Kiera Hudson & The Lethal Infected Read Online Free Page A

been him it had been Nik Seth, but the pain had been no less real. That pain matched the pain I was feeling now.
    But I couldn’t let it consume me, however much it threatened to. I knew that my happiness at saving my friends had defeated the Elders. It had torn them apart. Could I risk letting myself sink into a pit of despair? Would doing so bring the Elders back – give them new life? Would they be reborn, suckling on my newfound pain?
    Sitting up in the bath, I splashed my face with water. It washed the tears that threatened away. I couldn’t risk setting one of them free. Snatching up my iPhone from the side of the bath, I threw a towel around me and headed into my room. The bath had done little to wash away the tiredness. Perhaps after some sleep I would feel better. See things in a different light? Maybe with a clear head I might be able to start to come to terms with the decision I had made on that underground platform. Perhaps I would begin to accept that this Potter wasn’t mine, and even if he was, he had forgotten all about me as I had planned. That was the choice I had made. Turning down the music, I pulled the curtain to shut out the daylight, and crawled beneath the blankets that covered my bed.
    Turning my back on the room, I curled up into a ball and closed my eyes. Although the music bleeding from the earphones was little more than background noise, I heard the song change. It was faint, at first and I didn’t recognise it. Gradually the music grew louder until the song was unmistakable. Heroes by David Bowie was now playing in my ears. With every one of my slowing heartbeats, the music grew louder and louder, until it became unbearable.
    Tearing the earphones out, I sat up in bed. With my eyes wide open and gasping as if out of breath, I looked at the figure who now sat in the chair by the window.
    “Hey, little sis,” Jack Seth smiled.

 
    Chapter Five
     
    I rubbed my eyes with my fists. When I looked again, Jack was still there but he was no longer sitting in the armchair by the window, but on a bench on some remote and deserted railway station. The music had been drowned out by a wailing sound. I glanced up. There was a sign fixed to a wooden pole that protruded from the dust-covered platform. The sun was bright in a blood red sky. “Welcome to the Great Wasteland Railroad” was written across the sign that swung back and forth in the nagging wind. Dust blew up into the air, and I covered my eyes.
    Looking between my fingers, I could see that I was dressed again in my jeans, boots, and long, dark coat. Jack sat on the bench, one arm thrown across the back. He still wore the faded denim shirt and jeans. The red bandanna was still knotted about his throat, and the NY baseball cap was perched on the back of his head, the beak casting the top half of his face in shadow. The hair that stuck out from the sides of the cap was no longer wispy lengths of grey but a long, thick blond. And that wasn’t all that had changed about his physical appearance. He didn’t look as emaciated as I remembered him to be. The lines around his mouth no longer looked like deep groves; they were hardly there at all. Placing one foot in front of the other, I closed the gap between us. He didn’t move – not an inch. He just sat peering at me from beneath the beak of his cap. Reaching out, I pushed it up and back so I could look upon his face. To see it made me gasp, and I stumbled backwards. It was Jack – it was my brother – but he looked different. He looked younger. He looked no more than thirty years of age. I looked deep into his eyes, and for the first time I didn’t see him hurting me. The crazy glint was still there, but his eyes didn’t shine as bright as before.
    “Are you real?” I whispered.
    Standing and towering over me like he always had, he pulled me close. “Do I feel real?”
    “Yes,” I said, looking up at him.
    “Then that’s all that fucking matters,” he grinned down at me. “Just me