of him touching me, I tried to push him from my mind. The feelings that I sometimes had for him scared me – but I think that’s what I secretly liked – the fact that he could make me feel this way.
Remembering the events of that night, my mind kept returning to what Taylor had said. What had he meant when he told me that I was unique? We’re all unique aren’t we? But I knew he had meant something more than that. Then the voice of Rom entered my head as he told me that I could look for my mother but I might not like what I see. Those images of the hairs in Henry Blake’s dead little hand swam back before me, followed by pictures of the hairs that I’d discovered caught in the teeth of the hairbrush I found in my locker – the locker I guessed had once been used by ‘Jessica Reeves’ – my mother. Had she really been at that crime scene? I’d accounted for everyone else that had been there. Taylor, Phillips, and the smoker. But who had that been? Not Potter as I’d thought – so who then?
The sound of tapping at my door dragged me from my thoughts. Pulling my bathrobe tight about me, I went and opened it. Roland stood on the other side, and I could hear his chest wheezing from his climb up the stairs. In his chubby hands he carried a silver tray. On it there was a steaming hot mug of coco and a plate of neatly cut sandwiches. Stepping aside, I waved Roland into my room.
“You’re very kind,” I said to him as he placed the tray on the desk.
“It’s no bother at all,” he said, turning around and looking at me. I noticed his eyes wander down, and following his gaze, I could see that my bathrobe had come open slightly, revealing my right leg up to the thigh. Feeling uncomfortable, I pulled the robe closed.
Sensing my discomfort, and without looking back at me, Roland shuffled towards the door and said, “Goodnight, Kiera.”
“Goodnight, Roland,” I said, closing the door behind him.
Crossing back to the table, I took a sip of the coco, and it tasted warm and sweet. Taking it with me into the bathroom, I turned off the taps. Fixing my hair into a bun at the base of my neck, I went back to my room and shrieked with surprise. Roland was back in my room, standing with his back against the closed door.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, gooseflesh crawling all over me. “I just want to talk,” he said, looking at me. Pulling my bathrobe tight again, I said, “I really don’t have time now Roland – I’m expecting a friend any minute.” Stepping away from the door and coming towards me, he said, “What I have to say won’t take long.” Backing away from him, I said, “Please Roland, if you wouldn’t mind saving this for tomorrow.” “What I have to say can’t wait until tomorrow,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. Realising that I was in serious trouble, I clenched my fists and shouted at him, “Roland, will you please leave my room!” Pulling off his shirt and dropping it to the floor, he didn’t take his eyes off me for a moment. His huge stomach was white, which made the wiry black hairs that covered it stand out even more than they should have. Once free of his shirt, his belly hung down over the top of his trousers like a mountain of white dough. Backing away towards the bathroom door, I looked for anything that I could use as a weapon against him. Glancing down at the floor, I could see that something had fallen from his shirt pocket as he had disregarded it. Screwing up my eyes, I could see that it was a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. Almost at once those flashbulbs went off behind my eyes and I saw snapshots of the base of the tree in the woods next to the body of the Blake boy. I saw glimpses of those cigarette butts left by the killer that had waited for the others in the woods.
As if to prove my visions and instincts right, Roland threw his head back and wailed like an animal in pain. Blinking to rid myself of those flashes, I looked at him. Roland’s whole body wobbled, as two black wings grew from his back. Unlike the