“Because of that girl, Sophie?” she asked, staring at me as if I were under interrogation.

“Yes,” I nodded. This time, I didn’t look at the floor but straight back at her. “Despite what you or anyone else might think, I didn’t sleep with Sophie. Not in this world. We used to be lovers once, but that was long before I had met Kiera and the world got pushed off-whack.”

“Do you really love Kiera?” Kayla asked me, and for the first time since I’d met her, she didn’t seem like a kid anymore, but a young woman, someone I could speak on equal terms with.

I looked at her and said, “With all my heart. I love Kiera more than I have ever loved anyone. When I saw Sophie again, I could’ve had sex with her. She asked me to. But I couldn’t – I didn’t want to. I realised I didn’t love Sophie and I never really had. The love I feel for Kiera is nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. Okay, she drives me fucking nuts at times, as she always wants to do the right thing – but that’s why I’m in love with her. She is everything I could only wish to be. She makes me a better person somehow.”

“Have you told her all of this?” Kayla asked softly.

“I’ve told her I love her...but...”

“But not what you’ve just told me,” Kayla cut in. “Not what really happened between you and Sophie?”

“I didn’t get a chance,” I said.

“Don’t you think you should before you miss your chance?” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“You said that someone is fucking with us,” Kayla said, her eyes now sparkling again. “If what you say is true about that picture of Isidor and Melody, then whoever left it led my brother to his death. You said that Kiera had been left a picture of her father with that word push written on the back. If Kiera is walking into a trap, you might not have long to tell her how you really feel, and more importantly, save her life.”

“But what is she tells me to fuck off?” I said.

“Then you’ll know how we all feel every time you open that mouth of yours,” she half-smiled at me.

“Am I really that bad?” I asked her.

“You’re worse,” she smiled. Then totally unexpected, Kayla lent forward and put her arms around me. She held me tight. “I’m sorry about what I said to you.”

“You don’t have to say sorry,” I whispered, holding her close.

“I just needed someone to scream at and probably will again before this is all over,” she said, her head resting against my shoulder. “I know deep down you thought of Isidor as your brother.”

“How can you be so sure?” I whispered.

“Because you were always there for him,” she said. “Whenever Isidor’s back was against the wall, you risked your own life, time and time again to save his. Only a brother would do that.”

I felt her body rattle against me, as she started to cry again.

“I wasn’t there for him at the end though, was I?” I said, just wishing I could go back and change that. Wishing I could have been standing shoulder to shoulder with him as those berserkers came through the door. With tears stinging in the corners of my eyes again, Kayla hugged me tight.

“You saved me, Sam, and Kiera,” she whispered. “You got us safely away on that train.

If it hadn’t have been for you, we would all be dead now. You couldn’t have saved all of us, Potter.”

“I should’ve never left him behind,” I said.

“I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Then go after Kiera,” she whispered in my ear. “Go and tell her what you told me. Tell her that you love her and can’t live without her.

Bring her back to us. I couldn’t bear to lose Kiera, too.”

I eased Kayla out of my arms. Taking her face in my hands, I rubbed her tears away with my thumbs. Then, I kissed her gently on the forehead, stood up, and went to the window.

Perched on the windowsill with my wings open, I looked back at her and said, “Thanks, Kayla.”

“What for?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, then climbed out of the window.

Just as I was about to leap into the air, I heard Kayla say, “See you later, alligator.”

With a lump in my throat, and unable to look back, I whispered, “In a while, crocodile.” In my heart it didn’t sound the same coming from me and not Kiera. Spreading my wings, I tore up into the sky and the snow which now fell all around me.

Chapter Fifteen

Kiera

I reached the wall of the graveyard, my legs and arms feeling stiff again. Like before, it wasn’t the cold – I was cracking up – in more ways than one. Looking down at my hands, I could see that the skin had turned grey, and they were covered in tiny fractures. I touched my face with the tips of my fingers, and just like the backs of my hands, the flesh there felt broken and cracked. Without any Lot 13 or Potter to take the red stuff from, I knew that I wouldn’t reach my father’s house without turning to stone.

With my legs feeling like lead, I placed one in front of the other and headed towards the gate in the wall that circled the graveyard. I pushed it open, and it made a wailing noise on its rusty hinges. I looked back amongst the slanted gravestones where I had seen the statues. I didn’t care what the Elders had said, apart from the statues of my friends, there had been others too.

There had been that one which looked so much like me. The statue had been asking for help – but not just for me, for the others, too. My neck made a cracking noise as I faced front again, and a flurry of what looked like ash showered the front of my snow-splattered coat. It was then that I saw it. Black and long, scurrying along the edges of the wall. With what little energy I had left, I stumbled forward in the snow, my marble-looking hands reaching for the rat which crouched against the graveyard wall. I fell onto all fours and my joints cried out in pain as my knees made a cracking sound beneath me. With my chipped and broken-looking fingers, I closed them around the rat, and it squealed beneath my touch. Closing my eyes, I dug my fingers into its fleshy belly. At once, my fingers began to feel warm as the rat’s blood spurted over my hands and fingers. Soon they started to soften, loosen up. Unable to open my eyes, I didn’t want to see what it was I was about to do, I raised the rat to my lips. I could feel its back legs twitching and tail swishing from side to side as I sunk my fangs into it. There was a crunching sound as my teeth broke its back and I ripped a piece of its fur-covered flesh free.

As if I hadn’t eaten in years, I chewed the meat up inside my mouth. The rat’s bristly black fur stuck between my teeth and I gagged. I swallowed the raw lump of meat in a wash of hot, sticky blood. At once, I felt the skin around my eyes and mouth soften, like I had just gone mad with a tub of moisturiser. Keeping my eyes closed, I tore another piece of flesh from the rat which had now fallen still in my fists. Wanting to be sick, but forcing myself to not be, I chewed the tough meat between my teeth and swallowed. I could feel the rat’s blood hit my stomach, and at once, my legs and arms began to feel lighter. Opening my eyes just a fraction, I looked at my hands and could see the cracks had closed over, and my skin looked soft and supple once more. I pulled the rat’s head and tail from either end of its body, and stuffed what was left of the creature into my mouth. With my jaws aching from all the chewing, I swallowed the meat. My throat felt hot, as if I’d just swallowed a mug of battery acid. I cupped some fresh snow in my hands and brought it up to my mouth. It felt icy cold against my lips as I sucked some of it up and into my mouth. The snow did little to rid my mouth of the vile taste the rat meat had left behind, but it eased the burning sensation. As the snow began to melt in my hands, I used what was left to wipe away the blood that covered the outer corners of my mouth.

I knew the effects of the rat’s blood wouldn’t last long, and that if I were going to make it to my father’s house, I would have to head for there without any further delay. Then what? Was something going to happen when I got there? The Elders said I had to make my choice once and for all, and that I had already started along that path by deciding to find my father.

What could he possibly have to do with any of this? I wondered, as I passed through the open graveyard gate and set off up the hill in the direction of my father’s house.

With the snow showing no signs of easing, I cut a solitary path up the hillside. The Elders had spoken of choices, but what choice did I really have? If I didn’t make my choice then, as they had already shown me, my friends and I would all end up as statues, trapped in this world. It seemed that if I did finally make my choice between the humans and the Vampyrus, then they would all go back home – to the world that they once knew.

But I wouldn’t be going with them. This was a one-way trip for me. I now knew that. Could I delay making my choice anymore? The effects of turning to stone were rapidly speeding up. The Lot 13 was being consumed at an ever-increasing rate by Kayla and Potter. It might last a little longer now that Isidor was no longer with us. What happened when it ran out? Did we feed off each other – draining the life from one another? Or did we do the unthinkable and start feeding from humans? That had been tried before by the Vampyrus and they had created vampires.

Animals might work, but the effects wouldn’t last long. What sort of existence would that be for my friends? Wasn’t being dead already hell enough?

The Elders had shown me the happy lives my friends could have if I made my choice and pushed everything back in place. Murphy would be with his daughters – they would have never been murdered in their beds by Sparky. Isidor would be with Melody, just like he had always wanted. Kayla would have Sam and Potter would have...

To think of that was unbearable, but I had to face it. Potter would spend his life with Sophie.

She wouldn’t reject him in the world which would exist when I pushed back. Neither of them would know any different – but I would. To Potter, I would have never existed, wiped from his memory, from his life. Would I remember him?