Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (39 page)

Ashton glanced around at the crown moldings and the stone fireplace and smiled. “I didn’t have the heart to change anything.” He looked to me. “Your room is still exactly as it was before you left.”

I blinked. “I had a room?”

Ashton laughed. “Did you think we made you sleep outside on the porch?” He raised a hand and pointed towards the
back of the house. “Just through there.”

“Want company?”
Isaiah asked when I rose to my feet.

I shook my head without looking at him. “No.”

No one followed me as I ventured away from the group, moving deeper into the house that had been my first and only home. My eyes darted over everything, my mind desperately trying to grasp even a shred of remembrance.

At some point, during some moment in my life, I had walked those floors. My cries had echoed off those walls. I had been there, cradled and loved by both my parents. So why the hell couldn’t I remember? I should remember something. Even the smells were foreign
; age, citrus cleaner and history. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. I hated it. I hated that I had wanted this for so long, dreamt of it for even longer and now that I was there, surrounded by it, I felt nothing.

Granted, I had only been two, hardly old enough to remember anything, but that only pissed me off even more.

I was right in my earlier assumption. The curved wall did lead into a hallway, which led to five doors, two on either side of the hall and one at the far end.

The first one was a bathroom, small with white tiles, a claw-footed tub and a toilet. The second was a bedroom with soft grayish purple walls and a queen sized bed
draped in a black and white duvet. The iron frame was painted black to match the nightstands and the dresser. I crept inside, feeling like a burglar in someone else’s home.

Nothing had been touched. It was as though the people
who had lived there had simply gone on vacation and could return at any moment. Dresses, suits and shoes were lined perfectly inside the walk in closet. Framed photos of my mom and Ashton smiling on their wedding day, on the beach and at a park cluttered the dresser top. A silver, ornate hairbrush and mirror sat on the vanity next to several jars and tubs. And I touched everything. I let my fingerprints coat everything denied to me for so long. I pressed my face into the dresses I knew had once been worn by my mother. I ran my fingers over the soft bristles of the brush.

I bit my lip hard,
muffling the sound of my heart breaking into a million pieces. I moved out of the room, too afraid someone might come looking for me and I didn’t want them to see me crying in an abandoned bedroom.

The third door led into a nursery. My nursery. And I almost laughed.

Everything was painted yellow and trimmed with white. It was like being inside a custard pie that smelled of baby powder and sunshine. Stuffed animals and dolls grinned back at me from shelves mounted on the walls. A change table was pushed into one corner, next to a rocking chair. On the other side was a window with a window seat. In the middle of the room was a white crib with a single blanket inside. It was pushed back, quite possibly from the last time I slept there. I pressed my hand against the firm mattress, not sure what I was searching for, but was oddly surprised to find it cool to the touch. Maybe I’d hoped it would still be warm, the temperature somehow frozen the way the room had been.

Raising my hand, I reached for the stuffed bear perched at the foot of the crib. Its glassy eyes stared up at me from a face full of soft, white fur. I raised it to my cheek and tried to picture my mom holding the thing over me, trying to make me smile. I could almost see that, could see her grinning, her green eyes bright with laughter. I could also picture Ashton walking up behind her, putting his hand on her shoulder and staring down at me.

I pulled away from the crib and looked around at the room.

I was happy here. I could almost feel it. I may not have been there for very long, but it had been my home.

I glanced down at the bear. Gingerly, I set it back down where I’d found it and turned to leave. The door next to the dresser caught my eye and I paused. My feet moved without my permission towards it. It gave easily in my grasp and swung outward.

Little outfits
hung in neat little rows. I found myself grinning as I flipped through the tiny dresses and soft sleepers. I couldn’t imagine I was ever that small, yet there was the proof.

Still grinning, my gaze went up to the several rows of shoeboxes lined on the top shelf. There were nine, each in rows of three and each marked with my name and a date. Curiosity had me going up on my tiptoes and lowering the first three. I set them on the floor and opened the first one.

Pictures. An entire box of pictures. The second, third and even the ninth box all held the same. So many pictures that I could have wallpapered two houses from top to bottom. Each one was of me at different stages between birth and two years, doing something, doing nothing. I did laugh this time as I sat amongst the boxes and flipped through them.

“I bet you thought I was joking about the number of photos your mother took of you.”

I jumped, my head turning to find Ashton standing in the doorway, hands in his pocket, watching me. I turned back to the stack of photos in my hand.

“I could make a flipbook,” I said, shaking my head.

I heard him move close and stop when he was just at my side. “Your mom didn’t want to miss a single moment of you growing up. She wanted to remember every second of it.”

But it wasn’t all of me, there was the odd photo of them, laughing, kissing, embracing. They looked so happy. It hurt to look at.

“She was so beautiful,” I murmured, looking at one of their wedding. Mom was wearing a beautiful gown of white with a million beads raining down the front.

He hesitated, but gradually nodded his head. “
Yes. She was.”

For several long moments,
neither of us spoke. His gaze had been captured by the photo I’d been holding. The hurt and loss was impossible to miss.

“Can I keep these?” I asked, gesturing to the boxes.

Ashton blinked, surprised by my question. “Of course. They’re yours, Fallon. Everything in this house belongs to you.” He dug into his pocket and removed the keys he’d used to open the front doors. He tossed them to me. I caught them in both hands. “Perhaps one day soon, it could be where you raise your family.”

My family. I wanted to laugh at the notion. There was no future for me. Garrison had made certain of that. But now the bug
had been planted in my head, all I could picture was a little boy with electric blue eyes and a little girl with green eyes and me with Isaiah on the front porch, watching as they played. The image made me smile before I could stop myself.

“Fallon…” The tightness in Ashton’s tone had
me coming out of my fantasy to focus on the tension in his face, the hard set of his lips as he stared down at me.

Guilt and self-loathing took over the lightness that had settled
in my chest. “I know,” I muttered, slamming the lid back down on the box closest to me. “There is no future for me and Isaiah. No children. No family.” My shoulders slumped. “I know.”

He sucked in a room full of air, exhaled, then shook his head. “
It doesn’t have to be like that. You can still have a family and children—”

“But not with Isaiah.” I rose to my feet. “And when I think of thos
e children, all I see is Isaiah, so I guess we have a problem.”

Not waiting for him to comment, I slipped past him and moved to finish exploring the remaining three rooms. The last door at the end of the hall turned out to be a closet. The two across from my parent’s bedroom a
nd my nursery were spare rooms, both elegantly decorated in sea foam green and sapphire blue. I walked my way back to the front of the house and slipped into the small alcove that tunneled into a short hallway that ended in a beautiful kitchen made entirely of wood and stone. Granite counters gleamed beneath glowing lights. The polished hardwood matched the cupboards and the paneling along the walls. It felt warm and welcoming.

I couldn’t exactly picture my mom standing there playing
Martha Stewart
, but she must have. All the necessary appliances lined the counters, just waiting to be used again. Rotten luck for the others, as I knew next to nothing about cooking.

Isaiah and Archer were still in the sitting area when I returned. The worry lines on Isaiah’s face instantly melted away the moment he saw me. He grinned
and it was so light and perfect, I returned the smile without thinking.

“Hey
.” I went to him.

His hand reached for me. His fingers closed around my wrist, gliding down to wrap around
my hand. I felt the full force of that single touch all the way to my toes. It was like floating on a warm stream bathed in sunshine. I wanted to bask in it forever, and all he’d done was touch my hand.

“Hey,” he murmured back quietly
, tugging me down closely next to him on the sofa. “You okay?”

“
A little overwhelmed,” I admitted. “But I’ll be okay. You?”

He nodded. “
Just worried about you.” He rolled the pad of his thumb over the back of my knuckles.

I dropped my gaze.
“Just strange being here and not remembering it.”

He
squeezed my fingers, but thankfully said nothing.

I cleared my throat.
“So what do we do now?”

“Now you stay here until we figure out how to deal with Terrell.” Ashton swept into the room, his features set.
“This place is completely undetectable. Because of the mountains, GPS and other mortal location detection devices won’t work. You will be safe here.”

“What about Trackers?” Isaiah asked. “If Garrison has another one besides Carpenter…”

“That’s what you’re here for,” Ashton told him. “You can sense Terrell. Archer will keep an ear out for the non-humans.”

“So I just sit here?”
I said.

He shrugged. “You can go outside. This entire property is secure.
But I ask that you remain within the perimeters, which is within the clearing. Archer and Isaiah will stay with you, but I will drop in frequently.” He said
frequently
like a threat. I wasn’t sure what he was afraid will happen. Okay, not true. I totally knew and I didn’t blame him. “I’ll have clothes and other supplies brought to you later this evening.”

At the mention of clothes, I leapt to my feet. “My clothes!” I blurted loudly. “I need my clothes. I need my duffle.”

Ashton started at my sudden exclamation. “I don’t think I can—”

“Please!” I interjected. “I really need it back. It’s very important.”

Amalie’s diary. Why did I keep forgetting about it? I promised her I would read it and I didn’t even have it anymore. For all I knew, the authorities did, which would mean they could have read it and know about Garrison and his twisted experiments, which I personally didn’t give two farts about, but that was Amalie’s personal thoughts. I didn’t want a bunch of random strangers pawing through her sorrow and misery.

“Please,” I said again, panic running hot along my skin.

Ashton inhaled deeply. He nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise.”

I nodded, too anxious to speak. My stomach was a snake’s pit.

“Archer, please walk me out.”

Archer rose to his feet and followed Ashton from the room. I watched them leave and waited until they were completely out of sight before spinning around to face Isaiah.

“I don’t like sitting here while Garrison’s out there, destroying my country trying to find me. I hate that I’m being such a coward.”

He rose to his feet and drew me to him.
“You’re not a coward, Fallon.” He squeezed my shoulders. “Handing yourself over won’t save the country either. Right now, the military has it under control and Ashton will find a way fix this.”

I growled loudly at the back of my throat and dropped my forehead into his chest.
His arms came around me and I was pulled in the rest of the way until we stood with our fronts pressed together. I nuzzled my face into the side of his neck and closed my eyes. His skin was so warm and smelled of soap. It was such a familiar thing, his scent. I breathed him in, letting him soak into me. My fingers walked up his forearm to rest on his bicep. I traced the stitches on his sleeve with a finger.

I flattened my palm against his skin. “
Is it wrong that I want to be this powerful being Ashton thinks I am just so I can beat the living snot out of Garrison?”

His finger hooked a clump of hair falling over my shoulder and gently pushed it back. His knuckle brushed the curve of my jaw in the process. I felt that single caress all the way down to my toes.

“No,” he murmured.

I
closed my eyes and rested my cheek on his shoulder. “I especially want to get my hands on Maia.”

He chuckled.
“I think it will be easier getting to Garrison, then it will be to get to Maia.”