Ignite (Midnight Fire #1)

Chapter Four

For the next three weeks, Kira ignored Tristan. At school, she built her friendships with Luke, Miles, Dave, and Emma. At home, she played with her sister and practiced for culinary school. She was determined not to think of him and the drama he would bring into her life. Instead, Kira focused on all of the people and things she did have and let that little part in the back of her head that longed for him get quieter and quieter. But she couldn’t completely erase the nagging wish that he would be the one to break the silence and approach her.

On the first Saturday of October, Kira decided it was finally time to start working on her term paper about Charleston’s role in the War of Northern Aggression, more commonly referred to by the rest of the world as the American Civil War. Her history teacher had assigned the entire class a research paper due before Christmas about Charleston’s local history and involvement in the war. The open-ended question was to be interpreted in any form she wanted, and Kira thought it was more than annoying that most of the students had a lifetime of knowledge about the city compared to her meager month and summers spent mostly at the beach. Today would be her day to wander around and explore until something interesting caught her eye.

Battery Park was the first stop. Kira figured she would start from the southernmost tip of Charleston and move north. As she walked along the wharf that ran parallel to the park, Kira noticed that the Civil War monuments still stood but their meaning had been left behind. Statues had been erected to honor past heroes of the South and cannons were placed facing the open water as if still waiting for an attack to defend against. However, the mounds of cannon balls were now a play place for children pretending to be soldiers, and the statues were a challenge to little adventurers hoping to climb something more than a tree. The North had long since moved past the Civil War, but even in Charleston, a city engrossed in its own history, the past was beginning to be left behind.

Kira leaned against the metal fence, facing the sea. In the distance, almost like a mirage, stood Fort Sumter, the ultimate spot of Charleston’s Civil War history. It seemed hard to believe that such a small island fortress had been such a huge stronghold and spot of aggression. But she knew it was too easy of a pick for her paper and figured almost everyone in her class would be writing about it.

Kira turned back toward Battery Park just as a modern day horse and carriage rode past her. She tried to picture two women with hoop skirts and floppy hats riding around, probably pulled by a slave, and envisioned men wandering around in uniforms with muskets to patrol the streets against a potential Northern invasion. She imagined a way of life come crumbling down, imagined the mansions in front of her exploding with cannon fire, and all the beautiful trees around her lighting up in flames.

For a moment, she saw all of that, until someone's breath tickled her neck and a whisper made its way to her ear.

"Lost in thought?" Tristan’s deep voice sent a shiver down her spine, and a secret smile played upon her lips—he was officially the one who broke the silence. Since she had tested her own willpower and won, Kira decided it was perfectly fine to talk to him now.

"I was until you so rudely interrupted," she said playfully while turning her body to face his. Kira took note of his dark-washed jeans and how they completely opposed her own white tank top and flower-covered skirt.

Tristan shrugged and said, "Since I’ve already annoyed you, I guess there’s no real reason to stop." She couldn’t help but laugh, and he smiled in return. "What were you thinking about?" He leaned back against the rail, so his arm lightly brushed against hers. 

"Hoop skirts and muskets," she blurted out.

"What?" He lifted one corner of his mouth and furrowed his eyebrows in a half-question, half-laugh.