Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (9 page)

I lay sprawled across the body-molding foam and stared at the
canopy overhead, letting every muscle in my body melt into the unfamiliar sensation.

There was no crackling in the air from the tarp, no overpowering stench of Lysol disinfectant to mask and cleanse the odor
s. There were no watermarks on the ceiling, no cracks in the wall, no repugnant stains on the carpet. Best of all, there were no lice, no roaches, no rats or things to crawl up my nose at night. It was clean and new and shiny. It was mine, even if only temporarily.

“It works better if you actually stand on it
when you jump.”

As though caught doing something I shoul
dn’t, I shot upright to my feet and moved off and away from the bed. My body tensed as shame swarmed over me.

Ashton smiled sheepishly from the doorway
; I hadn’t even heard the thing open. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” I lied. “I was just…”
What? Acting like an orphan getting adopted for the first time?

“Fallon
.” He took a step into the room, hands buried deep into the bowels of his pockets. “I would like to apologize for my insensitivity earlier. I should have told you about Celia and Lally. I didn’t think—”

“I
t’s not a big deal.” I stared stubbornly at the spot just over his shoulder, forcing each word out as though vomiting nails.

“I loved your mom
, Fallon. I would have waited for her forever, but we both know she would never have taken me back. Celia, she’s not Dia … Erin, but I do care about her.”

Sad fact was, I did know
my mom would never have taken him back. She had spent seventeen years trying to forget he ever existed. The very mention of his name was like a curse word.

“She seems nice,” I
said instead.

“Celia?” He slipped his hands into his pockets and
seemed to consider this a moment. “Yes. She is. I hope you’ll at least give her the benefit of the doubt. This isn’t her fault, or Lally’s. If anyone’s to blame, it would have to be me.”

I hated to admit it, but I didn’t blame the kid. It wasn’t her fault she and I were born
. I almost didn’t blame Celia either. Truth be told, I didn’t know who to blame, yet I felt blame needed to be placed somewhere. It all just felt so unfair.

“I don’t blame them,” I confessed.

Ashton smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. Thank you.”

“Hear what?” Celia stepped into the doorway. She clasped her ha
nds delicately in front of her and smiled at me. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I was actually hoping to speak with you, Fallon.”

Despite the whole no blaming, I couldn’t help wonder if t
his was where she was going to sit me down and tell me how she wasn’t going to replace my mom and how my father still loved me and I should think of her as a friend. I’d seen enough movies to know it was coming. I always hated the heroine for not accepting the stepmom, especially one as beautiful and nice as Celia. Yet even then, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that talk.

Celia
took a tentative step closer. “If you have a moment tomorrow, I would like to take you on a tour of the estate. Just you and me.”

I opened my mouth to
decline, although I wasn’t sure why. It burned on the tip of my tongue, but refused to dislodge.

“Please?”
She looked so hopeful, so pleading. Refusing would have been like kicking a puppy.

I
offered her a small smile. “Sure.”

She smiled brightly
, so did Ashton. “I’ll meet you in the foyer right after breakfast. But for now, supper is being served in the dining hall.”

Ashton nodded. “And I want to introduce you to
my sister, Vinnie.” I had an aunt? “You’ll like her,” he went on. “You remind me a lot of her.”

“And of course you must still meet Lally,” Celia added. “
She has talked of nothing else since news of your arrival.”

“
Sounds great,” I said for lack of anything better.

Celia
flashed her sharp little teeth. “Do you need help finding anything?”

I glanced around the room, everything seemed fairly straightforward. “I think I’m okay.”

She clapped her hands together. “Wonderful. I’ll send Delphi to fetch you in an hour.”

With a small wave and another toothy smile, Celia slipped her arm through Ashton’s and together, the perfect image of cuteness, they left. I shut the door after them the moment their backs were turned
, and leaned against it.

This was going to be a whole lot harder than I anticipated.

Chapter 7

The girl who arrived at my door an hour later was ethereal, beautiful, with nearly translucent skin and eyes like twin pools of Caribbean waters. Her mane of platinum blonde hair fell in a sleek sheet down the back of her black and gray dress to touch narrow hips. She regarded me politely.

“Hello,” she said serenely. “
I’m Delphi. Celia sent me to retrieve you for supper.”

“Fallon,” I said. “And thanks.
This place is kind of huge.”

She almost smiled.
“If you need a moment more, I can wait while you dress.”

I glanced down at my black jeans and
Angry Birds
t-shirt. “I’m dressed.”

S
he gave no outward show of disapproval, but I could feel it coming off her. “I see. If you’re ready then?”

“As I’ll ever be,” I muttered, stepping into the hallway with her and shutting the door behind me.
“Hey, Delphi, is there a map of this place?”

“A map?”

“Yeah, you know?” Clearly she didn’t because she continued to squint at me with confusion. “Never mind. Lead the way.”

Her lashes dropped to half-mast over her eyes. “Yes, of course.
This way.”

She walked as though gliding. There was never any rustle of clothes
, or scrape of feet on carpet. Next to her, I felt like a clumsy ox, all feet and no grace. She took me down a flight of stairs, then another. Then just when I was beginning to wonder if she was taking me to Hell, we reached a long narrow corridor laced with cobwebs.

“
This is the way to the dining room?” I asked her, keeping my tone light as if I wasn’t severely creeped out.

“
Just there at the end of the hall.” She stopped and waved to a set of wide, double doors. “Just push through.”

I turned to the girl. “Thanks.”

She smiled. “My pleasure, Fallon.”

Grateful,
I gave her a smile before starting the slow march down spider city. I shuddered at the thought of all those little creepers scuttling about above my head. It made no sense why anyone would put a dining room there. The place was disgusting. But who was I to judge? Maybe it was the maid’s decade off.

I reached the doors and took hold of the brass knob. With a twist and shove, I pushed the door open and paused.
Absolute darkness greeted me, along with the stench of mold, cleaning products, stagnant water, rust and death.

“Uh, Delphi, I
don’t think—”

Small, strong hands grabbed the back of my shirt
. The sharp nails cut down my back, making me cry out. I tried to wrench away only to have my hair tangled in violent fingers and yanked. My neck snapped back beneath the assault, momentarily paralyzing me.

“What are you doing?”

“You don’t belong here!” a cold, raspy voice hissed into my ear a second before I was punched in the shoulder blades and sent sprawling across the slimy, wet floor.

My breath left me, but
in no way did that stop me from lunging to my feet. “Hey!”

The door
fused shut on Delphi’s twisted and deformed leer, pitching me into complete obscurity. The muggy locker room sensation crawled along the exposed flesh of my arms, legs and the back of my neck. The skin itched where my hair touched. Something cold and slippery caught against my ankle when I ran for the door and nearly pitched me forward. I reined in the hundred different disturbing visions passing through my mind and ignored all the little voices telling me to scream.

I bent at the waist
and touched the slimy cord and was just starting to wonder what the hell … when it wiggled. I screamed without even second guessing what I’d felt. My retreat was foiled by the slippery puddle of goo that had pooled beneath my feet. I hit the concrete on my side with a bruising crash. My hip and elbow throbbed where I’d taken the worst of the collision. Something wet and sticky trickled down my arm when I shoved into a sitting position and scrambled backwards crab-style.

In the darkness ahead, something slithered. It made a sound I imagined an octopus would make on land, the sound of something boneless and wet suctioning against stone. Whatever it was, it was big, and it was coming straight for me.

I might have screamed, or swallowed acid. The burn in my throat scraped with every ragged breath I tried to claim. Sweat iced against my skin. The scrape on my elbow prickled. The sucking sound drew closer, scratching against the cold stone. Something wet brushed against my calf, leaving a trail of slime against my skin. The overpowering stench of my own urine punched me in the nose. Against my left side, something brushed against me, something moving, something alive and cold. I hadn’t heard it coming until something fisted in my hair.

I screamed and
scrambled away from it, tearing roots from my scalp as I searched blindly for a weapon but only felt vast, empty space. My damp jeans chaffed me uncomfortably as I realized with horror that there were two things in there with me. I rolled onto my hands and knees and crawled in the direction of the doors.

Whatever was in there with me had other ideas. Long, cold tentacles closed around my ankle, dragging me back several feet in the opposite direction. The shuffling thing
on my left reached for me again, running scaly flesh and moldy-smelling rags against my face.

“Get away from me!” The hoarse shriek echoed loud in the silence. Although I’d spoken, I jumped at the sound of my own voice.

My heart nearly stopped in fright before it galloped again wildly. Desperation and terror choked the sob in my blistered throat. My nails raked against the floor as I clawed for escape.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice
nudged against the buzzing, fighting to get past the wall of terror and demanding to know where I was. But it was suffocated by the persisting pounding in my chest beating harder and harder until it was all I could hear.

I clutched at my ears, digging my nails into my scalp as I tried to blot out the shuffling and the wet sucking sound
s pushing in from all sides.

Fire shot up from the floor mere feet away and
burst up one entire wall as though shot through the nozzle of a flame thrower. Its stifling heat exploded all around me like a slap and I was momentarily blinded.

I threw up my arm to shield my face, wondering if I would first
be cooked before I was eaten when something banged in the distance.

The doors had been thrown open and freedom glowed in the pale light
spilling into the room around a willowy silhouette. Whatever had its feeler around my ankle, shrieked in pain and scuttled back into the darkness. I didn’t wait look to see what it or the shuffling thing was. My sneakers slid as I tore to my feet and shouldered past the girl holding the doors open wide.

I ran
wildly through the cobweb infested hall to the stairs. I took the steps two at a time, stumbling only once. It was sheer determination, and a miracle that I found my room before breaking into tears. I slammed the door and locked it.

No sooner had I stripped my clothes
and pitched them into a corner when a wood-splintering bang shook the room. I would have jumped had I not known he was coming. His fear, anxiety, and anger raged inside me as hot and fierce as mine. I could almost taste his brewing thunderstorm of emotions.

“Fallon
! Open the door!”

I ignored him
, too busy muffling each sob between the tight hold I had on my bottom lip with my teeth. My hands shook as I grabbed a pair of sweats and an over-sized t-shirt that might have belonged to Isaiah from my duffle and bolted myself in the bathroom for the hottest shower on the planet.

He was still there when I emerged several minutes later
, several layers of skin lighter. I didn’t know how I knew. He wasn’t pounding on the door anymore, but I knew he was leaning against it, waiting for me.

“Let me in,” he murmured through the wood.

“Go away. Please,”
I begged.

I crawled onto the bed, drew the covers over my head and shut him out.
I couldn’t face him, not like that. I couldn’t survive any more humiliation, even if he would never judge me.

“I’m not going anywhere, Fallon,” I heard him say
and I shut my eyes.