Ignite (Midnight Fire Series Book One) (28 page)

Instantly her pulse quickened and her heart
began to race as she lost herself in the sensation. The butterflies
flying in her stomach seemed specifically tuned to Tristan,
appearing every time he touched her. A warm feeling spread from her
fingers to her toes, creating a titillating contrast as his cool
fingers brushed over her skin.

With heavy breaths, Tristan grabbed her
around the waist, easily flipping her over and pressing her body
down into the soft bed as he took charge. A familiar twinge of
excitement ran up Kira's spine, but she felt something else too,
almost like a hint of anger stirring distantly in her mind. And
then she heard a cough in the doorway.

"Sorry to interrupt," Luke said with a smile
on his face and a steely look aimed at Tristan. Kira sighed and
pulled back, trying to scoot out from underneath Tristan. For his
part, Kira noted wryly, Tristan made no move to help her escape and
instead let his weight hold her down. After a few seconds, which
seemed like a few hours, Kira freed herself from Tristan's
arms.

"Hi Luke," she smiled and sat up, trying to
fix her hair. Yes, she was happy to see her friend, but who
wouldn't be slightly annoyed at the interruption and very annoyed
at his obviously smug face? Yup, Kira mused, the coma hadn't really
changed a thing. Their mutual fear for her health had allowed Luke
and Tristan to stand in the same room once in a while, but they
were a long way away from friendship.

"Clearly, you're almost ready to go. Now, if
we could just find a way to teleport your room to Sonnyville..." He
surveyed the empty suitcases and piles of clothes all over the
floor. Kira threw a small pillow at him for the sarcastic remark,
and he jumped out of its path, holding his hands up in
surrender.

"Alright, alright, but in all honesty...what
the heck happened in here? It looks slightly like the Tasmanian
devil tore this place apart."

Kira shrugged. "This is just how I
pack."

"So, there's a method to the madness?"

"No, trust me," Tristan spoke up and turned
over to lean against Kira's pillows. Traitor, she thought, your
hair is still rumpled from our make-out session and you're siding
with Luke.

"So, it's a little messy. I'll be ready by
tomorrow, don't worry."

Luke copiously surveyed the room again with
eyes wide in doubt. "It's not like your going to see the
Queen—"

"There's a conduit queen?" Kira interrupted,
ready to freak out.

"No, the Queen of England... Did you hit
your head again?" Luke questioned, barely able to contain his
laughter.

"No," Kira huffed and picked up the closest
thing she could find, which happened to be a dress. She looked at
it and debated if she would need sundresses in Sonnyville. It
wasn't like she would be trying to land a date; she was going there
to learn how to fight. Kira cocked her head to the side, going back
and forth between the options.

"What's the big deal? Just put it in your
suitcase," Luke said, exasperated.

"That's what I said," Tristan chimed in
again and Kira dropped her hands to her side giving him a stern
look. It seemed they had no trouble ganging up against her, but
when she wanted everyone to get along they were enemies again. I
mean really, Kira thought, this is absurd.

A beep sounded from the street and Kira
threw the dress back onto the floor, excited for the escape. Their
whole gang was going out together, one last hurrah before Luke and
Kira left, which meant she could put off packing for a few more
blissful hours.

"Time to go!" Kira chirped and raced from
the room, not waiting for either of the boys. Her parents were gone
for the night, at a preschool summer event for her little sister
Chloe, so she walked right out the door and into Emma's car. Luke
appeared a minute later and hopped into the backseat.

Kira suspected that Tristan had already
slipped away. Her friends liked him, but the tension with Luke was
always obvious, and Kira and Tristan had both decided it was not
worth the battle, at least not on her last night in Charleston.

"So, where to?" Kira looked around, eyeing
her friends. As per usual, Emma drove and Kira sat in the front
seat, while the boys piled in the back. She took in Emma's short
jean skirt and professionally applied make-up, and looked back at
the boys again, seeing that Miles had replaced his usual comic book
t-shirt for a button down. It seemed as though everyone had gone
fancy for their last night.

It suddenly dawned on Kira how strange it
was that this would be the last time the five of them could hang
out, at least for while. They were sort of her family, especially
after helping with her recovery. But, with Miles going to Harvard,
Emma and Dave both going to Texas, and her and Luke "taking a year
off," things would definitely be changing. Kira wasn't sure what
she thought about it yet, but decided to just try to enjoy this
night. She needed to have fun, because even though Luke hadn't said
so, Sonnyville would be far more work than pleasure.

"Well," Emma began and Kira knew there was a
saga of a story about to begin. "I wanted to go out to a fancy
dinner and the boys wanted to play video games. So we decided that
we needed to meet in the middle. You know, not go too fancy but
still have fun. So, we thought about it and thought about it—"

"We're going to my place," Miles voiced up,
knowing Emma could have easily talked for another ten minutes
without reaching the point. She shot daggers at him through the
rearview mirror.

"So, yes, we're going to Miles' house. His
parents had to leave right after graduation, so we'll have the
place to ourselves. And, not that we really need to, but we thought
about it and—"

"Now we can throw that rager we've always
wanted to!" Luke cheered. Kira rolled her eyes when she heard the
slap of a high-five. Dave and Luke were clearly excited by the
idea. Kira, not so much.

"Wait, you threw a party?" She turned to
look at the three boys in the back seat, each with a goofy smile
plastered on his face. She had been hoping they would have some
time just the five of them, not a crazy high school party.

"Not my idea," Emma threw an apologetic look
in Kira's direction.

"C'mon. It'll be awesome. We'll be leaving
with a bang," Luke said. His hand landed on Kira's shoulder and he
shook her a little, trying, she assumed, to shake her into the
idea.

"So, where's Tristan?" Emma asked, clearly
trying to change the topic. Kira knew Emma was on her side. She
could already envision the two of them chatting by the punch bowl,
watching Luke and Dave try to convince Miles to talk to some girl,
knowing that it would fail miserably. Kira hoped he would have
better luck at Harvard; a fellow nerd would really love him, much
more than the cheerleaders or Goths that Luke and Dave antagonized
him into asking out.

"I didn't realize we were having a party, so
I told him to go home for a while. He has some packing to do. You
know he leaves for his backpacking trip around Europe tomorrow..."
Kira said, ending with the cover story she, Luke, and Tristan had
all decided on — Tristan was spending the summer in Europe, while,
totally randomly, Kira got a job at a restaurant in Orlando and
Luke was working at Disney World.

"Don't worry, I told him before we left.
He's going to stop by, I think," Luke said quietly from the back
seat.

Kira turned around, shocked, and heard Dave
mutter "dude" under his breath.

"What, what? I'm a nice guy," Luke said and
shrugged. Kira turned back around in her seat, stunned. It was no
secret that Luke hated Tristan; it meant a lot to her that he made
the gesture. Maybe, she thought ruefully, he was only being nice
because he knew she would be with him and not Tristan for the next
two months.

By the time Emma pulled over outside of
Miles' house, the party was already in full swing. His house had
been closed off, but his family owned an old plantation, so their
backyard was gigantic. With one look at the parked cars on his yard
and ring of headlights, all Kira could think was that his parents
would freak out when they got home. She couldn't imagine those tire
tracks would go away very fast. And, it looked as though their
entire class was there, dancing on the grass to music blaring from
a ton of cars set to the same radio station. Plastic cups already
spotted the ground and Kira saw that the football team had set up
multiple kegs in the beds of their pick-up trucks. She almost felt
strange as they approached the house she had visited so many times
before.

"We barely know these people," she whispered
to Emma. The two of them were arm in arm, a few feet behind the
boys who were rushing to join the fun.

"I know, but it'll be fun! And now, we'll be
the people who everyone remembers for throwing an awesome party
after graduation." Emma grinned at the thought. Kira started to
smile too; she could get on board with this. It would be far better
to be known as a member of the party-throwing brigade than the
weird coma girl.

Yeah, the last few weeks of school had been
fantastic with her friends and Tristan, but everyone gave her
strange looks. No one in the school really knew what happened on
the night of the eclipse except for Kira, Luke and Tristan. When
Tristan had rushed her to the hospital, Luke stayed behind to clean
up as much of the blood on her yard as possible. The cops still
came to her house and they had found traces of human blood despite
Luke's attempts, so they started investigating. There were rumors
that Tristan had beaten her up and Luke had to stop him, or that
Tristan and Luke tried to kill each other. The three of them had
tried to play it off as an animal attack, but it was still the town
gossip for weeks. After a while it became old news, but, in high
school, old news almost never disappeared completely. Going out
with a bang suddenly didn't seem half bad, and Kira let Emma lead
her forward to party.

They both grabbed diet sodas and walked over
to the boys who were stationed on Miles' porch, looking out over
the party surveying who they could get him to dance with.

"I say Susie Harp," Luke pointed at the
small, pixie-like girl with brown hair. Kira slapped his hand down
when she and Emma got closer.

"Stop pointing," she chastised and rolled
her eyes. Maybe Miles wasn't the problem; Dave and Luke could
easily be holding him back.

Luke ignored her and pointed at Susie again.
"Come on, she's cute and this is the last night I get to watch you
in action."

"No way man," Dave put his arm around Miles'
shoulder, steering him in the opposite direction. "Amy MacDougall,
she's the girl you should go for."

All five of them looked over at Amy, who was
dancing on the hood of a car while one of the basketball players
stood at the ready in case she fell over. Her dress had wet spots
from where she spilled her own drink all over herself, as Kira had
witnessed five minutes before. They all looked back at Dave — he
was clearly going for the 'she's drunk so she'll definitely dance
with you' approach.

"David," Emma started, pulling him away to
reprimand him for basically telling the group that Miles' only hope
was someone who had no control over her senses.

"So, I win. Susie it is," Luke said, pushing
Miles forward. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say okay, shook
his head to get in the zone, and then straightened his glasses
before walking over.

"This is going to be good," Luke put his arm
around Kira so they could watch together.

"Why? What do you know?" Kira asked, not
liking the mischievous glint in Luke's eye.

"Nothing, nothing," Luke shushed her.

"Luke," Kira said harshly. He looked over at
her, slightly deflated, as though Kira were totally ruining his
fun.

"Okay, so I might have already told Susie
that Miles had a crush on her, and she might have already told me
she would love to get to know him better, if you know what I mean."
He wiggled his eyebrows and they watched as Miles led Susie to the
pseudo dance floor that the circle of cars created. He shot both of
them a not-so-discrete thumbs up and Kira silently prayed he didn't
screw it up.

"You're quite the matchmaker," she
laughed.

"I do what I can," Luke said and looked over
at her. Their faces were close together, and Kira could almost feel
his pulse quicken. Not for the first time, she thought maybe she
was reading his mind, because Kira knew, before Luke even made a
move, where his thoughts were going. She broke his gaze, pulling
away, and Luke released his hold on her arm to step a few feet
backwards. When she heard his shuffling feet pause, Kira turned her
eyes around to face him, and eased her body back to rest against
the railing. The small space between them might as well have been
miles.

"So, what about you?" She asked, trying to
break the tension. "Amy's up for grabs, you can always try for one
last high school hurrah before we leave tomorrow."

Luke grinned at the joke, trying to ignore
the fact that Kira had very clearly just blown him off. She
wondered what would happen when they went to Sonnyville. He had not
been overtly obvious about his feelings for her, and sometimes Kira
thought she was making it up in her head, but at moments like this,
when she caught a glimpse of his small tendrils of longing, Kira
wondered what really went on behind his goofy exterior.

"So, are you excited for tomorrow?" He
asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall opposite her.
Under the porch lights, Kira thought his bleach blond hair seemed
to glow, and she realized she would be the only person for the next
few weeks who didn't have almost white locks.

"It's strange, to think about being
surrounded by conduits. I'm excited, but it's a little
nerve-wracking too," she said honestly.