Vampires of Fogmin Moor (Book One)
Vampires of Fogmin Moor (Book Two)
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Moonlight (Moon Trilogy) Book 1
Moonbeam (Moon Trilogy) Book 2
Moonshine (Moon Trilogy) Book 3
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Stranger (Part One)
Stranger (Part Two)
The Jack Seth Novellas
Hollow Pit (Book One)
Black Hill Farm (Books 1 & 2)
Black Hill Farm (Book 1)
Black Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary (Book 2)
Sidney Hart Novels
Witch (A Sidney Hart Novel) Book 1
Yellow (A Sidney Hart Novel) Book 2
The Tessa Dark Trilogy
Stilts (Book 1)
Zip (Book 2)
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The Dark Side of Nightfall Trilogy
The Dark Side of Nightfall (Book One)
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Vampire Flappers (Book Two)
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Unscathed
Wr
itten by Tim O’Rourke & C.J. Pinard
You can contact Tim O’Rourke at
www.facebook.com/timorourkeauthor/ or by email at [email protected]
Annora Snow
(The Girl Who Travelled Backward)
Chapter Zero
The Third War wasn’t started by humans. During the early part of the 21st Century, while the humans’ attention was consumed with growing political unrest around the world, an enemy came from within. An enemy who had been living in secret among the humans for time unknown. The real threat to humanity hadn’t come from humans themselves. No, it had come from supernatural creatures who called themselves vampires and werewolves. But the best kept secrets have the habit of not staying secret forever…
Chapter One
The present day…
Annora Snow thought the diner looked like a giant silver bullet. She slowed the stolen car to a crawl, peering through the windscreen at the diner, which was set back from the edge of the desolate road. If it hadn’t been for several thin shafts of December sunlight breaking through the branches of the nearby trees, Annora might not have seen it at all. Now at a complete stop, she looked through the driver’s window and across the road at the diner. The front door was closed, and several chairs and small tables had been folded up and propped against the gleaming silver bodywork. Annora hadn’t stopped the car in the hope that she might grab something to eat. She had brought the car to a stop because the diner seemed so out of place on such a remote road. Not only that, she had never seen such a diner before—not in real life—only in movies like the American road trip movies she had watched. Born and raised in England, Annora would have expected to have come across a small café with a thatched roof and a crooked chimney with a wisp of smoke streaming from it. Of course, in the bigger towns, she would have been spoilt for choice if she had indeed been in search of food. There would have been no end of fast food restaurants, pubs, and bars, but Annora had never seen anything quite like the silver bullet-shaped diner that sat almost hidden at the edge of the narrow and winding road. It seemed odd—out of place. Above the front door in neon lights, which hadn’t been turned on, were two words: Night Diner.
The ground in front of the diner was covered in withered blades of grass, and she could see that weeds had wrapped themselves around the diner’s wheels and the struts that supported it. Some of the weeds had dared to encroach over part of the gleaming bodywork and had stretched up and over one of the dome-shaped ends like long, green fingers. Looking at the diner, Annora couldn’t be sure whether it was still in use, or if it had been abandoned. The wild grass and weeds that surrounded it were in stark contrast to the shiny exterior, which looked new and in perfect condition. It was like the world that surrounded the diner had grown old and wild, but the diner hadn’t aged or fallen into disrepair at all.
Easing her foot down on the accelerator, Annora drove slowly away from the diner. She glanced up into the rearview mirror to catch one last fleeting glimpse of it, but it was now hidden once more by the trees, wild grass, and weeds. It was like it hadn’t been there at all. Looking front once more, Annora shook away any lingering thoughts of the diner and focused on the road ahead. It stretched away in front of her like a narrow, winding runway with a broken and faded white line running down its centre. Fir trees towered up on either side of the road, blocking out much of the winter sun. She hadn’t gone very far when she came across a road sign. Rock Shore – 1 mile, it read.
Steering the car off the road, Annora crunched the gears and lurched in her seat as she headed between rows of trees. Once she was content that the car was no longer visible from the road, she brought it to a stop. Covering her hands with the sleeves of her coat, she wiped down the steering wheel and the gearstick in an attempt to remove her fingerprints. She’d seen criminals do that in movies, so perhaps she should, too. She snatched her rucksack from the passenger seat, and climbed from the car, closing the door with the heel of her boot. With the collar of her coat turned up against the cold, she made her way from between the trees and back out onto the road. With the first flecks of snow peppering the air, Annora set off in the direction of Rock Shore.
She had been driving for several hours and was looking forward to taking some rest in the room she had rented in town. Annora had decided to leave her old life behind and try to start a new one. It was a week before Christmas, and she hoped to have settled into the town of Rock Shore by the New Year so she could start her life afresh. At the age of twenty-one, she wasn’t sure she’d had much of a life yet, but the life she’d had hadn’t been a happy one. She wanted to become a new Annora Snow, with a new life, new friends, and new dreams. Annora wanted the peace and quiet she hoped to find in the remote town of Rock Shore to write that book she had always dreamt of writing. But more than any of that, Annora wanted to escape the ghosts that haunted her so that she was free to laugh, dance, wear the clothes she wanted, and fix her hair how she choose. Annora just wanted to be free.
Annora had decided that once she had settled into the lodging house where she had rented a room, and had taken some rest, she would browse the shops in town in the hope that she might find some new clothes to buy. Annora wanted to be rid of the dreary clothes she so often wore. Those old clothes wouldn’t befit the new Annora Snow she intended to become. The new Annora would be brave, full of life, courageous, and perhaps—dare she even think it—a little sexier, too.
Chapter Two
The year 2067 (49 years after the Third War)…
Karl Potter hadn’t asked to be sent to Outpost 71. He had been ordered to do so by his superior officer, Sergeant Sally O’Neil. But the thought of going to such a remote posting didn’t inspire Officer Karl Potter. It depressed him. It wasn’t because he was only twenty-five and at the very beginning of his career as a Temporal Officer that he was so reluctant to take up his new posting. He would much have preferred to police the city to gain experience. But there was another reason for not wanting to be sent to the outer most reaches of the United Coalition of Britain.
Six weeks ago he had woken from a coma. He had lain in a state of perpetual paralysis for almost a year. On waking, his superiors had informed him that he’d been involved in an accident—an accident that Karl was unable to remember. According to those who outranked him, Karl and his partner, Temporal Officer Annora Snow, had been in pursuit of a suspect wanted for murder, when their patrol vehicle had spun out of control and crashed. He had woken eleven months later, stretched flat on a hospital bed with wires and cables protruding from more orifices than he cared to remember, and an array of machines and medical bots humming, beeping, and flashing all around him. And although he remembered nothing of the accident that had rendered him unconscious for the better part of a year, when he learned that his partner, Officer Annora Snow, had died in the crash, his heart twisted like a knot in his chest. He could remember enough to know that he and Annora had been more than just work partners. They had shared a relationship that was more intimate than that of just colleagues. He couldn’t be sure if what they had shared had been anything close to love, but as he lay in his hospital bed, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the accident had never happened, that their relationship might have developed in something more. Had it been something more already? Had they loved each other? But since waking from the coma, everything about his past seemed hazy—more than hazy.
Karl could remember that his parents, Kiera Hudson and Sean Potter, were dead. Both had been Temporal Officers and partners, and both had been gunned down in a botched robbery just weeks before his eightieth birthday. His parents’ killer had never been identified nor caught and brought to justice. Less than a year later, Karl Potter had joined the Temporal Officer Academy with the sole intention of following in his parents’ footsteps, but more importantly, to track down his parents’ killer. But how could he ever discover the identity of their killer if he was to be sent to what felt like the end of the Earth? But it wasn’t just the need to unmask whoever had
gunned down his parents that made him feel so reluctant to head off to Outpost 71. Karl believed that he would only fill in the missing gaps in his memory if he stayed in London City. It was his home. It was where he worked and where his friends were. It was where his parents’ killer roamed. More than that, though, it was where he had met Annora Snow. Why was that so important to him? Annora was gone now. She would never come back whether he stayed in London or headed to the remote Outpost 71. Well, it was important because ever since Karl had woken from his coma, he had seen things. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he saw fleeting images. At first they were just specks of light. But they had started to grow stronger and brighter. Those dots of light, on occasion, had joined together to form pictures. And Karl was sure it was Annora he saw in those flashes of bright white light behind his eyes. He saw snapshot images of her sitting beside him in their patrol vehicle, her thick blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, which poked out like a snake from beneath the helmet and visor she wore. He saw her speaking frantically into her coms. Although he couldn’t hear her voice, he knew deep down she was calling for help.
Sometimes in those flashes of light behind his eyes, Karl feared that he had seen Annora screaming. Screaming in pain? Fear? Perhaps both? He couldn’t be sure, but not only were the bright lights he saw blinding, so was the pain in his head that came with them. The pain was crushing, like his head had been stuck in a vice that was slowly being tightened.
With the pain also came the bleeding. A thin, but fast stream of blood would trickle from his left nostril, warming his upper lip. Fearing that the accident he had been involved in might have left him with a brain tumour that the Medical Bots had failed to notice, Karl had raised his concerns with Sergeant Sally O’Neil the next time she had made a welfare visit at the convalescent apartment he had been moved to.
For someone in her mid-forties, Sally O’Neil didn’t look any older than thirty. Her skin was pearly smooth and she moved with a lithe-like grace more befitting of a cat than a human. Karl had always thought her to be stunningly attractive, but had also wondered if her age-defying beauty was the result of some skin and tech upgrades that she had undertaken. But what was that to do with him? He suspected that his mother, Kiera, had been partial to a few upgrades herself when she had been alive. She had never appeared to get any older. In fact, nor had his father. If they had the money, no one had to look old anymore if they didn’t want to. Beauty no longer had to be natural. It could be paid for.
