Touching Fire (Touch Saga) Read Online Free PDF Page A

from my near slumped position against the hot, warped metal.
    “Get off me!” I slurred, slapping both hands on his chest and shoving. “Not going anywhere with you!”
    “I don’t have time for this!” he growled in a voice tinged with just the hint of an accent I didn’t care at that moment to place.
    I wrenched him off, one hand moving to stop him when he took a step forward, the other going to my throbbing heart as it hammered harder, with more persistence. Something was wrong. Something had happened to Isaiah and this guy was standing in my way.
    “Isaiah? Where are you?”
    “Are you listening to me?” A waved inches from my face.
    I ignored him as I tried to pinpoint the direction of Isaiah’s alarm.
    “Fallon! Stay there.”
    My gaze swung left, in the direction behind the boy standing in my way.
    The surge of anger was as hot and heady as the fear pooling at the back of my throat, but it wasn’t mine. At least, I was almost sure it wasn’t all entirely mine. It was all coming at me way too fast to sort out.
    “If you don’t come willingly, I will have to use force and I would really rather not,” the boy was telling me, gloved hands making what was probably supposed to be a reassuring gesture. “Now come along.”
    Was this guy for real? How stupid did I look? No doubt pretty stupid. I’d lost my weapon and I was squaring off with a guy three times my size with a complexion so pale it was like looking at a ghost. His round sunglasses were the only color on his face and they were reflecting the roaring fire behind me, the one devouring the café and most of the shops along that street. The heat of it beat against my back and blew a strand of dark hair into my face. But I never took my eyes off the guy staring back at me, blocking my way to Isaiah.
    “Get out of my way,” I warned, hands balling at my sides. The hot need for violence pulsed down the lengths of my arms to sizzle around my fists.
    “I can’t do that,” he replied calmly. “You need to come with me.”
    I bared my teeth in a hard smile. “Aw, a guy with a sense of humor.”
    I stuck out with all the rage coiling tight inside me. My fists slammed into his chest like twin battering rams. Power sang through my bones and burst in my shoulders. Buddy was lifted off his feet and sent sailing like a ragdoll straight into the side of a bus stop. Glass exploded upon collision and rained down around him as he lay sprawled across the pavement. I didn’t wait to see if he would get up. I darted past him towards the pull.
    The road separating the café from the park was a battlefield of snapped power lines, uprooted trees and a cemetery of crumpled cars. Glass twinkled like diamonds across the torn asphalt. Lampposts were bent in half. Some were yanked clean out of the ground like dandelions with their roots still clumped in dirt. High beams of water gushed into the air from fire hydrants, creating an ocean down the street that toyed with the fallen power lines, making them crackle and snap like rabid dogs. I’d only ever seen such destruction in movies and video games.
    I spotted Ashton several yards away, moving fluidly through the carnage, stepping over scraps of tattered fabric and chunks of meat. I couldn’t be certain, but it looked like the Shadow Brothers, although recognition was impossible when their limbs and torsos had been ripped apart. Blood soaked Ashton’s clothes and ran in rivulets from his fingertips. He didn’t seem to notice as he wiped them absentmindedly across his dark slacks. Fangs glinted in the sunlight from between curled lips reddened with blood. Eyes that had once been the replica of mine were pits of black against a face twisted in bloodthirsty glee as he surveyed the massacre he’d caused with his bare hands. He ran a pink tongue over his lips and I shuddered.
    Shaken, I averted my eyes, unable to stomach the sight. I willed myself to breathe without throwing up as the wind shifted, punching me with the