Free Star Crossed (Starlight #3) by JS Taylor Page B

the calm look on his face evaporates.
    ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a car waiting. I’m going to drive us to my home town.’ He pauses. ‘If you don’t want to come back with me… Afterwards,’ he adds, ‘I’ll understand. I can arrange for you to fly back alone.’
    I take his hand firmly.
    ‘Stop talking like that,’ I say, certain suddenly that my love for him is stronger than any secret. ‘You shouldn’t doubt me Adam.’
    He smiles, but it’s a fleeting smile. Then he leads me out across the airfield, and to a waiting car.
    I smile a little, to see it’s a Jaguar.
    ‘ Rock star habits die hard,’ I murmur, as he opens the passenger door for me.
    ‘ My Mam always loved Jaguars,’ explains Adam sheepishly, slipping into the passenger seat beside me. ‘So I make sure I have one on hand when I’m visiting.’
    ‘ That’s where we’re going?’ I ask, ‘To see your mum?’
    Am I ready to meet his mum?
    ‘Not yet,’ he says, starting up the engine and pulling out. ‘First I’m taking you somewhere else in my hometown.’
    His expression is dark now. As though a sadness has settled over him.
    Sitting next to him in the car, I’m so close, yet I feel a million miles away. It’s as though a thick wall has settled between us. I feel a sense of dread.
    What if he decides not to open up after all? What if it’s much worse than I could imagine?
    The tension seems to rise between us, and Adam’s face grows darker as the Jaguar eats up the miles.
    I try to appreciate the emerald green hills and fields rolling by. But instead I’m filled with a sense of foreboding.
    Soon the fields turn to desolate-looking streets, and then the landscape becomes completely urban. Small red-bricked terrace houses, fill the view. Graffiti is everywhere. But it’s not the kind you see in London. Instead of tags and scrawls, the graffiti here is all elaborate murals.
    They’re memorials. To people who have died. Many include angry words, about cowards who kill children and women in bomb blasts. There’s so much sadness here, I can hardly take it in.
    ‘ The graffiti,’ I say in a small voice. ‘Is this from religious attacks?’
    Adam nods grimly. ‘If you live here, it just blends into the background,’ he says. ‘It’s only when I come back I realise how much anger and violence there is here.’
    He looks thoughtful.
    ‘This is the Catholic area, where I grew up.’ He says. ‘If you were to go to the Protestant part of town, you’d see the same,’ he says. ‘Though with less rosaries and Catholic imagery of course. Both sides did dreadful things.’
    ‘ Is it better now?’ I ask.
    ‘ Yes,’ says Adam shortly. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s good. It just means it was terrible before. There’s parts of this town I still wouldn’t walk in.’
    ‘ Is it dangerous here?’ I ask, looking out of the window. Besides the graffiti, the houses look so innocent. A brother and sister are playing in their front yard, tagging each other and dashing back through the front door. Two housewives are gossiping. They turn and stare as the Jaguar cruises past. I guess they don’t see fancy cars much in this area.
    Adam shakes his head. ‘Not for us,’ he says. ‘This is the safest place in the world for me. I grew up here. These are my people.’
    He says it with a fierce sense of pride which only adds to my confusion.
    What is it he plans to tell me? Adam obviously still feels a sense of ancestry and ownership for this place. Surely he wouldn’t think that way if something terrible had happened here?
    Adam turns the car, and a church comes into view. He slows, and pulls the car up in a small parking lot just next to the church.
    A church? Does he have some religious confession to make?
    I look at him expectantly as he cuts the engine.
    ‘ Here we are,’ he says. The grim tone has left his voice now. But it’s been replaced by something else. Resignation. As though he’s so certain my reaction will be