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roof, and the gentle rise and fall of our breathing.
    “I love you, Kiera,” he had whispered against my cheek as he lowered himself onto me.
    “I love you, too,” I smiled, running my hands through his untidy hair. Then those images changed, and it wasn’t me I could see beneath him, it was Sophie, and I was nothing more than the statue outside in the rain, peering in through the window.
    With my stomach cramping, and feeling sick at the images of them together, I leant forward and gagged. A thin stream of vomit swung from my chin, and tears rolled down the length of my face. I armed the vomit away and sucked in two large mouthfuls of air. I staggered off from the path which entered the crop of trees.
    With my legs feeling like jelly beneath me, I fell against a tree and slid down the length of its trunk.
    I pulled my knees up against my chest, and covering my face with my hands, I cried. How could Potter hurt me like this? What had I done to deserve it?
    I rocked backwards and forwards slowly beneath the canopy of trees and I couldn’t care if I never saw Potter again. There was only one man that I wanted to be held and comforted by right now, and that was my father. Wiping snot from my upper lip and the tears from my cheeks, I stood up. I wouldn’t waste another tear on Potter – he didn’t deserve one of them. With the trees offering me a place to hide, I loosened my coat and released my wings. I trampled slowly over the mush of fallen leaves until I found a hole in the branches above me. The morning sky looked white, like a bed of snow. Spreading my wings, I tilted my head back, pressed my arms flat against my sides, and shot up into the sky, hiding myself and the pain amongst the clouds.

Chapter Ten
    Potter
     
    Murphy drove the police van to the rear of a rundown-looking cottage. The outside was weather-beaten white, but most of this was hidden by blotches of yellowy-green moss and ivy. The roof slated downwards and was covered in thick rows of grey slate. There was a chimney which leant to one side and looked as if it might just collapse into a pile of brick and dust at any moment.
    “It’s nice to see that you’ve kept up your high standards of living,” I said, peering through the mud-splashed windscreen.
    “The rent’s cheap and it’s remote,”
    Murphy said, steering the van into an equally rundown-looking ramshackle of a barn. He killed the engine and climbed out, a trail of pipe smoke drifting out behind him. Once out of the police van, I followed Murphy, Kayla, and Sam out of the barn. Murphy swung the heavy-looking doors closed and headed towards the cottage. He took a key from his trouser pocket and opened the back door.
    The kitchen was poky, but snug-looking.
    There was a cooker and stove, a sink, and a small, round table with chairs. Tatty-looking curtains hung over grimy windows, and Murphy pulled them shut, even though it was still morning. The kitchen was thrown into semi darkness. There was a lamp on the table and Murphy switched it on, but it did little to lighten the gloom. Murphy kicked off his mud-stained slippers and stood before us in a pair of threadbare socks. The big toe of his right foot stuck out through a hole in them. He left the kitchen and we followed him into a small living room. There was a dusty-looking two-seater sofa and a couple of mismatched armchairs. A staircase on my right disappeared up into darkness. Part of the stone floor was covered with a faded rug. Murphy knelt down before a stone fireplace set into the wall. The grate was piled with logs. We watched as he took some sheets of newspaper from a pile next to the fireplace. He rolled them up, twisting their ends into points. Then, taking his lighter from his shirt pocket, he lit the pieces of newspaper, and then stuffed them between the gaps in the logs.
    “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, once the logs started to smoulder.
    Plumes of thick, grey smoke started to billow up the chimney and the room