NINE | FIRE

I couldn’t help but feel worried about seeing Harper as we sat down together, tucked into a cosy nook at the far end of the coffee shop. There was a towering lamp beside us, casting strange shadows across Cyrus’s face. He’d carried our drinks over, and I got the feeling that he enjoyed playing the part of the gentleman.

Whether he truly was or not was another question entirely, and one that I doubted I’d find the answer to today.

“So, Callie,” he said, taking a small, careful sip from his white mug. His teeth chinked against the ceramic, and he winced before putting it back down. Then he turned the full force of his bright-blue gaze on me, and I felt a tremble in the pit of my stomach. He was handsome; it was undeniable, a fact.

“Yes?” I squeaked, and berated myself for it immediately. 

He smiled, and the fluttering in my core only increased. “Tell me about yourself.”

I laughed, and I suddenly felt as though I was back on firm ground. No matter the tension between us, Cyrus would never know who I was, not really. I was powerful, a warrior. I wouldn’t allow myself to be fazed by his good looks – no matter how good they were.

I pulled my mug towards me, stretching my legs out and revelling in the warmth of the shop. “There’s not much to tell, really,” I said, struggling to keep a straight face. “I went to university, but now I live back in my hometown and work in a diner.” I shrugged, and took a sip of my latte.

“Oh, on the contrary,” Cyrus smirked, “I think there’s much more to you than meets the eye, Callie.” Then he coughed, and straightened his back. “What did you study?”

“History.” I paused to take another, small sip. “I wrote my dissertation on English folklore. Supernatural legends, specifically.” 

“Is that so?” This seemed to have amused him for some reason, and I watched him curiously as he smiled widely at me. “I read Literature at Oxford. It seems that there is some overlap between our areas of study.”

“Oxford?” I raised my eyebrows. “That’s… hard-core.”

He laughed. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. The workload was intense, but my tutors were rigorous and I enjoyed my time there.”

I grinned at him, feeling more at ease with every passing second. “Okay, that’s just a fancy way of saying that studying there was hard-core.”

“Perhaps,” he smiled, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Where did you study?”

I snorted. “Bournehurst. It’s not quite Oxford, but,” I shrugged, “I enjoyed my time there, too.”

He leant across the table, as though he was about to reveal a great secret, “I think that’s all that matters, really. And now? How did you end up back in Seafall, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh.” Of course he’d ask me this, and of course I was utterly unprepared to answer him. “My – my family,” I said, hoping that my recovery had been smooth enough that he wouldn’t have noticed my momentary slip-up. “We’ve always been close – that’s part of the reason I studied at Bournehurst, too. It was close enough that I could come back if I ever needed to.”

“That’s lovely, Callie, really it is.” He looked wistful, with a sad quirk of his lower lip. His eyes, so full of light and joy moments before, were suddenly heavy-lidded and glum.

“And you?” I pressed, not wanting his bad mood to taint our meeting. If I was going to lie to Harper about this, then I wanted it to be worth it. The thought choked me for a second – I was a horrible person, and I didn’t know when I’d lost myself – and I almost missed Cyrus’s response.

“I suppose I could say family as well,” he sighed. “They’ve just opened an Italian restaurant on the high street. I – well, I suppose I’m rather bored of life. I wanted a change, and when they said they were moving – to be honest, I thought Seafall sounded quite boring, too.” He smiled apologetically, and I shook my head at him, grinning. He was forgiven.

“I suppose I’ve seen a lot of the world already, and I thought that if I’d seen one English seaside town that I’d seen them all.” His eyes settled on me, as though he was trying to convey something deeper. “I was wrong.”

I swallowed thickly. How did he get under my skin like that? My heart was thundering in my chest, and I wanted – completely irrationally – to reach across the table and to take his hand.

I tried to shrug it off. “Seafall is a beautiful town.”

“It is,” he said, an arrogant smirk settling on his lips. “But there are other, more beautiful things here than a waterfall and a cove.”

“Is that so?” I teased, picking up the wooden stirrer and slicing it through the foamy top of my latte. Harper’s face swam before my eyes, and I swallowed abruptly. “You were bored?” I asked, suddenly desperate to change the subject.

“I suppose I was, yes.” He took another sip of his coffee, but he kept his gaze fixed on me as he drank. A shiver tickled down my backbone, raising goose bumps on my forearms. “I’m hoping to find a teaching position here, perhaps, but money has never been an issue for my family. I wonder if that’s part of the problem. There is no struggle in my life, not anymore.”

“Maybe a job would do you good, then. Keep you busy.”

“Perhaps.” His eyes twinkled, as though he had a secret of his own that he was delighting in not telling me. “That is certainly what my family think. Opening the restaurant was nothing more than a flight of fancy. They asked if I would like to work there, but,” he cocked his head to one side, “I didn’t think that sort of environment was for me.”

“Because you’re an Oxford man,” I smirked. “Far too upper class to work in a restaurant.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” he laughed. Then he shook his head. “Okay, maybe. But if it doesn’t appeal to me, and I do not need the money, then I, quite frankly, do not see the point in working there.”

“And therein lies your problem.” I raised one eyebrow at him. “You have no need of anything. The human experience is defined by needs. Wants are secondary.”

“Is that so?” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “And, Callie, what is it that you want?”

I grinned, shaking my head at him. “I don’t want for much, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, but I think you do. I think you want passion, Callie. You want a love that burns like fire, trembling through you and setting your heart alight. You want to feel fear, and respect, and pure adoration. You want to be consumed by it. And,” he added, his tone morphing from serious to cocky, “you want a partner who is as consumed by you.”

I sighed, leaning back and raising an eyebrow at him. “I have that already. His name is Harper.”

“Harper?” He repeated. Then he shook his head slowly, his dark lashes fluttering. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you do have everything you want. But I think otherwise.”

I brushed his comments off.  Because, despite myself, despite what I’d said, I could imagine feeling such fire with Cyrus. He was older, different. He could show me things I’d never imagined, never experienced. 

And, I thought, he already seemed twisted and dark, in a way that Harper never would be. I had to protect his innocence; Cyrus, however, would strip away the last vestiges of mine.

My phone vibrated in the deep well of my coat pocket. It would be rude to look at the message; then again, it was somewhat rude of Cyrus to suggest that my relationship with Harper, the man I loved, was not fulfilling enough for me.

But it didn’t stop buzzing. I sighed, and slid it out far enough that I could read the caller I.D.

“I’m sorry, Cyrus,” I said, glancing up at him. I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth worriedly. “It’s my Dad. I’d better take this.”

“Of course, of course.” He swept a hand through the air. “I understand. Family is important.” He leant across the table and squeezed my hand, his smile softening, gentling as he did so.

“I’ll be right back. And – thank you.”

I hated that I felt bad for leaving him. I hated that I missed him, his strange, charismatic behaviour and those bewitching blue eyes. I hated that, even as I wound through the eclectic selection of worn tables, I could picture those eyes: bright blue at their centre, clear as the sea on a summer’s day, and so dark at their edges that they almost looked black, a perfect blur joining the two. They were like the dusk, the last rays of sun before the night drew in.

I hated that, somewhere buried, deep down, I thought that he might have been right about me.

The cold hit me like a brick wall as I stepped outside to call my Dad back. I pulled my coat around me, tying up the belt and leaning against the wall behind me. The chill bit at my fingers as I took my phone out, and they trembled slightly as I dialled his number. I had a bad feeling about this; a lump at the base of my throat that wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I swallowed.

He picked up straight away. “Dad?”

“Hi, Cals. Your Paps and I went to the hospital this morning.” Straight to the point, as always. My Paps would have softened the blow, asked how my day was going. Sometimes, I preferred my Dad’s no-nonsense attitude.

“Oh?” I asked. A single orange leaf fell from the bony branch in front of me, sifting from side to side before landing in the road. I scrunched my toes up inside my boots, trying to stem off the cold.

“We went to check on Bethan, see if she was awake, and if she remembered anything. Well – your Paps just wanted to make sure she was doing okay,” he chuckled. 

“How is she?” I asked, crunching a crisp leaf beneath my boot.

“Gone.”

“Wait – what?”

“Yeah. She’s disappeared. Nobody signed her out, and the hospital staff didn’t see her leave. She’s just vanished, Cals.”