Set the Sky on Fire (Fire Trilogy Book 1) (14 page)

“Then don't.”

“It’ll only be for a few days, trust me. After that kiss, you will be all I’ll be thinking about.”

“Hurry,” Ari replied, giving him one last kiss.

Nate passed her some papers. “Hotel details.” Nate looked past Ari to Nevaeh, milling around the checkpoint, making the security staff look at her in suspicion.

“Take good care of her.” Nate called out to Nevaeh.

“Define good,” Nevaeh replied, giving him a final wave.

Nate frowned and then turned his attention back to Ari. “I
will
see you soon,” Nate released his hold on her and she followed after Nevaeh.

Before they turned the corner, Ari gave him one final wave. He waved back, but his smile was gone.

“Be safe,” she mouthed.

While waiting for their boarding call, they’d hunted down a travel guide for Singapore and now sat, drinking coffee, flipping through the guide book. Ari had paid, of course, a little something towards appeasing any hurt feelings. Nevaeh bounced back quickly from her earlier disappointment. Her big grin had returned. Ari found it hard not to catch the excitement bug that Nevaeh had going.

They were reading up on Sentosa Island when the boarding call for Bangkok, Thailand came through. It was the flight they were originally supposed to take to catch their connecting flight to the south of the country.

They looked at each other and shrugged.

“Singapore will be awesome,” Nevaeh said, before delving back into the guide. “Nate must really be into you—have you seen the price of accommodation?”

The girls were soon buckled into their seats on the aircraft, nervously chatting as they waited for take-off. The engines roared as the aircraft lifted off the ground, and the pressure forced Ari back into the seat. She watched Christchurch as it shrank away into the distance. When the crashing white breakers on New Brighton Beach looked like a salted rim on a martini glass, she sighed with relief. With a slight bump, the plane flew into a bank of cloud and obscured the ground from view.

Not once had Ari sensed the menacing presence of the seether, not even a whisper of him, and she had checked often enough. Nate might have been right after all. Ari put on her headphones and scrolled through the movie channels. It had been a while since she felt this safe. Flying 30,000 feet above ground, trapped in a thermos with wings was oddly reassuring. She settled into the seat and pushed play.

They landed in Singapore and made their way through customs. According to their body clocks, it was after midnight. They would have to acclimatize to Singapore time, which had only just ticked over 7:00 pm. The hotel Nate had booked for them was luxurious by their standards. Not high end, but way better than what they had booked for themselves in Thailand. They raided all of the cupboards to see what freebies were on offer then threw themselves on a bed each.

“Well Ari, if you are going to be shipped off for safe keeping, this seems to be the perfect place.”

Nevaeh played up to it, slipping her hands behind her head and wiggling her way further into the snow-white linen. The only noise in their room was the low hum of the air conditioning unit. Both girls lay still and silent for a long time, lost in their thoughts. When they had arrived at Changi Airport, Ari had searched for the seether, sure he wasn’t there, but needing to check anyway. Now, she gave a deep sigh and wandered to the window where she could see Marina Bay all lit up. In the distance, Supertree Grove illuminated the night sky, a multitude of colours dancing on the black canvas. Across the harbour, the Merlion statue, the mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish spurted water out of its mouth. They were a long way from home, and the heat, the smells, the traffic, none of it was familiar.

“Hungry?” she asked Nevaeh. “I'm thinking room service and a movie, to stay awake.”

“I love the way you think.” Ari heard the bed rustle behind her as Nevaeh rolled off it and headed to the small table that was home to a few glossy magazines, pamphlets and, more importantly, the leather-bound hotel menu.

She flipped through the pages. Without looking up, she said to Ari, “So how about telling me what's really going on. Your version.”

“Nate already has.”

“Come on Ari, I could see your face in the rear-view mirror when he was telling the story. You looked guilty. You’d be the worst poker player, ever. Obviously, he wasn’t saying it all.”

After they phoned through their meal orders, Ari used the waiting time to explain what had happened over the past few days. Nevaeh's curiosity turned to horror as she began to discover just what the seether was capable of and why he so badly wanted Ari.

Every last muscle in Ari's abdomen clenched as if she had been punched in the stomach. The bed struck the wall behind her, as she sat bolt upright, a bead of sweat spilling down her face. Her breathing came in pants, and her eyes darted around the blank walls until they focussed on the nondescript landscape scene hanging on the wall across from her.
I’m in the hotel
, she told herself. It had been a nightmare. Her contracted muscles eased off.

Propping herself up against the wooden headboard, she looked around the room. Two comfortable armchairs were positioned near the floor to ceiling window. The wear patch in the middle of the seats suggested that many occupants had indulged in the spectacular view. Two double beds, one on which she was currently sprawled, took up most of the room. With the conditioner set to low, the room had slowly warmed overnight and both their duvet covers lay crumpled on the ground at the foot of the beds. The sheet on the bed next to Ari gently rose and fell at a steady cadence. Nevaeh still slept.

Ari sat, arms wrapped around her shins, as she watched dawn scuttled its way across the harbour. Nightmares weren’t anything new; she’d never grown out of them like her doctor said she would. Still, there was no way to get used to them, and since there was an HD image of a plane crashing currently scorched on her retinas, she wasn’t going back to sleep. At least, Nevaeh could get an extra hour or two. By the time she woke, Ari had read all the pamphlets in the tourist folder from back to front.

Without any food in their room, Bugis Junction was the first visit on their itinerary. The decision had less to do with the supermarket there and more to do to with the all the other shops. For a couple of kiwi girls, it was a good warmup for the seven-story Singapura shopping complex they planned to visit before they left the city. The Junction was within walking distance and, in the time she spent waiting for Nevaeh to wake, Ari had found a quicker route to the mall’s back door. They grabbed their handbags and headed to the elevator.

The hotel lobby was aglow with sunshine beating down through the large glass panelled hotel frontage. A staircase cascaded down from the second floor, ornately patterned in white and brown tiles, giving the area a sense of grandeur. Ari had been too tired to really appreciate it when they’d arrived, but now she took it all in.

On the ride down in the elevator from the eighth floor, Nevaeh had already listed six things she wanted to buy, her outstretched fingers retaining the count. “Hmm.” She looked at them. “Perhaps you should hold my debit card. Otherwise, I don't think I’ll have enough money to last the day, let alone the trip.”

As they walked through the lobby, the staff smiled and greeted them with ‘good morning.’ It was like being in a fairytale. To get to the automatic doors on the other side of the lobby, they had to duck around a throng of people who had taken up residence on the circular couches. Too consumed by her surroundings, Ari bumped in to another tourist. The woman had a ratty baseball cap pulled down over her face.

“Sorry,” Ari apologised, but the women never lifted her head.

“She might not speak the language,” Nevaeh whispered as she laced her arm through Ari’s and pulled her through the automatic doors and out on to the busy street, where the humidity engulfed them.

The doors silently slid open before them, giving them access to the busy street as they stepped out from the air conditioning into the warm, moist air.

Ari’s neck protested as she craned back, looking in awe at yet another of the tall buildings on either side. They’d used the short cut outlined on the hotel map, and had reached a quiet street that led to the back entrance of the mall. The mall itself didn’t open for another thirty minutes. They planned to have breakfast at one of its small cafés to pass the time.

The street was quiet. Two people had disappeared into the mall up ahead of them, and another person was behind them heading the same way. The rest of the Bugis Junction complex, not filled with shops, had been fitted out as offices. Ari suspected this route would be highly frequented come Monday morning. But today was Sunday, and there was hardly anyone around.

“I was starting to wonder whether we’d be able to get in.” Nevaeh slapped Ari’s arm. “Looks like it’s open.” The door was settling closed again. The smell of fresh baking wafted from the vents.

Ari listened to rapid footfalls heading up the road behind them. Ari veered off to the right, not wanting to delay the stranger as they hurried towards the doors. But as the person neared, they also slowed, moving behind her. Ari could smell a heavy dousing of floral perfume.

Ari and Nevaeh turned at the same time to see who had invaded their privacy.

“I wanted the pleasure of telling you it was me.” The brutality of her smile was haunting. “It was
me
who helped him.
Me
who tracked you.
Me
who gave you to him.” She removed her sunglasses to look them in the eye then, taking off her cap, she flicked her hair into place.

The voice, dripping spiteful triumph, was so close to them that Ari had a problem focusing on the face in front of her. It came into view and she saw Michelle, her face reeking with satisfaction, standing there. Ari's skin tightened. She scrambled through her mind looking for answers, trying to find an explanation. There it was, hidden deep within. She’d thought she was out of harm’s way. How foolish was that? Naive. Stupid. Too many years of bundling her ability away had made it too easy for her to keep the feelings hidden. Assuming Nate had sent her somewhere safe hadn’t helped either, and she’d let down her guard, not even bothering to check for herself.

Ari knew where he was and turned to face him. The seether stepped out from the shadow behind the dumpster.

“Scream or run, and I'll kill your friend.” His voice was calm as if commenting on the weather. However, the blade held in his right hand belied his placid tone. The sun hit the blade, the metal reflecting the colours of the walls around them, the walls closing them in. He strolled towards Ari and Nevaeh. To people at a distance, it could have appeared to be an innocent encounter. Ari didn't know if he would kill them here in the open, but she wouldn’t put it past him, knowing what he was capable of.

Nevaeh said nothing. She stood there, looking terrified and angry. Then, before Ari could move, she turned and punched Michelle hard in the stomach. The humph noise she made when all the air expelled from her lungs was oddly satisfying. Michelle staggered but didn’t fall. Ari looked at Nevaeh, shocked by the sudden outburst and the sheer ferocity of it.

“Oh come on, she deserved that. He just said I couldn't run—what else was I supposed to do.”

The seether sneered, “You're right, she did deserve it, but how about, since she’s on my side, you know—the one with the knife, we say you don't do that again, okay? Either of you.”

Michelle, still bent over, craned her head up at Nevaeh. “Bitch,” she spat through a ragged breath. “You’ll pay for that.”

“Cell phones, please.” The seether drew their attention back to him. His outstretched hand waited to receive their phones.

Ari and Nevaeh didn't move.

“Oh, don't give me that shit. Two teenage girls who don't have cell phones? I have a better chance of perfecting time travel. Now hand them over.”

They complied, forcefully slapping them into his hand.

“You don’t need her,” Ari pointed to Nevaeh. “Let her go and I’ll do whatever, okay?”

“Ha. If I let her go alive, first thing she’ll do is call the cops and that Serrathan guy of yours, and watch them bring us down. Now, shut your face and walk. I’m taking you on an adventure.” The seether’s commands were forceful, as was the hand he shoved into Ari’s back.

Ari was frantic, trying to weigh up their options. Wouldn't it be better to stay out in the open and try and lose him here? She looked around her for any potential way out. She had been too obvious. The seether sidled up to her and, standing as close as a lover would, he squeezed the wrist he had grabbed at the lakeside. Pain ripped up her arm. She tried to pull away but he held her tight.

“Let's remember what I can do. Your lover boy is a bit more durable than you. But you and your little friend here, I could happily break like twigs.” He released her wrist, gave her a forceful kiss on the forehead as a final show of dominance and, in a low pitched voice, demanded, “Move.”

Ari and Nevaeh both turned and started walking.

“Are you alright?” Nevaeh whispered.

Nevaeh inspected Ari’s arm, checking for damage. The imprint of the seether’s hand disappearing as the blood returned. Ari had used a wide-strap watch, carefully positioned to cover the previous bruise, but it wasn’t quite wide enough. Nevaeh noticed the faint brown-yellow hued markings poking out and pushed the watch aside to get a better view.

“That's not the first time he’s grabbed you, is it?”

“This one is from the winery,” Ari said, pointing at her wrist. “Only difference is, that time Nate was there to stop him.”

“Now would be the perfect time for him to show up.” Nevaeh mumbled. The sentiment was wishful and hopeless. Ari knew he wasn’t near. She’d searched for his emotional signature the instant she had seen the seether’s face.

Reluctantly, they walked back towards the hotel, the seether and Michelle only a step behind. How deep was Michelle's hatred to have offered them up so easily? No answer, no explanation could suffice. Ari heard an air of seduction in Michelle's voice, as she talked with the seether. Even the sound of her breathing aggravated Ari. She understood fully why Nevaeh had hit the girl. Ari wished she’d been the one. Her hands twitched, and she stopped dead in her path. She turned around, wanting to get a clearer picture of the evil walking behind her.

“I just want to know why? Why would you do this?” As she spoke, she looked Michelle straight in the eye but could find no guilt or remorse hiding there, only a haze of pleasure.

“I’m sick of you and Nevaeh always getting what you want. Everyone’s favourite little duo. Even my father thought you were so fantastic after getting those stupid awards last year for netball
and
math. I thought it would be nice to bring you down a notch or two. Turns out it does feel satisfying—even better than sleeping with Nevaeh’s lover boy from the party, although, he was easy pickings.”

“You did
all
this just because you're jealous of us?”

“That makes it sound a lot less meaningful—but yeah, pretty much. Why would I
not
do something that made me so happy? That and a free, all expenses paid holiday. First class even. How do you think Dominic found you?”

The seether had a name. Up until that point, Ari assumed he was nothing like a human. But naming him seemed to change that.

“I can't believe you didn't see me at the airport. Admittedly, I wasn't looking my fabulous self.” She flicked her hair back behind her shoulder. “That was me in the shabby Adidas cap and sunnies.” She pointed to the bag. “So not my style. But you were all wrapped up in your pretty boy, and you didn't see me standing a few people behind you. I couldn’t believe it when you booked onto a different flight. I had it all planned out in Phuket, my excursion, my spa appointments, everything. Never mind. I cheered up when they had no spare seats in cattle class left on the Singapore flight, and I got to fly first class instead.” She leaned into Ari and murmured, “Well, I could have gone business, but why would I, not when there’s a cute guy wanting to pay, right?”

“Your parents must be so proud.” Ari’s sentence oozed with sarcasm.

“Whatever. I'm sure they're happy as long as I’m leaving their bank accounts alone for a change.”

Having had enough of the exchange, the seether prodded Ari and told her to get a move on.

They walked in silence the rest of the way, with the exception of the seether, who spent most of the time on his cell phone. From the bits and pieces Ari could hear, it sounded like he was booking flights.

The seether soon confirmed it. “If anybody is not traveling on a New Zealand passport, now would be the time to tell me.”

Nevaeh and Ari shook their heads but didn't bother to turn and look at him. In a silky voice, he said, “We're all kiwis. Book us up, and if you could arrange a taxi from the hotel to the airport that would be great too.”

There was a short pause. “Wonderful. We will be ready to go in twenty minutes. Thanks so much for your help. After he’d hung up he added, “…you melodious pain in the arse.”

“So Dominic, where are we going next? Will I get some shopping time?”

The affection in Michelle's voice sounded out of place, so Ari turned her head to see what was going on. Michelle looked dolefully up into the seether’s eyes, linked her arm with his, then let out a ridiculous giggle. The seether, in turn, looked like he might push her into the oncoming traffic. His eyes narrowed, then, he took a deep breath and appeared to compose himself.

“Melbourne.” He even looked back at her with a smile.

“That works for me,” Michelle replied.

“I'm so glad,” the seether responded flatly.

They walked back through the hotel lobby, the staff welcoming them. This time, Ari didn't respond to the pleasantries, merely acknowledged their kindness with a short nod and kept moving. Dominic and Michelle, their arms still linked like a honeymooning couple, held back far enough to give the impression that Nevaeh and Ari were alone.