Touching Smoke (24 page)

“Foolish girl, you can’t take us all on.” Her long, red-tipped hand fisted in my hair. I was dragged to my feet like a puppet on strings. I dangled there a moment, woozy and nauseous. The bitter taste of fear lathered the back of my throat with bile that was quickly threatening to come out. Roots were torn from my scalp, springing tears to my eyes. I grabbed at her wrist, trying desperately to wrench off her hold, but even with two hands working to free me, her hold was ironclad.

“Isaiah!”

“He can’t hear you, love,” Maia purred, sadistic glee darkening her tone.

“No!” I twisted my body, ignoring the wet, sticky trickle slithering down my right temple. I didn’t have to touch it to know it was blood; I could smell it.

The crowd was huddled around the back of the van, forcing something inside. I didn’t have to see it to know what it was.

“Let him go! Let. Him. Go!” No amount of heel digging relinquished the death grip Maia had on my scalp. My efforts instead knocked me on my knees, tearing the fabric on my jeans and scraping flesh away from bone.

Dragging the full weight of my body didn’t seem to faze Maia. She continued to walk as though I were merely a bothersome purse in her clutches.

The door to the limo flew open as if by magic. My heart throbbed in my skull like a drum. Fear crawled into my lungs, crippling my ability to breathe.

“No!” The half-moan, half-growl came out hoarse and was ignored.

“Get inside!” Maia hissed, shoving me forward. I was saved solely by the soft, velvety carpet inside the limo that cushioned most of the fall. I landed facedown, half in and half out of the car. For a moment, I tasted the carpet before regaining some of the air back into my lungs. 

Hands shot out of the darkness and grabbed my arms, dragging me the rest of the way inside. I was tossed like a ragdoll on the seat. My teeth clacked together beneath the force. The smooth, chilled leather nearly slipped under me like a child on a slide. I quickly righted myself and stared around at the faces surrounding me.

There were four men crammed inside the car with me, bathed in black. Three sat across from me, the forth sat on my left. The dingy light most cars had that went on when a door was opened shone dim, barely bright enough to show anything beyond their pasty-white faces. They were floating heads. 

I swallowed hard.

“Close the door, Maia,” the one in the middle commanded. I recognized the voice for a moment, but I couldn’t place from where.

The door closed, casting us into shadows. I pressed deeper into the seat, wishing I could melt into it and disappear. Why couldn’t that be my power? Where I could turn into vapors and slip away through a crack?

“Hello, Fallon.” A light flared on overhead, illuminating the spacious compartment and the unmoving figures around me. “It is such a delight to see you again.”

I winced at the sudden explosion of light. “Where’s Isaiah!” I demanded, meeting the kind, green eyes of the man in the middle. I didn’t for a second believe the illusion he was putting forth. There was no kindness in him. He stank of evil.

The man had to be in his late sixties with light-brown hair peppered with gray, cut neatly around his long face. His nose was almost beakish. He was thin, gangly, even sitting the top of his head nearly brushed the ceiling. His shoulders were slightly hunched as though weight was pressed against his shoulder blades, driving him forward. His long, bony fingers were clasped just beneath his chin, threaded together and steepled. He watched me, the stare calculating, watchful… interested.

“He is perfectly safe,” he assured me, voice dripping with honey.

“I want to see him!” I was amazed at my own bravery when I was prepared to soil myself on the glossy seat.

“There will be time for that.” He waved a long hand towards the side where I could just make out a miniature bar. “Would you like a drink?”

The goon on his left opened the mini refrigerator, brimming with an assortment of drinks in both bottle and can variety. My tongue had never felt so dry. It rubbed against the roof of my mouth like sandpaper. I would have happily drunk the entire fridge dry.

“I want to see Isaiah.” I forced my gaze away from the taunting droplet of dew trickling down the side of a Coke. “And I want you to let us go!”

The man sighed. “You are not a prisoner, Fallon!”

I barked a laugh. “Seriously? Are you really going to play that card? You’re not the misunderstood bad guy either! Where are you taking us?”

“Home,” he answered so simply, like it made all the sense in the world. “We are on our way to my private jet.”

“I want to see Isaiah!” I shouted, hands fisting at my sides. “You better not have hurt him!”

He actually rolled his eyes. “So much like your mother. She was melodramatic as well.”

“Don’t!” The vicious growl could have come from someone else because it sounded nothing like me. “Don’t you dare talk about her! You don’t… you don’t get to talk about her! You killed her!”

“Do I have to tranquilize you?” So much for the good guy act. “I was really hoping we could take this time to talk.”

“Why would I want to talk to you? You’re a monster!”

He nodded slowly. “I am much worse than that, I assure you.”

I swallowed hard. “Who are you? What do you want?”

He smiled a little, displaying his slight overbite. “I think you know who I am.”

I did. “Garrison.”

His long fingers flickered as if brushing away invisible lint from the air. “Aside from that.”

“I don’t understand.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m surprised you haven’t been told.” His smile grew, becoming chilling when I continued to be confused. “Why, I am your father, Fallon.”

Garrison laughed when my jaw dropped. The sound was of someone who had swallowed nails, wrecking the soft tissues of their esophagus — raspy and painful.

“You’re lying.”

He sobered slightly, but his smirk remained bitter. “Oh, if only that were true.”

I set my chin in denial. “You’re not my dad.”

“No, this is true. I’m not. However, I did create you, making me your father.”

Disgusting. I couldn’t even think of another word.

“What do you want from me?”

He splayed his hands out, palms up and gave a shrug. “Just a friendly chat.”

“Where are you taking Isaiah?” I twisted around in my seat, peering through the tinted window and the darker night in search of the van. I could just make out twin pinpricks of light in the distance, but it was unclear if it was them or not.

“He will be joining us,” Garrison assured me. “We have many things to discuss — the three of us.”

Yet, we discussed nothing throughout the remainder of the drive. I maneuvered my position, pressing my back into the door and folding one leg beneath me. I kept a close eye on the four watching me as though expecting me to grow wings. Every so often, I darted a glance out the back window as well, searching for signs of the van and Isaiah. My insides twisted every time I thought of the things those monsters were doing to him. Each time I thought about them hurting him, red hot anger filled me and I half expected to go up in flames with it. I would have happily taken out everyone in that car if I could, just to get Isaiah out of their clutches. 

The road went from smooth asphalt to crunching gravel. We were thrown from side-to-side inside the cabin. I had to dig the heel of my sneaker into the lush carpet to keep from being thrown off my seat. 

The ride felt like hours before we came to a rolling stop. I couldn’t see anything at first, but the darkness ahead parted and we were surrounded by blinding lights. Spotlights followed the limo to an open slab of concrete. A large jumbo jet sat in the shadows, wings stretched far. It was facing a brightly lit runway.

“Please don’t try anything foolish.” Garrison shifted forward in his seat, preparing to exit the limo. “Bruce and Lew won’t take kindly to it.”

Bruce and Lew, I assumed, were the gorillas on either side of him. They straightened their shoulders at the mention of their names.

“Johnson will escort you.”

A bodyguard named Johnson. I would have snickered if the guy didn’t look like he could kill me with his pinkie. So I kept my amusement to myself and followed him out of the car when he kicked open the door.

The air was brisk, not at all the muggy warmth it had been by the cabin. I couldn’t be sure where we were only that no one would ever hear me if I screamed. The entire base was enclosed by trees, miles and miles of it. I don’t know how I knew we were alone, but maybe it had to do with there being no other scent in the air except pine, moist dirt, oil, grease, and rotting things. I couldn’t be sure if this was a new talent or if the scent was so strong, anyone could smell it.

“This way!” Johnson growled at me, motioning towards the plane.

I hesitated, glancing towards the back of the limo, waiting for the van to approach. They couldn’t be that far behind.

“They will arrive.” Garrison was out of the limo now, smoothing a hand over the front of his neatly tailored, pinstripe suit. Was he a mafia member or a mad scientist? It was hard to tell when he stood there, looking very menacing with two guards on either side of him.

Bruce and Lew both had arms like tree trunks and stood a little over six feet tall. They wore dark suits and scary scowls. Johnson was about the same, except he seemed smaller on the muscles, not that that made him any less scary.

“Get on the plane, Fallon,” Garrison scolded when I continued to stand there like a defiant child.

“Not until I’ve seen Isaiah.”

“You will, I assure you.” I remained unmoving, going so far as to cross my arms. Garrison sighed, rolling his eyes heavenwards. “Johnson, if you please.”

The man had no qualms reaching inside his blazer and extracting a gun from the holster against his ribs. He didn’t cock it, but its presence was enough to get me moving.

I kept darting glances down the path all the way to the slanted row of stairs leading into the open door of the plane. Johnson was right behind me with Bruce behind him, then Garrison and finally Lew taking the rear. At the top, there was still no sign of Isaiah.

Johnson poked me in the spine when I stood there for too long. Whether it was with the gun or a finger, I couldn’t be sure, but I hurried into the plane, and gasped.

I’d never been on a plane before, but something told me normal planes weren’t like this even if I had. It was like walking into an apartment building, a lavish, beautiful apartment with cream and gold colored décor and spacious quarters. Tall, crystal vases with real, fresh calla lilies sat upon gleaming disks of glass. A crystal chandelier dangled overhead, twinkling like diamonds under the pale-gold light. The aisle left ample room free for movement and a gleaming coffee table neatly organized with magazines and a basket of real blooms in purple, white and pink. Plush, leather armchairs and curved sofas took up either side of the carpeted aisle, positioned like any sitting room. Most of the armchairs, I noted, swiveled so the person could turn to their neighbor or away while maintaining a comfortable distance. I was pushed into one of the butter-soft chairs. Garrison took the one across from me, on the other side of a small, glass table. Bruce, Lew and Johnson ambled to the U-shaped sofa, giving us a liberal amount of room for privacy without being too far.

“Where are we going?” I demanded, nails sinking into the armrest of the chair as if that could somehow stop us from lifting off.

“Home,” he answered for the second time, checking his watch.

“I don’t have a home.”

“You will.”

My retorted burned sharp on my tongue. It was stifled only by the thud and clang of feet ascending the metal stairs outside. A moment later, Maia stepped onto the plane. She strolled, hips swaying, to one of the swiveling chairs across the aisle from us and reclined as though she had not a care in the world. Behind her, Yuri stomped in, bottom lip bleeding, expression sour. He took the seat across from her. Next, the trio from the clearing shuffled through the door, dragging a fourth, unconscious figure between them.

“Isaiah!” I was on my feet in an instant.

They tossed him onto the chair next to mine and stepped away to join the guards on the U sofa. Isaiah looked badly hurt. His face was a maze of cuts and bruises. There was blood matting his hair and the front of his clothes. His left eye was swollen. Some of the gashes were new, recent, oozing still. His breathing was ragged is if the effort was painful. I suspected that his ribs were broken.

“What have you done to him?” I screamed to no one in particular. No one answered anyway. I wasn’t expecting one. I leaned over him, touching the side of his face, his image blurred horribly behind the curtain of tears. “Isaiah?”

I dropped my hand, pressing my palm to the center of his chest. The breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding rushed out when I felt the soft patter just behind the muscle. I knew he wasn’t dead, but it was good to feel the steady pump all the same.

“Sit down, Fallon. We are about to take off.”

I wanted to tell him to drop dead, but all I could manage was, “Help him… please.” I would never have asked the devil for anything, but I couldn’t watch Isaiah suffer.