Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series Two#7) Read Online Free Page A

him and leaving the cell.

Chapter Four
     
    Jack
     
    I waited for Lilly and Potter to leave the cell. The sound of approaching cops was ringing louder in my ears with every passing moment. Still I stopped at the door and looked at my brother. He sat on the bed, looking identical to the man I’d spent most of my adult life hating and wanting to kill. But under that skin, I knew it was Nik who sat there waiting to take my enemy’s place beneath the guillotine. He looked up at me and stared through Potter’s dead black eyes.
    “You don’t have to do this,” I told him, swallowing the lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat.
    “Yes, I do,” he said, sounding just like that dick Potter.
    “But…”
    “Jack, they’re coming, and if they catch you here then we will all die and all of this would’ve been for nothing,” he said.
    I looked down at the torn pieces of flesh and fur that covered the cell floor, knowing that Luke and his merry band of Skin-walkers would believe it to be me – killed by Potter – my brother – before being taken to his death. The sound of heavy footfalls grew closer still, the thud-thud-thud of them echoing off the stone corridor walls of the custody block.
    “Run, Jack!” Nik whispered.
    I looked back at the cell door, then again at my brother. Reaching out with one long skinny hand, I ran my fingers through his short black hair. It didn’t feel like my brother’s hair and nor did it look like it. I closed my eyes and pictured Nik as a small boy, sitting on the rug before the fire at our mother’s house, as he played with his toy cars. I could see the light from the fire reflecting back in his almost white-blond hair and in his pale blue eyes. That was Nik – that was my little brother I could see, before like me, he turned into a killer – an animal.
    “I love you, brother,” I whispered with my eyes closed.
    With them still squeezed shut, I turned, so I didn’t have to see him sitting on that bed looking like Potter. I didn’t want to remember him like that. I stepped into the corridor outside the cell. I opened my eyes, and without looking back, I closed the cell door on my brother. I looked to the right, and could see Lilly and Potter hiding in the shadows further along the cellblock. I headed towards them. With my eyes fixed on Potter, I headed straight for him. Curling my bony fingers into a fist, I punched him squarely in the face. There was a cracking sound as my fist crunched into the flat of his nose and he shot back down the corridor, landing on the floor.
    “What the fuck was that for?” he gargled as his nose and mouth filled with blood. 
    “It made me feel better,” I grunted, walking on past him and into the shadows at the end of the corridor.
    “No wonder my fucking nose looks the way it does,” I heard him mutter, pulling himself to his feet. “What, with Murphy’s driving and people queuing up to take pot-shots at me the whole fucking time…”
    “Maybe you shouldn’t be such a prick, and perhaps people wouldn’t feel the need to slap you so much,” I said over my shoulder at him.
    “Who are you calling a prick…?” Potter started.
    “Give me a break,” Lilly said, brushing past me and heading up the corridor. “We’re meant to be escaping! Save your differences until we’re out of here.”
    I followed Lilly without saying another word, Potter moaning and groaning, puffing and panting behind us as he tried to stem the flow of blood gushing from his nose. I smiled to myself in the darkness, as Lilly rounded a bend in the corridor ahead. She led us into a narrow passageway. There was a gated door at the end, and weak streams of light poured in through the bars and lit the corridor. We headed towards the light.
    I watched as Lilly fished a key from the pocket of her white fur coat. She slipped the key into a rusty-looking lock, and yanked the gate open. We spilled out into the light to find ourselves standing on what once must have