Ignite (Solar Academy Book 1)

by Raven Steele

  I held my breath when the sound of the door opening echoed in the room. Lights flipped on next, but not all of them, thank goodness. I glanced to my left. Bennie and Ireland were also huddled together behind a row. I lifted my hands to Bennie as if to say, “I thought you said no one came in here at night!” He just shrugged back, as confused as I was.

  The clicking of high heels against the tiled floor cut through the silence, making my pulse jump with every step.

  The sound grew closer. With a room of this size, I couldn’t imagine the person coming to our small corner, and yet, footsteps headed our way as if the woman could smell us.

  They didn’t stop. Not until they reached the end of the aisle Hudson and I were hiding behind. I held my breath and quietly leaned my head back against the shelving, my eyes shut tight. Not because I was afraid, but because I could feel flames rising taller and hotter inside me, like the tip of a thermometer someone touched to a lightbulb. And it took everything I had to keep it contained within me.

  Hudson’s cool hand slid over my bent knee and rubbed it gently. His frost bled right through me and tamed my flames. I felt them stretch contently and purr like a cat circling a spot in front of a fireplace. His hand moved lower, as if he could sense how much more my fire wanted to be petted. Stroked.

  I opened my eyes and sucked in a silent breath.

  The woman walked part way down the aisle and stopped. I heard her lift the top of a plastic bin and shuffle through papers. The lid snapped shut. The woman inhaled a long breath, then her sharp heels walked back the way they came. A few seconds later, we were plunged into darkness. Again.

  “Are you okay?” Hudson whispered to me.

  “Yeah, thanks to you.”

  “Hey Bonnie,” Ireland hissed loudly, her voice stretching through the room. “Flip on the light!”

  The hurried sounds of footsteps tiptoeing across the room was followed by light filing the dark spaces again. I looked at Hudson’s palm on my leg, then met his gaze. He flashed me a sheepish grin and pulled his hand back.

  “Thank you,” I mouthed and meant it. Who knew what might’ve happened had he not cooled me down.

  Bennie straightened from his hiding spot two rows over. “That was close.”

  “Too close,” Ireland said. “Did anyone see who it was?”

  “It was Ms. Pearson,” Bonnie answered as she walked towards us, her hands twisting in and out of each other. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I wonder what she was doing here.” I scanned the bookshelf where Anne had stopped. There was only one black, plastic bin with a yellow lid that might’ve made that snapping sound.

  “I’m with you, Bonnie,” Bennie said. “Let’s go.”

  Even as they made their way back to the front of the room, Ireland with them, I tore off the yellow lid and stared inside. Hudson stood behind me, looking over my shoulder.

  All white papers folded into thirds. I reached inside and grabbed the first one my fingers touched. A small, etched emblem on its top, barely the size of my pinky nail, caught my eye. Beneath it was a typed letter written to someone named Wolf but signed by Hawk. Code names. Beneath the signature, there was the stamp of a small black hawk in flight. The letter itself didn’t say much. Just talk about getting together for lunch to discuss a potential addition to the school.

  I picked up the next letter and scanned its contents before the sound of my friends footsteps disappeared altogether. This letter was like the other. The same two people talking about something non important. It was dated three months ago. The only thing in common was the small insignia at the top right corner. It looked like an upside down, red letter F, but the top half was shaped like the sharp end of a dagger.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Bonnie called.

  I snapped a picture of it and closed the lid. Hudson held out his hand, and I instinctively reached for it before catching myself. He must’ve had the same inclination, because he stared at his hand, eyes wide, then quickly withdrew it. He looked up at me and winked. “Another time.”

  We jogged down the aisles and out the door. Bennie shut off the lights behind us and closed the door. Silent as ghosts, we hurried towards the elevator. I paused briefly, my eyes spotting the security door. I was so close to my mother, the closest I’d been in ten years.

  “Get in!” Bennie said to me and ushered me inside. I made my feet move away from my mother.

  As soon as the doors closed, everyone exhaled a breath and exploded into both excited and frightened whispers. I remained silent, my thoughts on my mother. I hoped we found something to help her.

  When the doors opened upstairs, I whispered to everyone, “Send me the pics you took. I’ll sort through them and look for anything important.”

  They nodded and split ways, leaving me and Hudson alone in the center of the atrium. Moonlight poured in from the glass above us, capturing not only the brilliant blue of his eyes, but also the storm rising within them.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He glanced back the way we came. “I worry about you. You’re getting into some serious shit.”

  “Not really.”

  “First you broke into the school’s private records, and second, you’re researching the Foundation. They’re a dangerous group, and not just by the school’s claims. The government has them listed as a terrorist organization.” He paused to search my eyes. “But I get it. If your mother’s innocent, I could see how’d you want to clear her name.”

  “More than anything. Not just for her sake, but my dad’s, too. He lost so much when she killed all those people.”

  “So did you.” His cool and gentle voice slid over my warm skin like an ice cube.

  In this moment, alone with him, moonlight trapping us in its silvery embrace, I almost confessed all the things to him, words and emotions I’d long since buried. How people looked at me as if I was an extension of my mother, some evil tendril that had been allowed to live. A fiery ticking time bomb. One day I’d lose my shit, too. Murder innocent people.

  The scary thing?

  Sometimes I thought they were right, but I hoped with every fiber of my being they were wrong. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just knew how powerful the fire burning inside me was.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  I startled out of my thoughts and wrapped my arms around my stomach. “I should go.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I’m here for you, if you ever want to talk.”

  I mumbled a thank you and forced a smile. “See you tomorrow.”

  I walked away, feeling his eyes on me until I turned the corner. I should be ecstatic I had the attention of a seriously hot guy, but that was hard to do when I feared I might blow him into a million fiery pieces.

  Chapter 16

  For the next several days, I stayed in my room, even during meals, to sort through all the pictures we had taken in the archive room. There were almost two hundred of them, but at least a quarter of them were selfies of Ireland she’d taken while posing in odd and disturbing positions with different books or behind bookshelves. Sometimes I wondered if that girl’s head was screwed on right.

  But they did make me laugh. And I needed that right now.

  My head throbbed from reading everything. I read every word twice. I was too afraid I might miss something that would exonerate my mother. The idea had been planted, and damn if it hadn’t started to grow, especially knowing I didn’t have much time.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would mean to clear my mom’s name. Not only would it help me and my father, but my mother could be set free, once we figured out how to break the spell, of course. Hell, maybe she could even be awake before I graduated. I imagined her sitting in the auditorium next to my father while I crossed that stage to grab my diploma. She would be beaming with pride.

  But it wasn’t just that future image that plagued my mind. It was so many more. Her settling me into my dorm room at college, seeing her at Christmas vacation, her d
oing my hair on my wedding day, and being there in the hospital room when I had my first child.

  She could be there for everything, if I could only prove her innocence.

  I drank the last of my caffeinated soda and returned my gaze to the computer screen. I had separated all the photos into categories—those that mentioned my mother, those that mentioned the Hawk along with the stamped image of the bird, and those that did neither, which were ten times as many as the other two combined.

  The documents mentioning my mother mostly spoke of her affiliation with the Foundation and her trial. Every word proclaimed her betrayal, her deceitfulness, her lies, her destruction. I rubbed at my arms and ignored the sick feeling in my stomach.

  It was hard not to believe what the documents said about her. So much evidence of her violence. Letters she had written. Recorded conversations. Eyewitness accounts. All of it pointed to her guilt. She wanted to announce to the world our kind and declare us rulers over humans. The whole idea was ridiculous. Everyone knew it. We may be powerful, but our numbers were far too few. By, like, billions. I didn’t know what my mother had been thinking.

  And that is what had me continuing my research.

  My mother had been brilliant. Not just book smart, but with common sense too. She wouldn’t have done something as foolish as blowing up dozens of humans if she didn’t think her goal would be accomplished. So why then?

  I continued pouring over the documents despite a growing headache. I jumped when my door flew open.

  Ireland stood in the doorway holding a plastic wand with cotton candy wrapped around its top. “You’re missing the party.”

  My eyes remained on the computer screen. “Party?”

  “It’s Friday, which means movie night, but tonight is special because we’re watching it outdoors.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Bullshit.” She walked over and closed my laptop. “You’re obsessing.”

  “Hey!”

  “You need to take a break before you lose your eyesight.”

  “That’s not a thing.”

  “It’s totally a thing. Besides,” she picked up an empty bag of chips off my bed, “eating like this will kill you. You at least need a Coke to go with it, and there’s plenty of that downstairs, so get off your ass and come down.”

  “But I’m getting close.”

  She looked at me and blinked. “How close?”

  I thought how best to answer her question. What exactly did I know? My gut feeling wouldn’t be enough to convince her. “I know she was working with someone called the Hawk. I know her case was too clean, too easy for people to condemn her.”

  She slow clapped. “Well done, Sherlock. Case solved. Now let’s go get some damn food.” She looked me up and down, grimacing. “After you dress in something clean. You look like you’re wearing something you picked up off my bedroom floor.”

  I groaned and leaned back in my chair. The movement made my stomach growl. Real food would do me some good.

  Ireland pulled me to my feet. “Hudson’s been asking about you.”

  This had me moving a little faster. “What did he say? Exactly.”

  I replaced my shirt with a tight black one and pulled on a white summer skirt. Bonnie had given it to me a few days ago. I’d been waiting for an occasion to wear it. This was as good as any.

  “He said if I didn’t return with you, then he was going to sneak up here and get you himself.”

  I tried not to smile, my chest warming, as I ran a brush through my hair. “What did you say?”

  “I called him a dirty pervert, then told him sneaking into my room would be more fun. I have a whip.”

  I slapped her arm.

  She laughed out loud. “I’m kidding” Her expression flatlined. “Unless I’m not.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

  “Ugh. Let’s just go.” I headed towards the door.

  “I really am kidding,” she said as she followed after me. “Hudson’s not my type. He’s too … what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Normal?”

  “Exactly. I like my men a little demon dirty, know what I mean?”

  Because I didn’t know what she meant and didn’t want to know, I changed the subject. “Where are Bonnie and Bennie?”

  “They’re out there. Bonnie’s running the popcorn machine and Bennie lit our blanket on fire with a lighter.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  I expected to see a movie projecting onto a sheet against the outside of the building but, like everything else at Solar Academy, it was much nicer. A movie screen had literally risen twenty feet out from the ground along with surround sound. Some comedy film I didn’t recognize played onto the screen in HD. Off to the side, several food booths, and in front of the screen dozens of blankets were spread out with students on top. Only a few people were wearing jackets.

  “Why isn’t it cold here yet?” I asked. This morning, when I’d looked out the window, there had been snow on tops of the trees, which meant it should be cold outside, but it still felt like a warm fall evening.

  “You can thank our weather casters for that,” Ireland said as she walked towards the food. “Most of the time, they keep the temperature here pretty mild. Occasionally, they’ll allow it to snow.”

  “I had no idea that was possible,” I breathed, impressed. How many other things did I not know about?

  I loaded up a plate with way too much food and followed Ireland to a blanket way in the back. In fact, it was the very last one. I figured that had been deliberate, thanks to Ireland. Bennie wasn’t there, but a giant hole with blackened edges showed grass in the middle of the quilt. Ireland hadn’t been kidding about Bennie setting the blanket on fire.

  Lowering to the ground, I set the plate of food on my lap and devoured my cheeseburger. On my last bite, I looked over at Ireland, who was staring at me, aghast.

  “I never considered being a vegetarian until now. The way you just ate that cow was scary.” She visibly shivered.

  “Starving,” I said through the last bite of the burger.

  “Well, if you tackle proving your mother’s innocence with the same ferocity as that food, she’ll be set free tomorrow!”

  I said nothing, once again wondering what it would be like to have my mother around. I’d have her take me dress shopping before some fancy dance with Hudson, remind me about curfew, comfort me if my heart got broken—

  “Hey.”

  I blinked and looked up from my empty plate. Hudson stood in front of me, his windswept hair falling lazily over his right eye.

  “Can I join you guys?”

  Ireland came to her feet. “You can sit here. I have to go help Bonnie with the popcorn machine. She can never remember how to refill it.”

  I followed her gaze. Bonnie was at her booth arguing with Bennie about something. Her small fist pounded against the popcorn machine’s glass.

  “Shit. I better go.” Ireland bounded off through the maze of blankets.

  Hudson dropped next to me, bringing a gust of cool air with him. I welcomed the whisper of it across my skin. I closed my eyes and breathed him in. My internal temperature instantly cooled. Was it bad of me to want more?

  I felt him scoot closer and opened my eyes. Every muscle in his face and shoulders had relaxed as if he’d been given a muscle relaxer. “How’s the research coming?”

  “Tedious, but I got everything sorted and have managed to read a lot of what we gathered.”

  “Do you know anything?”

  I shrugged a little and watched a woman on the movie screen stumble on the sidewalk. A hot man in a business suit caught her and laughed. “By all accounts, my mother appears guilty. Such a clean-cut case.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I met his gaze. “But that’s strange, right? Like why did my mother leave behind so much evidence to incriminate herself?”

  “You think she was set up.”

  “Maybe.”

  He stayed silent for a long minute. �
��You want any help?”

  “I don’t want to get you any more involved than you already—” I paused, thinking of something.

  “What is it?”

  I withdrew my phone and brought up my photos. I quickly thumbed through them until I found what I was looking for. After zooming in on a screenshot of the dagger-like insignia, I handed him my phone. “Do you recognize this symbol?”

  * * *

  He looked at it for all of one second before his face paled, and he lowered the phone, face down, onto the blanket. He glanced all around to see if anyone was watching us. “Where did you see that?”

  “It was on a few of the letters about my mother. Why?”

  He leaned towards me and whispered into my ear, cooling my skin with his breath. “It’s the symbol for the Foundation. It’s forbidden to use it. If someone sees you with it, you’ll be dragged in front of the ISA and have to answer a bunch of questions. And believe me, you don’t want that. You should hear some of the stories my father tells.”

  “Your father? What does he have to do with the ISA?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  He lowered his gaze and picked at the blackened edges of the quilt. “After what I’m about to say, please don’t think you can’t trust me. I would never betray you.”

  “Can you just spit it out? You’re kind of freaking me out here.”

  He slowly looked up at me. “My father is one of their Enforcers. He joined eight years ago.”

  I stared straight ahead, the knot in my throat bobbing up and down. If his dad found out about my research, I could be locked up for a very long time, especially with who my mother was. Hudson could get in trouble, too.

  As if reading my thoughts, he said, “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.”

  I didn’t respond. What could I say? He shouldn’t be involved in any of this.

  Laughter erupted in front of us. Maisy and Arrow had turned on music and were dancing with each other. Grant and Becca cheered them on.