Ignite (Midnight Fire #1)

Chapter Ten

"I can’t do this!" Kira shouted at Luke in frustration.

"Just relax. Think about lighting the rock on fire. You can do this, I know you can." Kira looked at Luke, wanting to strangle him. Real easy to feel so calm when you’ve been practicing since birth, she thought as she wiped the sweat from her brow. All the mental exertion was draining her.

She and Luke had been practicing for almost an hour and nothing was happening. Kira was almost beginning to think everything had been a dream. Clearly, she had no special powers.

Kira stopped for a moment to look around Luke’s backyard. They stood in a small patch of grass surrounded by dense forest. Kira couldn’t make out his neighbor’s home through the bushes. Even in the sunlight the trees were dark, and Kira knew that if she walked ten feet into the bushes it would be pitch black. A perfect place to practice, Luke had told her when he picked her up from her house and brought her over to his place. No one would see anything, and they would be completely safe.

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 refocused 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.

"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 she would decorate a blue spruce pine tree.