Ignite (Midnight Fire Series Book One) (9 page)

"Look, Tristan, there’s no point hiding the
fact that you like me, from me I mean. I flipped through your
notebook again after I saw that you’d left it behind. I saw the
drawings you made of me." He looked up at her then, and Kira handed
his small moleskin back to him, happy to at least have that out of
the way. For some reason, she thought he was looking at her like
she was an unruly child who wouldn't follow instructions. Where he
got that from, she had no idea, but he continued with his speech so
she continued talking over him.

"They were really great actually, pretty
flattering," she smiled, hoping he would look at her again but he
didn’t. "Anyway, I think we should talk about what happened, not
here obviously, but somewhere where we can meet in private." They
both chose that moment to look around, and Kira saw they had the
attention of both Luke and Tristan’s friends. Yeah, she thought,
the classroom was definitely not the right place to have this
conversation, and she kind of hoped talking would lead to other
things like it had last time…

He finished reading his lines. "Hey Juliet,
it’s your turn." He smirked.

"Oh, right," she looked down at her book. "O
Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though Romeo," she tried to copy his
apathetic style of reading and was secretly overjoyed when he
laughed at her.

"I get it, I sounded like an idiot." She just
continued on, giving him the same silent treatment he had given
her. "Okay, here’s the truth Kira. We can’t talk here and we
shouldn’t even be talking now or maybe ever."

"You told me that already." She stopped
reading.

"Yet, you seem to have trouble understanding
it. English is your first language, right?" She rolled her eyes at
the joke. "Like I said before, we just can’t ever be."

"I understand what you’re saying, but I also
know you don’t mean it." She leaned closer to him to prevent being
overheard.

"I do," he forced the point.

"Oh really," she tried to push him now. "It
didn’t seem that way when you kissed me."

"Kira, forget that ever happened, okay?"

"Or what? You don’t scare me."

"I should," he said and shot Kira a lethal
look. His eyes changed color to the lightest blue she could imagine
and they held her captive, not in the romantic way, but as though
she were a prisoner held paralyzed. His eyes were cold and made her
shiver like she had been dropped in an arctic pool, and slowly his
pupils began to expand, overtaking his eyeballs.

Kira was scared, and more than that, she felt
like he knew it and didn’t care. Her fear at not being able to move
was slowly surpassed by a swell of power that stirred within her as
a feeling of warmth spread to her hands. Kira broke free from him
and looked at the floor. Her fingertips still tingled with whatever
had coursed through her and allowed her to break his gaze. Kira
leaned back against her chair and away from him. She touched her
fingers to her cheek and felt them burn into her skin.

"What the hell was that?" She asked
unsteadily, still not looking up. The heat emanating from her hand
absorbed all of Kira’s thoughts.

"Me," he said with the venom gone from his
voice. She looked at him again and caught the unbearably sad
expression in his eyes before he looked away from her.

Or me? She thought to herself feeling the
heat finally ebb.

"Rewriting Shakespeare, are we?" Mr. Bell
walked between them and Kira couldn’t help but let a guilty look
cross her face. They most certainly had not been following the
assignment, but she wanted to hug Mr. Bell for breaking the silence
and pausing her thoughts. "Tristan, you seem to have a hard time
following the classroom rules." Tristan looked at Mr. Bell
defiantly, and Kira felt a little sorry that she had caused the
whole thing. "What were you and Mrs. Dawson talking about so
passionately? It definitely was not Romeo and Juliet."

"Screw you," Tristan replied and Kira heard
every student in the classroom inhale in shock. She couldn’t tell
if he said it just to be defiant or to hide their conversation from
his friends.

"Well, Mr. Kent," Tristan looked up at the
use of his last name. "Perhaps you and Miss Dawson would like to
show everyone how it’s done. Tomb scene. Front of the class. Now."
Kira stood and practically pulled Tristan from his seat to stop him
from getting both of them punished with extra homework.

As they walked towards the front of the
class, he whispered to her, "think you can be quiet and play dead
for a few minutes?"

When they reached the front, she turned to
face him and, with his body hiding her face from the rest of the
class, said defiantly, "think you can pretend to not enjoy kissing
me for your friends?"

"Think you can for Luke?" he smirked and
moved aside. Damn him, she thought, he always has to have the last
word.

"You can start with Romeo’s monologue," Mr.
Bell prodded and Tristan began to read. Kira listened intently for
the cue that meant he would lean down to give her a quick kiss in
front of the classroom. As she listened, she realized he was much
better at reading than he let on. His voice was full of passion as
he paused at the appropriate moments and rushed through some lines
as though the words were his own. Kira lay still on the front table
with closed eyes, but was sure he had captivated the entire
classroom as he read Romeo’s lines, and she felt herself fall for
him a little bit more the longer he spoke.

"Eyes, look your last." She felt his gaze
even through closed lids.

"Arms, take your last embrace." His body
gently settle on top of her own. He seemed to speak only into her
ear.

"And lips," he whispered and ran his thumb
along the edge of her lower lip, something the script definitely
didn’t call for. "Oh you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous
kiss, a dateless bargain to engrossing death."

He lifted himself off of her to continue
reading. Kira heard him utter the last few lines and recognized the
swish of his clothes as he lifted his arm to swallow invisible
poison. "Oh true apothecary, thy drugs are quick," he spoke with a
stalled voice. She felt his hands fall on either side of her face
and heard the desk creek as he leaned slowly down until she knew
from the brush of warm air that his lips were an inch from her
own.

"Thus with a kiss I die." For what seemed
like a millennium, Kira laid still waiting, until finally, in the
softest kiss she could ever imagine, his lips landed on her own and
remained there for a few seconds longer than they should have. Her
lips curved into a smile and she felt his do the same.
Unfortunately, he then pretended to fall off the desk and die.

Shoot, Kira thought listening to the
engrossed silence of the class, how the heck am I supposed to
follow that?

Mr. Bell spoke for the other characters,
until she knew it was her time to wake. Kira opened her eyes slowly
and sat up to speak her lines to the friar. She tried to look
appropriately shocked when she was told of Romeo’s death, but heard
some people snicker at her failed attempt. And just when Kira was
supposed to have her own monologue, the bell thankfully rang and
saved her from the embarrassing experience.

Kira looked down at Tristan and almost
believed him dead, until he jumped up, winked at her and fled from
the classroom. Kira sat for a moment longer, trying to guess at who
came out of that exchange with the upper hand and wondering if
Tristan would agree to talk things over in private. More
importantly, she felt her own cheek, trying to recall the
overwhelming warmth that spread from her hand to that very spot.
Kira had no idea what had happened, and she didn’t know who to ask
for answers.

Kira sighed, lifted herself from her seated
position on the makeshift tomb, and walked over to gather her
things. When she left the classroom, Luke was waiting for her.

"So…that was interesting," he said and fell
in step with her with shrugged shoulders and hands in his jeans
pockets. Kira remained silent. "I personally thought you were
captivating as Juliet. Great idea to put a hand to your chest then
forehead and pretend to faint when you saw Romeo had died. Classic
move." Kira smiled and shoved him away from her for making fun.

"I’m not an actress and I never said I was,"
she said in her defense.

"Trust me, I know," Luke jumped away from the
shove he had already anticipated. "Want to talk about it?"

"What?" She tried to hide the frown on her
face, and pulled her purple sweater tighter around her torso.

"Whatever it was you and Tristan got in
trouble for fighting about," he prodded. Kira knew it hurt Luke
that she was starting to keep secrets from him, and that there
might be something she would rather talk to Tristan about.

"I was just thanking him for saving me in
that surfboard accident. I never really got the chance before."
Kira wanted to let Luke know the truth, but knew she couldn’t, no
matter how much she hated to shut him out. He had been there as her
friend since she walked through the doors of this school a month
ago, and she really didn’t want to hurt him. For a moment, Kira had
thought she would tell him about Tristan, but she remembered
Bethany and knew Luke would never understand. He was too
emotionally involved to put himself in her shoes.

"I bet he didn’t want to hear any of it."

Kira shrugged. "Something like that."

"Cheer up." Luke put an arm around her. "Want
to skip class and buy some ice cream? I wouldn’t mind playing hooky
for the rest of the day." She smiled at the mischievous look in his
eye.

"And how are we supposed to do that?" She
asked, knowing the campus security would definitely report two
students ditching class.

"Follow me you must, young padawan," Luke
said, quoting Star Wars and attempting to use a Yoda voice. He
started running down the hallway, and she ran after knowing they
were already late to class and had nothing left to lose. He stopped
at the hallway intersection in front of the main exit and peered
around the corner.

Out of no where, Kira saw Luke produce a
straw and a small rolled up piece of paper to send the most perfect
spitball she had ever seen, well the only spitball she had ever
seen, into the head of a security guard down the hall. She covered
her mouth to stop from laughing as Luke sailed another one into his
head. The security guard spun around angrily, and Kira and Luke
snuck into an open janitors closet. They heard the guards heavy
steps as he ran down one hall, paused and made a wrong turn down
the hallway leading away from them.

"Go, go, go." Luke pushed her out of the
closet and they ran for the door. Once they made it through the
exit, Kira forced Luke to keep running and she bit back her own
laughter until they made it to the parking lot.

"Ice cream, my lady?" Luke pretended to bow
and offer his arm. Kira accepted.

They marched arm in arm over to his car and
sat down safely inside before erupting into a fit of laughter that
only stopped when they both had tears streaming down their cheeks.
Luke revved the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. They left
the school completely behind them. Kira couldn’t think of a more
perfect ending to the day, or of a more perfect friend for that
matter. She smiled to herself, glanced at Luke when she caught him
looking at her, and turned up the music to take on lead vocals.

A week later, Kira opened her locker to see a
portrait of herself leaning up against her textbooks. She grabbed
the small paper that held a close-up of her face with a dusting of
light curls around the edges and knew it was a message from
Tristan. She turned the paper over and saw a note scribbled in
cursive on the back.

"Meet me in the auditorium at lunchtime."

She noticed he didn’t even sign his name,
like he knew she had been waiting for a sign from him. She of
course had been waiting, but still, the arrogance of assuming he
was the only guy who would leave her a note! Kira didn’t care
though, because just like in Charleston, Tristan had been the one
to break the silence, which meant he really couldn’t resist her
either.

"What’s that?" Emma had snuck behind Kira
without her noticing. Kira turned, clutching at her chest.

"Good lord, you just gave me a heart
attack."

"Sorry," Emma said without really meaning it
as she tried to peer closer at the paper Kira had quickly stuffed
inside her binder. She didn’t want to share Tristan’s drawing, but
she would definitely tell Emma what it said.

"Let’s just say our little scheme worked and
I won’t be at lunch today," Kira tried to play it cool and not give
away how excited she was.

"Oo, scandalous. Was that a love note?" Emma
looked dreamy eyed.

"I don’t know, but I’m willing to try and
find out," Kira said before slamming her locker closed and
following Emma to class where the gossip was quickly overtaken by
the need to pay attention to their teacher’s lecture on
differential equations.

When lunch rolled around, Kira dodged the
crowd and went in the opposite direction towards the auditorium on
the complete other side of the school. She arrived before Tristan
and walked past the rows of chairs up towards the stage where the
set for the December musical
White Christmas
was being
prepared. Her school in New York only allowed secular performances,
and she did kind of like that people got into the Christmas spirit
here. Of course, it was the middle of October, so really only the
drama crew had reached the point of singing Christmas carols, but
she could anticipate how crazy school would be right after
Thanksgiving.

A half painted Christmas tree stood
surrounded by boxes cutout like presents, but not decorated, in the
middle of the stage. There was a piano in the corner and a costume
rack held forties style dresses and suits for the actors. Kira
scrambled on stage and walked around the yards of fake pine and
tinsel that already covered it.