Spider’s Revenge (27 page)

“Follow me,” I whispered to them. “Stay right behind me no matter what. Quickly now.”

They nodded, guns ready. Finn and I turned off our flashlights. We didn’t need them. Both of us had been raised in these woods and had spent hours exploring them. Besides, someone might see the bobbing lights, which was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. There was more than enough moon and starlight to reflect off the snow and show us the way, not to mention the bright, collective glow from the bounty hunters’ cars and the lights still blazing inside the house.

The three of us plowed through the woods, going as fast as we could through the snow and still keep our footing. I took point, putting myself out front, a silverstone knife in either hand, with Bria behind me, and Finn guarding the rear, all three of us looking, watching, listening. Our breaths rasped and frosted in the air like jets leaving vapor trails behind them.

My unease grew, rising up until it matched the wailing shrieks of the stone of Fletcher’s house in its piercing intensity, but I shook it off and kept going—

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The gunshots came out of nowhere.

Too late, I realized what it was that I’d been missing before—the sound of the bounty hunters shooting at the house. The loud cracks of bullets zipping through the night had completely vanished. Now I knew why. Some of them had finally gotten smart and invaded the woods—probably drawn by the creak of Finn closing the tunnel door.

One second the three of us were alone in the forest.
The next, figures moved in the trees all around us, like we’d kicked over an anthill and had sent all the biting insects scuttling in our direction, determined to exact what vengeance they could.

“Run!” I told Finn and Bria. “Run!”

We took off. There was no time to be silent or sneaky, and no time to take the bounty hunters out one by one. There were just too many of them, and they rolled over us like waves crashing against a sandy shore. As soon as one bounty hunter went down, another one swept in to take his place. I led the way, with Bria and Finn behind me, firing their guns at our pursuers. I ran as fast as I dared, as fast as I could go and still have them keep up with me, but I still knew that it was too slow—too fucking
slow
.

Faces began to appear in the woods. The bounty hunters’ lips were all drawn back into triumphant smiles, while greed made their eyes glint like the predators that they were. Closer and closer they crept, slowly gaining on us. Two giants had moved quicker than the rest and actually managed to get in front of us, stepping out into the path ahead and blocking our escape. Not for long. My hands tightened around my knives.

I barreled into the first giant. My blades sliced one way, then the other, and he went down screaming. But the other bastard stepped up to take his place. Behind me, Bria and Finn had both stopped to reload their guns and take aim at another group of hunters closing in on our left flank.

And that’s when Ruth Gentry made her move.

The old, spry bounty hunter darted out of the trees to our right, like a ghost appearing out of thin air. Gentry
timed her attack perfectly, popping out of the forest from less than ten feet away. How the hell had she gotten that close to us without my seeing her?

Before I knew what was happening, before I could even think about stopping her, before I could even scream out a fucking
warning
, the old woman was on us. She snuck up on Bria’s blind side, grabbing my baby sister by her shag of blond hair. Bria shrieked in surprise and stumbled back but she brought up her elbow, ready to drive it into the stomach of whoever was behind her—

Click
.

Gentry’s revolver pressed against Bria’s temple, and my sister did the only thing that she could—she froze. Finn whirled around, cursed, and raised his own gun, determined to put a bullet through one of Gentry’s eyes—

Crack!

A bullet whined out of the trees, kicking up the snow at Finn’s feet. This time, everyone froze, even the giant who’d been about to swing at me. I knew who it was, of course. Sydney, Gentry’s girl, apprentice, or whoever the hell she was, hidden farther back in the trees with that rifle of hers.

“The next one will go in your head,” Gentry said.

She spoke to Finn, but the old woman’s gaze never left my face. She recognized me from the Pork Pit. I could tell by the way that her pale eyes narrowed and her lips puckered with thought. Something like sympathy flashed in her face, and she nodded her head at me. Being respectful, the way that you would to an enemy you admired, to someone who maybe wasn’t all that different but was on the opposite side from you.

“I’ll take care of her as best I can until you come for her,” Gentry said, still staring at me. “I owe you that much for sparing Sydney the other night. Now, come on, little lady. We need to get going.”

Take care of Bria? What did she mean by that?

Keeping Bria between us and her gun against my sister’s temple, Gentry eased my baby sister back into the woods. All around me, the other bounty hunters closed in, their delighted, excited shouts making them sound like a flock of crows cawing in triumph.

But I only had eyes for Bria, and she for me. Across the snowy landscape, our gazes met and held. Desperate gray on agonizing blue.

“Go, Gin!” Bria screamed the words at me. “Leave me!”

Never
.

The word burned into my heart like an icy brand, hurting me worse than anything ever had before, including Mab melting my spider rune medallion into my palms. I started forward, thinking to hell with Sydney, her rifle, and the fact that she might put a bullet in my brain, but the giant blocked my path once more. Automatically, I dodged his blows, then brought my knives up, then down, just as I’d done a thousand times before. But even as I cut into him, I knew that it wouldn’t be enough—that I just wouldn’t be fast enough.

The giant had just started to fall when Gentry and Bria disappeared from sight.

“Bria!” I screamed, trying to get past the dying giant. “Bria!”

I wasn’t quick enough. Even as I reached for my baby
sister, more bounty hunters appeared, half a dozen of them running toward Finn and me.

“Come on, Gin!” Finn said, grabbing my arm and pulling me forward. “It’s too late! Bria’s gone!”

It might have been my imagination, but, for a second, I saw a glimmer of silver through the trees, as the moonlight illuminated the rune necklace Bria always wore. A delicate primrose. Bria’s rune. The symbol for beauty.

“Bria!” I screamed again.

Then the falling snow swirled and fell like a curtain between us, and she vanished.

I don’t really remember much of what happened after that.

Somehow, I got myself under control long enough to stop screaming and start running. Finn covered our backs, exchanging enough shots with the pursuing bounty hunters to keep them from overwhelming us, while I took care of any who were unlucky enough to step into our path. Cut, cut, cut. I went through the motions automatically, my limbs heavy and my mind disconnected from the rest of my body. Nothing could penetrate the fear that cloaked my heart like an icy shroud.

Bria—Bria was
gone
, and it was all my fault. For being so arrogant, for assuming that I could kill Mab. Right now, at this very moment, my sister was being delivered into the Fire elemental’s cruel clutches. I’d lost my baby sister to that bitch for the second time in my life. I wanted to curl into a ball and weep at my miserable, miserable failure.

But there was no time for that. There was no time to do anything but cut and run, and cut and run some more.

Somehow, though, Finn and I made it down the steep, snow-covered ridge and back to the sedan that I’d boosted earlier. I was just—out of it, so Finn took charge. He tucked his gun in his waistband alongside his other gun, opened the door, and shoved me into the passenger’s seat. At this point, my hands shook so badly from adrenaline, fear, and fatigue that it was all I could do to pull the door shut. My bloody knives slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floorboard. I just stared dully at them.

Finn ran around to the other side of the car, slid into the driver’s seat, and reached underneath the dash. “Come on, baby,” he muttered, bringing the loose wires together. “Start for me.”

A second later, the engine roared to life. Finn threw the car in gear, put his foot all the way down on the gas, and swerved back out onto the road.

Not a moment too soon.

In the side mirror, I saw several figures run out into the road behind us.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Bullets slammed into the car, one of them blowing out the back windshield and spraying us with sharp splinters of glass. Finn hunched down over the wheel, making himself a smaller target, but I didn’t even have the energy to do that. Didn’t much matter anyway, since Finn rounded a curve, putting us out of sight and out of range of the bounty hunters and their guns.

Finn took the first side road he came to, then another, then another. When he was sure that none of the bounty
hunters was on our tail, he made a final turn, one that would take us to the safe house where the others should be waiting. We rode in silence, with me slumped against the window.

Bria—Bria was gone. I’d vowed to keep my sister safe, and I’d been stupid and sloppy enough to let her be captured by a bounty hunter, by Ruth Gentry—a woman who was sure to be taking Bria to Mab this very
second
, with Sydney and her rifle along for backup. And when Mab got her hands on Bria…

Hot, sour, bitter bile rose in my throat at the thought of what the Fire elemental would do to my sister, of how she would torture her. Just because she could. My stomach twisted, and it took what little strength I had left to keep from vomiting.

“I’m so sorry, Gin,” Finn said. “So fucking sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t set my sights on Bria, if I hadn’t tried to seduce her tonight, if I hadn’t baited her, if I’d just answered my damn phone when you first called…”

Finn swallowed the rest of his words, but I could hear the anguish in his voice. Despite his womanizing ways, Finn genuinely cared for Bria. Even more than that, she was part of our makeshift family now. He would have felt the same way if Jo-Jo had been kidnapped or Sophia or me. And I couldn’t point the finger of blame at Finn too much. We all made mistakes, we all fucked up from time to time. Not too long ago, one of my screwups had led to my foster brother’s almost being killed in the Ashland Rock Quarry. No, I couldn’t fault Finn for being himself, for doing what was in his nature. I just couldn’t. I’d already lost Bria tonight—I wasn’t losing him too.

So I roused myself out of my stupor long enough to lean over and squeeze his cold hand. “If you’d answered my call and tried to leave the house, you might have run into the bounty hunters coming up the driveway and been captured immediately. It’s okay. We’ll get her back. Bria will be fine. You’ll see.”

Finn nodded, but we could both hear the hollow echo in my weak, mumbled words.

We headed due west to the suburbs that lay on the far side of Ashland. Given the late hour, falling snow, and treacherous roads, we didn’t pass a single car—not one. We’d gotten our clean getaway after all—it had just come too late for Bria.

Twenty minutes later, Finn left the main road. He made a series of turns, finally steering the car into what looked like two ruts leading smack-dab to the middle of nowhere. A mile later, the car broke free of the snow-laden trees, and Finn stopped in front of an enormous log cabin that had been built into the side of this particular ridge.

In the dark, the cabin looked like a stain that had been spilled over the pristine carpet of the white, fluffy snow. No lights burned in the structure, which was flanked by trees, but one of the fins on Sophia’s classic convertible peeked around the far side of the building. The Goth dwarf and Jo-Jo had made it here. I just hoped that the others had too.

The cabin was a safe house Fletcher had kept up for years, one of several that the old man had maintained. Now that he was gone, the only people who knew about the place were me, Finn, Owen, and the Deveraux sisters.
But that didn’t mean there still couldn’t be trouble lurking inside—not with all the bounty hunters in the city who were searching for me. So I made myself pick up my bloody knives from the floorboard. Next to me, Finn pulled out one of his guns again. The two of us left the car and approached the house cautiously, sliding from shadow to shadow and watching for any sign of movement behind the curtains.

We’d only gotten halfway across the yard, when the light on the front porch snapped on. Finn and I both dropped into a low crouch, weapons ready. A moment later, the front door creaked open, and Jo-Jo stuck her head outside, no doubt looking for us. Finn and I climbed back to our feet and headed her way. The dwarf spotted us and opened her mouth to call out a greeting. Then she saw there were only two of us—and that Bria wasn’t here.

“Gin?” Jo-Jo asked in a soft voice, stepping back to turn on some more lights.

I shook my head and plodded past her inside.