Free Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series Two#7) by Tim O'Rourke Page A

wolves would be running the show for much longer if they remembered what the world used to be like?”
    I looked away from Lilly and out across the station. I watched the line of dead people wait for their ticket to travel. I looked at Noah as he happily punched each of them out a ticket. Then slowly turning my head to look at Lilly, I said, “This is what this station is for. This is what Noah is doing. Every time he gives out one of those tickets and these people make journeys back into their past lives, they are pushing open holes in that tracing paper that separates the two worlds.”
    “Exactly,” Lilly nodded with a smile. “Noah is making cracks. With each journey that is made, more appear until this whole pushed world the Elders created falls apart, revealing the one underneath. And just like I remembered Murphy and my past life, so will everyone else remember theirs, too.”
    “So if Noah and you have all this figured out, what are me and Jack doing here?” I asked.
    “Whoever the photographer is, he or she is passing through the cracks. They could be waiting in line right now. So we need you to unmask this photographer so we can discover if he or she is working for us or against us,” Lilly explained.
    “If you don’t know where to find the photographer, how do you expect me and Potter to know where he is?” Jack asked, and he was rubbing his temples again with his fingertips as if suffering a migraine.
    “You might not know where the photographer is now,” Lilly smiled, “but you know where he has been.”
    “So… what? I’m gonna somehow go back to the day he took a picture of me with the dead wolf boy and unmask him?” I scoffed. “Is Jack meant to rip back the photographer’s hood as he’s taking a picture of himself and Kiera?”
    “You’ve got the plan kind of half right,” Lilly said. “Neither you and Jack can go back and come in contact with yourselves. Noah says that would be really, really bad.”
    “So if we can’t go to where and when we can be sure the photographer will appear, how the fuck are we meant to catch him?” I quizzed.
    “You said that the photographer left a picture for your friend Isidor in a grate leading down into The Hollows,” Lilly reminded me. “You also said that he left a picture of Kiera and her father in her apartment. So there are two times and places you know for sure the photographer will show up.”
    “So you want us to go back together?” Jack asked, his eyes now shining brightly again.
    “Not together,” Lilly said. “We don’t have time for that – and besides, what if you both missed him? We only have one shot at this. We stand a better chance of you finding the photographer if you split up.”
    I was still trying to get my head around what it was Lilly was asking me and Jack to do, when she stirred me out of my thoughts by touching me on the shoulder and saying, “Potter, you go back and wait for the photographer to place the picture in Kiera’s apartment.” Then turning to look at Jack, she added, “And you, Jack, go back to the place where the photograph was placed for Isidor to find. One of you is sure to discover the identity of this photographer.”
    “But I haven’t got a clue where this grate is going to be…” Jack started to protest.
    “I know where it is – well, I can point you in the right direction at least,” I said, trying to remember the story Isidor told us. “You need to find a place called Lake Lure. Isidor and his girlfriend, Melody Rose, used to sit and read by the lake there.”
    “Sounds like a right barrel of laughs,” Jack snarled.
    “Find Isidor and you’ll find the place where he used to creep out from The Hollows and where the photographer leaves the picture for him,” I said, getting to grips with the plan.
    “And what about you?” Lilly asked me, a look of concern on her face.
    “I think I can find Kiera’s apartment all right,” I said. “It will feel strange to see her again. I