Touching Smoke (31 page)

Thin lines appeared around Garrison’s pinched lips. “Not parts. DNA strands. It’s part of your makeup, like your mother’s nose and your father’s eye color. Most of what we did with you was specific orders from your father,” he said pointedly. “He insisted we remove as much of him as possible from you, except his eyes and the color of his hair and we tried. Lord knows we tried, but there were markers that refused to be removed, like your dependency on blood.”

My heart elevated, drumming impossibly loud in my ears. “You didn’t do that?”

“No, that was a gene you already possessed. It was one of the things that truly made you unique. But it did help us give Isaiah the final tweaks that made him invaluable to you. The downside is that the more blood you take, the more powerful your attraction will become and if it becomes too powerful…” he trailed off, splaying his hands open, palms up.

“What? What happens?”

Garrison hesitated. His green eyes darted from me to Isaiah and back. He did this for so long that I began to think he wouldn’t say anymore. That we would never find out what was happening to us. But then, he sat back, set his teacup aside, clasped his hands together in his lap and crossed his right leg over his left.

“You need his blood, Fallon. You will die without it.”

I sputtered, gaze shooting to Isaiah then back. “But I haven’t been drinking from him these past sixteen years,” my voice came out high-pitched and frantic. “I lived on normal, human food!”

“That was then, this is now. You were safe until you broke the seal the first time, which I know you’ve done just by looking at the both of you. You drank from him. The chemicals in your body now recognize the singular thing it needs to survive. It will no longer accept regular human food. When is the last time you even had normal food?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You can only deny it for so long before it becomes unbearable. Any longer and you will grow weak and eventually waste away. You will always need him if for no other reason than because you will die without him.”

I shook my head, more to shake away the urge to murder him then denial. “Why did you do this?” I demanded. “Why is it so important that we be together?”

Garrison climbed to his feet. “I think that’s enough. We can discuss this more possibly tomorrow. For now, I’m sure you both need some time to talk,” long, bony fingers tugged on the collar of his jacket. “I’ll have Maia take you to your rooms.”

In the process of rising, I stilled. “Rooms?”

Garrison cleared his throat. “It’s a safety precaution.”

“I’m not going anywhere without Fallon!” Isaiah snapped, already on his feet and dragging me up with him.

Garrison raised his pointy chin, eyes narrowed with the familiar loathing he only seemed to show Isaiah. “This isn’t up for discussion.”

“It’s fine!” I said quickly, grabbing Isaiah’s arm as though it were a lifeline in the midst of a storm. “It’s okay!” I insisted when he opened his mouth to protest. “Please,” I whispered, nails etching into his golden skin.

The rage boiled behind his eyes, along the set muscles of his jaw and in the slight flare of his nostrils. But he resigned himself from arguing, warning me darkly with his eyes that we would talk.

“What are you doing?” Isaiah demanded the second the door closed behind us, leaving us alone in Amalie’s room.

“I had to!” I cried, stuffing clammy fingers back through my hair.

“What did he do to you?” he grabbed my arm when I tried to turn away. “You would never have given in that easily unless he did something!”

I wrenched my arm from of him, twisting around so I was glowering up into his face. “What do you mean
what did he do?
You were there, Isaiah! You saw what he did.”

Isaiah jerked back as if I’d struck him. His head cocked to the side, brows knitted. “This is about me?”

Disbelief colored my voice before anger claimed it. “Of course it’s about you! I can’t watch him do that to you again! I can’t watch him…” I rubbed a shaky hand over my dry mouth. “I will do whatever I have to to never see that again.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

For several long seconds, I just stared at him, almost positive that I’d heard wrong, that he did
not
just say that, but he was watching me, annoyance hot in the firm line of his mouth.

“Well, you don’t have to do all the things you’ve done to keep me safe, but you do it,” I said finally.

He shifted from his right foot to his left foot. “Yeah, well… that’s different.”

I frowned. “How? How is that different?”

A sigh rushed from his lips as he turned away, ruffling a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter I guess. We have bigger problems anyway.”

I watched him amble to the terrace windows, saw him reach for the latch, flip it and push.

“It’s locked,” I told him when the doors resisted against opening. “He had it bolted closed after…”

Isaiah stopped and turned to me. “How do you know all this?”

I shook my head, staring down at my pale, dirty feet. “I don’t know. Whenever I’m in this room, I feel like I’ve always been here. Maybe not in person, but in spirit or something.”

“Well, would you happen to know of any secret passageways leading out of this place?”

A chuckle escaped me. “I wish. It only works in this room. Amalie was locked in here for most of her life. She was born here, died here, and spent most of the time in between shut away in here. I think it’s a link to her somehow.”

Isaiah narrowed his eyes. “He kept his own daughter locked in here?”

My gaze roamed over the room, settling on the enormous bed, the dark furniture, the stone fireplace as if something there held the answers. I finally settled on the painting of the mermaid over the bed. “Yes.”

“Why?”

I rocked my head from side-to-side slowly. “I don’t know.”

Being in Amalie’s room without Isaiah was a torturous experience. The room felt colder… meaner, as if it didn’t like me being there alone, and frankly, I didn’t like it either. I wanted Isaiah there. Instead, he’d been taken away by a glowering Maia to the room furthest from mine and trapped inside by the guards stationed outside both our doors. It wasn’t David, I noted, but these guys had clearly heard what happened to the last guard, because they were dressed in SWAT gear from head-to-toe — including face shields.

We weren’t invited to supper; I suppose because they figured we didn’t eat anyway so what would be the point? Or maybe Garrison had had enough of us and needed a break. Or, he was making plans on what to do with us. I shuddered, rolling onto my left, only to find myself staring at the accusing smile of the porcelain doll. Even it knew I didn’t belong there, in that bed, the bed that belonged to Amalie. Had someone even changed the sheets since the last time she’d used it?

Skin creeping with paranoia, I crawled out of bed and padded to the terrace instead. The night was calm behind the glass, the moon full. I silently wondered what Isaiah was doing, if he was asleep. Probably not. He so rarely slept. Was he looking out his terrace as well? Was he seeing what I was seeing? Did he even have a terrace?

I had to push away the thought. The slightest mention of his name and my heart hurt, the knowledge that what I felt for him wasn’t  my choice only intensified the agony. Would I have fallen for him as hard, or as fast, had we met like normal teenagers? Would he have even noticed me? I wondered what it would have been like if I hadn’t been genetically engineered, if I’d been created like everyone else and had a house and a family with two parents and went to the same school and had friends. Would I have met Isaiah? Would I have fallen in love with him?

I liked to think yes — Isaiah was sweet, smart, brave and gorgeous to boot — but I couldn’t be certain, and that scared me.

I turned away from the window and moved to the unlit fireplace. The clock on the mantel, next to the heart-shaped match container, read a little after one in the morning. I considered lighting a fire in the grate, just because I’d never seen one before, but decided against it. The last thing I needed was to do it wrong and wind up setting the place on fire. Instead, I curled up on the plush rug and closed my eyes, cradling my head on my arm.

Fat teardrops burst across the worn and yellowed journal, running the ink like mascara down the page. Tiny, white hands shook as the pen scribbled fast and hard on the parchment.

The world spun before the words could come into focus, and I was watching instead as she stashed the book away, squishing it between the wall and the back of the desk. It didn’t seem like the safest place, but she must have been satisfied, because she moved away from it.

Everything shimmered and the scene changed again. I stood behind her, facing the terrace doors, small hands were pressed palms against the glass. Over her shoulder, I could see lightning shatter the sky, splitting the rolling black clouds in half. It struck somewhere over the tumultuous ocean, and the waves rebelled. It roared and slammed into the cliffs below. The ground beneath our feet vibrated. The glass rattled. An invisible wind lifted her heavy curtain of hair. Another fork of lightening burst across the sky and, in the glass, I was shown her face for the first time in months. Only… I’d seen that face in the mirror my whole life, except the eyes; they were a startling blue.

“Fallon!”  Those eyes of turquoise gems met mine through the glass, wide with fear. “Find the book, Fallon! Find the book and run! Now, wake up! Wake up, Fallon! Now!”

My eyes snapped opened, all traces of sleep going up in an inferno of panic. I lay perfectly still for several minutes, watching the sweep of dawn creep across the ceiling. My heart tasted like rubber up in my throat. I couldn’t seem to swallow enough times to force it back down. Then, just when it sunk down an inch, the dream slammed into me, and it was racing again, nearly lunging out of my mouth.

She was me! I was her! We had the same face! How? How?
How!

Scrambling onto all fours, I half-ran, half-crawled to the desk. My sweaty palms left a smear across the glossy top as I forced the table away from the wall. I didn’t know what to expect or hope for when I jerked the desk away from the wall, until I heard the thud, and then I knew.

There it was, leather bound, dull, faded and used, resting face up on the floor behind the desk. I didn’t touch it. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I did. Plus, I didn’t trust myself not to fall apart. But I had to. I had to take it and… do something. What was it? What had Amalie said?