Blaze (5 page)

So, he took her hand and led her out of the
airport into a foreign city, trying to find some way to bring her
back. He brought her to the Thames, the furiously churning river
that cut right through the heart of London. In an odd way, it
reminded Kira of the choppy waves that cut along the shore of Folly
Beach, the same ones that had calmed her the day Luke had told her
what she really was. Perhaps it was the memory of Luke helping her
through one of the hardest days of her life, but something about
the speeding water pricked Kira to life, giving her one final
idea.

Stepping away from Tristan’s sturdy body and
the arms holding her upright, Kira collapsed onto a bench and
dialed Luke’s family, praying he had followed through on his plans
to fly to Sonnyville.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice answered, light and
musical.

“Mrs. Bowrey? It’s Kira. Is Luke there?”

“Oh, one second,” Kira heard the scuffle of
a hand closing over the receiver. Luke was definitely there—the
only question was if he would admit it.

“Hello,” a deep, hollow voice answered after
a minute. Kira barely recognized the hard sound—it was scratchy and
unforgiving.

“Luke,” Kira sighed with relief. “I tried
calling. I swear, I called you a thousand times. The plane took off
and then you wouldn’t answer any of my calls. I’m so sorry. I’m so
so sorry, but—”

“My phone broke,” was his curt reply.

“Oh?” Kira sat up straighter, hoping this
would be easier than she thought.

“I threw it at the wall.”

“Oh,” Kira said while sinking back down in
her seat, totally unsure of herself. Did he throw it at a wall
before or after she’d tried calling him?

“Luke—”

“Kira—”

They both quieted.

“I did it to keep you safe,” Kira pleaded in
a voice barely above a whisper.

“No, you left without me to keep me safe.
Abandoning me in the airport, leaving me with a note, lying to me
for more than a week—all of that was just… was just… just…”

“Fear?” Kira supplied.

“I was going to say cowardice,” he responded
and Kira winced at the word, but she couldn’t deny it.

“You’re right. I was afraid to tell you the
truth. I was afraid of how you’d react and afraid I wouldn’t be
able to leave without you if you knew.”

“I don’t forgive you,” he finally said. His
voice still sounded strained and dark—completely different than the
lighthearted tone Kira was used to.

“Can you forgive me?” Kira asked.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. Kira hung on
the pause in his voice.

“That’s enough for now,” Kira sighed, a
sense of light was finally returning to her voice. Her fingers
began to warm and the fuzz around her brain began to clear. Hope.
It was enough to bring some fight back into her senses.

“Where are you?”

“England,” she said, not giving up any other
information.

“That’s a pretty big place,” he trailed off,
inviting her to finish his thought.

“If I tell you where I am, where Aldrich is,
all of this will have been for nothing. So, I’m sorry again, but I
won’t tell you where I’m going. I did this to keep you safe and
that means keeping you out of the loop.”

“Fine,” he said, the hardness returning to
his voice, “but I’m coming to England. I’ll stay with the
Protectors in London.”

“Luke,” she said sternly. Why was he so
stubborn?

“Once I tell the Council where you are,
they’ll send me to London anyway.”

“Fine,” Kira said. He was annoying, but he
had a point.

“I have to go,” he said curtly.

“Before you do, you have to understand. This
wasn’t about choosing Tristan over you, or trying to hurt you, it
was about saving my mother and keeping you away from Aldrich’s
power. You have to understand that. You do, don’t you?”

“Goodbye, Kira,” he sighed heavily into the
phone before clicking it off. Kira stared at the blank screen,
knowing that was the best conversation she could have hoped for,
but feeling unsatisfied with the outcome. Still, he had talked to
her and he was coming to England for her—eventually, Luke would
forgive her. He was too nice and too good not to.

Kira stared at the water, letting that
belief sink in before glancing at Tristan. He leaned against a lamp
pole with his arm crossed, eyes focused on the horizon where the
river disappeared around a bend and the city turned to nothing but
fog. But for his piercing blue eyes and jet-black hair, he could be
a marble statue. His stance was unflinching. His mind was focused
inward and not on the streets around him.

Her attachment to Luke clearly stung, and
Kira realized her damage control duties weren’t finished yet.

Sidling up next to him, Kira threw her arms
around Tristan and leaned against his body.

“Ready to have some fun?” She asked and
placed her chin on his chest to look up into his face.

“Shouldn’t we be heading to Aldrich’s?” He
eyed her warily, unsure of the change in her mood and what really
caused it.

“Well, I’ve never been to London and I don’t
think a few hours alone with my boyfriend will make much of a
difference. Let’s explore.” Her words were half true. Kira was
anxious to get to Aldrich and to figure out the mystery of her
mother, but she had a feeling the problem wouldn’t be solved in one
night and she needed the alone time with Tristan. Too much had
happened recently, and they needed to form a completely united
front if they were going to defeat Aldrich.

“Where to?” Tristan asked, still slightly
rigid. His lips curved into an almost unnoticeable smirk, but Kira
was determined to get him really smiling again.

She looked down the river and saw a huge
white dome in the distance—some sort of church for sure. It might
be interesting, but Kira continued scanning the horizon. Shifting
her gaze to the left, Kira spotted houses, a sweet waterside walk.
Gazing further, the parliament building popped up behind a stone
bridge and then a giant white Ferris wheel and—wait, Kira thought,
what? A gigantic white Ferris wheel with pods gleamed against the
afternoon sky and reflected into the water of the river. It was
twice the size of the surrounding buildings, and all Kira could
think was that was definitely where she wanted to go.

“There,” Kira told Tristan and pointed down
the river.

“The London Eye? Of course,” he nudged her,
“typical that in a city so drenched in history, you would pick the
one modern attraction.”

Kira rolled her eyes and tugged on his hand,
“Just come on.”

He followed her, and on the long walk over,
Kira was grateful that Tristan had thought to rent a car and park
it in a garage for the day. Expensive? Yes. Completely worth not
having to lug their bags around for hours? Definitely!

Tristan relaxed as they neared the large
structure. He slipped his fingers through hers, intertwining their
hands, and softened his muscles when Kira leaned against his arm.
Just a couple taking an afternoon stroll, Kira thought while
glancing at all of the completely normal people around them who
were doing the same thing. It was slightly overcast, but the sun
peeked through the clouds every so often, casting diamonds along
the choppy water. To Kira, it was perfect.

When they reached the London Eye, there was
a bit of a line, but nothing too bad. After waiting for fifteen
minutes, they slipped into one of the pods, which was essentially a
glass globe large enough to hold ten or fifteen people. Before
anyone else had the chance to follow them inside, Tristan pushed
the door closed and the metal, automatically programmed to close in
thirty more seconds, screeched in protest.

An employee rushed over and smacked the
glass, trying to reopen the door. Tristan shrugged and shook his
head in fake bewilderment, but the employee didn’t look fooled. In
fact, he looked downright suspicious.

Trying to hide her smirk, Kira stared in the
opposite direction and put her hands against the window, searching
for buildings she might recognize as the wheel turned to lift them
higher into the air.

“What’s that?” She asked Tristan, pointing
through the glass at a huge white dome that stretched above the
city’s low buildings.

Tristan, who had lived in London during the
nineteen sixties, put an arm over her shoulder and leaned over to
follow the line of her finger. “That’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. Over
to the right of it,” he continued, taking Kira’s hand in his and
moving her pointer finger to a big blue and gray stone bridge,
“that’s the Tower of London and the Tower of London Bridge.”

“Is it falling down?” Kira joked and felt
the cool air of his exhale along her neck, making the little hairs
along her soft skin rise. She glanced back, meeting his eyes for a
second. They crinkled into a smile, but he looked back out at the
horizon, moving her hand to a new spot.

“Do you see that circular straw roof? You
can only just make it out, right along the corner of the river,
almost across from the Tower of London.”

Kira nodded.

“That’s the Globe Theater, where—”

“Where all of Shakespeare’s plays were
performed,” Kira interrupted and glanced back at his shocked
features. “Hey, I paid attention in English class… sometimes.”

“Really? I thought you spent most of English
class distracting me with notes.” Kira elbowed him in the ribs, but
he of course didn’t budge at all. No fun, Kira thought. She
couldn’t exactly push him around.

“Whoa, selective memory man, I think you
were the one who distracted me with little portraits of my profile
and my eyes—and my lips a few times, when you wanted me to know
exactly what was on your mind.” She raised her eyebrow at him in a
challenge.

“You forgot whispering lines into your ear
when our teacher wasn’t looking,” Tristan said softly, leaning
closer to her body so they touched all the way from their legs to
their shoulders. Kira leaned back, closing the distance, and
Tristan wrapped his arms around her, holding her closer. She
covered his arms with her own, hugging him back.

“So long as I can breathe or I can see,”
Tristan spoke lowly, in a deep sultry rumble, and Kira closed her
eyes for a moment, “so long lives your love which gives life to
me.”

“What’s that from?” Kira asked, still
keeping her eyes closed.

“
Much Ado About Nothing
,” he told
her, “you’d like that one—it’s a comedy.”

“Good, because after a while
Hamlet
made me want to gouge my eyes out,” Kira said with a laugh.

“You might like
King Lear
, then,”
Tristan said sarcastically. Kira looked at him quizzically, her
eyes furrowed in confusion. “There’s a character who has his eyes
pulled out…” Kira continued to stare at him blankly. “Never mind,”
he said with a sigh, which did make Kira smirk.

“You’re too worldly for me,” she teased.

“Let me put my years of knowledge to better
use,” he laughed and spun Kira around to point out London’s
landmarks: Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace and more museums than Kira
could count. He explained to her that since the city was built so
long ago, many of the buildings were much lower than those in some
American cities, like her beloved New York. In the distance, a ring
of skyscrapers poked out of the skyline, looking unnatural against
the beautiful and historic stone buildings of the old city.

Finally, they reached the peak of the Ferris
wheel and turned around to gaze at the other side of London.
Immediately, a gorgeous gothic-inspired building with pointed
spires caught her attention. Against the blue river, and with the
sun momentarily freed from the clouds, it seemed made of gold
rather than stone. Parliament, Kira realized, remembering the
photographs from her history textbook.

“I recognize that from
Peter Pan
.”
She pointed at Big Ben.

“You would,” he said wryly before going into
the history of the architecture. The building had apparently burned
down multiple times and was at one time used as a royal palace.
Kira listened politely, not really interested in the history but
loving how excited Tristan was to talk about it. Get him started on
history or art, and there was almost no way to make him stop. But,
Kira knew she was the same way with food and she loved that he was
so passionate about certain things.

His eyes lit up the more he spoke and Kira
zoned out, blocking out his voice to instead study his features.
His lips were asymmetrically curved, causing one of his dimples to
emerge while the other stayed hidden in his cheek. Against pearly
skin, his dark lashes perfectly framed his eyes, currently icy with
his excitement. Higher up, his black hair was messy and fell
slightly over his smooth forehead. Kira ached to reach her hand out
and push the stray locks from his skin, but resisted.

Instead she let her mind wander. Leaning
against him in this foreign city felt so familiar, almost like
home. The first time they met, he had been doing the same thing:
showing her around Charleston, pointing out the famous spots and
talking about the academic history. Still though, Kira felt darker
thoughts stirring behind his excited expression. Just like in
Charleston, none of the history he mentioned was personal. Kira had
opened him up so much, had freed him from his own guilt in so many
ways, but still he was somewhat guarded around her—almost as if he
worried that she would push him away if he told her everything.

“Kira?”

She blinked, finally realizing that he had
stopped talking and was staring at her knowingly.

“I’m sorry!”

“I did it again. You are so bored right
now,” Tristan smirked, daring her to lie.

“Not bored, per se…” Kira trailed off,
avoiding the question. “It’s cute!”

“You used to say I was mysterious and sexy…
now I get cute,” he said with mock sadness.