Simmer (24 page)

Kira looked across the room at Luke and
Tristan where they stood next to each other, backed by the wall of
old books. Each boy was just as confused as Kira was. What was
Diana's angle? Tristan nodded at her, telling her to go with it for
now.

"Fine," Kira said, sitting down across from
Diana in an armchair next to the desk.

"Excellent," Diana said, "I'll go first:
truth or dare?"

"Truth," Kira said. No reason to let Diana
dare her to bust into the other room or something. And it wasn't
like she had anything to hide.

Diana let her gaze rest on the two boys, each
one staring intently at Kira. With a smirk and a cocked brow, Diana
asked, "Have you ever lied to Tristan?"

"No, of course not," she said immediately.
But her body betrayed her. A rush of blood filled Kira's cheeks,
warming them to a slight blush. A jolt in her heart brought a
hammering sound to her ears. And, from the corner of her eye, she
watched Tristan shift the weight from one foot to the other. He
knew she had lied.

"Spare me, Kira, I know you're lying right
now," Diana said lightly. She lifted her hands, wove her fingers
together and rested her elbows on the desk. "If you're not going to
play by the rules..."

"Fine," Kira shifted in her seat, totally
uncomfortable by the change of events. "Yes, I have lied to
Tristan. Well, not so much lied as hidden parts of the truth."

"I've been alive for hundreds of years Kira
and that distinction still feels old to me. Care to share with us
all?" She rested her head on her hand, staring at Kira with an
innocent yet almost cunning expression. Her eyes were open like a
child's, but her smile was razor thin. "I mean we're all friends
here, aren't we?

Kira really wanted to slap Diana in the face
— no, not slap, punch her so hard she doubled over. But instead,
she looked at Tristan and played along with Diana's game. He looked
so handsome in his tuxedo, but so sad. This wasn't how it was
supposed to happen. This wasn't how he should find out about Luke's
connection with her or their almost kiss. And, Kira suddenly
realized, there was no reason he had to find out now. She had
another lie, something she had hidden from both boys and had been
meaning to spill. She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on the
them

"There's something I haven't told either of
you, something that I found out about myself." She paused to meet
their eyes. Tristan's held concern and confusion. Luke's confusion
and a hint of anger, letting Kira know he had been hoping she would
spill the other secret. "I found the missing pages. Well, actually
my grandfather gave me a copy, but I found out that the immunity
isn't really the reason mixed breed conduits have been forbidden."
Kira gulped when Diana leaned forward in her chair, listening
intently to this secret piece of otherwise lost information.
"Ancient conduits used to be uncontrollable and dangerous. They
used to kill more than just vampires. In moments of madness, they
burned human beings too. And that's the real reason the species
separated, to keep from ever having to sentence one of their own to
death."

She gulped and raised her eyes back up,
meeting Luke's first. It would hit him harder because he understood
better than anyone else what she meant. All of those times he had
pulled her back from insanity had much stronger implications now.
And he knew it too. Kira saw the realization pass over his
features: curious tilted head to furrowed confused brows to wide
shocked eyes to a hard and knowing frown.

Tristan on the other hand looked relieved in
a way, which Kira found darkly humorous. If anything, this
realization only brought them closer together and made them more
similar. The worse her fate got, the more he could be there for her
in a way Luke couldn't. Or maybe he was relieved because he, like
Diana judging by her shocked face, was expecting a different
confession. And Diana was clearly disappointed. She had obviously
been hoping to create a rift between Kira and Tristan, but the fact
that her plan backfired only made Kira feel better.

Kira did make a quick mental note to be more
truthful. Not that she ever thought she would find herself playing
truth or dare with a vampire ever again, but being a pathological
liar wasn't exactly on the to-do list.

"My turn," Kira said, this time crossing her
legs and looking snidely at Diana. "Truth or truth? I don't do
dares."

"Truth then, Kira."

"Where is my mother?"

"I don't know," Diana said with a shrug. Kira
stood, struggling to keep the power gathering in her body at
bay.

"What do you mean you don't know?" She
fumed.

"I don't know where she is," Diana smiled, "I
only know who has her. But, those are two very different questions
and it's not my fault you wasted your turn."

"Tell me," Kira yelled, not caring anymore.
She was done with this, done playing games and done with Diana.

Diana leaned back in the leather chair,
chuckling quietly to herself and smiling at how visibly angry Kira
was. Her teeth had elongated during her mirth, making her look more
evil and more deranged.

"I'll tell you something Kira. You are a
fool. All three of you are fools," Diana said, twirling her black
hair absently through her fingers as if bored. "Do you really think
we didn't know you were coming?" Diana's gazed traveled sidelong to
Tristan. "As soon as you showed up on Bronson's doorstep, I knew
Kira was with you. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist dropping
in uninvited. And I knew you would be idiotic enough to think you
had gotten the best of me. But," she said while rising, letting the
long train of her gown cover the floor behind her, "one scream is
all it takes for me to have the entire party in this room. And you
know how fast vampires can be."

Diana raced forward, reaching for Kira's
throat before she could register the movement, but Tristan got
there first. He caught Diana's hand in midair, easily keeping her
at bay.

"Who else knows we're here?" He asked in a
menacing deep voice.

"I told Bronson my suspicions," Diana said,
finally a little afraid. Even if Kira couldn't kill her, Tristan
could and the look in his eye was deadly.

"And why here? Why this ball?" He
questioned.

"There was someone I've been meaning to find
and I thought I'd find him here. And old friend I've lost touch
with." Diana smirked

"Who?" Kira asked, not liking the dark look
slowly gathering in Tristan's eyes.

"Oh, Tristan, you finally understand," Diana
said and patted his cheek with her free hand while slipping out of
his now loose hold.

"Is he here?" Tristan asked. He still had not
moved.

"Of course, Tristan. He's been here for
hours, enough time for us to catch up and chat. You must have
missed him outside," she pouted for effect.

Tristan finally moved. He grabbed Kira's arm,
lifting her easily into his arms as he flew towards the open
window. Diana blocked the exit, and for a second Kira thought he
was going to bowl her over, but Kira still had questions and she
didn't intend to leave without answers, no matter what Tristan
wanted.

"Tristan!" She said while struggling to break
free of his hold. "I'm not leaving without answers."

"But," Tristan started and she cut him
off.

"No!" She shouted, tired of all of this. The
two boys might have been doing this whole mortal enemies thing
longer than her, but they weren't the only ones who could make
plans. They weren't the only ones who had a say in what happened.
She forced herself out of Tristan's hold and stepped closer to
Diana. "Tell me who is here and what you know and who has my
mother."

"Or what?" Diana challenged back while
looking down her nose at Kira with an obviously superior
expression.

And with that Kira broke. All of the stress
she had been carrying for the past few weeks released like a
floodgate: Luke for trying to kiss her and awakening those feeling
inside of her, her grandfather for not welcoming her with open
arms, Tristan for picking the wrong time to be macho, Diana for
being Diana, and the historians for writing down truths about
herself she didn't want to hear.

Her rage flew out in the form of flames,
blasting Diana's skin. Diana laughed at the slight pain.

"I told you before, I'm immune," she smiled,
but she couldn't move from the corner Kira's Protector powers had
pressed her into.

And Kira? She ignored Diana. Her powers
pushed her beyond words. But, Kira sensed a difference this time.
She was focused and controlled, she wasn't mad. She knew exactly
what she was doing and for the first time, she was perfectly
content with her desire to kill. Diana had to die and if it took
all of her strength, Kira would find a way to make it happen.

She pushed out her Punisher fire, feeling for
the walls around Diana that kept her protected. Every vein in
Diana's body was covered in an invisible shell, some sort of magic
Kira couldn't break through. She felt along Diana's body with her
powers, searching for a weakness, but there wasn't one. She encased
her heart in flames, trying to dry it out, but nothing would stick.
The fire rolled around Diana. It slipped past her, unable to find
anything to hold on to.

Diana still sat crumbled in the corner
grinning at Kira's failed attempts.

But she didn't realize that Kira was reaching
that point, that place where she started to shut her powers off out
of fear that she would never return to herself. Kira wasn't afraid
this time.

Two images flashed through her mind, one of
Tristan bloodied and broken being forced to swallow her blood and a
second of Luke ashen and lying immobile on the ground. Like a
broken film reel, the two images flashed in her mind, one to the
other, back and forth until Kira couldn't tell what she was seeing.
She could only remember the excruciating pain of her heart ripping
from her chest in each moment.

She funneled the pain into her flames and
rode on her emotions, no longer searching for a weakness and
instead throwing everything she had into her power. She was too
focused on killing Diana to feel the walls around her powers come
down. All she felt was the extra burst of energy, the new scars
burning into her palms as power forced its way out.

Distantly in her mind, Kira heard Luke call
her name, but she shut him out. He wasn't going to stop her this
time. She didn't need saving. She wasn't falling into madness — she
was walking there willingly.

And that's when Diana stopped laughing.

They both felt it: the immunity waned. The
invisible wall wobbled against Kira's flames. The heat warped
whatever magic was there and melted it away. And then, as if Kira
were watching a movie in her head, a crack formed in the shell
encasing Diana's heart.

"Stop! I'll tell you everything," Diana
cried, trying to stand, but unable to move even a muscle. "Kira!
It's Aldrich. He has your mother. He's here. You can go find him."
She screamed with tears forming in her eyes. "He's had her for
years. I saw her with him ten years ago. She's alive!"

But it was too late. Kira was beyond stopping
and her flames unrelentingly continued.

"She's with Aldrich! Aldrich!" Diana yelled
and those were her last words, because the wall shattered like
glass and Kira's fire greedily swallowed Diana whole.

When it was done, Kira's mind snapped back
into focus. She had accomplished her goal and it was time stop.
Forcefully she shut her powers off and pulled all of the flames
back into her body. When the black spots receded and she regained
her vision, Kira noticed that scorch marks traveled up the walls
and across the ceiling. The curtains were burned apart. Giant
holes, black around the edges, spotted the fabric. A pile of dust
sat in the corner, a mixed of Diana's ashes and burnt paper.

Kira swallowed. She had done it. She had
broken through. She had killed Diana, but at what price? Her fire
had touched more than the vampire; it had burned more than Diana's
skin. Kira had willingly stepped right into the destiny she never
wanted.

She stumbled back, off balance by the
realization that the ancient conduits had been right. She was
dangerous. The thought pierced her like an arrow sinking deep into
her chest and she spun around, needing Tristan or Luke to say
something, to make her feel like this darkness suddenly sprouting
inside her, wrapping around her like a vine and suffocating her,
would go away.

But there was no solace in the scene behind
her. When she looked up for comfort, both boys instead jumped away
in fear.

Fear of me? Kira thought, confused. She
looked down at her hands, expecting to see starbursts on her palms,
but instead there were burns up to her wrists. And not just
redness, but raised boils like a mountain range on her hand.
Strange that it didn't hurt, she thought. Still, Kira lightly
touched her healing powers and watched as the burns faded to a dull
pink and then disappeared all together. She twisted her hands,
stretching soar muscles.

Again she looked up at Luke and Tristan. They
cringed with wide eyes.

"What?" Kira tried to say. It came out as
less than a whisper. Her throat ached from the effort. "What?" She
said more forcefully, slowly pulling her body back together. She
used her own strength to force the black doubts clouding her mind
away.

"Your eyes, Kira," Luke said, walking towards
her.

"They're blue," Tristan finished the
thought.

"What?" She asked, still groggy and confused,
not yet fully recovered from using her powers. Had she heard them
wrong?

Tristan reached her first and put his hands
on her cheeks.

"Your eyes are blue," he said while staring
into them, searching for something. Searching for me, Kira
realized. But he recovered from the shock and he still gazed at her
with love sparkling in his eyes. It helped ground her, helped pull
her mind back to reality.