Ignite (Midnight Fire Series Book One) (17 page)

An entire week had passed before Kira had
brought practicing up with Luke again, and since her parents had
left for church without her this morning, she had called Luke right
away. Things were still awkward at home when her parents were
around, but when she was alone, left with nothing but her thoughts,
home was excruciating. Now, Kira wondered which was the lesser of
two evils.

"Come on, try one more time and then we can
take a break."

Kira sighed and re-focused her energy on the
boulder Luke stood next to. He told her it wouldn’t actually burn,
that vampires were the only things affected by the light, but she
was a little afraid of hurting him if she couldn’t rein it in once
started.

"Kira," he brought her back to attention.

Just focus, he had said, it’ll come to you
naturally. Well, Kira stared at the rock thinking, light on fire,
light on fire, please God give me a little flame—but nothing. Her
palms didn’t even feel warm. She threw them up in the air.

"This is just never happening! I can’t keep
staring at a rock and pointing my hands in front of me, I might as
well say abracadabra and try to make your house float away. This is
ridiculous!"

Luke shook his head. "Let’s take a break. I
need to think of something. I don’t know why this is so hard for
you. When we were all young, using the power felt like using
another limb, it was always easier than this. And I know you’re
strong. I’ve seen it."

"Well, good for you." Kira huffed and
collapsed on the grass where she was standing. He walked inside his
house, clutching his forehead with one hand; clearly trying to make
a better lesson plan than the one they were currently
following.

He’s as new at this as I am, Kira thought.
She let her back fall flat against the grass so she could stare up
at the blue, cloudless sky.

Come on, she thought.

"Dear sun, please give me the power to
channel your rays through my body, thereby allowing me to inherit
my apparent birthright and kill some vampires…love, Kira."

I’ve officially gone insane, she reflected
while rolling over onto her side to stare at the few brown leaves
dusting the ground. Autumn was a lot different in the south, a
little too green for her liking. Kira wondered what it would be
like to have a Christmas without snow. She would miss the New York
blizzards, the slushy streets and the cursing pedestrians slipping
down the subway steps or marching Prada boots through inches of
snow. Rockefeller lit up at Christmas. The city came alive when the
lights on the gigantic tree were switched on, and the ice skating
rink was crowded at every hour of the day. She had always come home
for a week during Christmas break, to visit with her family, but
hanging ornaments on a plastic tree never felt right. Kira used to
love coming home to her dorm where her roommate Sarah and her would
decorate a blue spruce pine tree.

But, Kira sighed as she sat up, she had more
pressing concerns.

Luke said it would be easy, like breathing,
eventually. She wondered if maybe it was just too late. She took
psychology back at boarding school and she remembered learning
about human development. The first few stages of life are the most
important. If you don’t learn to speak by the time you’re four, you
probably never will. Babies are born curious and learn far more
than adults do. Maybe she had just missed out on her chance.

Enough ruminating, Kira mentally shook
herself. She needed to learn this.

Luke finally re-emerged from his home and
carried over two lemonades. Kira gladly accepted. The mix of cold
and sweet instantly refreshed her, and she turned to Luke, waiting
to hear his thoughts.

"So…basically, you’re a freak."

"Hey!"

He threw his hands up in defense.

"Kidding! I just don’t think the way I was
taught as a boy is going to do anything for you. Your body doesn’t
react, doesn’t know it’s own potential. We need to like awaken you
first."

"Okay, creepy much?"

"I just mean, we need to find some sort of
trigger so you can start to remind your body how it’s supposed to
work."

"Well, how did you learn? Maybe if you tell
me a little bit about the procedure, I’ll understand."

Luke sat down next to her on the grass,
sipping his lemonade and staring deep into the ebony woods.

"It’s hard to explain I guess."

"Try." She said, not letting him off the hook
at all. This was all his idea anyway. Well, not technically, but
still.

"When you’re little, the teaching is less
about learning how to bring the fire out and more about learning
how to stop it and control it. Ever since I can remember, I would
think of the fire and it would come. Easy as pie. The hard part was
controlling it."

"So, it’ll be doubly difficult for me." She
ran a hand through her hair, exasperated. "Fantastic."

"One of the main reasons conduit communities
live in such seclusion is to protect the children who have no
control. The fire doesn’t hurt humans or even inanimate objects,
only vampires. So, theoretically, it would be safe to live
anywhere. But babies just release energy all the time without any
warning and suddenly there’s a streak of fire soaring through the
air like a cannonball until an adult catches it and sucks it back
into themselves. Obviously, if we lived in human communities,
people would start to catch on to the strangeness."

"Will I ever be allowed to see that?" Kira
asked, vulnerable. She wished she could have grown up in such a
place, totally accepted by everyone.

"I hope so. Sonnyville was like nothing
you’ve ever seen. I miss it sometimes."

"Why’d you come here, Luke? Why’d you take on
this mission?" Kira had wondered it for a while. Who would
willingly enroll in high school to basically baby-sit the one
person who could potentially destroy the world? Nobody wanted that
kind of pressure.

"Because it was my duty."

"That can’t be the only reason. You’re not
one to blindly follow orders. Remember I dated a Protector in New
York, and he was nothing like you. Had he said duty, I would have
believed him, but you don’t like to always follow the rules."

"You mean Cy?" She nodded. "I spoke with him
before coming here. He told me how little you knew, how he
suspected you would need someone to look out for you. He did care
about you, in his own extremely stuffy way."

"And you pitied me?"

"A little." Luke shrugged. He was trying to
be completely honest with her. "A lot of it was the fact that this
was such an important duty, and important missions are hardly ever
granted to someone as young as me. Part of it was my competition.
One other boy in my town, Nick, fit the bill. But, he was a hard
ass and no fun. I knew he’d never befriend you unless necessary. I
knew he wouldn’t provide the support a girl in your situation would
need. And, you know me," he broke his far-off stare to smile at
her, "I can’t resist a damsel in distress." He lowered his voice to
spooky imitation of Dracula. "Now, try to light me on fire if you
dare...mwahahaha."

Kira stood, ignoring Luke’s impression of an
evil mastermind, and got right back down to business.

"So, I need a trigger."

"Yup."

"Any idea what kind?" Luke shook his head
with a sly smile. He waved her closer and she hesitantly walked
over while he turned around. She moved closer to his back,
wondering what the heck was going on, when he turned around and
lunged at her.

Luke grabbed her by the throat, knocking her
to the ground, and she saw teeth protruding past his lips. He sunk
his head closer, so the teeth started to poke her neck and Kira
felt trapped. She couldn’t move under the weight of his body and
had no weapon to fight him off with. Desperation heated her veins
and she felt the flood of warmth surge through her body. She
started shivering from the temperature difference between her
molten core and the cool breeze brushing her skin. Kira willed the
fire to seep out, anything to stop the unbearable scorching of her
heart.

Suddenly, she burst, the same way she had in
the auditorium. She felt the burn on her hand and opened her eyes
despite the pain. Luke smiled and the waves of sun rolled past him,
leaving him unharmed. Kira felt like a river that had just been set
free from a dam. There was no way to stop the waves of power
bursting forth.

"Control it!" Luke yelled over the cackling
fire.

Kira told it to stop. The flood started
slowly calming and she curved her fingers towards her palm,
trapping the light in her vice-like grip. Finally, the last bit of
light burnt out and Kira almost expected smoke to seep from her
palms.

Instead, Luke trapped her in a hug and swung
her around. "That was incredible! I was even pushed back a little
from your power, which is really hard to do, trust me. You’re
really strong. You don’t even know how strong. It’s like there’s no
limit to how much light you can channel. I never felt it waver
until you wanted it to. People usually only last for five or ten
minutes, maybe less at full force. "

Kira swiveled. "How long was I going
for?"

"Like half an hour. It was incredible."

"Oh my god." Kira sat down. "That felt like
thirty seconds to me."

"It’s okay, the timing will come with the
control. But, for now at least, we know your trigger." She looked
up at him expectantly. "Well, duh. No offense, but clearly being
scared is the only thing that brings the power out in you. We’ll
fix it. Don’t worry."

"How?" She looked up at him, noticing how the
sun silhouetted his features, almost looked like he wore a golden
crown.

"I mean, I can’t always run around jumping on
you with fake fangs. That was just a one-time deal. You’re okay,
right? I got a little into the moment." His eyes peered towards her
throat.

Kira reached her hand to her neck. She felt
completely fine. There was no bruise even though it felt like he
had choked her pretty bad. "Is it possible that channeling also
acts as a cure?"

"Not that I’ve ever heard of." He was
intrigued, she could tell.

"I never mentioned this before, but in the
auditorium, I was hit with a brick and my leg was bleeding really
badly and Diana cut my face. But afterwards, when I came back to
your place, all the cuts had closed. They seemed to have
disappeared. I just assumed it was another side effect, like the
burns."

Luke grabbed her shoulders, staring her down.
"Are you certain?" She nodded. "Don’t tell anyone. I don’t know
what it means, but it is most definitely not normal."

"I promise, I won’t tell. I don’t even have
anyone to tell." She shook free of his hold and tried to laugh it
off. Just another way she was different, dangerous. Kira
sighed.

"So what now? How do we keep practicing?"

"Try to think of things that scare you, and
see if anything happens."

"Like what? Spiders?"

"Maybe? I don’t know. This is new to me too.
Just try to make yourself scared to death." Kira rolled her eyes.
She just had to scare the life out of herself, how simple.

Kira tried thinking of spiders, but nothing
happened. She thought of their hairy legs, the clicking of sharp
mucous covered fangs and sticky webs trapping her alive.
Nothing.

Next she thought of flying, picturing
turbulence so rough her butt picked up off the seat and the
overhead compartments fell open. She pictured oxygen masks falling
from the ceiling, the plane spinning circles in the air to
eventually crash in the Pacific Ocean where she would drown in the
cockpit or escape to be eaten alive by great white sharks.

Not even a flush developed on her skin.

Finally Kira thought of the worst thing
possible, a scene out of
Scream
where a knife waving psycho
chased her through her house killing off her friends and popping
out of closets.

Nada. All Kira had managed to do was give
herself the heebie-jeebies since her and Luke were totally alone in
the middle of nowhere, a place no one could hear her scream. Kira
shivered.

"This isn’t working. I’m just freaking myself
out."

"Keep trying. This has to work. It’s the only
way you’ll learn any control and be able to do anything aside from
fending off a vamp right when it’s about to bite you. That method
is way too risky."

Suddenly, Kira had an idea.

She looked back at the rock, focusing on the
lines of color formed by sunlight and shadow. Towards the bottom,
the hard surface turned black and she stared into the abyss,
letting her eyes lose focus and start to blur, until an image from
her subconscious took over—Diana.

Kira imagined the moment when Diana leaned in
to sink her teeth into Kira’s flesh, the uncontrollable fear she
had felt as death crept closer. How she looked at Tristan and in
that moment realized he could do nothing to save her, that each of
them was helpless. Kira waited for the pinprick of teeth on her
neck, felt the tiniest pinch before…and then Kira felt it: her
strength was gathering.

Heat flowed to her palm, and, for the first
time, it felt as though she called it. She pulled at the tendrils
of fire with her mind, willing them to surge through her veins,
accepting the pain and focusing on the darkness she was trying to
dissipate. Kira felt a burn as the flares broke through the skin of
her palm and flooded Luke’s backyard.

She lost whatever hold she had had for those
few seconds and started sweating under the relentless surge.
Distantly, she heard a man’s voice calling at her, telling her to
stop, telling her to rein it in, but some sort of monster had
awoken inside of Kira. Like an out of body experience, she felt her
legs give out, felt the grass crunch against her cheek, all the
while her hands aimed out towards the rock. New hands lifted her,
surrounded her. Kira felt her palms press against something hard,
felt the light drain away and seep into a different source.