Touching Smoke (34 page)

Garrison laughed. “Not if I kill him first.”

 For two whole heartbeats, no one moved or breathed. All air vanished, seemingly sucked into some unknown chasm like a vacuum. Then it all came rushing back in a full surge of chaos. No one saw Isaiah move, not even me, and I was holding his hand. But one second, he was beside me, trembling with rage, the next he was across the small distance, holding Garrison by the throat.

I think I screamed. I couldn’t be sure. The noise was suddenly deafening all around. Someone fired a gun. It exploded like a rocket inside the tightly crammed space. The stench of gunpowder and blood filled the air. This time I did scream because the scent of that blood was more precious to me than gold.

There was a flash of steel from the corner of my eye. Johnson had pulled his gun. I didn’t think. I reacted. With a single sweep of my hand, I clawed at his throat. A sick, gurgling sound filled my ears, drowning the pounding of my heart and the shouts taking place across from me.

I didn’t stop to see what became of Johnson. I pushed out of my seat and lunged at Bruce — or Lew; it didn’t matter. My hands wrapped around his neck from behind as he tried to pry Isaiah off Garrison. With strength I should never have possessed as an average girl, I yanked his head away from his shoulder, exposing the plane of skin where his vein pulsed. I might have bitten and drank from him. It was a blur, but there was a foul taste in my mouth, the taste of sour milk.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was half-conscious of the limo slamming to a halt. Maybe the driver heard the gun shot or the screams, whichever, we didn’t have much time before the van behind us, carrying Maia, Yuri and several others, caught up to us.

Lew, the only bodyguard still standing — metaphorically speaking — huddled in the corner, swinging his still smoking gun from me to Isaiah, his face a frozen mask of terror. He was the one! He had shot Isaiah. He had to die. I felt no remorse, no guilt, no doubt or hesitation. I was a hungry beast with only one thing on my mind — eliminate the threat! Isaiah had to be protected. There was nothing else.

I leapt without even stopping to consider the possibility of getting shot. I was on him before he could see me coming. That feat alone should have been impossible, especially since I couldn’t even stand upright inside the car. But I had him, my hand around his throat, my canines throbbing. My breathing wheezed in my ears. A low growl escaped my throat just before I struck.

“Fallon.”

I opened my eyes and everything was still again. But not normal. Blood, gunpowder and sweat was now boiling in the stench of death. It was everywhere, on everything… on me. I could taste it.

“Ooooh…!” My low, pitiful whine was instantly muffled by the front of Isaiah’s shirt. His long arms were around me, crushing me into him, and pressing my face into his chest, stopping me from seeing the massacre I knew lay around us.

“Shhh,” he whispered into my temple. “We don’t have time. Can you run?”

I could scarcely think — running may have been a stretch.

“Yes.”

He forced me not to look back when he threw open the door and pushed me out first. I hit the forest ground running. I could hear Isaiah behind me, catching up fast.

“Get on!” he shouted, coming up alongside me; I must not have been running very fast.

I didn’t question. I jumped onto his back, hugging his waist with my knees and burying my face into his neck. The wind slashed like razorblades across my face, tearing at my hair and clothes. My ears popped. The ground rumbled beneath his feet. Tree branches snapped. Leaves rustled. After what felt like miles put between us, and the carnage we left behind, I felt him slow down to a trot. I didn’t let go. I stayed where I was, latched onto his back like a leech even as he started walking. Isaiah didn’t comment. It was hard to tell how far he walked with my face pressed into his warm skin. It could have been miles with his speed. But the longer I bit my tongue for silence, the greater the urge was to curl up inside myself and die.

“I’m a murderer.” My voice came out weak and muffled. “I’m a horrible person.”

He stopped walking and gently lowered me to the ground. My feet had barely touched the spongy soil when I was pulled into his arms.

“You’re not,” he said into my ear.

“I killed a man… I killed three men…” A sob caught in my throat. “I killed three men and drank their blood! Oh my God! I’m a monster!

He held on to me. “You were protecting yourself.”

I rocked my head, no longer fighting. “No, I wasn’t! I was protecting you!” I raised my face, uncaring that it was tear stained and possibly blood stained. I looked into his eyes, my own pleading for him to understand. “He shot you… I could smell your blood, and I don’t know what happened. I snapped… I wanted to kill them. I wanted to kill all of them and…” I clenched my teeth as the same red-hot fury frothed through my body again. “I
wanted
to taste their blood.”

My stomach churned violently. I was just able to shove Isaiah back and fall on all fours before emptying my already empty stomach. The dry heaves had sweat blistering along my body. My clammy limbs trembled as I shuddered with disgust. I was only vaguely aware of Isaiah holding my hair back.

“They tasted awful!” I groaned, squeezing my eyes closed, unleashing a river of tears to pour down my face. “Like sour milk.”

If Isaiah found my comment amusing, he wisely didn’t show it. He knelt beside me once he was certain I was finished. “Arms up,” he murmured, taking hold of my top.

“What—?”

“Don’t!” He grabbed my chin before I could look down to see what he was doing. “Arms up.”

Staring into his eyes, I raised my arms. He never looked away, never blinked or stole a glance as he nimbly swept the shirt off my back. The wind blew against my bared skin, gelling the sweat and raising goose bumps along my arms. He continued to stare into my eyes as he used my shirt to wipe my mouth, my neck and collarbone, but went no lower. I saw a lot of red where my shirt had once been white before he tossed the shirt somewhere into the distance behind me. Without missing a beat, he slung off his own shirt, also stained with blood, but not nearly as bad as mine was, and pulled it down over my head. I pushed my arms through the sleeves. The smear of crimson marring his otherwise flawless abdomen caught my attention.

I gasped. “You
were
shot!”

He glanced down at the stain, face grim. “The bullet is already gone.”

My gut twisted at the sight. I was wiping before I could stop myself, needing to remove all traces at any cost. I used the hem of his shirt until there was nothing left, except a tiny indent where the bullet had gone through. It was disappearing fast.

“I could smell it.” Emotion thickened the words pouring free. “When he shot you… it was all I could smell. It made me crazy.” I stared down at the bits of dried blood beneath my nails and gagged, remembering the way my nails had sunk into Johnson’s flesh, tearing it open; the gurgling sound, like water bubbling over the top of a fountain.

Isaiah covered the evidence with his fingers. “I know where we are,” he said, helping me to my feet and walking me away from the puddle of sick, away from my demons. “We’re about eight hours from your father’s place,” he turned to me. “I want to know what you want to do. I’ll be with you whatever you decide.”

“Is Garrison dead?”

He looked down, shook his head. “He’ll recover.”

“And come looking for us again.”

His gaze rose up and met mine, dark and fierce. “He’ll try.”

“I don’t want to hide forever,” I whispered. I looked at our sneakers. “But I don’t have anything out there for me either, except you,” I met his eyes timidly. “And I don’t even really have you.”

His touch against the side of my face was feather soft. “You’ll always have me.”

I shook my head. “You know we can’t be together, don’t you?” His image swam behind my tears. “Not after what that psycho did to us. What he did to his own daughter,” I shuddered. “What do you think he meant she could see the dead? Do you think that’s how she’s been able to communicate with me? Do you think she’s a spirit herself? Or was she really sick like he says?”

“She wasn’t sick,” there was that certainty in his voice again. “Garrison just didn’t understand that she was different until it was too late. Later, he made it his life’s mission to create his own army of genetically engineered mutants.”

I shifted uncertainly. “Do you think there’s a way to change what he did?”

With a gentle tap beneath my chin, he tilted my face to his. “If Garrison can play God, I think
we
can find a cure.”

“What if we do and it’s not real?” I hadn’t meant to voice my greatest fear. “What if by fixing it, whatever we feel goes away?”

He smiled a little, his fingers sweeping my hair back from my face. “We’ve found each other in two separate lifetimes. I somehow don’t see that happening now.”

I leaned into his touch, into him, and was rewarded by the circle of his arms around my middle. “Do you think my—Ashton can help us?”

“I know he’ll try.”

I nodded slowly. “I want to try.”

He lowered his head and touched his forehead to mine. “Me too.”

I never thought the day would come when I would actually get to thank all the people who made TOUCHING SMOKE possible, but here we are and here we go.

For my family, for always reminding me that life is an adventure. You make everything possibly just by loving me.

For my three best friends, Kelly, Nicole & Diane, for your unfaltering love and support, and for the smack upside the head when I sorely needed it. You guys are a reminder that I’m not alone in my twisted world. Thank you for always understanding me, even when I don’t.

Linda, for being my Fairy Godmother.
TOUCHING SMOKE
would most likely have never seen the light of day without your assistance, without your patience and without your generosity. Bless you!

My Darling Readers—thank you for your support, for your time and your love. I wish every one of you all the happiness, peace, wealth and immortality in the world. May you always be blessed.

I love you all!

Happy Reading!

Airicka Phoenix is the author of TOUCHING SMOKE (Touch Series Book #1). When she's not hammering away at the keyboard, she can be found banishing pirates or crawling through the attic looking for lost treasure with her kids. She loves baking, gardening and reading. She also likes to travel and take pictures of everything she comes across. When asked, Airicka describes herself as a sarcastic basket
case that has an unhealthy addiction to chocolate, old movies and really bad jokes. She loves to laugh, make friends and write. If she could have one wish granted, it would be to spend one day as a fly-on-the-wall inside Stephen King's mind. If she could have two wishes granted, she would ask for a castle dedicated entirely to her overwhelming collection of books.

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