Touching Smoke by Airicka Phoenix Read Free Book Online Page B

that she clearly hadn’t felt? The mysterious guy with his incredible blue eyes? The twin figures with their fire-throwing abilities? Now that I was thinking about it, even I had to question my sanity. It all sounded so fictional. But I told her. I paced the room and recited everything that took place, right down to Lidia taking off. I kept nothing from her. By the end of it, she stood over her packed suitcase, regarding me with a distinct expression of someone who was given an hour to live. For a full heartbeat, I watched and waited for her to tell me I was crazy; I really wanted… needed to hear it. Instead, after a second, she seemed to suck in all the air in the room, grabbed her suitcase and told me to hurry up as she headed for the door.
    “Wait!” I threw my duffle strap over my shoulder and hurried after her. “That’s it? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
    The screech of the Rust-Bucket trunk opening was the only answer I got as she wrestled her bag into the back and reached for mine.
    “Mom, what—?”
    “Get in the car, Fallon,” she ordered, stuffing my duffle in after her suitcase.
    Maybe it was the seriousness in her tone or the familiar dark figure approaching us from across the shadow-strewn parking lot, but I didn’t stop to ask her why. I didn’t stop to think. I lunged for the door handle and yanked. The squeal of door hinges pierced the silence like a gunshot. The sound ricocheted between my ribcage, sending my heart into a frenzy of terror. I could taste the bile of fear in the back of my throat
    “Mom…”
    Her head came up fast, her small hands ceasing their war with the bags. I don’t know what I expected her to do… Run? Scream? What I did not expect her to do was sigh and say calmly, “Hello, Isaiah.”

Chapter 5
     
    “You know him?” My voice came out embarrassingly shrill and high-pitched, but that was the least of my problems.
    In the dingy glow of the fluorescent light, I had my first real look at my savior, the chance to see all the things I missed while fire was raining down on us.
    He was tall, much taller than I remembered, at least six-two, and he was lean, kind of like a boxer, all masculine on top and limber on the bottom. He seemed even more ethereal and beautiful if possible, clad entirely in black. His golden complexion appeared to pulse with an inner light that emphasized his unfathomable blue eyes like pools of liquid electricity. Wrapped in darkness, it was nearly impossible to tell where the night began and he ended. The dark state of his clothes didn’t help. The black slacks, black t-shirt beneath a worn, black jacket in soft, faded leather, molded over him with the grace and style of some magazine model. He was a walking symphony of predatory magnetism. Every motion rippled with the prowess of a very large jungle cat, all feral and mesmerizing.
    Tendrils of charcoal-black hair fluttered across his face, having escaped the band holding the shoulder-length strands at the base of his neck. His penetrating gaze burned straight through me, never wavering, like a panther hypnotizing his prey before devouring it whole. He held me prisoner with such intensity that I could scarcely breathe by the time he finally reached us.
    “Hello, Diana.”
    I surfaced from the silvery mist swirling around me with a jolt. “Diana?” Who the hell was Diana?
    I actually glanced back, half-expecting someone else to have slipped up behind us. But the only thing there was the open — empty — doorway leading into the motel room. I turned back to him.
    “What—?”
    “What are you doing here?” my mother interrupted me, slamming the trunk lid shut. “Why are you following us?”
    He never so much as blinked at the venom in the scathing words, nor did his tone suggest he was affected by it. “You know the answer to that.”
    Mom seemed to tense all over. Her complexion dropped several shades of chalky-white. “Forget it!” she hissed, reaching over and wrapping cold,