Heart of Venom

Chapter Fifteen

I blinked and then blinked again, wondering if I was really seeing what I thought I was. But the picture didn’t change, no matter how I much adjusted the focus on the binoculars or how hard I squinted through the lenses.

Sophia standing with Grimes, wearing a dress, dolled up like a gangster’s moll from some old-fashioned mob movie. It was bizarre seeing her like this, looking so different and not at all like her usual dark, fierce, Goth self.

It was wrong. Just . . . wrong.

After a few seconds, I lowered the binoculars and passed them over to Owen.

“Is that . . . Sophia?” he asked, peering through the lenses. “What’s she doing? Why is she wearing a dress?

And why isn’t she trying to get away from him?”

“Look past them,” Warren said, using the binoculars he’d pulled out of his own satchel. “There on the porch.”

I’d been so shocked by Sophia’s appearance that I hadn’t noticed that three men had also stepped out of the house behind her—and that they all had guns in their

hands.

“No doubt, Grimes will have them shoot her, but not

kill her, if she steps out of line,” I said. “She’s still injured, though. See how she’s limping?”

Sophia favored her right leg with every step that she

took, dragging her left one along behind her in an awkward shuffle. Her left arm also hung limply by her side, and one of her cheeks was red from where Grimes had slapped and burned her in the salon. I didn’t see any blood on her, though, so Grimes must have at least bandaged her wounds. Well, that was something, although he was still going to suffer for everything that he’d done to her and Jo-Jo.

Owen handed me back the binoculars, and I focused in on Sophia again. Grimes squired her around the yard, dragging her over to the picket fence and pointing out the roses to her. Sophia hobbled along beside him as best she could. But through the binoculars, I could see exactly how cold, hard, and flat her expression was and the way her black eyes kept darting around, desperately looking for an escape.

But there was nowhere for her to go.

Even if she could have gotten away from Grimes, there was nothing but clear space all around her, which would make it all too easy for one of the men on the porch to step forward, take aim, and put a bullet in her back.

Still, she tried.

Sophia waited until Grimes turned his head, and then she brought up her good arm and punched him in the face, making his spiffy white hat fly off his head. She kept hold of him, spun him around, and hooked her arm around his throat, using Grimes as a shield between her and the guys with guns on the porch. She also plucked Grimes’s revolver out of the holster on his belt, thumbed back the trigger, and held the weapon up to his head.

Sophia didn’t say a word, but she didn’t have to. Her meaning was crystal-clear. If any of the men followed her, she’d shoot Grimes in the head with his own gun. I thought she should go ahead and do that anyway.

Apparently, Sophia had the same idea, because she pulled the trigger.

Click.

Click. Click.

Click.

I could hear exactly how empty the revolver was all the way up on the ridge.

“Really, Sophia,” Grimes drawled, his voice drifting up to our location. “You didn’t think that I’d keep a loaded gun anywhere you could get your hands on it, now, did you?”

Sophia growled and smashed the weapon into the side of his head. She shoved Grimes forward, then turned and ran away as fast as she could on her injured leg.

Sophia hadn’t gone ten steps before a ball of elemental Fire streaked through the air and slammed into her back.

One second, Sophia was hobbling across the yard as fast as she could. The next, she’d fallen to the ground, rolling around in the dirt and trying to smother the flames that scorched her skin.

Hazel walked out from around the side of the house, where she must have been waiting for Sophia to make a break for it. She had swapped the red wrap dress that she’d had on in the salon that morning for a similar one in the same off-white as Grimes’s suit. She stopped in the yard long enough to help Grimes get to his feet and re— trieve his white hat. Then she walked over to Sophia, who was on her back on the ground. Hazel gave her an evil grin, then started kicking her.

Thwack.

Thwack. Thwack.

Thwack.

Over and over again, Hazel drove her foot into Sophia’s body. Sophia grunted with every blow, but she didn’t give Hazel the satisfaction of screaming. Still, every vicious kick that Hazel inflicted on her was like a knife slicing into my own heart.

“Warren,” I asked between gritted teeth. “Please tell me that you can shoot that bitch from here.”

He shook his head. “I could, but you know that will give away our position. The second I fire, Grimes will know that we’re here, and it’ll all be over.”

“All right, then. I’ll take care of it.”

I started to get to my feet, but Owen grabbed my arm.

“Stop,” he said. “Stop and think for a second. Warren’s right. We need to hold on to the element of surprise as long as we can. Going down there right now is suicide.

We all know it. Grimes’s men will cut you down before

you get halfway across the clearing. Or worse, they’ll capture you along with Sophia.”

“I know,” I said, choking out the words. “But I can’t stay here and do nothing. Not while they’re hurting her—”

“Enough!” Harley Grimes’s voice rang out through the clearing as he strode forward. “That’s enough!”

Thwack.

Hazel gave Sophia one more hard, vicious, brutal kick, then reluctantly backed away.

I held my breath, waiting to see how badly injured Sophia was. But after a few seconds, she rolled over onto her right side, then slowly pushed herself up. It took her a few more seconds to stagger back up onto her feet. Dirt, leaves, and grass stained the skirt of her white dress, while the back was scorched from Hazel’s elemental Fire. Her hair had come loose from its ponytail, and the white ribbon lay crumpled in the dust. Sophia shoved her black locks back off her face, leaving a bloody streak on her cheek on top of the burn that was already there, and fixed her cold gaze on Hazel.

“Wimp,” she rasped. “That didn’t even tickle.”

Anger mottled Hazel’s face, and she started forward, fists clenched, ready to hit Sophia some more. But Grimes held his arm out, stopping his sister.

“I said that’senough, Hazel.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared down her nose at her brother. “You’re not going to let her get away with this, are you?” Hazel demanded. “I told you that she would try something like this. She would have put a bullet in your head if she could have. You should just kill her. I’ve never understood your fascination with her. She’s always been more trouble than she’s worth.”

“Sophia has always been high-spirited,” Grimes said.

“That’s one of the qualities that I admire most about her.”

Grimes moved forward. He held out a hand, as though he was going to caress Sophia’s cheek, but she jerked back out of his reach and curled her lips at him in disgust.

Grimes regarded her for a moment, then slapped her across the face, just like he had in the salon. He was much stronger than Hazel, and the brutal blow sent Sophia spinning to the ground again.

“But you’re right, sister,” Grimes said in a calm, cold voice. “Sophia does need to be punished for her insolence, and I know exactly how to do it.”

He gestured at the men still standing on the porch.

They hurried into the clearing. Two of them grabbed Sophia’s arms and hauled her to her feet, while the third kept his gun trained on her.

“Bring her,” Grimes said.

He pivoted on his heel and strode off toward the east end of camp. The men forced Sophia to follow him, while

Hazel brought up the rear.

I looked at Warren. “Do you know where they’re taking her?”

He nodded, his face dark, grim, and troubled. “I have a good idea. And if I’m right, then it’s the same wretched place that Fletcher and I rescued her from before.”

Warren crawled away from the edge of the ridge, got to his feet, swung his satchel over his shoulder, clutched his rifle in front of him, and moved out.

The pine trees that clung to the crest screened us from any prying eyes below as Warren led Owen and me along the top of the ridge. With everyone focused on Sophia and

her impending punishment, no one noticed us darting along the parallel path high above their heads.

Gunshots rang out through the camp, three blasts of three, for nine shots total. They must have been some sort of signal, because more men appeared in the clearing below. They left whatever they’d been doing behind, stepped out of the various buildings, and fell into step behind Grimes, Hazel, Sophia, and her guards. Every new man who appeared made my heart sink a little more, because each of them would make it that much more difficult to save Sophia from whatever terrible thing Grimes had in mind for her.

Warren, Owen, and I moved as fast as we could, but it was still slow going, running up and down the ridge, having to stop to skirt around or climb over the rocks and fallen trees that sporadically blocked the path.

Finally, after ten minutes, we had left the rocks behind and plunged back down into the forest. Warren didn’t follow a set path but instead led us through one gap in the trees after another, still keeping an eye out for traps and circling around to the extreme eastern side of the camp.

We hadn’t gone far when the stench of death hit me.

One moment, all I could smell was my own sweat as the July sun baked me in my long clothes and silverstone vest. The next, the stench of rotting, putrefied flesh hit me like a punch in the nose, forcing its way down my mouth and throat and choking me from the inside out.

Behind me, Owen let out a low, strangled cough, as disgusted by the horrid scent as I was. Warren stopped long enough to pull a blue bandanna out of his pocket, knot it around his neck, and use the cloth to cover his nose and face as best he could before moving forward again.

Three minutes later, Warren stopped, crouched down low, and gestured for Owen and me to do the same. Together, we eased up to the edge of the tree line and peered through the screen of leaves, branches, and bushes.

Another clearing lay before us, much smaller than the spot where the buildings were located and only a couple hundred feet from end to end and top to bottom. At the western end, a narrow trail curved into a sharp bend before disappearing into the trees and leading back to the main camp.

Grimes was already there, along with Sophia, Hazel, and the rest of his men. Several worn, weathered tombstones dotted the landscape, like faded brown and gray daisies that had sprouted up out of the bed of dead leaves, twigs, and grasses. But Grimes ignored the markers and strode forward until he was standing on the edge of what looked like a trench about seven feet deep and fifteen feet square. If there had been any water in it, it would have been a bona fide moat. At first, I thought that perhaps it was another trap and that there were sharpened stakes lining the bottom.

I was right, and I was wrong.

Because it was a pit. Only there weren’t stakes at the bottom. There were bodies.