Touching Smoke (8 page)

“Hey!” I intervened sharply. “That’s my mother you’re talking to!”

His gaze swerved in my direction, his features contemplating before turning his attention back to Mom. “Should condolences be offered for your loss?”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but my mother’s face tightened, flashing crimson. Her eyes narrowed and she looked pissed enough to chew steel. The paper bag hit my chest. I fumbled for it, just managing to hug it to my gut, simultaneously, knocking the wind out of myself.

“Get in the car, Fallon!” my mother hissed through her teeth, her sparking gaze never leaving Isaiah.

“Wait!” I protested. “He said he knew Dad!”

Mom bristled. “He doesn’t!”

“I do.” Isaiah countered challengingly. 

I was sure my eyebrows touched my hairline.

“Just get in the car!” my mother barked, tearing her eyes away from Isaiah to grill them into me.

“You can’t keep hiding this from her,” Isaiah folded his arms over his chest and fixed Mom with a deadpan stare. “She deserves the truth, don’t you think, Diana?”

“The truth about what?” I demanded at once. “What the hell is going on? Who is this guy and why does he keep calling you Diana?”

“Because that’s her name,” Isaiah answered, ignoring Mom’s deep growl.

I shook my head, a little harder then was necessary and nearly staggered at the head rush it caused. “No, her name is Erin. You have the wrong person.”

His eyes narrowed and a malicious sort of smirk curled his lips. “Do I now,
Erin?
Is that why you tried to run me off the road? Were you hoping you could get rid of me that easily? You know I can’t die.”

“Leave her alone, Isaiah,” my mother murmured quietly. “She’s not a part of this anymore.”

“A part of what?” My shout went ignored as the two faced each other down.

“You can’t run anymore!” Isaiah hissed his lips curled back over straight, white teeth. “They know about her and they’re coming. You’re putting her in danger, and I won’t let you!”

Mom shook her head, almost as hard as I had earlier, but the dazed look in her eyes had nothing to do with a head rush; it was fear. “We’ll leave the country… they’ll never find her—”

“They will!” Isaiah said tightly. “She’s becoming unstable. How do you think they found her last night?”

More than hating people who answered a question with a question, I hated people who talked about me as though I wasn’t there. I was there. I could hear them and they had all but forgotten about me.

“Hello!” I waved one arm while holding the paper bag with the other. “I’m still here! Someone answer me!”

“No,” my mother whispered, still not hearing me. “She was supposed to be safe…”

“She will be,” Isaiah promised, voice softening. “I promise you that. I will never let anything hurt her.”

Mom dropped her chin and rocked her head slowly side-to-side, squeezing her eyes closed. “I can’t…”

“What the hell is going on?” I finally screamed.

Isaiah turned to me, looking ready to say something, but he seemed to think better of it and turned back to my mother. “They’re not far behind. You’re almost out of time, you know that.”

Instead of answering him, Mom lifted her head and stared at me. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears and appeared enormous against her pale face. Seeing her so torn and in pain only intensified my need to do something, to protect her. But I had no idea what I was protecting her from.

“What’s going on, Mom?” I whispered, practically pleading with her to answer me.

But she didn’t. She just stared for what felt like hours before she finally came to some private conclusion.

She turned to Isaiah, looking somehow more put-together and determined than before. “Keep away from her, Isaiah. She’s my daughter and I’ll take care of her. I don’t need…
him
or you.” She stalked around the Impala. “Get in the car, Fallon,” she said over her shoulder, never glancing back.

I continued to stand there staring at Isaiah, while he stared back at me, long after the driver’s side door slammed shut behind Mom. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but I had no idea where to begin, and I was running out of time.

“I’ll find you,” he murmured as if feeling my panic. “I’ll never be far behind.”

It almost sounded like a threat, and I knew I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. There was something almost reassuring about his promise.

“Fallon!”

With a last glance at him, I slipped into my seat, tucking the paper bag by my feet and reaching for the door handle. It made a deafening bang when I closed it.

Isaiah was still sitting there when we pulled out of the parking lot and shot down the road.

“Who is he?” I asked as Mom broke every speed limit getting away from the man on the motorcycle. “And what were you guys talking about?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” I repeated, the word coming out high-pitched and ringing with disbelief. “How complicated could it be?”

“Very!” she retorted, slanting me a quick, sharp glance.

“Well, if it has to do with me and Dad… I have the right to know!”

“It’s really not as easy as that, Fallon.”

“Just tell me!”

Silence was my only answer. Miles-and-miles of open road rushed past us without a single word spoken. The only sound emanating around us was the crunch of asphalt beneath the tires, the wind whipping against the windshield and the occasional squeak of leather when I shifted in my seat. Otherwise, it was a very tense drive to wherever we were going.

We didn’t stop driving that night. Mom must have been in a real hurry to get as far away from Isaiah and everything that had happened as possible because by the time she pulled into the parking lot of a motel, we were in Thunder Bay, Ontario — one whole province away.

“We’ll leave first thing in the morning,” she said once we were inside with our things.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I said in return.

She shook her head, ambling almost zombie-like to the bed and stripping the sheets. “It’s late. I’ve had a long drive.”

I wasn’t about to let it go that easily. “It wouldn’t have been so long if you had talked to me! Why won’t you just tell me—?”

 “Because you’re not ready!” she exclaimed, balling the sheets and blankets and pitching them across the room. They hit the matchbox-sized TV and flopped to the floor.

“Not ready?” I stormed up to her. “How can you know that when you haven’t even tried?”

“I know that because… I just do!”

My laugh came out cold. “You can’t pull that. It’s not fair and you know it. This is my life and you have no right to keep things from me!”

“I’m your mother and I can keep anything I want from you if it means keeping you safe!”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to be safe anymore!”

“Well, that’s too bad because I will always keep you safe! I will always be there to make sure you’re protected!”

I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. “I don’t want to be protected! I want the truth and if you won’t give me that then…” I knew I didn’t have to finish for her to understand I would go to Isaiah for answers if I had to.

“You can’t trust him, Fallon,” she whispered, desperation bright in her eyes. “You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t know him, but at least he’s willing to be honest with me.”

The hurt on her face was painful to witness, but it was the only way to get through to her. “I have always been honest with you,” she whispered, the words soft and ringing with sadness.

“Except when you hide things from me,” I pointed out.

She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face. “It’s not that easy, baby girl. There are so many things you don’t understand and I don’t know how to make you understand without you hating me.”

The anger seemed to fade inside me; I could almost feel it washing away. “I could never hate you, Mom. You’re my best friend.”

Tears glistened in her eyes as she reached for me, framing my face in her soft hands. She stroked my cheeks lightly, prolonging whatever she was about to say.

“I love you,” she murmured finally. “I love you so much, Fallon. You are the one thing in my life that has ever meant anything. From the day you were born, I told myself that I would do anything and everything to keep you from getting hurt, even if it meant having you hate me in the end. I know things haven’t been easy for you and I’ve asked you to give up so much, but I promise it was all to keep you safe.”

“Safe from what?” I asked softly.

Her hands fell away from my face, leaving the abandoned area chilled. “I need you to understand one thing before I tell you,” her fingers twisted in front of her, knuckles popping. “I loved your father. I loved him more than I’ve loved anyone. He was everything to me. I would have done anything to be with him forever. But things change, people change and sometimes, it’s the people we love who change into something we can’t change back. Your father turned out not to be the man I thought he was. There were secrets in our relationship that I couldn’t overlook. When we had you, he swore that those secrets were over, that we would be a family. But secrets never just go away, Fallon. They will always be there, lurking in the shadows, biding their time.”

“Is that what killed him?” I whispered, gut churning.

She sucked in a breath. “Your father isn’t dead, Fallon.”

A full heartbeat passed where I could only stare at her. The four little words I’d longed to hear my whole life echoed inside my skull, but not one registered through the crippling vice restraining my thought flow.

“But you said…” I trailed off, choking on the rest of the words.

“I know, sweetie, but I was trying—”

“To protect me?” I grounded out, anger washing through the numbness and claiming my soul. “All these years… every time I asked you about my father, every time I begged you to tell me about him,
anything
about him… you lied to me!”

She put her hands up, willing me to hear her out. “Let me explain.”

“Explain what?” I moved away from her, not trusting myself when all I wanted to do was lash out. “That all this time I had a father somewhere out there? That you’ve been keeping him from me? What could you possibly say that will fix what you’ve done?”

“I did it to keep you safe, Fallon!” she insisted. “You have no idea the sort of person he was and the things he was capable of doing.”

“I had a right to find out for myself!” I retorted vehemently. “I had a right to know who my father was! I had a right to make that decision for myself.”

“Fallon, please…”

I shook my head, looking at anything but her, knowing I would explode if I saw the plea in her eyes, on her face the way it was dripping from her tongue. “You’re right, there’s no way I can understand why you would do something so selfish.”

“Fallon!” I ignored her shout by throwing open the door and lunged out into the night.

The streets were empty with the odd car passing by.  My sneakers splashed against the wet pavement as I ran down the first block and turned. Neon signs flashed all around me despite the late hour. Shops leered back at me with dark, gaping windows. I stopped running and just stood on the sidewalk staring out over the long stretch of concrete ahead of me. It didn’t take rocket science to know that I would find nothing at the end of this road. I could run forever and still have nowhere to go. I had no home, no family, and no friends. I was alone. And it was all because of
her.

She was the reason I had no one and nothing. She was the one who took me away from everything, kept me hidden and on the run. This was all her fault. I hated her so much at that moment, even when a small part of me insisted I didn’t, that I hated my situation, not my mother. But my situation was because of her. It didn’t matter which way I looked at it. She lied to me, and it wasn’t a small lie that could easily be forgiven. She was supposed to be someone I could depend on, someone who I could trust and all this time…

“Fallon!”

I turned at the screech of tires. The Impala came to a rattling halt just a few feet from me and my mother jumped out, still dressed in her robe and slippers. The wind toyed with her wispy hair, sending the strands across her tear stained face. Against my will, my hanger diminished.

“You have to let me explain,” she said, coming around to stand in front of me. “You can’t be angry with me until you at least let me explain!”

“I have no home because of you,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. “I have no friends, no father… I have nothing.”

She shook her head. “You have me. You’ll always have me.”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe I wanted more?”

Her head bowed as she nodded. “Every day.”

“Then why?” I faltered when my voice broke and tears burned behind my eyes. “Tell me why.”

She looked up. “Because I would rather see you alone then watch you suffer and be used.”

I opened my mouth to ask her what she meant when the earth shuddered beneath our feet and an ear-splitting
whoosh,
like a fighter jet, sliced the air. Mom’s eyes went wide in terror as they shot past me to something over my shoulder.