“I guess so,” he said, and again, I got the sense that he wasn’t sure what to say.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“I just don’t know the answers to your questions, Kiera,” he said, his voice soft and caring. “I know that you are confused and scared and I hate seeing you like this. I wish…I just wish I could help you.”

“You do help me,” I whispered.

“How?”

“By just listening to me,” I half-smiled. But Luke was right, I was scared and confused. How I wished that my friend Kayla was with me. I missed our girlie chats and better than anyone, she would understand what I was going through.

“Maybe…maybe…” Luke started then stopped.

“Go on…tell me what you are thinking…please,” I said.

“Isidor has been through it,” Luke said. “What I mean is, that he must have had to come to terms with being a half-breed. Maybe you could talk to him about the confusion you’re feeling.”

Looking ahead in the dark, I watched Isidor as he walked alone up the stream, his head cast down, crossbow slung across his back. He cut a lonely figure in the moonlight. Isidor seemed okay, but I knew that Potter didn’t like him, and I couldn’t understand why. Then looking back at Luke, I said, “Maybe I will try talking to him. After all, his mum went missing too.”

For the next two days and nights we followed Murphy as he led us further across the hills and the Cumbria Mountains. We slept during the day in any deserted outhouse or shed that we could find. But Murphy was always the first up at twilight, racing ahead of us, calling back into the night, “This way! This way!”

On the third day, we settled in a derelict signal box that was situated next to a disused railway line. Again, I felt exhausted and starving hungry. Using my long coat as a blanket, I lay down and listened to the sound of my stomach rumbling with hunger.

Luke lay beside me, and within moments of his head resting against the dusty floor, his eyes were closed and he was asleep. Potter sat on the other side of the signal box, his knees drawn up and his head slumped against his arms. Isidor sat away from him and was reading a book that he had taken from his rucksack. I hadn’t had the chance of speaking with him like I’d planned, I’d not found the right moment – or built-up the courage. I didn’t know what was stopping me – but there was something. Murphy had positioned himself by the door again, as if he were on guard. I decided that I would wait for him to fall asleep, and if Isidor were still awake, I would speak to him about being a half-breed.

Struggling to keep my eyes open, so as not to drift off, I looked at Potter. Although he was slumped against the wall, he looked taut and tense and I sensed that he was troubled about something. He had been quiet the last two days, barely speaking to anyone. He had either walked alone behind, or got ahead and waited for the rest of us to catch up. Sometimes, I caught him giving me a sideways stare, but when he caught me staring back, he would quickly look away. Pulling his coat about him and closing his eyes, I wondered what was going through Potter’s head.

I lay for what seemed like hours – just watching him, and my mind went back to what had happened between us at the gatehouse and then how he had kissed me in the summerhouse when we believed that we were both going to die. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it. The passion it stirred inside of me left me feeling scared and confused – and I’d had enough of those feelings to last me a lifetime. And what of Luke? Every time those confusing feelings that I felt for Potter came to the foreground, I would feel pangs of guilt for Luke. I felt as if I were betraying him and he deserved better than that. Maybe it was a good thing that Potter had kept his distance – perhaps seeing me and Luke share that kiss beneath the tree in the woods had made him think that I wanted Luke and not him.

Trying to rid my mind of Potter, I opened my eyes again and looked at Murphy, who still sat by the door. Although his chin was slumped against his chest, I could see that his eyes were open. Isidor was still reading his book, which he held close to his face, so as to read the words in the gloom. Knowing that it would be some time before they slept, I rummaged in my coat pocket and pulled out my iPod. It seemed like forever since I’d listened to any music and I missed it – like so many other aspects of the life I’d had before. Closing my eyes for just a minute or two – it wouldn’t hurt just to close them for a second – I started to listen to Will Young sing Jealousy.

Chapter Eleven

…I was underground. No, it was a cave of some sort. Huge and vast like a cavern. Water dripped from overhead and ran down the walls. drip-drip-drip…I was alone…but wait a minute, there was someone close by. Somebody was hiding in the shadows.

“Who’s there?” I called out.

Silence. Just the constant dripping.

Then I caught a glimpse of something. It was large and covered in sleek dark hair. It slinked backwards and forwards in the shadows.

“What do you want?” I shouted.

Silence.

I tried to move forward, but something was holding me back. Looking down, I could see that my arms were chained to rock..

“Hey!” I hollered. “Unchain me!”

Silence.

Yanking on the chains, they rattled like shards of broken glass in a box. Then something else rattled, no rumbled, and I knew that it was the sound of my stomach leaping with hunger.

I tried to call out again, to demand that I be freed, but my throat was dry and sore as if water hadn’t passed my lips in days. My lips felt swollen, blistered, and cracked. Looking ahead of me, the shadows moved again and out of them stepped not the hairy black shape that I’d seen, but my mother. Her black hair curled around her shoulders in long ringlets. Her lips were blood red and her eyes shone a brilliant hazel just like mine. She wore a black dress that clung to her perfectly, just like an extra layer of skin. Her hands were held out before her and they dripped blood onto the cave floor.

Drip-Drip-Drip

“Mum!” I managed to whisper.

Coming closer, she smiled at me, just like she had before disappearing three years ago. I wanted to run to her, wrap my arms around her, to be close to her. But I couldn’t because the chains held me fast.

“My poor darling,” she soothed as she came closer. “What have they done to you?”

“Help me,” I croaked.

“Why have they done this to you?” she said, her hands continuing to drip blood all over the cave floor.

“Who’s done this to me?” I asked her, my head beginning to pound and my throat feeling raw.

“Murphy and the others,” she said. “Look what they’ve done to my precious daughter.”

“But they’re my friends,” I tried to tell her.

“Friends wouldn’t chain you down and deny you food and drink,” she told me coming closer still, her brilliant eyes fixed on mine.

My stomach groaned again and my throat burnt.

“Are you hungry, Kiera?” she asked me, her voice filled with compassion.

It hurt too much to speak now, so looking at her with a pair of pleading eyes, I nodded.

“You don’t have to be hungry anymore, my beautiful Kiera,” she soothed. “I’ve brought you something.” Then shoving her hands in front of my face, I could see that she was holding a bleeding piece of flesh.

Recoiling away from it, I gasped and the inside of my throat felt as if I’d swallowed a box of hatpins. “I can’t,” I whispered.

“But you’re hungry,” my mum hushed. “Eat and you will feel better.”

Looking down at the lump of flesh, I could see streams of blood seeping from it and running between her white fingers. And deep down inside, I wanted to lunge at it, suck the blood from it, to cool my burning throat.

“Go on, Kiera,” she urged, bringing the flesh closer to my mouth. “Just a little bite and you’ll feel so much better.”

Although I shook my head in disgust, I couldn’t help but think the smell of the flesh was inviting. I could feel the inside of my mouth start to water and it felt so good. Maybe my mum was right, just one little bite wouldn’t hurt. I mean I’d never have to eat it again, just this once to help these agonising pains of hunger and thirst pass me by.

But another part of me, the human part was screaming at me. “No! Don’t touch it Kiera, not even one little drop! You won’t ever be able to go back! Your hunger and thirst won’t be sedated – it will grow worse!”

“Go on Kiera,” my mum coaxed me. “Would I ever give you something that was bad – something that would hurt you?”

I looked away from the flesh that she held before me, and up into her eyes. She smiled down at me, and I felt warm tears spill onto my cheeks.

“‘I love you, Kiera,” she smiled.

And hearing those words – God, how I’d needed to hear her voice say those words to me during the last few years – I lunged forward and sunk my teeth into the flesh that dripped from between her fingers and it tasted…

Chapter Twelve

…sitting up, I coughed and spluttered, trying to rid myself of the disgusting taste that was in my mouth. My tongue tasted coppery, as if I’d been sucking on a bunch of old pennies. Rubbing my throat with my hands, I lent over and gagged, but nothing came up. The images of the nightmare still raced around my mind, and I was momentarily convinced that my mum was with me.

Tucking my iPod back into my coat pocket, I whispered, “Mum?” But of course she wasn’t there and as I glanced around the beaten-up old signal box, I remembered where I was. Luke was still asleep. Potter was curled on his side, with his coat pulled up over his head. I looked at Isidor and he lay on his back, with his book beside him and his crossbow clutched in his hands. He twitched and jerked in his sleep and I wondered if he were sharing the same dream as me – like we had before. He murmured and let out a soft groan, almost as if he were weeping in his sleep. Getting up, I went to him, wanting to wake him and bring him out of that nightmare, but then I realised that Murphy had gone.