Heart of Venom

Chapter Eighteen

Warren stepped out of the trees and met us at the edge of the forest, still clutching his rifle.

“Anything?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not a peep so far. I don’t think that anyone in camp heard what happened here, but it won’t be too long before Grimes or some of his men come to check on the others. We need to disappear into the woods before they spot us—”

It was as if his words summoned up all the bad, capricious luck that I’d been expecting ever since we’d first set foot on Bone Mountain, because one of Grimes’s men chose that exact moment to run into the clearing.

“Hey,” he called out, still jogging forward and waving to someone behind him. “Go get Stewie, and come help me. Mr. Grimes changed his mind. He wants the woman brought back—”

He turned around and stopped short at the sight of Owen, Sophia, Warren, and me standing to one side of the clearing. His gaze zoomed in on the dead bodies of his buddies sprawled among the worn tombstones. The guy sucked in a breath, but he did the smart thing and didn’t approach us. Instead, he did something far, far worse: he pulled his gun out of the holster on his belt and fired three quick shots up into the air.

I cursed and started forward, ready to kill him, but Warren beat me to it. The old man raised his rifle to his shoulder and put a bullet in the other man’s forehead.

But the sharp, staccato sounds of the revolver and the rifle echoed around the clearing, then bellowed through the trees and rattled farther out into the main camp.

Shouts rose in the distance, indicating that Grimes, Hazel, and everyone else would descend on the area in minutes, if not sooner.

“What do you want to do, Gin?” Owen asked. “Make a stand here?”

I shook my head. “No. There are too many of them.

They can easily outflank us, and they have more weapons than we do. Now we run.”

Sophia hurried forward, but after a few yards she pulled up short and hissed in pain, despite the shovel that she’d been using to support herself. A bit of blood trickled down her bare leg.

“How bad is that gunshot wound in your thigh?” I asked.

“Just bandaged,” she rasped. “Not healed.”

That’s what I’d feared, but there was nothing to be done about it. So I put an arm under Sophia’s shoulder, taking some of her weight. Together, we headed for the trees.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

We didn’t even make it into the woods before a couple more of Grimes’s men raced into the clearing, guns out and firing at us.

“You take Sophia!” Owen shouted, raising his own weapon to fire back. “Warren and I will cover you!”

“Do it!” I yelled back. “But stay close to us! We can’t afford to get separated!”

Owen nodded, and he and Warren let loose with another volley of shots. Their guns would be more effective than my knives at this range, even though all I wanted to do was turn around and throw myself at Grimes’s men.

Together, Sophia and I hobbled into the woods and back up the faint path that Warren had made earlier when he’d led us down to the pit.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

Bullets zinged through the forest all around us as Grimes’s men let off another round of shots. They put their stockpile of guns to good use, because the bullets slammed into the trees, cut through the leaves, kicked up wads of dirt, and pinged off rocks.

I put myself on the side of the trail where the bullets where coming from, protecting Sophia as much as I could, but I didn’t reach for my Stone magic to harden my skin. I needed to save my power for something else that I had in mind, so all I could do was hope that Sophia and I wouldn’t get shot in the meantime and that Owen and Warren wouldn’t either.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

Owen and Warren returned fire, and several yelps of pain sounded as their bullets hit home. They had the advantage of using the trees as a screen, whereas Grimes’s men were still standing in the clearing and firing blindly into the woods. Still, one of them could easily get in a lucky shot on any one of us.

Sophia hobbled along as quickly as she could, but it was slow going, especially since we were climbing back up to the top of the ridge that Warren, Owen, and I had used as a vantage point to spy on the camp earlier. Still, we trudged on and moved as fast as we could. That was all that we could do. Behind us, I could hear the crunch-crunch-crunch and crackle-crackle of Owen’s and Warren’s footsteps through the dry leaves as they stopped and started, firing, then moving up the trail, pausing to reload, then firing again, before repeating the whole process.

Sophia and I were about halfway up the ridge when a man stepped out of the woods in front of us.

Apparently, he hadn’t thought that he would actually get ahead of us, because he seemed surprised by our appearance. He got over it real quick, though. He snapped up his gun and took aim at us.

Crack! Crack!

I pivoted so that my back was to the man, and the bullets punched into my silverstone vest with all the hard force of a jackhammer. The impact made me stagger forward, and I lost my grip on Sophia, who went tumbling down to the ground, her shovel flying from her hands.

Crack! Crack!

The guy put two more bullets into my back, both of which caught in my vest once again. I palmed a knife, whirled around, and threw it at him. The blade sank into his windpipe. He clawed at the blade, then foolishly pulled it out, essentially cutting his own throat. He waved his gun with one hand, while the bloody knife wavered back and forth in his other.

“That’s mine,” I hissed, darting forward, yanking the knife out of his hand, and shoving him away.

Letting out a high, whistling wheeze, he stumbled over the edge of the trail and rolled down the wooded hillside.

By this point, Owen and Warren had caught up with Sophia and me. My eyes locked onto Warren, who was limping and leaning on his rifle for support just like Sophia had been doing with her shovel. He was favoring his right leg, and my gaze dropped to his left thigh—and the blood and the bullet hole there.

“Warren?” I asked.

He waved his hand at me. “I’ll live. Let’s move!”

Owen darted forward, put his shoulder under Sophia’s, and helped her to her feet. She grabbed her shovel to use as a walking stick once more. The four of us started back up the trail, with me in the lead this time, Sophia and Warren hobbling along behind me, and Owen in the rear, watching our backs.

Another man stepped out of the woods in front of us, but I was able to ram my knife into his chest before he even realized what was happening. I pushed him off the trail too, and we kept climbing, going as fast as Sophia and Warren could.

But it wasn’t fast enough, not nearly fast enough.

Through the green wash of trees, I spotted more of Grimes’s men running up the hill and converging on our position. Soon, enough of them would get ahead of us, cutting off our escape route, and more of them would swarm over us from behind. We’d be caught, trapped in the middle of a sticky web of death, and then we’d be executed, simple as that.

I couldn’t let that happen—not to the others—and I knew what I had to do now. Maybe I’d always known that it would come to this.

I waited until we got to the top of the rocky ridge, hurried over to the edge, and risked a look down below. I counted around a dozen men, all with guns, in the main camp clearing. Some of them were running to the east, where the pit was and where we’d started our escape. A few others were staring up at the ridge, taking aim with their guns, and waiting for us to appear, although we were out of range of their revolvers way up here. Some of the smarter ones were running toward the west end of the camp, probably to another trail there that would lead them up to this location.

I didn’t spot Grimes or Hazel, but I knew that they were out there somewhere searching for us, especially Grimes. He wouldn’t let Sophia escape a second time.

Everything I saw only made me more determined to make sure that the others got off the mountain—even if I didn’t.

“Get Sophia out of here!” I yelled, stepping away from the lip of the ridge and waving the others on past me.

“Go! I’ll hold them off!”

Sophia pulled up short. “No,” she rasped. “Don’t. Too dangerous.”

“Somebody has to slow them down, and it’s going to be me. I made Jo-Jo a promise that I’d rescue you, and I’m going to keep it. You wouldn’t want to make a liar out of me, now, would you?” I grinned, trying to show her that

I knew what I was doing—and what it would cost me.

Sophia didn’t say anything, but fear filled her eyes, fear for me and of what Grimes and Hazel would do to me

if I was captured. But that was something that I couldn’t let myself think about right now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do what needed to be done in order to save my family.

“She’s right,” Warren said, ripping the bandanna from around his throat and using it to make a crude bandage for his leg. “Now, come on. I’ll drag you if I have to, but we both know that we don’t have that kind of time right now.”

Warren couldn’t drag anyone, not with that bullet in his leg, but he was just stubborn enough to try, and Sophia knew it. She also realized that he was right.

Sophia gave me one more sorrowful look before she threaded her arm through Warren’s. Leaning on each other, the two of them slowly crossed the ridge, stepped onto the trail on the far side, and vanished into the woods.

I shrugged the backpack off my shoulders and dropped it at my feet, along with the bloody knife that I’d been holding. I palmed my second knife, then pulled out the one from the small of my back and the two from the sides of my boots. I grabbed a couple of guns out of the backpack and laid them on the rocks. Then I stuffed all five of my knives inside the backpack, zipped it up, and handed it to Owen.

“Here,” I said. “Take this. I don’t want Grimes getting his grubby hands on Fletcher’s maps or the knives that you made for me. Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty more weapons in my vest.”

“Don’t,” he said in a low, strangled, anguished voice.

“Don’t give me your knives. Don’t give up. Don’t you dare

give up.”

“I’m not giving up. I’m being realistic.”

More shouts echoed through the trees, along with a few more cracks of gunfire, as if to punctuate my words.

“I want to stay withyou,” Owen said, his words almost a snarl. “I want to fight with you and be by your side to the end—no matter what that is.”

“I know,” I said, my voice as calm as his was violent.

“But you can’t. Warren and Sophia are both injured, and they will never get off the mountain without help—your help. Grimes’s men will catch up with them and drag them back here. He’ll use them as leverage against us, and then we’ll all be dead. So I want you to go, Owen. I need you to go. Please. For Sophia and Warren—and especially for me.”

Owen closed his eyes a moment, his body shuddering, as though his heart was tearing in two as he accepted the truth of my words and what we both had to do now. Then he snapped them open, grabbed my arm, and pulled me close to his body.

“Whatever happens, you survive,” he growled. “I’ll come back for you as soon as Sophia is safe. I promise.”

Stubborn determination blazed in his violet eyes, making them burn as brightly as amethyst stars, and my heart swelled with love for him. Despite everything that had happened between us and all the ways that we’d hurt each other, I still loved him. I would love him for as long as I lived.

I just didn’t know how much longer that would be.

Because I didn’t think that I would survive this fight.

Grimes and Hazel had too many guns, too many men, too much magic, and I was all out of time—and options.

This one precious moment might be all that I had left.

So I cupped Owen’s cheek with one hand and stroked my bloody fingers over his face, smoothing out his worried frown and trying to memorize his features. I stared into his eyes, letting him see just how much I cared for him, just how much I loved him. Then I wrapped my arms around his neck and crushed my lips to his, wanting to feel his arms around me just one more time.

He returned my kiss with equal fervor, wrapping his arms even tighter around me. Emotions exploded inside me, one after another—heat, desire, need, want, love. For a moment, I gave myself over completely to it, this hot, burning, unending wave of emotion that threatened to pull me under and drown me with its intensity.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Another round of gunfire burst out, closer this time, shattering the moment, and our kiss ended as quickly as it had begun, although the emotions lingered, sparking through my body like bolts of electricity, jolting every part of me and making me feel more alive than I ever had before.

Owen leaned forward and touched his forehead to mine, still staring into my eyes. “Survive,” he whispered.

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” I whispered, even though I knew the words were an empty lie. Then I stepped away from him.

“Now, go. Before it’s too late for all of us.”

His eyes met mine, violet and gray, and the emotions roared over me again, even stronger than before—heat, desire, need, want, love. They made me want to fight, they made me want to survive—for him, for us—even though there was a slim chance of that, at best. Still, I grabbed onto those feelings, those emotions, those soul— wrenching jolts, and added them to the cold, black rage that was steadily beating in my heart, crystallizing my determination to protect him and the others, no matter what.

Owen nodded, shouldered my backpack, and started backing away across the ridge. He kept his gaze on mine the whole time. All too soon, though, he reached the trees on the far side. I grinned, trying to reassure him.

He returned my grin, although agony still burned in his eyes at the thought of leaving me behind. But Warren couldn’t get Sophia off the mountain by himself, not before Grimes’s men caught up with them, and we both knew it.

“Go,” I called out to him. “Now.”

Owen gave me one more longing, solemn look before he turned and disappeared into the trees. I watched him go, wondering if I’d ever see him again.

I hoped so.

But hope was a useless emotion in this situation, so I set it aside and locked it down tight inside me, along with all of my other soft feelings, where they would stay safe and out of the way of what was to come. Instead, I embraced the blackness in my heart until there was nothing left but the icy rage to kill every single person who came within arm’s reach of me.

Until I was no more and no less than the Spider once again.

Then I unzipped a pocket on my vest, grabbed one of

my extra silverstone knives, and went to face my enemies.