CHAPTER 2

Two weeks earlier, London…

Sunsets on the Thames can be quite spectacular, and there was nowhere that Ren preferred to watch them than standing on the platform at Blackfriars Station where it sat straddling the great river. As the orange light descended on London, it became a different place, just for a second. It was like a place in a fantasy world filled with magic where anything could happen. Where everyone could be truly happy, and no one would ever have to hide away from the world.

Wouldn't that be nice, Ren thought, tossing her long, dark hair in the breeze, not hiding away here in fear? Going back home, having a family again. She sighed, it couldn't happen, however much she may want it; the risk was too great. It's not like it's so bad here, I mean, even Malibu can't hold a candle to sunsets over London, she chided herself. She was being stupid. She had a life to be envious of here, she had loads of friends, went to a great school in the heart of the city, was achieving great grades, all in all she was very lucky. She had even left behind the stigma attached to the family of her birth; she could go anywhere and do anything with her life.

Except be who I was born to be, a snide voice in Ren's head whispered. She could do anything except claim her birth right, anything but use her real name, anything but come back from the dead. Part of her had accepted that long ago, but there was still a place deep down that wished that she could go to the middle of Trafalgar Square and just yell, "I am Carenza Stark and I am not dead!"

But she couldn't. She was on the whole, happy here. She had a new life, and a new name: Seren Ashmore. What she had was not worth throwing away on her former self, who had been missing for six years, and had been presumed dead for nearly four.

Ren was jolted out of her reverie by a loud shout, "Ren!"

She spun to face the direction her name came from, "Celena, you made it!" Celena Leveque was perhaps the greatest friend Ren had in the whole world. French, and as classical a blonde as Ren was a brunette, the pair were complete opposites but had a perfect friendship.

"Of course I did!" The tiny blonde pulled away from her friend's hug, "Ooohh Renny, were you missing of me? I think you were!"

Grimacing at the disgusting nickname, but laughing internally at her best friend's interpretation of English, although by Cel's standards it wasn't at all bad, Ren allowed herself to admit, "Just a little bit Cel, don't get too excited."

"I knew it!" The other girl laughed in triumph, as the pair began to make their way out of the station back towards school, where they were both boarders. Ren had missed Cel that week, she'd been at school whilst the other girl spent the week with her family in the country of her birth, and Ren had found it way too quiet without her.

"Yes, but I would normally say, did you miss me? Rather than missing of me."
"Is that really how it is said?"
"Yup, sorry Ce- Oh hey Mr Divall."

The teacher Ren greeted looked up from his book as the girls entered the boarding house, he taught both girls history and they were particular favourites of his.

"Hello Seren, Celena, it's nice to see you back, how was France?"
"It was wonderful thank you", Cel replied with a smile. Unlucky Divall, Ren was thinking, landing boarding duty on a beautiful night like tonight.

"You both looking forward to America next week?"

What the teacher was referring to was the upcoming school trip to Washington DC and New York City, one that ran annually and that both girls had always loved going on. Well annually minus last year, of course. The year previously New York had been pretty much destroyed by an alien attack, led by rouge Norse God that people had called Loki. The trip hadn't run that year for obvious reasons, but it had been deemed safe for it to run a year on, in fact they would likely be in the city for the anniversary of the Battle.

The Battle of New York made Ren shudder just thinking about it. Alien armies from outer space; it was scary stuff. Worse was a certain billionaire's involvement in the whole thing, it still gave the girl nightmares; it had come so close to a worst case scenario for her.

Ren assumed that Cel must have answered the teacher whilst she was lost in thought, as she found herself being pulled up the stairs and towards the room that the pair shared. She knew that here, in privacy they were going to be discussing the topic thoroughly. Why? Because Celena Leveque was the only person Ren had ever told about her true identity, and the only one who knew the reason that she hid from her father behind death and a fake name.

"So, Ren, New York." Celena was blunt. She needed to know what was going on inside her best friend's head around the topic, this trip was sure to open old scars for her. It would, without a doubt dredge up memories about her father that she wasn't happy confronting. She had never, in all their years of friendship seen the girl in such a bad state as she had been watching her father fly through the portal thing on TV. It had been worse than the time that they had watched some man attacking him with energy whips in Monaco, or even when he had been abducted and taken to Afghanistan. Ren had in that moment been completely broken, and Cel knew why.

Ren was a genius, even if she herself would never admit it, and Cel realised that Ren knew in that moment that it was scientifically impossible for the Iron Man suit to get her father back from outer space where that portal had led. When he was in Afghanistan Ren had hope in her dad's stubborn will to live, but when Tony Stark had flown through the portal with the nuclear bomb he shouldn't have come back. And Ren, with her scientific mind that worked faster than the speed of light knew that, and even though by some miracle he had survived, it still scared her.

"It's fine, I'm fine, Cel." Celena gave her friend a disbelieving look. "It'll be fun, in fact it will be more than fun, it will be good for me." Ren shot back, "seeing the city healed will help. It will help ME heal."

Cel considered, she did see the sense in her friend's words, but she couldn't help but worry that something would happen whilst they were in New York that would do Ren more harm than good.

"Okay." She sighed letting the topic slide for now. "So what was it that I heard about you and someone named Benjamin?"