Touching Smoke (9 page)

“Fallon!”

I had no time to react when she grabbed me and threw me to the ground. The concrete met me with a force that knocked the air from my lungs. Something whistled over my head and exploded as it made contact with the only obstacle in its way — my mother’s chest.

I might have screamed. I must have, it was ringing through the night, echoing in my head over-and-over again. Yet I lay paralyzed as I watched her fly backwards into the air, momentarily suspended, a pale blur before dropping like a ragdoll and skidding three feet against wet pavement. She came to a jarring halt, arms and legs angled at odd, bent positions. Her robes lay open, splayed like wings on either side of her.

She didn’t move.

“Mom!” bits of rock and debris cut into my palms and into my kneecaps through the soft material of my sweat pants. The foul stench of roasted meat and fabric nearly knocked me over when I reached her. “Mom?” I touched her face, my hands shaking violently.

Her lashes fluttered like black butterfly wings against the pallor of her cheeks before sweeping open. “Run!”

I shook my head, my tears raining down on her face. “No… no… hold on, please!”

“Run!” she rasped, her lungs making a strange wheezing sound, like trying to talk with water in your mouth.

“Not without you,” I sobbed, grabbing her shoulders and struggling to lift her, taking great care not to touch the sizzling dodge-ball-sized burn in the center of her chest. “You have to get up! Just… please… get up! Don’t do this… don’t leave me!” I begged, hugging her and yanking her towards the car. If I could just get her inside, I could get her to a hospital.

She shook her head slowly, her eyes closing. “Never leave you… love you so much… never meant… wanted…” With a shuddering breath, she went still in my arms, her head rolling lifelessly to the side.

The scream could have come from somebody else. It poured out without an end in sight, yet it didn’t feel like it was coming from me. The whole world was a blur of sounds, rushing and rolling inside my pounding skull like wind through a tunnel. I grabbed my mom, begging her to wake up, to open her eyes… to live. But she remained unmoving, even as the night boomed with the deafening crack of gunfire. My haunting wails no longer sounded human, not even to my own ears. The hollowing din pulsed through my very soul, drowning out the pounding of my heart and the chaos originating from a short distance away. I clutched Mom’s body to my chest tight, pressing her as close as humanly possible, trying so hard to suck her inside me somehow. I was only distinctly aware of someone shouting my name. But it meant nothing to me.

“Come back!” I wept into my mother’s shoulder. “Please, come back! I’m sorry! Please!”

Something grabbed my elbow. “Fallon! Get up!”

“No!” I threw the hold off with a twist of my arm. “I won’t leave her!”

“Get up!” The grip returned, tighter than before. “She’s gone, Fallon! You need to let go!”

I shook my head, clutching my mother’s head closer to my chest. “The fireball should have hit me!”

Isaiah crouched down in front of me, his face as dark as the smoking gun in his hand. “We need to go! I’ve managed to get Gaston and Mistral back behind a building, but they won’t stay there for much longer.”

I didn’t hear him. “I never told her I loved her,” my lungs seized under the wheezing breath I tried to suck in. “I never told her. She died thinking I hated her! This is my fault… she died because of me,”

His fingers were warm against my face when he gripped my chin and forced me to look into his eyes. “She never questioned your love for her.”

I shook my head. “She didn’t know! I didn’t tell her. I didn’t let her explain.”

He wiped my cheeks. “Did anyone know you better than she did?” I shook my head again, unconsciously leaning into his touch. “Then she knew.”

I looked down into her face, memorizing every inch of it, hurting with the realization that I would never again look into her green eyes. I would never see her smile, hear her laugh or feel her soft fingers against my face. She was gone forever and I was powerless to do anything.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said to her, ears ringing, eyes blurring. “Tell me what to do.”

His answer was the jerk of his weapon-bearing arm. The gun exploded in rapid succession, much louder and jarring that close as he fired at something over my shoulder. I yelped, slamming both hands over my ears and squeezing my eyes shut.

It lasted only a second, but my ears rang long after he lowered the weapon and grabbed my arm. “You need to come with me. Now!”

I shook my head. “I won’t leave her here in the street!”

He hesitated only long enough to stash his gun into the waistband of his slacks before taking her from me and lifting her up into his arms. I staggered after him to the Impala and watched with grappling sorrow as he laid her down gently into the backseat.

“Get in!” he said to me from over his shoulder.

I didn’t wait to be told twice. The eerie figures from Lady Clare’s Academy had unfolded themselves from the shadows, ghastly spirits moving, gliding, in our direction. I threw myself into the passenger’s side and slammed the door closed behind me.

Isaiah closed the back door, jogged around the back of the car, guns blazing until he reached the driver’s side and threw himself inside.

“Buckle up!” he said, turning the key and swerving out of the parking spot without waiting for me to do as he suggested.

It was tricky getting the buckle in place when the seatbelt kept locking in place with his erratic driving. But I managed to finally strap myself in and grapple with the dashboard as we rounded corners and tore down deserted streets.

“Where are we going?” I shouted over the roar of the engine.

Casting a quick glance through the rearview mirror, Isaiah said, “Away from here.”

I threw a frantic glance through the side mirror, searching for pursuers, relieved to find none. “I think we lost them.”

Isaiah didn’t comment, but his snort said it all.

We drove in no real direction for nearly two hour, until he was absolutely certain we’d lost the pair. Only when he was satisfied did he turn to me.

“I have a friend who can help,” he said quietly. “I can call him—”

I shook my head, unable to comprehend the fact that my mother would
not
be waking up and grumbling for her first cup of coffee; it was hard to hold on to with the scorch mark still steaming on her chest.

“Not yet,” I whispered, turning my torso in my seat and reaching to take Mom’s cold hand. She didn’t squeeze back. “I need to go back to the motel.”

“They could be waiting for us there,” he said.

Too tired to fight, I just shook my head. “All our stuff is there. I need…” Needed what? What was there really? Material possession. Nothing else. But it was literally all I had left.

If Isaiah thought it was a bad idea, he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he turned the wheel, making a wide U in the middle of the street so we were facing back the way we’d come.

Three blocks from the motel, he cut the engine, left the keys in the ignition and turned to me, blue eyes somber. “Stay in the car. Lock the doors and if you see anything…
anything
at all, you drive. You got it?”

I stared at him, my mind unnaturally blank despite my struggle to put words and thoughts into place. “I can’t,” I croaked at last.

His eyebrows scrunched. “You can’t drive?”

I shook my head, more to clear the fog drenching my brain than denial. “I can drive.”

“What then?”

I swallowed. “I can’t leave you.”

Something… something dark passed over his eyes, but I was too tired to put name to it. “You will! You will, because I will always be right behind you, do you understand?”

“But—”

He was already opening the car door. “You listen to me, Fallon,” he said, one leg already out. “I can’t die and I won’t, not until you’re safe. So do what I tell you! If I’m not back in five minutes, go.”

My eyes widened. “Five mi—”

“Five!” He slammed the car door, but didn’t leave. He stood there, motioning for me to get into the driver’s seat.

Trembling, I crawled over the console and sat. My hands automatically went to the wheel, even though I knew I could never actually do it. I couldn’t leave him. I wouldn’t.

As if reading my mind, his eyes narrowed. I returned his stare, daring him to challenge me. I thought I saw the hint of a grin, before he turned on his heels and, despite the halos of pale light shattering the darkness, disappeared into the night.

I sat in the tomb-like silence, chilled despite the warmth, alone despite the thousands sleeping around me in the buildings. The eerie silence crept through metal and glass, soaking through the leather and plastic before sinking sharp talons into my flesh. I rubbed my arms, willing away the goose bumps puckering up along my skin. My teeth found my bottom lip as I willed Isaiah to hurry. I had never been a fan of the darkness, of the power it had over me, but there was more in the air than the beckoning call of temptation; there was an intensity, a sharpness that made the shadows crisp, as if someone had put everything into focus beneath a microscope. I could see every shift, every slide as night crept over the slumbering world, yawning and stretching. Each one, as they inched towards the car, reminded me of fingers, reaching for me.

I gasped, shuddering.

There’s nothing there,
an all too familiar voice whispered through the cavity of my brain, the same voice that had told me to stay where I was the day of the accident between my mom and Isaiah. For the second time in the span of a few days, I questioned my sanity. I closed my eyes, shook my head and repeatedly told myself to get a grip.

Maybe telling myself to relax at a time like that had been a bad move on my part, because when the rap of knuckles on glass struck my window, I jumped and screamed in fright. My eyes flew open about the same time my heart leapt up into my throat, desperate to make its escape through my gapping mouth. My hands flew to the stirring wheel, prepared to flee. Then I saw the face peering back at me. I cursed.

“You scared the hell out of me!” I gasped, rolling down the window to stare more closely into Isaiah’s face.

 He jerked a head towards the back of the car. “Trunk.”

I nodded, swallowing hard while fumbling beneath the dashboard for the knob. The trunk popped open with a squeal.

The crunch of his boots on concrete resounded through the empty streets as he rounded to the back. He swung the bags up and stuffed them into the back. I watched him through the rearview mirror, watched him slam the lid down a second later and start for the driver’s side. Realizing he meant to drive, I scrambled back into my seat just as he threw open the driver’s side door open. He slipped inside and scowled at me.

“I told you to lock the doors!”

I winced. “Sorry.”

He sighed, but didn’t reprimand me anymore. Instead, he told me to buckle up as he pulled away from the curb and drove.

Several hours later and many miles between the motel, and us he pulled into the empty parking lot of an out of the way motel and cut the engine. This time, he removed the keys, handed them to me and told me to wait while he got us a room.

I sat and watched through the window as he walked into the brightly lit office. He made the required exchange with the oversized man behind the counter, took the keys and returned. He passed the keys to me.

“Room 104,” he told me, pointing. “I’ll pull the car up. You get inside.”

I dropped the Impala keys back into his open palm, got out and shuffled to the door indicated, barely lifting my feet. Behind me, I heard him start the car, pull out, turn and follow. I was at the door when he backed in, killed the engine and got out. He pocketed the keys and came around to stand with me while I opened the door. He went in first, gun in hand. I hadn’t even seen him pull it out.

He searched everywhere, from beneath the bed, to behind the shower curtain and even behind the doors. Once satisfied that we were alone, he stuffed the gun back into the waistband of his pants and turned to me.

“What do you want to do?”

Sleep. I wanted to sleep. Forever. But I knew that wasn’t what he meant. Since he’d brought my mom’s body into the car, I hadn’t had the guts to look back there, but now she
was
back there and she couldn’t stay there.

“Could I have a few minutes with her?” I whispered, peering at him pleadingly.

He hesitated, but nodded slowly after a moment.

I remained by the door, leaning against the wall just inside as he walked out. I heard something shatter. The light spilling into the open doorway from the porch light blinked out, casting darkness all around. I grappled with a temporary panic, wondering if we’d been caught. Then, Isaiah stepped into the room, my mom in his arms.

“Close the door,” he instructed, moving to the only bed in the room.

I hurried to do what he said. Something glistened in front of the door and it took me a second to identify the broken shards as the light bulb that had hung above the door.