Touching Smoke

by Phoenix, Airicka

  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.”

  Chapter 13

  “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?”

  Isaiah sighed, eyes dark with regret. “I never wanted to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” My fear rang through the room, echoing like a bomb in my ears. “That I’m some superhuman hybrid that can kill the world with a thought? That I’m some genetically engineered monster created in a lab by a mad scientist with a God complex?”

  “You’re not a monster!” The fire blazed hot behind his snarl.

  I choked out a bitter laugh, the sound coming pathetic and clogged with tears. “No? Then what am I, Isaiah? Because evidently, I’m not human either!”

  His face seemed to soften, as did his tone when he answered, “You’re perfect.”

  I turned away from the truth glowing in his eyes. “Perfect for what? Being some weapon of mass destruction?” I swiped at my tear-stained face with the back of my hand, hating my own weakness. “What are my special abilities, huh? Can I climb walls? Leap higher than the tallest building? Turn green when I get angry? Oh, I know, maybe I’m supposed to suck the world dry with my superhuman blood sucking abilities. What’s the deal with that anyway?”

  Isaiah shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  I barked a laugh. “Great, maybe I’m defective.”

  “You’re not defective!” he muttered sharply. “Whatever your abilities are, they probably won’t manifest for another two days, if they haven’t already and you just didn’t notice them.”

  “Trust me you’d be the first to know when I start shooting laser beams from my eyeballs.” I frowned. “What’s in two days?”

  Now he looked confused. “Your birthday.”

  I shook my head. “My birthday isn’t for another four months.” The muscles in his face twitched in a distinct wince. “Isn’t it?” I croaked, biting my bottom lip.

  His sigh rippled in the air. “Your mother gave you that birthday when she went on the run with you.”

  It was a wonder I made it across the room to the cot without my legs giving out on me. I sank onto the lumpy mattress gratefully.

  “You called her Diana.”

  “That was her real name.”

  My head dropped forward. “She never told me.”

  “She was trying to protect you.”

  I raised my eyes to his face. “Is my name still Fallon Braeden?”

  He was watching me as if he expected me to fall apart at any moment. True that it was a possibility, but I wanted answers first. Besides, emotional breakdowns required energy, something I was seriously lacking just then.

  “Reaghan,” he murmured at last “Your mom changed your name and birth date to keep you from being found.”

  A lot of good that did, I wanted to say, but decided against it; I was still reeling with the fact that all this was real and not some movie. I had no idea what I was supposed to do now but ask more questions.

  “Is Reaghan my father’s name?”

  “Dr. Ashton Reaghan.”

  Fallon Reaghan… I guessed it could have been worse. It certainly explained why I could never find my father’s name under Braeden.

  “My dad’s a doctor?”

  There was pride shining in his eyes. “One of the best.”

  I ignored the stab of resentment. “Not like Garrison though, right?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing like Garrison.”

  That was a small relief.

  “What about you?” I stared into his eyes. “What does any of this have to do with you?”

  In that moment, the solid, cast-iron wall slammed down between us. I was given a view of his back as he faced the window. “I can’t.”

  “You have to!” My outrage lanced through the room. “After everyt
hing we’ve been through… I bit you for God sakes! I think that—”

  He put up a hand to stop my rant. “No, I mean I really can’t,” he turned on his heel, his head still down as if he were ashamed of what he was about to tell me next. “Because I don’t know anything about myself.”

  My eyes widened. “What?”

  His boots scuffed across the hardwood as he closed the distance between us and sat on the cot beside me. The springs squealed their protest at the added weight. The cot drooped, but held.

  He spoke to his knees. His hair formed a curtain between us.

  “Ashton rescued me. He took me out of that place, but I don’t know anything before that moment,” he peered into my eyes. “Your father gave me a home, took care of me when I had no one,” he touched his left arm, just where I knew that tattoo lay. “I owe him everything.”

  “Did he give you the markings?”

  Isaiah’s head came up and turned to me, confusion painting his face. “What?”

  I pointed to the spot he kept unconsciously rubbing. “The tattoo. Did Ashton—”

  “No!” the single word vibrated with outrage, with insult. “Aston would never…!” he inhaled sharply through his nostrils. “I had it before he took me away. I don’t know what it’s for.”

  “What does it say?”

  He hesitated. His knuckles blazed white snow where he gripped his upper arm. Gradually, he moved his hand, hooked his finger into the cap of his sleeve and lifted it.

  “9241-12,” I read aloud. “Do you know what they stand for?”

  He shoved the sleeve back down. “No.”

  For a moment, I said nothing, but watched him smooth his hand over his sleeve again-and-again as if the sleeve just wasn’t covering enough. Gently, I rested my hand over his, stopping him.

  “Hey,” I tipped my head to the side; just enough to peer under the silky fringes cover his face and meet his eyes. I smiled. “Maybe it’s better you don’t remember.”

  He dropped my gaze. “Maybe.” The longing in his eyes wrenched me up inside. I hated being unable to protect him from the demons haunting him.