Free Touching Smoke by Airicka Phoenix Page B

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