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  Spark

  Angelina J. Steffort

  MK

  Spark

  The Wings Trilogy: Adam

  First published 2018

  Copyright © by Angelina J. Steffort 2018

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Print: ISBN 978-3-9504418-6-4

  Ebook: ASIN B07GTB4GXL

  MK

  www.ajsteffort.com

  Contents

  1. Flock of Birds

  2. Puzzle

  3. Graveyard

  4. Supermarket

  5. Party

  6. Library

  7. First Date

  8. Anticipation

  9. Confessions

  10. Supernatural

  11. Rain

  12. Family

  13. Transformation

  14. Books

  15. Intermezzo

  16. Unexpected

  17. Stolen Moments

  18. Protector

  19. Emotions

  20. Catalyst

  21. A Flash of Silver

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Angelina J. Steffort

  1

  Flock of Birds

  There were only a few things that could hold my attention for very long. The human body and its design was one of them. It was a miracle. Every single day I walked on campus I thought the same thing, and I was grateful that I was allowed to study here. I was going to be a doctor one day, and people’s lives would be better because of me. Maybe just a few—but every person counted.

  I was watching my fellow students filing into the undersized cafeteria. Each of them looked tired from the week. It was like seeing a flock of gray birds. None of them stood out.

  Lemmings, my little brother would say. He was the colorful one in our small family. He was gifted, like my stepmother. They were artists.

  I hadn’t inherited my dad’s talent or curiosity for history. I wondered if there was any gift I had inherited—anything special at all. Probably not. My dad was a very inconspicuous man—a good man, but not one who would stand out in a flock of gray birds. I’d never known my mom. She’d died giving birth to me. The only reminder of her existence was my dark, almost black, hair.

  My dad never talked about her much. He had put the past behind him when he started his new life with Jenna and I didn’t begrudge him his happiness. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel about not having a biological mother. Naturally, I was sad, I hadn’t known her, but on the other hand, Jenna was wonderful. I loved her like a mother. And my half-brother Ben was a real brother to me.

  I stirred my coffee once and leaned back in my chair. Coming in early had secured me one of the uncomfortable wooden seats in the corner of the cafeteria.

  The birds were waiting patiently to be served their portion of caffeine, their tired eyes glancing in my direction every now and then.

  There were a few more free chairs—not nearly enough for all of them.

  “Are you drinking this?” a satin voice tore me from my observations.

  A pair of big, dark eyes was staring back at me when I turned my head. They had become so familiar over the past few weeks. Her ivory hand was pointing at my coffee.

  “Good morning, Maureen,” I got to my feet and gave her a quick kiss.

  We had been dating for a while. Was she pretty? Definitely. I had seen the male birds give one or the other jealous look when she walked beside me.

  Was she the girl I was going to marry one day? I didn’t know. I had been investing a lot of time these past months getting to know her better. She was beautiful on the surface—her amazing mane of bluish-black hair made an eye-catching contrast with her pale skin. The way she dressed didn’t leave much room to wonder about the perfection of her figure.

  Was I in love? I did have feelings for her—or the idea of her. Anyway, we were an item.

  She kissed me back with a little bit too much enthusiasm for a public place.

  “Don’t forget the party tomorrow night,” she breathed into my ear when she drew back. “I’ve got a special surprise for you.”

  She grabbed my coffee and walked off in her scarily high heels.

  “I’ll miss you,” I called after her with a voice which didn’t sound like my own. I was trying too hard to please her. She looked over her shoulder and blew me a kiss.

  You’re whipped, Ben had said a few days ago. Was he right?

  My dad had seen Maureen once. He hadn’t really warmed up to her, but then, who did he warm up to? He loved his books and his family. In that order. Besides those two, he rarely let anyone new into his life.

  I sighed at the empty table and got to my feet to stand in line for a new cup of coffee.

  The two guys in front of me were animatedly discussing a paper for Professor Blake that was due tomorrow. I tuned out their words and stared at the one guy’s sweater instead. Everybody knew Blake was a ticking time-bomb. He was always looking to make an example of poor performance and how there was no place for that in medicine. Gratefully, my performance in his class was outstanding—I had nothing to worry about.

  It hit me out of nowhere. Incapacitating fear. It clawed my chest from inside and tightened it until I was grasping my throat and started choking as if I was going to throw up.

  “Are you okay, man?” one of the guys asked.

  Before I could answer him, the fear was gone and I was showered in a layer of concern.

  What was going on? I straightened up and nodded at the guys. I needed to get out of there.

  I turned around and was hurrying out the door before either of them could comment. The fresh morning air helped clear my head. I took a few breaths and felt almost normal.

  Was this a first sign of a panic attack? My dad had warned me that if I continued studying with this intensity, I would burn out.

  Class would start in fifteen minutes. I had time to walk across campus to stretch my legs and recover. I pulled up the hood of my sweater and started toward the library. The shelves over shelves of books would help me relax and focus.

  When I walked past the counter, the girl with reddish hair was sitting in a corner, nose stuck deep into her reading.

  “Hi,” I lifted my hand as I walked past to grab a book from the anatomy section.

  She looked up and smiled. The girl practically lived at the library. I couldn’t remember a time I had come here without finding her buried in books, always in the same corner near the huge window.

  I picked a light read. Something to reinforce my knowledge of the human heart—the most important of all organs, so they said, not that I would know anything about it. Of course, in a medical sense, but the heart as the source of feelings?

  Maureen was great and everything, still there was something there between us that made me feel like she was expecting more than I was able to give. I couldn’t describe it any better, just, she kept looking at me as if she was waiting for something to happen, and I couldn’t tell what.

  There it was: feeling—the heart—wasn’t everything. Understanding—the brain—was equally important. Maybe that was one of the reasons medicine was fascinating me so much—besides the fact that I wanted to help people surpass their physical shortcomings. I needed to understand how I my
self was functioning. Sometimes those two most important organs in my body weren’t communicating in the same language.

  “Anything interesting in there?” Toby peeked over my shoulder and laughed as I jumped, startled.

  “Geez,” I slapped the book shut and he pulled back his head.

  “Five minutes,” Toby tapped his watch. “Let’s get a seat in the back where we can get a good look at what’s really important.”

  “And what would that be?” I got to my feet and put the book back in its place.

  The girl lifted her head and threw us a disapproving look as she pointed at the sign above her head. Silence!

  I grabbed the sleeve of Toby’s shirt and pulled him toward the exit so we wouldn’t disturb her any longer.

  “Karren.” Toby tilted his head as we were walking across the lawn, taking a shortcut in order to arrive before his crush.

  I didn’t even react. This month it was Karren, last month it had been Tracey, and the month before I can’t even remember her name. Who knew who it would be next month.

  “Over there,” Toby nudged my arm, indicating I look over to the entrance.

  Karren was floating in with the rest of the students, looking as unspectacular as anyone else. It was hard for me to understand how Toby could fall in love like that. Against better knowledge. Always admiring someone from the distance, not knowing who they were or how they could possibly be right for you.

  To be honest, I was everything but a romantic. My father kept saying the day would come when I would fall head over heels in love. Where I would understand how important it was to think with your heart and feel with your brain. When I looked at him and Jenna, I could see it. Their love was something outliving eons. They basically thought as one person and there was this beautiful feeling of family whenever they were in a room together.

  With a wave of my hand, I dismissed Toby’s enthusiasm for the girl and launched myself into a chair the moment we entered the classroom. There wasn’t any time for Toby to make contact with Karren and I silently thanked Professor Stevens for functioning like clockwork. The heart surgeon started his lecture on the dot every time. Today he spared me seeing another girl being tormented by Toby’s restless heart.

  I followed the lecture with more enthusiasm for the human heart’s anatomy than I could ever have for the emotions one supposedly felt there. I was one of Steven’s best students, he had said so himself. Only I and the girl from the library were so obsessed with our studies that there was hardly any time left for anything else in life, it seemed. The rest of the birds on campus were more interested in partying than actually getting fit to save people’s lives.

  After a long day of classes, I jumped into my car and drove through the city until I arrived at the gate to Jenna’s estate. Aurora was a beautiful place to live. Not too big, not too small, and breathtaking in the pink light of the sunset. Jenna’s house, where we were living, on the other hand, was ostentatious. It was like a small palace in the middle of a large garden.

  Geoffrey, our butler, opened the door for me when I jogged up the stairs to the carved wooden main entrance.

  “Welcome home, Master Adam,” he inclined his head, polite as always. “Did you have a good day?”

  “Thanks, Geoffrey.” The salt-and-pepper-haired man was always so kind. Of course, it was his job as a butler, but he was taking care of this family in a different way. He basically was part of the family.

  On the way to my room, my brother caught me.

  “Adam!” he called through the hall.

  “Hi, Ben,” I stopped and turned.

  He hurried toward me, bouncing in excitement. “Still up for the party tonight?”

  I was surprised he was so looking forward to the event. Usually, we were not the partying type of guys and kept to ourselves and our family most of the time. Tonight I would be going there for him as much as for Maureen. Had it been up to me, I would probably have spent the evening reading or playing chess with Dad.

  “Sure thing.” I eyed his eager face. Ben was almost nineteen years old, and the most creative person on the planet. He probably had inherited that from Jenna. Her violin-playing was unearthly beautiful. Too bad she hardly ever played anymore. “I’d like to get a fresh shirt and eat something before we head out. Alright?”

  With a nod and a boyish grin, he disappeared down the hall.

  In my room, I dropped my books on the beige couch and opened the closet. For a moment I considered wearing a dress-shirt for tonight—I did own one or two for special occasions—but then I pulled out a plain white t-shirt. That and my obligatory jeans and a hoodie would have to do.

  “Have a great time!” Jenna called after us when we were leaving an hour later.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Ben waved and got into the car with me.

  “Do you think she’s freaking out yet?” he asked me with a smirk.

  “She trusts us,” I answered, knowing my stepmother knew neither Ben nor I would ever do anything stupid. She and my father had brought us up to be responsible young men. Sometimes I wondered if we weren’t too responsible. Maybe that was why I had let Maureen into my life. She was different. Exciting. Hot.

  A line of cars was already parked along the driveway when we arrived at the party. Maureen’s house wasn’t as enormous as Jenna’s, but it was still big enough to throw an event for a hundred people.

  Some guests were looking at us, as we walked up to the open front door. Ben and I both felt uncomfortable with the attention. Ben just did it with so much more style. His lavender shirt had ivory buttons and he wore it like a male model, hiding his insecurities behind a mask of confidence, while I had pulled up the hood of my hoodie and was relying on my untameable hair to hide my face from their view.

  “There you are,” she wrapped her slender arms around me as we crossed the threshold. Just as if she had been waiting for me to arrive.

  Ben waved and rolled his eyes before he vanished into the house.

  “Hi, Maureen,” I kissed her quickly and my eyes followed Ben into the room behind her. It didn’t take long before he was swallowed by the crowd.

  Most of the people in the living room I knew from college, but there were some faces I had never seen before. A group of dark-dressed guys with pretty hairstyles caught my eye.

  “Who are they?”

  “Friends,” she said and pulled me past them toward the stairs.

  One of the guys nodded at me. He was wearing a heavy silver necklace on top of his black shirt. I inclined my head, driven by the manners my father had always put so much emphasis on in our upbringing.

  Toby was there in the corner of the room, talking to Karren—finally—and looking as if he had hit the jackpot. He lifted a thumb at me and couldn’t help but grin. He wouldn’t go home alone tonight.

  “So, what’s the surprise?” I asked and watched her long legs as she climbed the stairs in front of me.

  “Patience,” she winked at me over her shoulder.

  The higher up we got, the fewer people were populating the stairs. Despite the calmer climate, everything seemed incredibly loud. I shook my head and focused on Maureen’s mane shaking down her back as she lead the way down the hall until she came to a halt at a wooden door.

  “Welcome to my world,” she flashed a smile and pushed the door open.

  “Nice room.” I looked around the spacious bedroom and my attention got caught by the reflection in the mirror across the room. The girl and the guy looked like they came from different worlds. She was stylish and confident, and he still had his hood up, hiding his expression in the shadows.

  “Shall we?” she asked as she stepped inside and sat on the silk sheets over the wide bed.

  “Shall we, what?” I asked, a little perplexed by what seemed to be her intentions.

  “Why don’t you come over here?” she patted the covers beside her.

  With a mixture of anticipation and hesitation, I walked over to sit down next to her. Halfway across the room, I got dizzy. For
a second it felt as if my knees were going to buckle under me. I grabbed onto thin air for support.

  “Adam, are you alright?” Maureen’s voice came to me like through a haze.

  It was just a second, and then I was okay again. Maureen had gotten to her feet, concern in her wide eyes.

  “I’m fine.”

  Maureen didn’t wait for me to continue walking. She slipped out of her shirt and threw it at me, an invitation to do the same. I gasped. Not because I hadn’t seen a woman before, but because this seemed to be coming out of nowhere. She came closer to kiss me. It was a rough touch. She was pulling herself against me, both hands on my neck.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, blinking at me with seductive black lashes.

  If only I could tell what was wrong—

  To my own surprise, I just couldn’t get myself to focus on her. Since that second of my almost black-out, my head had started working differently. When I looked at the black-haired beauty in front of me, I saw lust. But not my own. I saw greed and possessiveness. There was nothing resembling love. How could I—

  “What’s going on, Adam?” her voice questioned my lack of reaction.

  I was about to tell her I wasn’t feeling well, but then everything around me blurred as if I had spun too fast in one direction for too long…

  “Adam?” Maureen’s voice penetrated the blackness in my head. “Are you awake? Can you stand up?”

  “Let me try,” I whispered and took a moment to breathe evenly.