Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) by Tim O'Rourke Page A

or going mad.”
    Melody turned to face me, but said nothing. Her chest hitched up and down as if her heart was racing.
    Looking into her eyes, I said, “You knew I would someday come back, because in your heart, you knew I was real. You do remember me.”
    Leaning in close to me, Melody suddenly crushed her lips against mine.
     

    Chapter Seventeen
     
    Kayla
     
    We swept over the town of Havensfield. Below we could see a line of flashing police lights as they snaked through the darkness toward the carnage Potter and I had left behind. Perhaps some of those residents who had been peering out of their windows had reported us. What would they be able to tell the cops? That they had seen winged creatures? Their stories would keep reporters like Melody Rose busy for a while. But thinking of her only made me feel sad and regretful. Not because it had been her who had reported on mine and Isidor’s deaths, but because my brother died in this world hoping that he might find her again. If only he hadn’t been so stubborn and stayed back at the railway station that night. But what I regretted the most was that I hadn’t spotted Melody’s name on that newspaper clipping Sam had shown me. Sam had had it with him as he lay asleep in the waiting room while Isidor had told us his story. Perhaps if Sam had listened too, he might have recognised Melody’s name and been able to tell Isidor that she was alive in this new world and where she might be found. But the strangest thing of all was the fact it had been Sam in his future who had taken the picture of Melody and Isidor together. His mother would send him to take it, just like she had sent me to take a photograph of Kiera and her father and deliver Potter’s letters to Sophie.
    Potter swooped alongside me, his wings pointed upwards as he glided through the cold night air.
    “So how do we go back and deliver the letters to Sophie?” he shouted over the roar of the wind.
    “The same way I got here,” I told him, thinking of the train I’d taken.
    “Through a crack?” Potter asked.
    “No, by train,” I said, banking left in the direction of Havensfield Railway Station.
    Potter followed me. “I took a train to the Hudson River, and ended up in Kiera’s apartment,” Potter said, and I then knew he understood how the whole passing backwards and forwards by the trains worked.
    “I took the train to the Hudson River too, but unlike you, I didn’t end up in Kiera’s apartment so I could leave the photograph, but up at Bleak Point Railway Station,” I explained.
    “Why do you think you went off course?” Potter asked me.
    “Why does any train veer off onto a different set of tracks?” I yelled sideways at him.
    “How the fuck should I know?” he hollered back. “I’m not a train driver.”
    “Someone moves the points,” I said. “Perhaps someone pushed or pulled a lever they shouldn’t have.”
    “So what train do we catch back to Sophie’s where and when ?” he asked as we dropped out of the sky.
    Taking the love letters he had once sent Sophie from my back pocket, I waved them in his face and said, “I was told I had to catch the mail train.”
    “Now how did I know you were gonna say that,” he smiled grimly at me as our feet touched down onto the platform. It was still night and any commuters that might be heading into town on the early train were yet to climb from their beds. There were two platforms and both were desolate. I could see a large, circular-faced clock attached to the station wall. It read 03:23 hours. With our wings withdrawing into our backs, we headed along the platform. There was a small waiting room. Potter rattled the handle, but it was locked.
    “I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking freezing,” he grumbled, pulling up the collar of his coat.
    “We’re not meant to feel the cold. We’re dead, remember?” I said, looking at his pale face.
    “Yeah, well, I don’t actually think I’m dead anymore,” he said. “My