by Emily Bow
I ignored his question and lit the candle.
“Kira?”
I held it high, blowing at the small flame, forcing the wisps of heat and dark smoke upward. Warm wax dripped along the back of my fingers and cinnamon fragrance curled through the air.
Wythe stopped asking what I was doing. For an Oxie, he’d taken a while to figure it out. He bit out a curse and strode toward me.
The alarm stayed silent.
I blew harder. Go off, darn you. Was I going to have to light a towel on fire? The trash can? I’d do it.
Beep. Beep. Beep. The alarm sounded.
Chapter 14
Wythe put his strong arm around my waist, pulling me off the weight bench to the floor. “Are you mad?”
A little. I was standing close to him, the lit cinnamon candle clutched to my chest.
A team of guards rushed the room. The lead guy shoved his fingertips into his palm. “Move. Move. Move.”
I blew out the incriminating wick and grabbed Wythe’s arm, so he wouldn’t let me go as the guards encircled us. “We are not done.”
“Yet.”
That hurt. But it wasn’t a total immediate rejection. I’d take it.
We started the slow jog from the room toward the bunker.
He’d have to talk to me now because we were about to be shut into the panic room together. Unless he was horribly put out at how I’d gotten him there. Which he could be.
I would be.
Maybe this was not the best idea. My stomach tightened.
But at least we were together. Maybe this was my best idea. I was fighting for him. Because hiding my emotions hadn’t always gotten me what I wanted. Today, I was getting what I wanted. I was fighting for us. Not sitting back and giving up like I did at home. There must have been some point when we were little that I’d just given up and let Felicity get her way because struggling against how unfair being a twin was had rarely gotten me anywhere. I wasn’t rolling over today.
We were running now, and my mind was spinning. This run didn’t hold the terror or confusion of the first time, and I was trying to get my brain to come up with a solution to this problem. My brain tossed new ideas out with each step. We went through the same corridors, down the same stairs, and then the same door sealed us into the same dark room.
I felt my way to the couch and sank down.
The couch cushion shifted with his weight as he joined me. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel his presence, smell the scent of the shower gel he’d used and the lingering cinnamon candle. It was inappropriate and wrong, but I wanted to finish our kiss. To make up with him with a kiss. That’s what hit me there in the cinnamon-scented dark. On the couch.
I wanted to kiss him again. Taste him again. Even mad at him. Especially mad at him. I wanted to turn all this inner energy out, to expend it.
The fluorescent lights kicked on, making me blink.
Wythe was beside me, scowling.
Yeah. The darkness hadn’t brought out any romantic desires for him. He wasn’t totally into this. At least, not yet.
Wythe sat with his legs spread, his hands clasped between them. “Was this political? Some motive I’m not seeing?”
There was a mood killer. “I don’t have an opinion on U.K. politics.” I guess maybe I should’ve, now that I was living here, but I didn’t follow them. There were enough to follow back home. With decisions that affected me.
“Must be nice. I don’t have that luxury. Opinions shared over dinner affect policy in my family. Words matter. Mistakes matter.”
I put my fingertips to my temples and pressed in. That was a complexity of his life I hadn’t thought about. I softened. Oh, Wythe. I wanted to hug him, shake him, and kiss him all at once. Impossible. Impossible contradictions. I touched his arm, and he tensed under my grip. But he didn’t shake me off. “That’s kind of empowering, too. Just being here is.”
He gave a sharp nod and sank against the backrest, drumming his fingers on the cushion between us. I couldn’t read him, but he looked as if he were calculating a math problem in his head. After a minute of that, he turned to face me, his feral blue eyes burning. “Forcing me in here is just not done.” He sounded really English.
“I don’t give up so easily.” I softened my voice, so he wouldn’t sense the full intensity of how I felt. “I don’t want to.”
He blinked and shifted to his feet. “We should talk about class. Our next move.” He sounded practical, like he’d asked me to hand him another weight. What an ability to compartmentalize. Must be a British thing, because I didn’t have it.
I could only think about us. Our next move. I eyed the couch cushion. We could kiss flat out on the couch. Feed the spark between us.
“For class.” His eyes were practical to the point of being cold, and they had the cold shower effect on me. He was fully shutting me out, blanking his face, wearing his public expression.
Great. Yep. Keep it on the inside where we can’t fix it, Wythe. Keep it on the inside. Like a Vulcan, a British Vulcan.
My mouth twisted, and I pulled my knees up and in, hugging them. “Wythe.” I sounded kind of needy.
“Don’t think you’ll get out of doing this literature project.”
That wasn’t what I needed from him. “Wythe.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, looking almost pleased. “You used me, and I’ll use you to finish the class.”
He wasn’t kicking me out. I had time, and that gave me a chance. That was good. Calm down. Breathe. He’ll get over this. Tell him. What? What could I say? I shouldn’t have sent that photo out. I knew better. I hadn’t even read the packet at the time, and I knew better. I could make this up to him.
He got up and paced. “I think we should go to the station.”
I wasn’t following his meaning. I had to get it together and be useful. Think about class myself before I revealed something I shouldn’t reveal. Something about how I felt about him. My heart thumped at the thought, and it caused enough of a jolt of fear that I got my mind in the game. “Why?”
“For the red clue. Paddington Station.”
“Okay.” I still wasn’t fully tracking. Red as a clue could mean the red of Paddington Bear’s jacket, or a phone booth, or a random crayon. At the rate of these clues, we wouldn’t finish the class before this six-week internship was over. “This lag between clues…it’s so the other teams can catch up? We’re going to be in this for a while together.” I used the words “we” and “our” deliberately so he’d remember we were in this together.
He shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. “This class is about to spiral into high speed.”
“How do you know that?”
He frowned. “The professor’s post on the class board. Didn’t you read it? Final answers are due by week’s end.”
I hadn’t read that. I shrugged. I really should have read up on the class. But now I knew. I had a week to win him over.
“The professor is not impressed with the class papers or the few guesses that have come in. July’s ending. The internship ends in August, too. You and I are almost finished.”
We weren’t finished. Working on the project would force him to work with me. It gave me time. I clung to that thought. “Did you want to type ‘Paddington’ in as our answer?”
Wythe shook his head. “Paddington’s a central hub. If the new clue requires travel, it’ll put us that much closer to wherever we need to go. We’ll be ready…if we’re not stuck in here.” He shot the bunker a resentful look. “The class could end today with a mad rush of clues and me getting stuck with tons of papers because we can’t leave this room.” He ran his hand over his hair.
I hadn’t known most of that. I didn’t want to think about it now. Guess that answered my question about graduate school. I wasn’t ready to focus on more classwork. I wanted my hands in his hair. Stop. Shake this off. Concentrate. Don’t be so attracted to him. Sound smart. Be smart. “That would be our ultimate answer then, that a book transports
you even when you can’t leave the room.”
I thought that was a really good answer, but he looked at me like I’d started quoting Shakespeare at him again. He paced. “I should never have agreed to this class.”
“The clue could involve Downing Street, and we’d be right here on top of it.” I was trying to make my tricking him into coming to this panic room less damaging with that suggestion.
“Not likely.”
True. I’d ruled out English writers who’d been politicians. Okay, focus. We could get back to…what, a friendship at least? A truce.
I didn’t want a truce.
I didn’t want to be his friend.
I wanted our clothes on the floor. But I couldn’t have that. I had a lot of relationship ground to make up. “Okay. I agree to Paddington Station,” I said with a friendly magnanimous tone.
Wythe made a dismissive sound as if I’d commented on the apple-fragranced cleaning product the cleaners had used instead of yielding to his idea. I breathed in and then out. “When exactly is the next clue due to drop?
“Teatime. The class boards, the ones you didn’t read, said we get another clue by teatime. We’d better be out soon.” He crossed the room and took clothes from a shelf then went through a small door to the bunker’s bathroom.
The sound of water pounding down came through the wall.
A little rude, but it was easier to think without him in the room confusing me. As long as I didn’t think about him being in the shower. Unclothed.
Class. Class. Class.
Focus.
I wasn’t exactly current with the class or with checking how this puzzle worked. Really, I’d graduated in June. I had nothing left to give academically. Much less enough to be competitive in a high-stress class. But I could help him finish it.
Not just for him. For me. If we didn’t come out on top, we’d have to do a lot of papers. I didn’t want to write more papers, not this year. But I also didn’t want to fail my one and only ever Oxford class. Especially a literature class. A class I had a degree in. That would be horrible, like negating my education or something. I had every reason now to solve the class puzzle. We’d had King Richard and now Red.
How were they connected?
I pondered it while waiting for Wythe to return and drank a bottle of water from the supplies. I didn’t know if there was some sort of bunker supply list I needed to mark, but I figured whoever maintained this place would see the empty plastic water bottle and figure to re-stock. If not, they didn’t deserve the position.
Wythe came out, showered, dressed in jeans and a green Henley shirt, rubbing a towel on his wet hair. His skin had to be shower hot and soap scented.
I wanted closer. “I’m thinking about the connection.” I had to cough because my voice came out husky. “Richard and Red.”
“What a waste. Give me math any day.” He narrowed his eyes. “What else have you figured out…and not shared?”
I tilted my head and tried not to react to his jab. He had a right to be put out.
I closed my eyes and thought about the clues. “I figure the answers will be connected. I figure they’ll be major English Literature authors. Epic. Historic ones: Austen, Bronte, Chaucer, Dickens… I think we can rule out all former PMs like Churchill and Disraeli. I figure students would complain that it gave you an advantage and say the professor was catering to you and by extension, the ruler of your country.”
“They would.” Wythe nodded and lost his cold look. He wore a classmate kind of look now. “Go on.” He dropped his wet towel on the shelf and found a comb. He dragged it through his towel-dried hair.
I did my best not to stare. Seeing his routine was intimate. I focused on the class. “The professor is a guy, so the ultimate authors he’s thinking of are probably men. Unless we have a progressive professor. Then he’ll throw in half women, just so he doesn’t get called on that BS.”
“Narrowing the possibilities. Good.”
“Yeah. And, I also ruled out foreigners. If you have enough famous English writers– freaking home of Shakespeare and all, then you don’t have to add in the other brilliants who lived here but retained their foreign identity like Oscar Wilde. I mean, Shakespeare. We could blow our ultimate guess on Shakespeare, the Globe, or his home at Stratford on Avon, and not be ashamed. But we really need more clues.” My voice picked up enthusiasm. I really did love this topic.
Wythe nodded. “My train station idea is sound. We’ll get out of here. Apply my transport advantage to your list, and we’ll be at the front. Get this over with.”
I nodded with confidence, though all I felt at his words was cold, uncertain, and confined. I kicked off my shoes and lay with my back to the armrest. The couch fabric scratched at my neck. I wedged a throw pillow behind me.
I’d known we had chemistry. I’d known I was crushing on him. I hadn’t known how connected we were until it was taken away. We’d get our connection back.
I’d get it back for us.
I had to.
“How close are we to Paddington Station?”
“Not far. It’s an advantageous locale. You’ll see. With London’s traffic, you have to think two steps ahead or you’ll end up hours behind.” He went on about Westminster in relation to the train station and traffic hours. Before he finished, the door released.
The guard looked in. “All clear.” He looked hard at me. “Possibly the candle you were admiring set off our alarm. Though it shouldn’t have. We’ve had the candles removed.”
“Great precaution,” I said.
The guard snorted.
I stretched, getting off the couch. “So, how many rooms are there like this?”
“I can’t say,” Wythe said.
“Do you all get your own?”
“It depends on which room we’re closest to, and the type of threat. If a route is cut off, we have to go to a backup room.”
“Oh.” Weird how that sounded somewhat normal.
The guard secured the door behind us. Wythe and I took the stairs up to the main entry.
“I met your brother.” There. That was casual friendly conversation.
He sent me a sharp glance. “Why would you want to meet Zane?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Is he like you or Caroline?” Tell me about yourself.
He frowned. “He’s himself. And, like me, so over the manipulation.” He wasn’t making a dig, just stating a fact.
A whirring sounded, and the door opened, freeing us from one chamber to the next. Then we were out of security and outside in the mild English summer. We stood on the curb, waiting for the car.
“Wythe. I don’t want to be one of the people in your life who manipulates you.”
“Really, Kira. Don’t.” Wythe faced forward. “Because, you know, and I know, you already are.”
The black town car pulled up and he got in, leaving me standing there.
It hurt.
My insides hurt. The breaths hurt. Why? Anger at my sister? Embarrassment? Oh, no.
It really was my heart.
The worst kind of hurt.
Chapter 15
Act normal and things would go back to normal. That’s how I handled fallouts with my sister. I pretended she hadn’t royally pissed me off. She pretended none of my digs pissed her off, and we moved on. Often with a small silent treatment, which was what Felicity was getting now from me. Felicity was used to it.
Wythe didn’t just give me the silent treatment. He played cold and distant. A British specialty. Not one word in the car on the way to Paddington Station.
We pulled up right beside a brass statue of Paddington Bear. Tourists were posing with him. “Let’s get savory pastries and pose with that bear.”
I could see him warring with his hunger. Wythe pushed out his lip. “It is teatime.”
There really was no set teatime. Teatime meant afternoon snack and could happen any time after lunch and before dinner. I wanted a pasty. The half-moon shaped potpies were a much more travel-frie
ndly shape than our own little pies because I could eat the half-moons without a fork and they could be carried in my hand. An eco-friendly kind of takeout. “I want a potato-cheese one.”
Interest sparked in Wythe’s eyes. “They may still have steak ones.”
I paused at the bear on the way in, waiting for the tourists to finish their snapshot. I was getting a selfie. Sure, I could have ignored the whole selfie sore point. But then, things around it would fester. I was ripping the band-aid off on the photo issue. Wythe was looking around as if he wasn’t used to the train station.
“Wythe. Come here.”
He looked at me like I was crazy.
“Get in the photo with me. If ‘Paddington’ is correct, great, we’ll get a tick mark. But if he’s not, at least we can send in this picture with Paddington wearing his little red jacket, and the Professor will understand why we thought of ‘red’ and bear books.” I was overexplaining to persuade him.
He wavered. More than one tourist was waiting for me to move so they could get their shot. I wasn’t budging. That, more than anything, made him lean in and pose.
Then we entered the train station. Paddington Station smelled of London air and train exhaust and held a ton of commuters all going purposefully in different directions. Two couples rolled bags along the colored floor stickers leading them to the Heathrow Express. A group of guys in soccer jerseys headed to the underground entrance. A guy in a striped suit carrying a briefcase strode toward the taxi queue. A few were like me and Wythe, less purposeful.
Stores and restaurants enclosed the railway tracks on one end. We got our food at a kiosk and found an iron bench. After the first cheesy bite and sip of semi-warm fizzy soda, my phone pinged with an incoming email. I clicked on it, hoping for the next clue. Something Wythe and I could talk about.
The email was from Felicity. I opened it. Waking up to another glorious day. Going to hit the Smithsonian for some sight-seeing. Or is it site-seeing? Whichever. D.C. in the summer is such a treat. Are you getting any touring in? I know I’m lucky to be so ahead on my assignments. Is it raining there? Again. Don’t let those wet plop-plops stop you from getting out.