Heart of Venom

Chapter Twenty-seven

cooper finished healing Owen, and we all moved on to the things that we needed to do next. Finn and Phillip left to go see what they could dig up on Grimes from their various underworld contacts and to find out if anyone had heard a whisper of what had happened on the mountain. Bria headed to the police station to do the same.

Roslyn went with her, so she could fill Xavier in on everything that had happened. Sophia helped Jo-Jo to one of the upstairs bedrooms, so they could both get some rest.

Rosco finally woke up and followed them, his toenails clicking against the floor, and cooper went to his own room to rest himself.

Meanwhile, I took a long, hot shower, slathered some more of Jo-Jo’s healing salve onto my lingering wounds, and changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that Bria had left at cooper’s for me. I headed back downstairs to find Owen in the den, staring through the glass door into the backyard. He too had showered and changed and looked as handsome as ever in a black T-shirt and khaki shorts.

He turned at the sound of my bare feet softly slapping against the floor. “You look more like your old self.”

“So do you.”

He nodded. “I was waiting for you to finish in the shower so I could tell you that I’m heading over to country Daze with Warren and Eva. They’re waiting in the truck for me. Warren wants to check on Violet and make sure that he’s there in case any of Grimes’s men come into the store for supplies.”

I nodded. “Just be careful.”

“We will.”

He hesitated, then gestured at a case on the coffee table that I hadn’t noticed before. The top of the case was open, revealing a layer of black foam and my five silverstone knives gleaming inside. The ones that Owen had made for me, the ones that contained my magic, the ones that I’d given to him on the ridge.

The ones that I never thought I’d see again.

“I thought you might want these back,” Owen said in a low voice. “Especially if Grimes somehow tracks Sophia and Jo-Jo here.”

I hadn’t cried when Jo-Jo had been shot and Sophia had been kidnapped. When I’d seen Sophia being tortured. When Grimes and Hazel had thrown their Fire magic at me. When their men had chased me through

the woods like an animal. I hadn’t even cried when I’d jumped off that cliff, knowing that I would probably die from the fall.

But the simple sight of my knives and the spider runes glimmering on the hilts made my throat close up, and I had a hard time holding back the hot tears that pooled in my eyes. I went over, sat down in front of the table on the floor, and traced my fingers over the blades, letting the cold, smooth feel of the weapons ground me and help me get my emotions back under control.

“Thank you,” I finally managed to whisper, still hunched over the knives and staring at them instead of him. “For keeping them safe for me.”

“You’re welcome,” Owen said, his own voice rough and hoarse. “But don’t you ever give them to me like that again.”

I nodded, the knot in my throat preventing me from speaking.

“I found this too.”

His hand appeared at my elbow, and I realized that he was holding a small rock, one with my spider rune seared into the stone.

The smooth, round rock was light gray, with my rune etched on it in a slightly darker silver, almost like a brand.

I knew that if I compared it with the scar on my palm, it would be a perfect match.

“I found it on the top of the ridge that overlooked Grimes’s camp,” Owen said. “It was just lying there, along with all of the bodies of his men. From what you told me, I think this is the first rock that you touched, the one you started building all of that elemental Ice with.”

I nodded and took it from him. The stone was surprisingly light in my hand and felt slightly chilled, as though it had absorbed some of my Ice magic. Perhaps the rock had a bit of silverstone running through it. After a moment, I set it down on the table, right next to the case of knives. I still didn’t speak, though. I couldn’t.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

Owen touched my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

Then he opened the door and left. A minute later, an engine rumbled to life in the front of the house before the sound slowly faded away.

I shuddered out a breath, reached into the case, and pulled out one of my knives. The metal felt cool to the touch, given the Ice and Stone magic stored inside the silverstone. I rubbed my thumb over the spider rune stamped into the hilt, that small circle surrounded by eight thin rays.

When I felt calm enough, I grabbed another knife out of the case and got to my feet. Then I started twirling the weapons, spinning the metal blades around and around, tossing them up into the air, and catching them as they plummeted back down to earth.

Faster and faster, higher and higher, I tossed the knives, until the blades seemed to float through the air like slender silver clouds. My gaze was locked on the spinning bits of sharp metal, but my mind was focused on something else entirely: the best way to go about killing Harley Grimes.

It was something that Fletcher had taught me to do.

keep my hands busy while I let my mind wander free. I moved from one side of the den to the other, all the while juggling the knives, thinking about angles, approaches, and when Grimes might show his face in Ashland.

And when I’d gone through it all, when I had a plan that I thought would work, I tossed the knives up into the air one final time, caught them, and twirled them around in my hands. Ta-da.

I tucked one of the knives against the small of my back, comforted by the familiar, solid weight of it there.

Then I slid the other one back into its slot in the foam and headed into the kitchen. I left the case open on the table, though.

I’d use the knives again soon enough.

Despite my juggling act, my emotions were still raw and far too close to the surface for my liking, so I spent the next few hours indulging in my own sort of therapy: cooking.

I raided cooper’s fridge and cabinets, pulling out flour, sugar, salt, pepper, and all of the other staples that I would need. Then I went to work. Mixing, stirring, measuring, chopping, mashing, sautéing, frying, baking, roasting. The familiar motions soothed something deep inside me, and I quickly lost myself in the rhythms of cooking. The smells of melted butter, sugar, cheese, and more blasted out of the oven and drifted up from the pots and pans bubbling on the stovetop, and everything else faded away, except for the steady tick-tick-tick of the egg timer on the counter, counting down the seconds until my various dishes were ready to come out of the oven.

I figured that we could all use some comfort food, so I whipped up a succulent supper of country-fried ham, sharp cheddar mac and cheese, a crunchy summer salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, and mashed potatoes made with buttermilk, piled high with sour cream, and sprinkled generously with dill. For dessert, there were light— as-air buttermilk biscuits stuffed with some strawberry preserves that Jo-Jo had made for cooper.

Drawn by the mouthwatering smells, Jo-Jo, Sophia, and cooper came downstairs, and the four of us ate together, with Rosco sitting at our feet and looking on in anticipation of the scraps that were coming his way.

Owen returned too, saying that Warren, Violet, and Eva were all safe at country Daze. Eventually, Jo-Jo and Sophia headed back upstairs to try to get some more rest, taking Rosco with them, while cooper relaxed in one of his recliners and flipped on the television in the den.

Owen fixed himself a plate of food, and I sat with him on the patio outside while he ate, sipping some of the sweet iced tea that I’d made to go along with the rest of the meal. By this point, it was late in the evening, and the sun was slowly descending behind the mountains. The oppressive heat of the day had finally broken, and the woods beyond the edge of the yard were starting to come alive with the scurrying, rustling, and chitter-chatter of various animals.

Owen was scraping up the last of his mashed potatoes when a car crunched through the gravel in the driveway in front of the house. He tensed, but I shook my head, telling him that it was okay. I recognized the smooth rumble of Finn’s Aston Martin.

A few minutes later, my foster brother walked around the side of the house, followed by Phillip. The two of them must have ridden back over together. They sat down with us at the table, and I poured them both some iced tea.

Finn sniffed the air like a bloodhound. “Do I smell ham?” he asked in a dreamy voice. “With mashed potatoes and biscuits and mac and cheese?”

I shot my finger and thumb at him. “You got it.”

Finn sighed in anticipation. He and Phillip went inside, fixed themselves plates, and brought everything out onto the patio. Actually, Finn carried three plates back outside, but I decided not to tease him about it. I waited until he’d polished off his first of four biscuits before I got down to business.

“So what did you find out?” I asked.

“Apparently, you put the fear of death into at least a couple of Grimes’s men,” Finn said through a mouth— ful of mac and cheese. “Because I’ve gotten not one, not two, but three different reports of Grimes’s men drunk on moonshine and shooting their mouths off about what happened in a couple of the seedier bars over in Southtown. Given how news travels in that part of the city, I’d say that it’s all over the underworld by now, that someone claiming to be the Spider went up to Grimes’s camp and laid waste to a good portion of it. Apparently, the men talking you up in the bars deserted Grimes’s operation. They didn’t want to take a chance that you’d come back and kill what was left of them.”

“And what was the reaction to the news?” I asked.

Phillip finished chewing a bite of ham, then stabbed his fork toward me. “From what I hear, Grimes has already vowed retribution, just as soon as he figures out who the woman pretending to be the Spider really is.”

I snorted. The one time that my reputation as the Spider might have made somebody think twice about messing with me, my enemy didn’t even really believe that I was the Spider to start with. Ah, the irony. Thumbing its nose at me once again.

“And what about the person I spotted at Grimes’s house? The one buying all the guns?”

Finn shrugged. “I couldn’t find out anything about who that was.”

“Me either,” Phillip chimed in. “Whoever they are, or whoever they’re working for, they are keeping themselves off the radar, along with whatever they or their employer needs with all those weapons.”

“The guns and who wants them doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “killing Grimes is what’s important.”

“How many men do you think he has left?” Owen asked.

I thought back to all the ones I’d killed on the ridge and in the forest, along with the first few men at the salon and the last ones who’d been beating Owen. “If he has a dozen men left, I would say that’s a generous estimate.

After the carnage I wreaked on his camp, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few more deserters, just like Finn says there are already. But it’s Grimes and Hazel and their Fire magic that I’m worried about. They’re the ones who are really dangerous.”

“How strong are they?” Phillip asked.

“Strong enough,” I replied. “I actually think that Hazel might be a little more powerful than Grimes, but they both have more than enough Fire magic to be worrisome, even to me.”

I didn’t add that it was the sick, sadistic joy that they took in using their magic that made them truly dangerous, ruthless enemies.

Then again, so was I.

“So what do you want to do?” Finn asked. “Get some guns, go back up to their camp, and have it out with them?”

I shook my head. “No, Fletcher did that, and he almost died up there on the mountain. And so did I. No, I think that it’s time for Grimes to play on our turf—and on our terms.”

Finn eyed me. After a moment, he sighed. “I know that look. What are you planning to do, Gin? And just how much is it going to wreck my wardrobe?”

I grinned.

Owen, Finn, Phillip, and I hashed out a strategy. Once we had everything nailed down, I called Bria and looped her in. Finn, Phillip, and Owen all went home for the night, but I decided to stay at cooper’s. I didn’t think that there was any way that Grimes could find Jo-Jo and Sophia there, but I wasn’t going to take the chance.

cooper offered me his bed, but I refused and bunked down on the couch in the den instead. I’d managed to keep going for far longer than I should have, and as soon as I lay down, my exhaustion took hold of me once more.

This time, I didn’t try to fight it and fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

I woke late that night. At first, I wasn’t sure what had roused me, since I usually slept for several hours straight after being healed, as my mind tried to play catch-up and realized that my body was in one piece again. But after a moment, a series of soft, rumbling snores filled my ears. I looked down. Rosco had sprawled out on the floor beside the couch, his fat, stubby legs twitching in his sleep.

I snuggled back down into the groove on the well-worn couch, but try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

After I punched my pillow and failed to get comfortable for the fifth time, I got up, opened the patio door, and stepped outside.

It was a clear, cloudless night, the stars seeming almost close enough to touch, like glittering tiny apples hanging low on the black velvet tree of the sky. The full moon gave everything a pale silver tint, from the blades of grass in the yard to the tools hanging in cooper’s forge to the leaves in the woods beyond. The river rocks of the patio under my feet were still warm from the heat of the day, and the stones grumbled sleepily of the blazing sun that had baked them for hours and would do the exact same thing again tomorrow.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep, because another figure stood farther out in the yard: Sophia.

She still had on her black jeans and T-shirt, which only made her skin seem that much paler. Her face glimmered like a ghost’s in the moonlight—pale, ethereal, eternal.

Her feet were bare, just like Jo-Jo’s always were.

I stepped off the patio and deliberately scuffed my own bare feet through the grass, letting her know that I was coming up behind her. Sophia looked over her shoulder and grunted.

“couldn’t sleep?” I asked, moving over to stand beside her.

She shook her head.

“Me neither.”

We stared out into the silvery woods. Somewhere hidden in the trees, an owl let out a series of haunting hoot-hoot-hoots, while a few crickets chirped in response.

A breeze gusted through the yard, bringing with it the sharp, tangy scent of the wild onions that had sprung up among the grass.

Sophia bent down and plucked a daisy, one of several that had sprouted in the yard. She slowly, carefully, quietly started pulling the petals off the flower, then the leaves, until she’d stripped the whole thing bare. She tossed the stem aside and grabbed another one.

We stayed like that for a while, with Sophia plucking and stripping down one daisy after another, until she’d gone through a whole patch of them. I didn’t ask her what she was thinking about. It was easy to tell that she was remembering everything that had happened in the last few days—and all the horrors that Grimes had visited upon her and Jo-Jo once again.

When Sophia finished with her final daisy, she threw the stem away, although she remained hunkered down in the grass.

“Thank you,” she finally rasped, her voice seeming more broken than ever before. “For saving Jo-Jo. For coming after me.”

“No thanks needed,” I said. “My only regret is that I didn’t finish off Grimes while I was there. Hazel too.”

Sophia didn’t respond. I started to ask her if she wanted to talk about it, but I held my tongue. Despite all those old, wise sayings, talking didn’t always help. Not really.

All it did was drag all of your dark, messy, turbulent emotions out into the light for someone else to see. Besides, raspy voice or not, Sophia had never been much for chatting. So I stood there beside her, still and quiet, letting her know that I was there for her and that I would stay out here with her as long as she wanted me to.

To my surprise, after a few minutes, she began to speak.

“The first time he took me, I was so scared,” Sophia said. “Grimes had been making threats for weeks, trying to get Jo-Jo to let him court me, but we could both tell that there was something wrong with him. They say that animals can sniff out evil. Well, I could sense it in him.

But in the end, it didn’t matter, because he took me and dragged me up to that damn mountain of his anyway.

You can imagine what happened next.”

Torture, beatings, rape. Jo-Jo had told me some of it, like how Grimes had forced Sophia to breathe in elemental Fire, ruining her voice. No doubt, that had happened in the pit when he and Hazel had been torturing her. So I didn’t need her to fill in the gruesome details. It had been horrible, more than any person should ever have to endure, but Sophia had.

“It was ironic, Grimes taking me out to the pit again,”

Sophia continued. “Because that’s the only place that I ever got a moment’s peace from him and Hazel. They would drag me out there and make me dig at the sides, making it larger and larger so they could dump more bodies in on top of the ones that were already there. But I didn’t mind it. Because after they had their fun with me, they would go and do other things. All I had to do was keep digging, and the guards left me alone. All those bodies shifting and rolling and squishing under my feet, they reminded me that I was still alive, and they helped me to keep going, even when all I wanted to do was just give up, lie down, and die. But I’d seen what happened to the other women who begged Grimes for mercy, men too, and I knew that I couldn’t do that.

Not if I wanted to live. I knew that I had to keep my mouth shut, endure it, and stay alive for myself—and for Jo-Jo too.”

I could have told her how sorry I was for everything that she’d suffered back then and again these past few days too, but I kept quiet. Because this was Sophia’s story to tell, and I had the sense that if I stopped her now, she’d never start it again. And I wanted to know all of it.

“I lost track of how long I’d been at Grimes’s camp, and I’d almost given up any hope of ever escaping,” Sophia said, her voice still low. “Until the day one of his men disappeared.”

“When Fletcher came for you,” I whispered.

She nodded, tugged a clover out of the grass, and started plucking the leaves off it. “Grimes didn’t think too much of the guy’s disappearance at first, just that he’d probably gotten drunk off the moonshine and fallen off a cliff or maybe even drowned in the river. But then another guy disappeared the very next day. Then another one the next day. And Grimes and his men started finding the bodies, all of them with their throats cut or stab wounds in their chests and all of them left right out in the open, almost like someone had declared war on them.”

She stopped long enough to grab another clover and start

working on it. “Then I was out at the pit one day, digging, when I saw a man through the trees. He crept close enough to whisper that his name was Fletcher and that Jo-Jo had sent him to rescue me. Warren was there too.

Fletcher told me that he and Warren were going to kill Grimes and get me out of there.”

“But it didn’t work out quite that way,” I said, having an idea where the story was headed.

Sophia shook her head. “Grimes had figured out that Fletcher was really there for me. He, Hazel, Horace, and Henry, their other brothers, set a trap, and Fletcher walked right into it. He managed to kill Henry and wound Hazel, and he even got Grimes to use up all of his Fire magic. Fletcher and Grimes fought, but Hazel shot him, and Fletcher was too weak and wounded to finish Grimes off. At that point, I didn’t care whether Grimes was dead. I just wanted to get off the mountain and go home. So I persuaded Fletcher to leave, and Warren and I managed to drag him down the mountain to where his car was. The three of us made it back to Jo-Jo’s, and she healed him.”

This time, she reached for a blade of grass and began tearing it into thinner and thinner strips. “After that, Grimes kept his distance, but I was always worried that he would come back someday, so Fletcher taught me how to fight, and in return, I helped him get rid of the bodies that he left behind as the Tin Man. I figured that it was more than a fair trade.”

So that’s why Sophia had disposed of all those bodies for Fletcher. Once again, my heart twisted at the wrongness of it, of the thought of her doing something over and over again that had to remind her of Grimes and everything she’d suffered at his hands.

“Fletcher never asked me to do it,” she said, picking up on my thoughts. “He never asked me to get rid of the first body. But Grimes had made me good at digging graves, and it was the only way that I could think of to repay Fletcher.”

“And me?” I whispered. “Why did you keep doing it

for me? Why not at least stop when Fletcher died?”

“Because Fletcher loved you and trained you in his own image. And because I owe him everything. It wasn’t just that he got me away from Grimes. It was all the years of peace that he gave me afterward.”

Another thought occurred to me. “That’s why you started working at the Pork Pit, isn’t it? So Fletcher could keep an eye on you. So he could protect you from Grimes, in case he came after you again.”

Sophia nodded again. “And Fletcher kept his promise, right up to the day he died. He was a good man that way.”

She didn’t say what we were both thinking: that

Fletcher was gone now. That he wasn’t around to protect her from Grimes anymore.

But I was.

I’d made a promise to the old man in his office, and it was the same one that I’d made to Sophia and Jo-Jo too, even if I hadn’t said it out loud to them, even if they didn’t realize it yet.

“Don’t you worry about Harley Grimes,” I said, reaching out and laying a hand on her shoulder much the same way that Owen had done to me when he’d given me back my knives earlier. “I’ll make sure that bastard never hurts you or anyone else ever again. I’m going to finish what Fletcher started and kill him for good this time. That I promise you, Sophia.”

She nodded, but the thick muscles in her shoulder bunched under my hand, and the tension in her face didn’t ease. After a moment, she shuffled forward, keeping low and moving away from me and over to another patch of daisies. I let my hand fall away from her shoulder, but I didn’t follow her.

Instead, I stood there with her in the dark of the night as she picked flower after flower, as though she could strip away all her bad memories as easily as she could separate the delicate petals from the stems.

But she couldn’t, and we both knew it.