Touching Smoke (15 page)

Strong, callous hands closed over my arm, jerking me back into the room. My scream poured out in a squeak of pain when a beefy arm clamped around my throat, cutting off my oxygen with a squeeze.

“Drop your weapon, Isaiah!”

My assailant turned with me squished against his chest. He held me easily off the carpet so I dangled, struggling for air like a fish on a hook. The toes of my flip-flop just brushed the floor.

Surrounding us were at least eight men, all the same, identical, right down to the fat, hairy moles on their right cheeks. These guys
looked
like assassins. Everything from their buzz-cut hairstyle, tight black t-shirts, black pants, black army boots and military issued belts loaded with magazines, guns and whatever else all the little compartments held screamed organized and lethal.

“Let her go!” Isaiah growled gun aimed at the only assassin speaking.

The man smirked. “You are in no position to be making demands,” he declared, voice vibrating with a thick accent; Russian, I assumed. “I have the girl, and you will do what I say! Drop your weapon!”

To emphasize his point, the goon behind me tightened his grip, squeezing my windpipe until I could feel my lips begin to tingle and my eyes bulge. A squeak escaped like a mouse being squished. My legs kicked fruitlessly in the air, in hopes of hitting him at least once, but having no luck.

“Stop!” Isaiah shouted, with more than just panic in his voice; there was violence in his eyes. “I’m putting it down! Look!” He lowered the gun to the ground slowly. “Let her go!”

The man laughed a belly-rumbling laugh. “Let her go? We have orders to bring the girl in.”

Isaiah seemed to grow before my eyes, becoming larger, broader and darker than before. “I won’t let you take her!”

The chilling fury didn’t seem to faze our attackers, even though I would have been soiling myself if it had been me. “What choice have you got? I am the one with the gun and the girl! Uh-uh,” he warned when Isaiah growled deep in his throat. “That will not do! You will behave or we might get… carried away. The Boss said nothing about her being alive when we bring her.”

“I swear you so much as touch her, Yuri, and I will—”

“You will what?” Yuri taunted. “You can do nothing to me! There is eight of me and only one of you, and I know your weakness.”

My captor gave a hard squeeze that cracked my neck. I choked on the hold, gagging and gasping for even a shred of air. In my desperation, I did the only thing I could think of; I dug my nails into the hairy flesh of his arm and clawed downward as hard as I could, drawing blood. Across the room, Yuri snarled at me, shaking his left arm as if it was his arm I assaulted. He muttered something at me in Russian — it didn’t sound like something his mother would approve of — and rubbed his forearm where I could just make out four long gashes.

Now really, was it the weirdest thing I’ve seen lately? Probably not, but it was close. But it also gave me an idea.

Separating my index and middle finger into a V formation, I jabbed upward over my head as hard as I could. When my nails sunk into something wet and squishy and the man across the room doubled over clutching his eyes the way the other eight men were doing around the room, I knew I’d hit my mark. The only one who actually made any sound though was Yuri who was — I’m assuming — cursing me into the next world.

“Run, Isaiah!” I screamed, twisting free of my captor’s hold and landing a perfect blow between his parted legs for good measure before running for the front door with Yuri’s groans of pain pounding in my ears.

Our captors fell to their knees, flickering like an old TV screen before popping out of sight one-by-one and merging into a single, writhing person. Yuri made no effort to stop us when we bolted past — I’m almost certain he had bigger things to worry about, like the possibility of ever fathering children. I heard Isaiah just behind me as I threw open the car door and lunged inside. I had the car keys fished from my pocket when Isaiah scrambled into the passenger’s side. He rammed my duffle over the seat into the back.

“Go!” he bellowed when I fumbled one too many times getting the key into the ignition.

“I’m trying!” I snapped back, shoving the key into the slot and peeling out of the parking lot in reverse. “Hold on!”

Smoke billowed from my back tires as I looped a full circle and shot for the exit. The motel owner staggered out of his office just as I hit the speed bump and slammed onto the highway with a teeth-rattling crash.

“Stop at my bike,” Isaiah said, pointing as if I didn’t know where it was.

“Are you crazy?” I twisted my head to look at him. “That…
guy
is just behind us!”

“I need my bike!”

With a frustrated growl about
men,
I yanked the steering wheel sharply to the left, kicking up dirt and dust as I pulled up behind the bike. I turned to Isaiah, hands tight around the wheel.

“Don’t you dare get yourself killed!” I snarled.

He said nothing merely giving a brisk nod and throwing himself out of the car. He paused before slamming the door to lean his head inside.

“I’ll be right behind you!” He didn’t wait for a comment when closing the door and running for his bike.

“You better be!” I muttered, each word trembling.

I watched in the rearview mirror as he swung onto his bike and jump kicked it into gear. He swerved it around and faced the way I was going. I hit the gas and shot down the road with the roar of the motorcycle loud in my ears.

We drove around for nearly five hours, changing directions and backtracking most of the way before Isaiah raced up alongside my window, motioning for me to roll it down.

“Follow me!” he shouted, over the howling winds and roaring engines.

I gave him a nod and let him pass me. He instantly took the lead, zooming headlong down highway 1 toward Winnipeg, Manitoba.

A straight drive from Kanora to Winnipeg would have only been roughly three hours, but with all the twists and turns we had to do to throw any possible followers off our tracks, we were two hours behind and the sun was beginning to set. Then, instead of taking a direct path through Winnipeg, Isaiah swerved off the main road and delved down an unmarked, unpaved road that instantly lost us amongst towering trees and vast wilderness. The dirt trail was narrow, barely big enough for the Impala, and it was shrinking with every passing minute until I was certain I’d get wedged between the trees.

But just before I could really get into trouble, Isaiah turned another sharp turn and came upon a clearing and a small, rickety shed.

It was a cute little place, if you liked horror movies. The whole thing was surrounded by trees and grass high enough to touch my waist. The roof was caving in and most of the chimney was gone. The slice of porch had floorboards missing and the door didn’t close properly. It was the kind of place most people would burn to the ground and not look back. We, apparently, were going to be spending the night there.

“I’m a little afraid to ask how you came across this place,” I said, coming out of the car and joining him by his bike.

“I own it,” he answered with a hint of pride in his voice. “Sort of. The previous owners never came back so I claimed it.”

“They were probably eaten by the house.”

He scowled at my teasing, the fading sunlight dancing in his eyes. “Hey, it just needs a coat of paint.”

“And a wrecking ball,” I muttered to myself.

“It’s not that bad!” he jerked his head towards the house. “Come on, I’ll show you inside.”

The inside looked exactly like the outside, including the weeds that were creeping up from between the cracks in the floorboards.

It was a single room dwelling with a tiny kitchen in one corner and a bedroom/living room combo making up the rest of the place. A door against the far wall led into a bathroom barely big enough for one person. But what made the place a charmer was the missing floor boards, the shattered windows, the holes in the ceiling and walls, and the real beauty… there was no running water, electricity or heat. To top things off, the whole place reeked of mold, dust, grime, decay and something that smelt suspiciously like a rotting cat.

But it did have a cot with a discolored, lumpy mattress. Thank heavens for small favors. If I had to sleep on the floor with the roaches and rats, I would not have been happy. But one glance at the cot and the floor suddenly looked like heaven.

“It’s not a hole-in-the-wall motel, but I think you’ve had worse,” Isaiah said, walking casually into the room and throwing himself down on the cot.

The whole thing screeched and sunk dangerously in the middle. The wires rattled and the metal groaned beneath his weight. I was kind of looking forward to watching the whole thing collapse under him, just for a good laugh.

“There’s only one bed.” I hated to state the obvious, but…

He raised his head, a sly smirk twisting his mouth. “Don’t tell me you’re going all shy on me now.”

My cheeks prickled. I crossed my arms and shifted anxiously from foot-to-foot. “That doesn’t count!”

His brow lifted. “Doesn’t it?”

I had no idea. “We still need to talk about last night. In fact, I think it’s time we talked about a lot of things.”

He threw his long legs over the edge of the cot and sat up. “All right.”

I considered my questions carefully; I wanted to make certain I wasn’t sidetracked or distracted again. The last time we had this conversation, we veered way off course and I didn’t learn anything, and the longer I stood in the dark, the weirder things seemed to get.

“How do I know you’re the good guy?” I was as surprised as he was by that. I hadn’t realized how much that fact worried me until the question was out in the open. “I mean, how do I know I can trust you anymore than I can trust them?”

“Because I haven’t been the one trying to kill you. I think that should count for something.”

I nodded slowly. “Yes, but how do I know this didn’t start because they were after you and I wound up in the crossfire?”

“You heard what Yuri said, they want you, Fallon.”

I couldn’t argue with that. I also felt rotten for doubting which side he was on —which at this point was still shady at best.

“But why does this boss guy want me? And how do you know these people?”

His heavy sigh filled the tiny space. The pain and frustration filling that single sound tore at my heart. But it was no worse than the shadow that had fallen over his eyes.

“The boss guy’s name is Dr. Terrell Garrison,” Isaiah stared down at the space between his feet. “He’s very well known in the genetic community for his research on human defects and genetic growth. A few years back, he made this great breakthrough by creating a serum that can eliminate the defective genes in the human body. It was so successful that it could actually locate and alter any cell in a human fetus. He cured a fetus of Down’s Syndrome before it was born, then again in a two-year-old child. His methods were so effective that soon he was curing cancer and genetic mutations.”

“I still don’t understand what this guy wants with me.”

His hands knotted tightly between his knees. The muscle in his jaw jumped. He got to his feet, paced to the tiny window across the room, and stared out at the night staring back at him. He stood that way for longer then I liked. His hesitation in no way gave me any reassurance.

“Isaiah?” I prompted quietly.

His shoulders caved inwards and he slumped forward, pressing his forehead against the glass. “He didn’t just
cure
people, Fallon,” he said finally, a little too sharply. “He experimented on them. He took a fetus and changed the eye color, the texture and color of the hair, even the skin color. Then, if that wasn’t enough, he started messing with the human brain, trying to open chambers that would normally not be used.”

“Sixth sense,” I murmured, recalling what he’d told me before about the ability to use ones sixth sense.

Isaiah turned to me, expression grim. “No. More than that. Imagine a superhuman with the ability to do everything and anything, to be able to create weapons from thin air and kill a person with just a thought. He was very big on mutations and genetic engineering. Splicing human DNA with animals, or taking unique abilities from several different people and combining them into a single living organism to create the perfect beast or child.”

I swallowed hard. “That’s impossible. Humans weren’t meant to be experimented on like this. How did people not know?”

“Oh, people knew,” he said venomously. “Most were too attracted by the prospect of money to care, or they wanted Garrison to do something for them in exchange for silence. Politics have a way of bringing the monster out in even the best people.”

I could only shake my head, mind grappling with what he was trying to tell me. “I don’t understand!” I cried. “How is this possible?”

“For Garrison it is.” The intensity behind his eyes scared me. “He did it, Fallon. He created the ultimate weapon.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “He created you.”

“What?” I came up against the wall, never once realizing I was backing away, as if distance could somehow make what he was saying less true, less horrifying. “No! That’s crazy… I’m not… Stop it! Why are you saying these things? Why are you making up such lies? What… Do you think you’re funny?”