When Kira awoke on Monday morning, a knot of dread tightened her stomach—she did not want to go to school. She hadn’t seen Tristan since he had dropped her off at home on Saturday, and she had ignored Luke’s calls all weekend, completely unsure of what to tell him.
When she finally got out of bed, it took her ten minutes to brush her teeth and wash her face—staring at her hollow eyes in the mirror the entire time. The thought of Tristan made a blush rise, but that warmth was quickly pushed away, replaced by self-loathing when Luke leaked into her mind. Eventually, her mother pushed Kira into the car and actually drove her to school.
Leaving her on her own in the parking lot, her mother scolded Kira to hurry up as she was obviously late. Kira listened and ran to the safety of her class, one she shared with neither of the boys. She kept her eyes glued to the scratched hallway floor when sprinting from room to room, not daring to even chance making eye contact with either boy, and she jumped at the sound of her name a few times, only to realize she had been dreaming it.
But then, the lunch bell rang.
It was time.
Unless she decided to eat in the bathroom stall, Kira would have to face Luke and Tristan. She meandered through the halls, waiting for them to thin and for the cafeteria to crowd, hoping her entrance would go unnoticed. Finally, she couldn’t stall anymore, and Kira walked through the double doors into the chaos of lunch hour. Her eyes immediately honed in on the table outside where one lone figure sat—Tristan.
He was sprawled across the tabletop, basking in the sun with his hands crossed under his head and his foot tapping to the tune playing only in his mind. Almost immediately, he turned his face to meet Kira’s eyes. Her heart stopped, and he crinkled the corner of his mouth in a subtle greeting. Instantly, Kira flashed back to the hours they spent lying in each other’s arms on Saturday, when all conversation had ended and all there had been were feelings. She had never been kissed so passionately, yet held so gently and treated like a lady. He had respected her and let her set the pace, which yes, had ended at kissing.
Kira’s pulse started racing at the memories, switching from dread to excitement in a matter of moments. Her brain ran on overdrive, confused by the complete momentum shift that could only be caused by the delightful torment of falling in love.
She mindlessly bit her lip, hiding the grin that threatened to spread across her face and looked away first, right into the eyes of Luke. He was dodging students, weaving his way through the lunch crowd, and staring her down with a look of relief and anger. Without hesitation, he pulled her into a bear hug.
"What the hell happened to you? I thought you’d died. Why didn’t you call me back?" He set her back down, but kept his hands on her shoulders, ensuring Kira couldn’t run away.
"Nothing." Kira avoided his question when she saw the others making their way over. "We need to talk. Not here," she whispered and then shirked his hold to greet Emma, who squealed loudly and hugged Kira in a viselike grip.
"We were so worried. Oh my god. You don’t just run out of a school dance like that."
"I’m fine, I’m fine," she said when Miles and Dave leaned in to hug her as well. Jeez, she thought, they really must have been worried. "My phone died, and I completely didn’t realize it. I’m so sorry." Kira shrugged, feeling terrible.
"So what happened?" Emma asked when everyone had sat back down at the usual table. "One minute you’re dancing with Carter Evans…" Emma wiggled her eyes. "And the next you’ve disappeared."
Crap, Kira thought. She had forgotten to prepare a cover story for the rest of the gang. Eventually she would have to tell Luke the truth, but what would appease them in the meantime? Go with something gossip worthy, she thought. Emma would do all the work. "You’ll never believe it, but Carter slipped alcohol into my drink. I got totally drunk, and he started freaking out, so he just drove me home. It was insane. I mean, he always seemed like such a nice guy."
As Emma’s mouth dropped, Kira smiled to herself. Perfect.
"Oh. My. God. What a creep! I can’t believe this. That must be why he gets so many girls. He totally tried to date-rape you."
Okay, maybe too far, Kira thought, and interrupted to rein Emma in. "No, no. I think I just didn’t realize. Someone else could have spiked the punch, I guess. I mean, he drove me home. That was nice."
"Drove you home after he drugged you!" Emma looked over at Carter, shooting daggers across the room with her evil eye. Carter actually seemed to sense it, because he looked over and quickly sank down into the sea of letterman jackets that composed the football team’s lunch table. "Yeah, that’s right. Hide."
"Emma." Kira grabbed her friend’s arm, forcing her around. "Seriously, it was no big deal. I just went home. I don’t even blame him." Woman scorned, Kira thought with a mental shrug.
"So, where were you Saturday?" Luke interrupted.
"Yeah, what did happen?" Emma let Carter go and turned her attention to the bigger mystery.
"What do you mean?" Kira stared down at her sandwich, taking it out of the Ziploc bag she had packed it in that morning and pointedly ignoring her friends.
"I called you on Saturday, and you never picked up. It rang, by the way, which is unusual for a dead phone, and then I drove by your house, and your mom said you hadn’t come home yet. Strange." Kira assumed from his sarcastic tone that Luke was pissed, but the raised eyebrows and rage-filled stare really cinched it.
"Um…" Kira’s mind was racing. Nothing would sound convincing at this point. "I snuck in after they were sleeping and didn’t wake up until like four. You know, drinking…hangover…" Kira nodded, trying to sound convincing as she let the sentence trail off. Under the table, she pinched Luke, hoping he would connect it to conduit business, and let it go. He understood, and Kira sensed he had known it was conduit business all along, but wanted to make her squirm.
"Damn," Dave chimed in. "Sounds like Carter really got you wasted."
"Totally." Kira buried her face in her sandwich again and let Emma take up the conversation, telling stories about the parts of the party Kira had missed out on. Apparently a bunch of guys from the basketball team pantsed a cheerleader. Kira was actually disappointed she had missed it.
The lunch hour rolled to an end, and Luke grabbed Kira’s hand as everyone started flooding from the cafeteria.
"Come with me," he instructed, leading her against the crowd toward the back door. Kira let him pull her along.
Just as they reached the door, she took one last look across the empty tables and through the windows at Tristan. He was sitting up now, his white T-shirt a little rumpled from the breeze, and he returned her gaze. His eyes were pained, almost as though he had been waiting for her eyes all lunch hour and hated to be the afterthought Kira had as Luke took her away. She wished she could give him one quick peck on the lips, letting him know he had been in her thoughts all along, but she was shoved through the door instead.
Tristan’s eyes stayed with her as she and Luke snuck around the school grounds toward the parking lot. Kira knew she had to fess up and tell Luke everything. She just prayed he would be all right with it.
Easing into Luke’s car, Kira let him drive, okay with wherever he wanted to go to talk. She thought Luke had maybe expected it. He had to have known she had been keeping things from him, especially things about Tristan. It wasn’t fair to Luke, she realized, to be lying and going behind his back when he had given up everything to help her inherit her powers.
Luke pulled over next to a big empty playground, one slumbering until the town kids all got let out of school. He walked across the open field toward the jungle gym, and Kira followed. They sat on old swings that were covered in flakes of rust and squeaked in the breeze. Kira played with the woodchips at her feet, waiting for Luke to start.
"I’m not an idiot, you know."
"I know," Kira said softly.
"Ever since he saved you on the beach, I knew something was going on. I just, once you realized who you are, I never thought you’d be so stupid." Luke’s eyes bored into her head, daring her to challenge him, to say it was a lie. "I mean, he’s a vampire. We were made to kill them."
"Not all of us," Kira spoke and finally looked up from the ground. "You’re a Protector. You see the good in them."
"That’s what I’ve been taught, Kira, but we all know the truth. There is no good in them. A vampire can’t be saved."
"That’s not true." Kira's throat constricted. If Luke were right, there would be no hope for her and Tristan, not ever. She couldn’t let herself believe his words.
Luke moved his hand to hold hers on the swing. "It is. Listen to me and trust me, because I for one have never lied. Conduits have been alive for thousands of years and in all that time, not a single vampire has been saved. They are evil, Kira, and any Protectors who don’t believe it are just fooling themselves."
"Maybe you can’t understand this, but I swear Tristan is different."
Luke started laughing, a dark and hollow sound that turned into a sigh after a few moments. "If he’s so angelic, what did he tell you about Bethany? Remember my ex-girlfriend, the one I saw him eating?"
"He swore to me that he hasn’t had anything but bagged blood in decades. And I believe him. He said he was saving her, closing the wound after Jerome had bitten her." Kira shook her head, defiant against the charge. She knew Tristan.
"And you believe him? Just like that?" Luke released her hand, swinging away from her in his frustration.
"I do." She stood her ground. If Luke actually got to know Tristan, he would see it too. She knew he would.
"Kira, you just don’t understand. You don’t know enough. I’ve known people who went away to fight vampires and never came back. I’ve been part of a search party to rescue a Punisher from being held captive and tortured. The world is a much darker place than you realize. And I joke and I make fun because you have to be happy or you won’t survive, but there’s a different side of things you’re just too naïve to see."
"I’ve seen some things," Kira said, lifting her hand away from the chain and letting her palm face the sky. She brought a flame up, small and controlled, and let it dance along her fingers. Throwing a tiny ball of light up in the air, she caught it with her other hand and absorbed the fire back into her skin.
"I had a vision of my parents’ death. I relived it, and I think I know more about the world than you realize." Kira stretched her arm out and placed a palm on the fresh cut she had noticed on Luke’s bicep. She waited until the skin underneath closed shut, seamlessly melding together, then took her hand away.
He let out a breath she hadn’t realized he had been holding. Kira looked at him, at the freckles that spanned from cheek to cheek and the slightly crooked bend of his nose that was beautiful in its strangeness. Kira noticed the luminescent quality of his hair and finally the flaming irises they both shared, but she saw a difference for the first time. He always looked on with concern and fascination, but now sadness and maybe even defeat rimmed those eyes.
"What happened in your memory?" Luke asked.
"It was like you said about the conduit societies. I was a baby and I was playing around with my power, trying to control it and make my parents smile. But then we were jumped by vampires and they were killed while I hid under a bush, powerless to stop anything."
"I’m sorry," Luke said and reached for the hand Kira had let dangle beside her swing. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to act indifferent, as if the past was just that, in the past. But his hand was warm in hers, keeping her connected to real life, and she appreciated it. "How’d you remember? Or did you dream it?"
"It was Jerome and John actually," Kira said. She continued to hold onto his hand, which now seemed more like a lifeline, and then told him about what had happened. How John and Jerome had almost killed that girl, about Diana’s sudden appearance, and a little bit about her afternoon with Tristan and his history. Luke listened quietly—his morose frown slowly replaced by worried stress lines.
"I don’t like it," he finally said. "Revenge is the worst kind of evil."
"But Tristan said it would be fine, that Diana wouldn’t be able to do anything to make him go bad." Luke nodded absently, but Kira could tell his thoughts were wandering into ominous territory. "What? What is it you’re not telling me?"
"Nothing," Luke said, still half-aware.
"Come on," Kira said and jerked on his hand, almost pulling him from the swing, but at least gaining his attention.
"It’s just, Tristan might not have a choice. Conduit blood, it’s like a drug to vampires. It makes them go crazy."
"But he would never bite me," Kira said dubiously, flashing back to the moment in the gym when she had been cut and all of the fighting had ceased—even Tristan had been totally distracted by her blood, and, for a second, had become completely animalistic because of it. When Diana smeared some on his lips, he couldn’t resist taking a taste.
"Willingly, no. But, what if it’s not in his control?"
"How could they do that?" Kira twisted in her swing, coiling the chains and facing Luke. "I have my powers now. They can’t surprise me anymore. I’ll fry them."
"All I’m saying is that they have a plan, or at least the start of one. And it involves you, and Tristan eating you, and some factor we don’t see yet. This is serious, and we need to prepare somehow."
Kira sighed and turned slowly in a circle, winding the chain holding the swing a few more times. She lifted her feet off the ground to let her chair unravel, and spun around, bouncing from side to side, done with these dark conversations that seemed to be creeping further and further into her life. When the world was a blur of green grass, blue sky, and sunlight streaking past her eyes, unidentifiable except for the array of colors, she felt much more at peace, like a carefree child. All the worries seemed to slip away when there was nothing to focus on but the wind in her hair and the dizzying of her brain.
When the twirling stopped, Kira looked at Luke, who watched her with a slight smile finally showing on his features. She let her feet fall to the wood chips, took a few steps back to gain some leverage and then released, surging forward. Kira pumped her feet, using her arms for extra power, and propelled herself forward with every lean back and thrust of her legs.
Luke began to swing next to her, catching up to her height quickly with his longer legs. Their clothes fluttered in the breeze and Kira’s hair flew all around her. Her butt jumped off the seat as she started beating gravity’s pull, just for a moment, and Kira felt like a kid again, when she was so young that she thought she could swing high enough to flip over the bar and even gain wings, like a fairy.
Finally, the time came when Kira knew she couldn’t go any higher. She pulled her forearms and shins in, racing backward one more time, and then gravity shoved her forward. Leaning back, she stretched her feet out, and let go of the swing. The seat slide out from underneath her as she catapulted forward, flying through the air while her limbs flailed ungracefully, until the ground seemed to rise up and smack against her feet. She rolled forward, falling onto the grass beyond the wood chipped corral while dead leaves crunched into her hair.
Kira turned her head, watching Luke as he landed beside her with a thud and a somersault. Then they both started laughing.
"I haven’t done that in years," Kira said as she stared at the sky. She watched the clouds blow by, changing from marshmallow white to smoky ebony to brilliant gold as they passed in front of the sun.
"Me neither. I think I can wait another ten years before trying it again though. I can actually feel a massive bruise growing on my butt right now." Luke groaned and rolled over onto his stomach.
"Home?" Kira said, wondering if they had talked about Tristan enough, hoping Luke had all the answers he needed for the moment.
"Home," Luke said and slowly stood up. He leaned over Kira, grabbing the hand she offered, and pulled her from the ground’s clutches. She dusted the dirt and squashed leaves from her clothes, and followed him to the car.
The ride home was safe. They steered clear of vampire related topics and instead talked about their friends and the holidays. Every time Kira looked over at Luke, she knew he was only half-present. He was her guardian and her friend, and she knew he must be worried about her safety, but Kira couldn’t think of anything else she could do.
As they turned the corner onto her street, Luke slammed on the brakes and Kira’s head almost flew through the front windshield because she had tucked the strap of her seatbelt behind her back.
"Luke! What the hell?" She whipped around to berate him, but noticed the hard look in his eyes. Turning slowly, she followed his line of vision as it trailed right to the steps of her front porch where Tristan casually sat against the rail.
Kira’s pulse raced at the sight of him. The whites of his eyes reflected the headlights and seemed to glow, while the rest of him, dressed in dark jeans and a black T-shirt, melted into the night. He saw the car and gracefully stood up, like a panther easing out of a nap. Kira smiled at him, feeling giddy, before twisting back around to say her goodbye to Luke.
He, she noticed, was not smiling at all. Instead, he had a viselike grip on the steering wheel, one that was stopping the circulation to his fingers. His stare was so forceful, Kira feared beams of sunlight would burst from his pupils and melt his front windshield.
"Luke?"
He twisted his hands around the wheel and the leather whined in protest. His entire body had tensed up, and Kira noticed the bulge of muscles under his long-sleeve shirt.
"Luke?" Kira hesitantly extended her hand, barely touching his shoulder before he snapped his attention to her, still stiff, and now with bloodshot eyes from the strain of not blinking.
"Look, Kira, I tried to be a good friend and stay calm, I really did, but how can you be so blind?" He took his hands from the wheel, running his fingers through his hair, practically ripping the strands from his scalp. "He’s a killer, okay? A killer. It’s what they are. Every time he sees you, part of him wants to kill you. Every time. And I know he promised it wouldn't happen, but you’re a fool to believe him. An idiot."
Kira reached for Luke’s arms, trying in vain to calm him down. She tried to speak, but he cut her off.
"No, okay, no. You have to hear this. He lives by drinking human blood. Do you understand? Human blood and human blood, only. And he’s going to live forever while you get old and die, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing in this world that will change that. Even if you wanted to become a vampire, you couldn’t. There’s no need to risk your life dating him when he’ll just kill you eventually." Luke was yelling now, fogging up the windows with his spat out words. "Maybe not now, but what about when you’re fifty or sixty and he still looks eighteen? What then? When you’re old and wrinkled, he’ll kill you while you sleep and you won’t even know until it’s too late because you trust him."
He made the word trust sound dirty, and Kira listened to his heavy breathing, failing to think of any response. The door behind her swung open and Kira jolted backward, into the hardness of what she knew could only be Tristan’s chest.
"While I do love seeing you act like a complete ass, Luke, I’ve heard enough. I won’t just sit here and listen to you talk crap about me. If you want to tell me something, say it to my face or shut up."
Kira watched Luke grow angrier by the second. She was too afraid to move—too fearful that any action she made would just add fuel to the fire.
"Kira?" Tristan asked, and a hand stretch out in front of her, offering escape.
"Stop." Luke grabbed her around the wrist.
Yup, Kira thought, I’ll just stay right here and not move a muscle. Luke was glaring at a spot just over her shoulder, and based on the tingle prickling her neck, Kira guessed Tristan’s face was right about at that spot.
They sat like that for what seemed like an hour to Kira—a complete standoff—before Luke released her hand. For a futile moment, she thought that he had relented and was going to end the absurdly macho fight. But then he reached for the handle, jumped out of the driver’s seat, and sprinted around the front of the car with his hand extended.
Kira knew what he was doing before the fire shot from his hand.
"Luke!" she shouted to no avail.
Tristan was hit right in the chest with the full force of Luke’s power. He flew off the ground, sailing through the air to land on his back. Kira knew he could have run away had he wanted to, that the fire was hurting him but was meant to remove him more than to harm him. Still, he let Luke attack, not fighting back, but Kira saw the strain on his features and the taut pull of his lips. She leapt from the car, directly into Luke’s flames, and let them absorb into her body.
It was the first time Kira had absorbed another conduit’s power. She felt alive, electrified from the tips of her toes to the strands of hair on her head. She let his power funnel into her, felt it spread throughout her limbs and warm her, and Kira almost began to feel like she was pulling the power from Luke rather than he pushing it into her.
"Luke, stop. Someone might see. You have to stop."
He waited a second, full of internal struggles and rage, before ending his onslaught.
"Listen to me," Kira said, silencing him by covering his lips with her hand when he started to protest. "No, listen. This thing with Tristan is something I have to do. I know you don’t understand it, I know you hate it, but I need you to respect me and my decisions, and leave him be." She released Luke’s mouth, but he remained silent.
Kira stepped back, forming a triangle between the three of them, looking from one boy to the other. "This goes for both of you, no fighting. None at all, or I will figure out something really terrible to do to both of you. So just stop. I’m not some toy to fight over. I make my own choices and nothing will change that. So, Luke, just go home."
A series of emotions fluttered across Luke’s face, from anger toward Tristan, to embarrassment over his own actions, to what Kira dared say was apologetic for her sake. Regardless, he silently walked to the other side of his car, hopped in, and drove away without looking back.
"Well, now that he’s gone…" Tristan supplied, and Kira faced him, noting the smug smile as he sauntered over and tried to hug her.
"Hold on." She put her palm against his chest, stopping him. "Thank you for not fighting him or running away, but you can’t taunt him either, which you know perfectly well was your intention when you opened the car door." He had the decency to look guilty. "Promise?"
"Promise," he murmured, looking like a little boy whose favorite video game had just been taken away. But then his features brightened. "Care to seal it with a kiss?"
Kira’s insides felt like mush instantly. Her annoyance melted away to make room for the butterflies now flying in her stomach. She reached up and kissed him on the lips, ending it too soon because she was afraid her parents would walk outside at any moment after all of the commotion.
"What did you come over for anyway?" she questioned, all of the sudden curious to know why he had been waiting outside her house.
"I saw you and Luke leave. I just wanted to see how everything went. Clearly, not all that well."
Kira shrugged. "Until about ten minutes ago, things were going great." She presented him with a wry smile, but he became suddenly alert and jerked his head toward her house.
"Your mom is about to come outside."
Kira’s eyes widened and she pushed him away. "Hide!"
A moment later, the front door creaked open. "Kira, honey? Is that you?"
"Yeah, Mom." Kira walked closer to the house and out of the darkness. "I’m just making a phone call, be right in."
Her mother nodded, concern flashing in her features, before retreating back inside the house.
"Movie?" Tristan asked from somewhere beyond Kira’s sight. She nodded, because what else could you do if a really hot guy asked to watch a movie with you in your bedroom? Kira knew he would sneak in silently, using all the speed and agility he could, and she prayed there were no stray pairs of underwear decorating the floor when he got there.