It doesn’t matter if you fail some police exam. I’ll be proud of you whatever happens, you know I love...”

“Stop,” I begged him. I didn’t want to hear him say that he loved me. I wasn’t the Kiera he loved. I was someone else. I was a freak, a monster with claws, wings, and fangs. If he really knew what I was, he would run a hundred miles just to get away from me.

“Please just let me leave,” I whispered, still unable to look back at him.

I felt him place his hand on my shoulder and pull me close. Then, unable to help myself, I turned to look at him. He had a worried look on his face. Then wrapping his arm around my shoulder, he said, “Don’t look so sad, Kiera. You look so pretty when you smile.”

Looking into his eyes, I smiled back at him. Then, there was a sudden flash of light. With my father’s arm wrapped about my shoulders and the smile still on my lips, I turned towards the light.

In the open doorway stood a hooded figure, a camera in its hand.

Chapter Twenty

Potter

“Stop the van,” I told Murphy.

“Are you out of your tiny fucking mind?”

he barked at me.

“I’m going after Kiera,” I told him as he raced the van through the maze of winding country roads.

“I only came back because I saw those berserkers...” I started.

“What do you mean, you only came back because you saw the berserkers?” he glanced at me as he navigated the narrow roads.

Sam and Kayla sat quietly in the back of the van.

“I was on my way to find Kiera,” I explained. “I think she is walking into a trap.”

“You don’t know that for sure?” Murphy said. “And even if you are right, who do think is behind it?”

“How the fuck should I know?” I said.

“Whoever has been screwing with us since we came back, I guess. And besides, we promised we would wait for her at that cottage until tomorrow morning, and you’ve just gone and burnt it down.”

“So did you!” Murphy reminded me.

“Look, I’m not interested in who set fire to the goddamn cottage,” I said. “I just want to go and get Kiera.”

“Then we go together,” Murphy said, slamming on the brakes so hard and fast that I shot from my seat. My face smashed into the windscreen and I roared in pain.

“Can you stop doing that!” I yelled.

“Every time I get into a vehicle with you, I end up with a broken fucking nose”

“Quit complaining, you tart,” Murphy grunted as he tried to turn the van in the road.

“Jesus, you’re meant to be this superhuman creature from the underworld, and you’re sitting there bitching because you’ve bumped your head!”

“Bumped my head!” I roared in disbelief.

“You just about smashed my face in.” Then touching the end of the nose with the tips of my fingers I said, “Look, I’ve got a nosebleed now thanks to you.”

“Let’s have a look,” Kayla said sticking her face between the front seats and sounding hungry.

“Fuck off, Kayla,” I snapped at her. “I’ve just stood and watched you eat a berserker, for crying-out-loud. Now, sit back and get a grip, for fuck’s sake!”

“You’re such a grouch,” she moaned, taking her seat in the back again.

“I just want to go and get Kiera,” I groaned.

“We’re going,” Murphy barked at me.

“Stop getting so excited.”

“I’m not getting excited!” I seethed.

“Yeah you are,” Sam said from the back of the van.

I glared at him over my shoulder and said, “Who asked you?”

“I just think that those berserkers were not just after us because of what happened at Ravenwood School,” Sam started to explain. “Nor do I think they are just after Kiera because they suspect she is this dead angel who has come to destroy the wolves.”

“What you trying to tell us, kid?” Murphy said, glancing up so he could see Sam’s reflection in the rear-view mirror.

“Those berserkers and the Skin-walkers want Kayla, too,” he said.

I turned again in my seat and looked at him. “What are you talking about?”

Sam glanced at Kayla, then back at me, as Murphy listened but concentrated on driving the van. “When that wolf tried to match with me back at Ravenwood School,” he started to explain. “It was like I got a glimpse into the wolf’s mind before Isidor saved me. I could hear its thoughts – its feelings. Me and Kayla had both been chosen for matching. Kayla had been chosen because McCain had kept reports on all of the kids there.

He made reports about Kayla – detailed reports.

He noticed that she was different in some way to the others. The wolfman can look human but his intended bride, a wolf named Lola, was meant to have matched with Kayla. But you showed up with Kiera and Isidor and we all managed to escape. The wolfman is still looking for Kayla – he wants her to be his bride.”

“Did you know about this?” Murphy asked, glancing back at Kayla.

She sat quietly and nodded.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked her, not feeling angry but confused.

“Because there seemed to be so much going on,” she started. “What, with us needing to get Sam to the Fountain of Souls.”

“Fountain of Souls?” Murphy spluttered.

“You’ve heard of it?” Sam asked him.

“Heard of it?” Murphy barked. “I died there.”

“Is that were the wolves killed you?” Sam said.

“One of your kind double-crossed him and ended up ripping his heart out,” I barked at Sam.

“Well, we have to go back,” Sam said, staring back at me.

“Why?” Murphy asked, cocking an eyebrow at him in the rear-view mirror.

“Because that’s where the Dead Waters are,” he said.

“The what?” I asked straight back.

“I don’t know exactly, but the wolf who tried to match with me knew about them. He had been warned about them,” Sam said. “I know they can help you.”

“How?” I pushed.

“I’ve seen you all drinking from those little bottles that you carry around in your pockets,” he said, looking at each of us in turn. “I know about the cracks that form in your flesh. You look like you’re turning to stone unless you drink that pink stuff in those bottles or feed off each other.”

“How do you know about that?” I asked, feeling suddenly suspicious of him again.

“He saw me start to turn to stone at Ravenwood,” Kayla spoke up. “He stabbed me and the wound started to turn to stone, just like a statue. Sam gave me some of the Lot 13 I had smuggled into the school with me.”

“He stabbed you?” I snapped, my suspicions growing ever stronger.

“It’s a long story,” Kayla said. “It was a mistake, that’s all. But you should listen to Sam.”

“We can’t go back to the Fountain of Souls,” I said, looking sideways “That’s where the wolves live. How do we know he’s not leading us into a trap just like we were led into one before by the Lycanthrope?”

Murphy didn’t answer straight away. He sat and stared at the road ahead, through the snow which had started to fall again. “Go and find Kiera, Potter,” he finally said.

“What about you?” I asked him.

“I’m going to take Kayla and Sam back to the Fountain of Souls and see if I can’t find these Dead Waters,” he said.

“Are you for fucking real?” I said. “Have you forgotten what happened there?”

“I can’t forget,” Murphy said. “But what other options do we have? Drive around with our thumbs up our arse until the lot 13 runs out, until we’ve bled each other dry and we all turn to stone?”

“Kiera was taking us to the fountains,”

Sam cut in.

“No one asked you,” I snapped back at him. Then, looking back at Murphy, I said, “Are you sure about this?”

“I’ve heard that the fountains and the caves beneath them have been vacated by the wolves in this world,” Murphy said, glancing at me. “Perhaps the boy is right.”

“We’ve put our trust in a wolf before,” I tried to remind him again.

Murphy slowed the vehicle and pulled into a snow-laden ditch. “We’ll wait for you on the edges of the forests which conceal the fountains,”

he said, looking at me. “Now don’t just sit there admiring my good looks. Get going and bring Kiera back safely. If what the kid says is true about these Dead Waters, it could be the answer to our prayers.”

Without saying another word, I climbed from the van and stepped onto the road. Murphy started the engine again, and slowly drove the van away. I patted my coat pocket and listened for that reassuring clink of the bottles of Lot 13. I thought I’d hidden the fact that I’d too been cracking up, from everyone – even Kiera, who always saw everything. But I hadn’t fooled the boy, Sam. He had seen and knew a lot.

I watched the van disappear around a bend in the road. Then, when I was alone, I opened one of those tiny bottles, threw my head back and gulped down the gloopy pink substance in one large gulp.

Chapter Twenty-One

Kiera

“Who was that?” I gasped, the sudden flash from the camera causing me to blink. When I opened my eyes again, the hooded figure had gone from the open doorway and I wondered if it had even been there.

“Oh, they just wanted to take our photograph,” my father smiled at me.

“Sorry?” I said, feeling utterly confused.

“Who wanted to take our photograph?”

“Pay them no mind,” he smiled, reaching out behind me and swinging the front door closed.

The wind howled outside as I thought of the photograph which Potter had brought back from my flat. I looked at my father and realised that photograph had just been taken as he stood with his arm around my shoulders. I looked at his jet-black hair and realised that the white streaks of grey I had seen in the photograph hadn’t been his fading hair at all, but the last flakes of melting snow carried in on his hair from outside.