I would wait for answers. I needed answers. Jack was secure. He was no threat to me or...
“How do you know Potter will come?” I whispered without turning to look back at Jack.
“He is going to be brought here,” Jack said.
“Will he be hurt?” I asked.
“It all depends whether he came quietly or not,” Jack said back, his voice flat, emotionless.
“He’ll be hurt then,” I said, knowing that Potter always put up a fight. With my back still facing Jack, I asked, “Is the photographer bringing him?”
“The photographer?” Jack asked, and I didn’t need to look back to know he was smiling again.
“Whoever it was who took the picture of Isidor and Melody, whoever it was who took the picture of me and you downstairs while you were disguised as my father.”
“Oh, that photographer,” Jack said, sounding amused.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“No, Potter won’t be brought here by the photographer,” Jack said.
I continued to look out of the window, the snow seesawing down on the other side of the dirty windowpane. “Those pictures were used to trap us, weren’t they?” I said.
“You could think of them like that,” Jack said. “Or perhaps they were to show you or remind you of what you once had, or in Isidor’s case, what could have been. Perhaps Isidor is happy now?”
“He’s dead,” I said flatly, my stomach knotting again.
“Are you so sure of that?” Jack whispered as if teasing me, but I wasn’t going to bite anymore.
“I saw the Skin-walkers rip his head off,”
I told him.
“That couldn’t have been very nice to see,” Jack said.
Ignoring his flippant comment, I turned around and looked at him. “So how did the photographer do it?”
“Do what?” Jack smiled.
“Leave that picture for Isidor? The picture hadn’t even been taken, right?” I said. “The picture of me and you as my father, Potter took that from my flat a few weeks ago, but yet, it was only taken tonight.”
At first Jack began to chuckle to himself.
“What’s so funny?” I asked him, starting to feel angry.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the chains clinking around his wrists. “Thanks to you, I’ve had a very long time in this pushed world – so I guess I’ve had a chance to learn a lot more about it.”
“So what have you learnt?” I asked him, wondering if he wasn’t starting to play with my mind and heart again.
“The world is not as you understand it to be, little sister,” he said, and now his smile had faded and he had taken on a more serious look.
“Some people call them the ‘slip-streams’, others, ‘cracks’ and ‘fault lines’, but most call them the ‘ doorways.’”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped at him impatiently.
“Some people call it clicking, pushing, burrowing, falling, sliding, but it all means the same thing,” he said.
“What does?” I demanded.
“Passing between the different layers of this world,” he said. “I’ve never been able to master it myself, never really wanted to, if I’m to be honest,” he said with a slight sneer.
“What layers? What are you talking about?”
“There are many layers, Kiera, or should I call them times and whens?” he started to explain. “Some can pass between them, and others can’t – or perhaps they can and just need a little push! I guess in the end, we all get pushed one way or another.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, shaking my head.
“No one really dies,” he grimaced, as he tried to reposition himself in the chair. “Dying is just like having the rug pulled out from beneath your feet when you least expect it. You fall away into another time or when. That’s why some people call it falling. This world is just another layer that we’ve all fallen into. I’m guessing – although I can’t be sure as I’m no expert on this – that this is how we’ve come to be in this new world. Don’t you see? Isidor might be dead to you and your friends, but he is someplace else now in a different layer – time or when.”“I don’t believe you,” I hissed. “You’re just trying to excuse his murder.”
“I murdered you and we are both here together right now. Both of us are dead, aren’t we?” Jack said.
“Well, yes...” I started.
“Well,” Jack cut over me, “whoever is leaving those pictures might not be doing it to trap you, but to free you.”
“Haven’t you been listening to me!” I hissed. “Isidor is dead. How can that be a good...”
“You haven’t been listening to me?” Jack shot back. “If this whole thing about different layers is true, then Isidor will be in another when, and perhaps this time with the person he truly loves and wants to be with. So maybe this photographer did a good thing!”
“And the photograph of me?” I sneered.
“That led me to you! How is that a good thing?”
“You discovered the truth, didn’t you?” he said, his eyes burning brightly. “However much the truth hurts, isn’t it best to know it? Or perhaps you like living a lie? Knowing the truth about yourself will only help you make the right choices – the choices you need to make if you are going to survive in this pushed world. If it hadn’t of been for that picture of you and your father, would you have ever sought him out here? Didn’t that picture stir up all of those old memories and feelings that you had for him? It was that picture that brought you here. Did the photographer do such a bad thing if it led you to the truth – however painful that is?”
“But...” I started.
“But perhaps this photographer isn’t your enemy,” he cut in.
“Then who is it?” I said. “Why do they conceal themselves?”
“That, I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head, and I got the sense that he was telling me the truth. If he had known, wouldn’t he have wanted to have taunted me with that piece of information? “Whoever they are, they know how to click, slide, fall, and pass between the different layers – times and whens.”
“Who will know the identity of the photographer?” I asked.
“The one who has truly mastered the art of...”
“What is their name?” I demanded, stamping my foot.
Then, before Jack had a chance to answer, the sound of a vehicle approaching broke over the noise of the wind outside. I turned and looked through the window. Crossing the room, I looked outside and down the hill. In the distance, I could just make out the shape of a van fighting its way through the snow and heading towards the house.
Potter? I wondered.
“Release me!” Jack suddenly shouted from the corner of the room, frantically rattling his chains. “You’ve got to let me get away from here.” He sniffed the air.
“Why?” I asked, turning to look at him.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? Aren’t these your wolves bringing Potter here?”
“There is only Potter...” Jack sniffed the air again. “...And Murphy! ”
I looked back through the window. The van was halfway up the hill now. With my eyes no more than slits, I peered through the falling snow and the darkness. Jack was right! I could see Murphy hunched over the wheel of the van and Potter was sitting beside him. I knew then that whatever plan Jack had, somehow my friends had dashed it. But where were Kayla and Sam?
“Let me loose!” Jack howled.
“Why?” I said, turning on my heels to face him. “I thought this is what you wanted. We can at last all sit down and discuss with my friends what you have told me.”
“They haven’t come here to talk, Kiera,”
Jack howled. “They’ve come to kill me. They’ll rip my throat out before I even open my mouth.”
“They won’t,” I insisted.
“You know they will,” he barked at me, struggling against the chains. “Murphy won’t want you to know that he has lied and cheated you all this time. Potter isn’t just going to sit there and let me tell you how he and Eloisa were once lovers – the true reason he ripped out her heart.”
“If you’re telling the truth, then you have nothing to fear,” I told him. “Didn’t you tell me that it was best to know the truth, however painful?”
“It’s not the truth I fear,” he barked at me. “It’s your friends. They will take this chance to kill me. You have to let me go, Kiera – I’m your brother.”
I looked back out of the window and could see the police van coming ever nearer. I turned away again and looked at Jack. “So this is my choice?” I whispered. “Do I choose you over my friends? Because if I set you free, Jack, there is every chance that you will come after them again – set another trap and kill them.”
“Who do you choose, Kiera?” he said, the light going out of his eyes, that haunted look he had while telling me his story now masking his face again. “Which half of you do you choose?
The Vampyrus or Lycanthrope?”
I shot a glance back over my shoulder and could see the van clearly now through the falling snow. Then, spinning around, I raced back across the room towards Jack. Leaning over him so my cheek brushed against his, I whispered in his ear and said, “I choose neither side.” Then, with one quick swipe of my claws, I sliced through the chains and set Jack free. The chair toppled over as Jack sprang to his feet and headed towards the door. He yanked it open, then paused and looked back at me.
“You know I could have freed myself at any time, don’t you?” he said. “At any point I could’ve changed into a wolf and broken free.”
“So why didn’t you?” I whispered.