by Tim O'Rourke
“What other reason could there be?” I asked him, fearing that I already knew the true reason in my heart.
“Because they had been lovers,” he said softly. “Potter was scared you might find out that he had had sex with her. He didn’t want to destroy the illusion he had created for you.”
“You lie,” I whispered, but all the while remembering how Eloisa had always seemed to hang around Potter in the town of Wasp Water. I tried to push the memories I had of seeing them together away, but I couldn’t. As if those light bulbs were popping inside my head again, I saw...
...Potter leaning against the custody block wall. Eloisa towered behind him, her perfectly shaped legs seeming to go on forever in a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Her long, blond hair spilled over her shoulders and down the front of the black jacket she wore. Her skin was pale, but this only highlighted her blood-red lips and golden eyes. I couldn’t help but notice how close she stood beside him, and I didn’t like it.
“Good to see you back in the world of the living, sweet-cheeks,” he said, coming towards me.
When he was close enough, I rolled my arm back, then punched him straight in the face.
His head rocked back on his neck, and the cigarette which had dangled from the corner of his mouth span away. “What was that for!” he snapped. “I’ve been trying to save you!”
Then, gently touching Potter on the shoulder, Eloisa said in the sickliest sweetest voice that I’d ever heard, “Sean, I’ll go and find Jack, you two look as if you need to talk.”
Then she was gone, striding away on those damn legs of hers.
“Sean!” I hissed. “No one ever calls you Sean!”
“It’s my name,” he snapped back.
Those memories I had of Potter and Eloisa at the police station flashed brightly inside my head. I closed my eyes, screwing them shut, hoping they would go away. The bulbs of light inside my mind popped and flashed as if blinding me. In them I saw me and Potter standing alone in the police station at Wasp Water...
... “What’s gotten into me?” Potter scoffed. “If I remember rightly, you smacked me in the face the moment you laid eyes on me!”
“Where do you get off on making decisions for me without even asking?” I roared.
“What decisions?” he shouted back.
“Deciding that I’m to go off hand in hand into The Hollows with that killer, while you go off to rescue Luke with that walking pair of breasts on legs!” I hissed.
“Breasts on legs?” Potter said, nearly choking on a throat full of cigarette smoke as he stifled his laughter. “You mean Eloisa?
You’re jealous and that’s what this is all really about,” Potter smiled. “You’re pissed because I’ve been spending time with her.”
“Oh, please,” I groaned, “Why don’t you take your head from out of your own arse and...
...In those flashes of light I saw Potter lean in to kiss me, but then at the last moment, before our lips had met, he turned, as if to look at another. Lights flashed inside my mind and...
... Without saying a word, Potter walked directly towards Eloisa. She smiled at him and her eyes twinkled. Potter’s face looked grim and his eyes a dull black. Then, so quick if I’d blinked I would have missed it, Potter shot his arm out and thrust his claw into Eloisa’s chest. It all happened so fast that Eloisa still had that smile on her face as Potter ripped out her heart. She looked at him as if to say something, but all that came out of her mouth was a thick jet of black blood. Eloisa fell forward, crashing face first onto the floor of the hangar...
...I felt my face being slapped. I opened my eyes to see Jack Seth staring at me.
“You remember, don’t you,” he breathed into my face, and I recoiled at the stench of his hot breath. “You are seeing, aren’t you? You know what I say is true. Your beloved Potter and Eloisa were lovers.”
“You lie,” I said, feeling sick and faint.
“It’s not true.”
“Did Potter ever tell you what happened at the Wolf House?” he smiled at me.
“The Wolf House?” I asked, feeling numb and confused.
“Of course he didn’t,” Seth said. “Why would he? Because that’s where Eloisa and Potter first met. Where they first had sex together. How happy he must have been when the gorgeous Eloisa walked back into his life. And where were you when that happened? In a fucking zoo – being treated like an animal. Why didn’t Potter come and rescue you like he promised? Because he was too busy fu...”
“Shut your face!” I shouted at him, not wanting to hear any more. If my hands were free I would have covered my ears so as not to hear what he said. Deep inside of me I remembered asking Potter why he hadn’t come to save me from that zoo...
... “Now I can see why you took so long in coming to find me!” I shouted. “You were living it up with her!”
“Her?” Potter said, looking now somewhat bemused. “Eloisa, you mean? She’s not so bad.”
“Well you’ve definitely changed your tune,” I spat. “Only a few weeks ago you were babbling on about how you could barely forgive a girl for having hairy armpits let alone a hairy tongue!”
...How had I been so blind? I screamed inside. Seth had been right – I hadn’t seen shit. If Seth had been right about that, was he also right about what he had told me about Potter and Sophie?
“You know I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “You feel it in your heart.”
“I don’t have a heart,” I whispered back.
“And neither can Potter for hurting you like this,” Seth said, his voice now sounding as if he actually cared for me. “But still he hurts you and you just don’t see it, Kiera Hudson.”
“What do you mean?” I said, lifting my head to look at him.
“Look,” he said, holding up the iPod for me to see. “Again, you are trapped and in pain, desperate for the help of the man you love. But just like Potter left you in that zoo so he could be with another, he once again betrays you.”
“With who?” I breathed looking at the little flat screen which had been set to face time.
“Take a look,” Jack sighed with a smile.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kiera
The screen flickered into life. I could see what looked like an empty barn. Whoever was filming the scene was doing so covertly and was hidden. The door to the barn swung open and I saw Potter. Someone followed him inside. The light was poor, and at first I couldn’t see who it was. They were female. I watched in silence as Potter went to a stack of hay, reached up and took two bales of hay which he scattered on the floor to make what looked like some kind of bed.
The woman stepped closer into view, and my skin turned cold. Potter sat on the hay, then reaching out, he asked Elizabeth Clarke to sit down next to him. I looked up at Seth.
“What’s he doing with that school teacher?” I gasped. “She’s a friend of yours isn’t she? A wolf.”
“And don’t we now know that Potter likes himself a piece of wolf,” he smiled back at me.
“But why would he...” I started.
“Shhh,” Jack hushed. “Let’s see if I’m right about Potter.”
I looked back at the iPod.
“I love you,” I heard Potter tell Elizabeth, her golden hair hanging wetly about her shoulders.
“Do you?” she asked him.
“Yes,” Potter said, and I thought I was going to be sick again as I heard him say that to her. Is that what he had said to all of us? Eloisa, Sophie, and me?
“You have a funny way of showing it. I know you used to love her ,” Elizabeth said.
Was she talking about me? I wondered.
“I thought I did once, but after meeting you, I knew that the feelings I had for her were nothing compared to how I feel about you. It’s you I want,” I heard Potter tell her.
However much it crushed me inside, I knew he was talking about me. God, he was good.
“Turn it off,” I snapped at Seth.
“Watch,” he
insisted.
With tears beginning to blur my vision I looked back at the screen.
“How do I know you are telling the truth?” I heard Elizabeth ask him, her lips covered in bright red lipstick.
“Look, I’m not very good with words,”
Potter told her. Then I watched with tears streaming down my face as he reached out and took Elizabeth’s hand. He kissed it, and then pressed it against his cheek. “I love you so much,” Potter told Elizabeth.
“Please turn it off,” I cried, turning my head away. I couldn’t bear to watch any more.
Then gripping my face in his bony hands, Seth roughly snapped my head around and forced me to look at the iPod. “Look,” he barked. “Look and see that I am telling the truth.”
I watched as Elizabeth cupped Potter’s face in her hands, then slowly lent forward and kissed him on the lips with her perfectly formed mouth. Potter kissed her right back. He ran his fingers through her long white-blond hair, laying her down in the hay. I wept silently as he positioned himself on top of her, his hands slowly pulling free her wet clothes. Elizabeth responded, by pulling at his coat.
“Turn it off!” I screamed. I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I couldn’t bear to watch the man I loved make love to another woman.
“Watch!” Seth screeched, waving the iPod in front of my face.
I glanced at the iPod long enough to see Potter was now naked to the waist, as was Elizabeth. Potter had one of her ample breasts cupped in his hand.
“Turn it off,” I sobbed, pulling my face free of Seth’s grasp and looking away. “I believe you. I believe you. I don’t need to see any more.”
Seth switched off the iPod and threw it to the floor.
“Why did you have to show me that?” I wept, knowing I would never be able to rid myself of those images. Each time they appeared in my mind, they would only reinforce the hatred I now felt for Potter.
“You would only be able to make your choice if you fully understood the truth,” Seth said.
“What choice!” I screamed at him, dribble and snot swinging from my chin.
“Who are you going to choose?” Seth smiled back at me. “Because only one of them can live.”
“Who are you talking about?” I cried, just wishing this torture would come to an end already.
“Are you going to choose Potter, the man you now know is a cheat and a liar and has no real love for anyone other than himself, or...” Seth trailed off.
“Or who?” I breathed.
“Your father,” Seth beamed, pulling back the blanket which covered the figure sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Potter
I pulled Kiera’s wet coat free as she yanked mine from over my shoulders and down my back. She kissed my face and I kissed back, covering her cheeks and forehead. With her nails, she pulled my shirt open down the front and kissed my chest. Her lips felt soft against me and my flesh tightened, covered with gooseflesh. It wasn’t the cold that made me shiver, but the excited feelings I felt at being with her again. My shirt fluttered to the ground, and with my claws I pulled open the front of her shirt and covered her breasts in kisses. She groaned beneath me and arched her back so I could pull her shirt free from beneath her.
“I love you, Kiera.” I whispered, sliding my knee between her legs and pushing them apart.
“I love you, too,” she whispered back, her fingers fumbling with my belt buckle.
I looked down at her beautiful face as she stared up into my eyes, and in the gloom of the barn, they shone yellow, not hazel. I cupped one of her breasts in my hand, and kissed her neck. Her skin smelt sweet, like perfume, and my phantom heart raced. My fangs nipped the flesh just behind her ear and she moaned softly. I didn’t want to feed yet, I didn’t want our lovemaking to be over – not just yet. Slowly, I covered her breasts with soft kisses, working my mouth down over the flat of her stomach. With my free hand, I popped open the top button of her trousers. She lifted her butt off the mattress of hay so I could free them. Lying on the hay in just her panties, I looked down at her beautiful body. Her skin was a cream white and soft. I slowly moved my fingertips around the curve of her hips, and she shuddered.
“I’m glad you’ve given me another chance,” I whispered, lowering myself over her. “I have Kayla to thank.”
“Kayla?” she groaned.
“I told her how much I loved you, and she said I should be telling you, and not her,” I said, stroking the hair from her brow so I could see into her eyes.
“Good,” she smiled up at me, her eyes shining.
“It almost broke my heart to hear her say, ‘see you later alligator’; it just wasn’t the same,” I whispered, kissing her neck.
“Why was that?” she murmured, running her hands through my hair, then down across my back.
“Because you weren’t there to say the other part,” I told her, making circular motions with my fingers around the nipple of her left breast.
“The last part?” she sighed, looking at me through half-opened eyes.
“Yeah you know...In a while...” I started.
Kiera slowly opened her eyes and looked at me, and there was a blankness in them, as if she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Say the last part,” I said, looking down at her, my hand now hovering just over her breast.
“Stop playing these games, Potter, and make love to me,” she said, squirming seductively beneath me and gripping my arse with both hands.
“You don’t know the last part, do you?” I said.
Kiera snapped open her eyes and looked up at me.
“In a while crocodile,” I whispered plunging my fist into her chest.
Her eyes bulged in their sockets and her mouth snapped open as I ripped her heart from her chest. As it beat in my blood-soaked claw, Kiera’s face began to change beneath me. It twisted and stretched like putty, taking on a whole new shape. Her black hair lightened before my eyes, turning from black to blonde.
“You fucking wolves just don’t learn, do you?” I roared, looking down into Elizabeth’s dead face. “Fuck!” I screamed, jumping up and throwing her still-beating heart at the barn wall where it stuck momentarily, then slid to the floor. I watched it travel down the wall like some vast black coloured slug, a trail of sticky hot blood behind it.
“Fuck!” I roared again, kicking out at her corpse, knowing that I had been tricked again. Just when I thought I’d gone and got things straightened out, I go and find that I’ve been humping a freaking wolf! How the fuck was I going to explain this little episode away, I did not know.
What the fuck is Kiera going to think if she ever found out? I screamed inside, kicking the wolf’s dead body again. It skidded across the hay-covered floor, then rolled over.
I thought of how Eloisa had tricked me into believing I had been with Sophie at the Wolf House, by blinding me with her eyes. Elizabeth Clarke had just done the same thing to me.
“Why do I keep falling for this shit?” I roared out loud, snatching up my shirt. I’d wasted enough time already. The fact that I had been tricked like this, and by one of Seth’s accomplices, told me I had been right after all. A trap had been set for Kiera, and Jack Seth was the one who had set it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kiera
I looked across the room at my father. He sat just like I was, bound to a wooden chair.
Unlike me, he had been stripped, wearing just a pair of boxer shorts. A leather gag had been secured in his mouth. His eyes bulged in their sockets with fear.
“Aaaarrrgghh!” he said, trying to speak from the other side of the gag. He shook his head from side to side and looked at me.
“Let him go!” I shouted at Seth.
“Only you have the power to do that,”
Seth smiled at me, revealing his broken stumps for teeth.
“Aaaarrrgghh!” my father groaned again, his eyes now streaming tears onto his cheeks as he stared
across the room at me.
“What are you trying to say?” Seth smiled into his face.
“Aaaarrrgghh!” my father came again, shaking his head frantically from side to side.
“Perhaps I should remove this?” he said, untying the gag at the back of my father’s head.
“Kiera!” he spluttered as soon as the gag was free. “Kiera I’m so sorry. I didn’t get a chance to warn you. They arrived just before you got back from your study leave.”
I looked across the room at him, wondering if I were truly dead in this world or not? Potter and Murphy had said that I was.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I said looking back at him, his half-naked body tied to the chair.
Before my father had a chance to say anything back, Seth came across the room towards me, and placed his sunken cheek against mine.
“Shhh!” he hushed into my ear. “You are dead here. Your body lies in the graveyard at the foot of the hill. You were shot in the line of duty – very sad it was too.” Then, leaning back from me, he looked at me with his crazy yellow eyes and said, “Of course he doesn’t remember that now. I stared at him and he sees something different now – he sees that you are very much alive, the memory of your death erased from his mind.”
“You bastard,” I whispered, looking back at Seth.
“No – not a bastard. How I wish I was, but that is another story,” he smiled back at me.
“I’m not your daughter,” I shouted over Seth’s shoulder at my father. “I’m not really your Kiera. He is tricking you.”
“Kiera, what are you saying?” my father said from across the room, his pale face full of fear. “I don’t think pretending you aren’t my daughter is going to help us.”
“I’m not your daughter,” I tried to convince him. “Your daughter – your Kiera - is dead! ”
“Oh this is going to be so much fun,” Seth chuckled, clapping his hands together.
