Ignite (Midnight Fire Series Book One) (7 page)

Kira smiled back and started walking. As she
passed through the hidden entry, she found a wooden staircase that
creaked when she put her weight on the first step. She saw the
light disappear and heard the door shut as she continued to climb
with Tristan following behind her.

When she reached the top, she could see the
structure of the arched ceiling, and knew they were above one of
the balconies. Kira tried not to touch any of the dirt and dust
that she was sure held tons of nasty insects she would rather keep
away from, and followed Tristan’s exact movements as he confidently
strode towards a second door. Cobwebs draped from the handle and
Tristan swiped them away. She knew they were definitely not
supposed to be up here, but was too intrigued to see what waited at
the end of the climb and was too scared to turn around and face the
darkness alone.

Kira’s breath became labored as they walked
further and further up the never ending staircase she could only
assume belonged to the steeple. Finally, she saw light and as she
turned around the circular steps. A window appeared. She peeked
through the grimy glass to see that they were well above the city
skyline.

"We’re almost at the top," Tristan looked
back to tell her as if he had heard her stop. Kira started climbing
again, energized by the fact they had almost reached their
destination. At last, the steps gave way to a wooden platform and
Kira saw church bells and a long rope that hung through a hole in
the floor. She followed Tristan around through the maze of bells,
until he finally sat down on a cushioned bench right next to a huge
window. He took his sleeve and cleaned the dust away, so when Kira
looked outside, she could see for miles.

"Wow," was all she could say. Kira looked out
towards the harbor and saw Fort Sumter and Battery Park from a new
angle. The mansions seemed small, and even the trees looked like
toys from that high up. She swore she could see all the way to the
ocean and counted the sailboats in the harbor that looked more like
white speckles than large ships.

"I know, it’s pretty amazing right? Best view
in the city." Tristan motioned to the other side of the bench. She
sat down while still soaking in the scene.

"How’d you find out about this place?" Kira
looked at him and noticed he was just as caught up by the sight as
she was.

"My mother showed me," he paused and Kira saw
his eyes lose focus as he jumped back into his own memory. "It was
a long time ago," he said after a few moments of silence.

"Do you miss her?" She asked, guessing she
must have died when he was young. Tristan nodded and she saw him
retreat again.

"You can talk to me," she reached out to grab
his hand. He met her gaze when their fingers touched. She felt the
sadness in his melancholic blue eyes, but didn’t know what to do
about it.

"I believe you," he grasped her hand and they
remained quiet for a moment, just feeling comforted in one
another’s presence.

Kira looked at her palm resting on Tristan’s
lap and wondered if she could have ever guessed that the day would
lead her here. In the corner of her eye she noticed something
peeking out of Tristan’s pocket—something she hadn’t seen when he
had been standing.

"What’s that?" She asked and he followed her
eyes to see what she meant. Kira watch him pull a small moleskin
notebook from his pocket and accepted it when he handed it to
her.

"It’s just sketches, you can take a look if
you want."

"You draw?" She opened the book.

"Just as a hobby."

Kira imagined more than saw his shrug because
she quickly became engrossed by his small pencil drawings. There
were pages of hands that were perfectly shaded and seemed to leap
from the paper. There were outlined sketches of people playing in
parks, dogs running and children hanging on swings. She came upon a
series of pages dedicated to different people sitting on
benches—one an old woman whose laugh lines told the story of a
beautiful life, another a homeless man who was draped in newspapers
for warmth, a third a couple holding hands and staring out towards
their future.

"Tristan, these are amazing," Kira told him
without pausing to look up. She continued to flip through the small
notebook and slowly take in his work. "Seriously, this isn’t just a
hobby."

"Thanks," he told her when she gave it back
to him.

"Have you ever thought about art school?"

"Not for me," he shook his head while
stuffing the notebook back into his pocket.

"Why not? You should let people teach you.
Those drawings have a real personality to them. I can tell exactly
who the people you are picturing are just by the expressions you
give them." Tristan shrugged in response, which just made Kira push
the point even more, "I get the whole bad boy thing you do, but I
know it’s just a front. You really care about people. I can tell
from the drawings that you choose people you feel for in some way."
He sighed when she finished talking, as if he had known she would
notice that but had hoped she wouldn't. Then his expression changed
so his lip curved up and his eyes gleamed in a mischievous way.

"A front, huh? I just broke you into a
church."

"You broke me into a church to show me a
beautiful view and a place that is sacred to you. Not exactly the
same as breaking and entering," she challenged back.

"Ah, but we used the trap door, which most
people don’t know about. I could have just taken you up the
janitor's steps."

"Would those have been cobweb free?" He
nodded and Kira slapped his arm. "Jerk."

"Come on, it was much more adventurous my
way. Admit it, you were scared but secretly excited." Kira just
smiled in response.

"That’s generally how you make me feel," the
words popped out of Kira’s mouth before she had time to think. She
cringed and silently cursed herself for basically admitting she
liked him.

"Me too," he whispered, more to himself than
to her. She looked up, but Tristan gazed out the window. She knew
his thoughts were churning and she wished she could peek inside of
his head for just a minute.

"Tristan?" She asked to see if he was
listening.

"Yea," he said distantly.

"Why did you save my life? You know I heard
what you said to your friends, but for some reason I can’t believe
it." He turned to look at her now, and Kira was certain he could
read the confusion on her face. She saw his chest expand slowly in
a deep breath and watched as his eyes closed for an instant too
long. He was thinking about how to tell her something. Kira could
almost see the secrets floating in his head and could feel him
struggle with how much to say.

"I saved you because I wanted to protect you
and I still do. Some small part of me won’t stop believing you are
precious to me, even if I’m not supposed to feel that way." She
inched closer, trying to read his mind with her proximity.

"Who says you can’t? Your friends?"

He laughed bitterly, "No, my so called
friends are the only one’s making sense. We just can’t ever be
Kira."

"Why?"

"Some day, you’ll understand." He leaned back
against the wall, away from her presence.

"God, I am so sick of everyone telling me
I’ll eventually understand all of this stuff. Luke keeps telling me
that, like some patronizing father who knows everything about my
life, but won’t give me any insight. And now you! I never expected
this from you. What happened to ‘Mr. Breaking The Rules’?" Kira
started pacing around their little corner, trying to make sense of
everything. She was sure Luke and Tristan and his crowd all knew
something she didn’t. They were all keeping the same secret from
her. When would she realize it? When would she finally connect the
dots and stop feeling like the baby that everyone had to
coddle?

"I just can’t be the one to tell you, to see
you look at me with hatred, because you will hate me." Kira saw the
pain pass over Tristan’s face as he winced.

"Look, Tristan, I get the whole self-loathing
thing you have going on. I can see that you’re troubled somehow by
the way you retreat into your thoughts and lose track of the world.
But don’t presume to know my mind. You have no idea how I will
react to anything. Everyone has some sort of past to hide. The fact
that yours may be darker than most doesn’t scare me. It makes me
want to help you, not hate you," she practically spat the last
words at him. He stood and she knew his anger had mounted with her
little speech.

"Kira, you just don’t know what you’re
talking about. It’s not my past that you will hate me for, but
today. Today, I let myself believe we lived in a different time,
and when I saw you standing at the park, I couldn’t help but be
glad we could finally be alone together. But today, I let you feel
for me and let my walls come down for an instant, and that is what
you will hate me for, for the moments of intimacy that I will
cherish but you will look back on and loathe."

Kira hadn’t realized the fight had brought
them face-to-face and mere inches apart from each other. Like
people say, anger is just one small step from passion, so when she
spoke, she hardly realized what she would say until she said
it.

"Well, if it’s intimacy from you that I’ll
come to hate, I might as well enjoy it while it lasts." Kira took
one small step forward and felt their bodies melt into one
another’s. Quickly, his hands cupped her cheeks and his lips were
on hers. She was reaching her hands around Tristan’s back to pull
him closer to her. Kira felt heat rush through her body and moved
with Tristan as he pushed her back against the wall and encased her
body within his, pulling his arms around her waist. Her hands found
their way to his head and she grasped his thick black hair, running
her fingers through it. His lips moved from her lips, down past her
ear to the base of her neck.

"Kira," she heard him sigh before she felt
his body stiffen and begin to pull away. "I have to go," he said
with a firmer voice.

Tristan turned away from her and left. He
disappeared before Kira even had time to react to what had just
happened. Instead, she sank down the wall she had just been pressed
against, gazed at the empty spot Tristan had filled moments ago and
began to cry.

Kira needed to understand whatever was going
on. The frustration of not knowing was driving her crazy. Luke
didn’t want her spending time with Tristan, and even Tristan didn’t
want her spending time with Tristan, so she decided there was only
one thing to do: spend more time around Tristan. Kira knew he was
the key to finding out her role in everything, and she knew he
wanted to be close to her even if another part of him fought that
feeling. After watching him run away, Kira became even more
determined to solve this mystery revolving around her, even if she
would come to regret losing this ignorance like Tristan had
said.

Kira stood up and wiped her face free of
tears. She looked out at the sun setting over Charleston and knew
it was time to leave the church and what had happened there behind
for a little while.

She grabbed her bag, which she had set down
on the bench, and noticed that Tristan had dropped his notebook on
the way out. She leaned down under the bench and slid the notebook
from its hiding place in the dark. In place of a novel, she knew
what she would be looking at before bed tonight.

After finding her way through the bells and
back down the steps, Kira searched for that janitor’s staircase
Tristan had mentioned. Kira walked in the dark around the circular
steps three times before finally finding a small knob beautifully
free of cobwebs and dirt, and she slowly opened the door. This path
led right down to the front lobby of the church, and Kira silently
cursed Tristan as she placed her foot on each superbly polished
step. She quickly walked through the lobby and out the door;
thankful no one was there to see her sneaking out. After a bit more
walking, Kira finally managed to find her car. When she got home,
her parents were not pleased.

"Where have you been all day? I was worried
sick," her mother barraged her as soon as she opened the front
door. Her father stood in the background nodding his head and
giving her a stern look. "I expected you to come home hours ago.
Isn’t this why we bought you a phone, so you could call us if you
were running late? You don’t understand what can happen to a young
girl out alone at night."

Kira rolled her eyes and appeased her mother
by listening to the lecture that began. She’d lived in New York,
Kira thought, she understood the dangers of being alone in an
unfamiliar place. She didn’t bother to mention she had been
abandoned by her tour guide after he ditched her in the church
steeple they had broken into, which was why she had trouble finding
her car.

Eventually, her mother cooled down and
started breathing again. After which, Kira quickly said goodnight,
made her exit and snuck into her sister's room to kiss her sleeping
forehead. When she made it to her own room, Kira breathed a sigh of
relief that her father had remained silent because he usually asked
all the questions she didn’t want to give answers to. He was very
good at reading people and almost always knew when she was hiding
something.

After a shower and some chocolates from her
secret candy stash, Kira laid down in bed and turned on her reading
lamp. She gently eased Tristan’s notebook open, and looked over the
drawings she had gazed at earlier that day.

Again, Kira noticed the expressions he was
able to convey and she tried to think on why he chose those people
on the benches in those three drawings that truly caught her eye. A
homeless man? Had Tristan been homeless, or did he just sympathize
with a man who had lost everything? An older woman? He could have a
grandmother he missed or old women could remind him of the age his
mother should be. Kira thought back to his question. Did she
believe he could have been alive during the war? Could he
sympathize with the old because he would never be there? And what
of the young couple in love? Was that why he pulled away? He was
jealous of those in love because he believed he was not deserving
of it?