Poison Promise

9

I frowned into the darkness, my mind racing through all the implications.

There was no way that the auburn-haired woman and her giant bodyguard could have followed me here from the Pork Pit. They’d left the restaurant before I did, and I’d cut through too many alleys for them to track me easily. But here they’d been all the same. Why had they been parked outside the garage? How long had they been there? And what had they been waiting for?

If they’d wanted to assassinate me, then one of the women should have rolled down her window, stuck a gun through the opening, and sprayed the sidewalk with bullets—at the very least. Tossed some grenades at me, run me over, pinned me against the garage wall and put a clip full of bullets in my chest. Oh, yes. They could have done any one of those things.

In addition to looking out for would-be assailants, I also spent a fair amount of time imagining exactly how they might murder me. I supposed that it was my professional mind at work, so to speak, since I’d dispatched so many folks myself in such varying ways. I’d pictured all those scenarios before, along with dozens more. But instead of attacking me, the people in the car had just driven off, and I didn’t think it was because I’d spooked them with my killer smile and my gleaming knife.

More theories swirled through my mind, each one darker and more violent than the last, but none of them answered my questions. I had a sinking feeling that there were some new players in Ashland—ones who seemed to know a lot more about me than I did about them.

But there was nothing I could do to confirm my suspicions about the women who may or may not have been in the Audi. Besides, Bria was right. The cops would be here any minute, and it would be better if I was gone.

So I slid my knife back up my sleeve, stepped into the shadows, and disappeared into the darkness.

Still keeping an eye out for the mystery car, I headed back to the Pork Pit. I took a few minutes to check the restaurant, but the lights were off, the doors were locked, and no one was hanging out in the alley, waiting to murder me. Everything was quiet, so I walked three blocks east to the side street where I’d parked my own car.

After I’d checked my vehicle for bombs and rune traps, I got inside and circled the downtown loop a few times, looking for the black Audi, but I didn’t spot it. Whoever was inside had probably hightailed it up into Northtown by now. Still, I had a feeling that I’d see the Audi—and the two women—again.

When I was certain that no one was following me, I left downtown behind and headed out into the suburbs that flanked Ashland. Twenty minutes later, I steered my car up a steep driveway, gravel spewing out in every direction, before the vehicle crested the top of the hill.

Fletcher’s house—my house now—came into view. Shadows cloaked the ramshackle structure, softening the harsh edges, odd angles, and obvious seams between the mismatched sections of white clapboard, brown brick, and gray stone.

Engine running, I sat in my car, scanning the entire area from the woods to the left, across the yard, and over to the steep, rocky ridge that dropped away from the front of the house. Just in case whoever had been in the Audi knew where I lived, in addition to where I worked.

But no one was hiding inside the tree line or crouched down beside the house, and the only movements were the breeze gusting through the trees and a few fireflies flitting across the yard, desperately flashing their fluorescent lights before the growing cold killed them. Satisfied that I was alone, I killed the engine, got out, and went inside.

If the outside of the house was a sprawling beast, then the inside was the creature’s clogged heart, only with rooms, hallways, and staircases that curled, snaked, and zigzagged every which way, instead of veins, valves, and arteries. I headed upstairs, took a shower, and threw on some pajamas before padding back downstairs to the kitchen.

I poured myself some milk to wash the bitter taste of car exhaust and questions out of my mouth, then wrapped my hand around the glass and reached for my magic—my Ice magic this time. I was the rare elemental who was gifted in not one but two areas—Ice and Stone, in my case. A silver light flared to life in my hand, centered on my spider rune scar, and cold Ice crystals quickly spread over the entire glass, frosting it and further chilling the milk inside.

When that was done, I grabbed a piece of pumpkin cheesecake studded with chunks of golden apples out of the fridge, topped it with some fresh whipped cream, and sprinkled everything with a bit of cinnamon. I opened a kitchen drawer and started to reach for a fork, but the memory of the burning silverware at the Pork Pit made me hesitate. I didn’t even know the mystery woman’s name, but she was already getting inside my head.

I grumbled at myself for my own paranoid foolishness, then grabbed a fork, some napkins, my plate, and my milk and headed into the den to relax on the blue plaid sofa. I forced all thoughts of the mystery women, Benson, Bria, and Catalina out of my mind as I concentrated on my snack. The rich, thick pumpkin filling, the faint crunch of the apples, the warmth of the cinnamon, and the light, airy cream made for a delectable dessert—so delectable that I went back for another piece. I deserved it after everything that had happened tonight.

While I ate my second piece of cheesecake, I called Finn and told him what had gone down at the garage. Finn was, well, Finn, especially when I told him what I wanted him to do.

“Do you know how many Richie Rich types in Ashland have black Audis?” he whined in my ear. “I have two myself. It’ll take forever to find the one you’re looking for.”

“Just track down the car. Please? It’s important. I know it is.”

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled. “I’m on it. Sophia sent me the pictures of the two women you saw at the Pork Pit too.”

“Yeah, she copied me on that.” I scrolled through the photos on my phone as I took another bite of cheesecake. “You ever seen them before?”

“Nope, but the brunette is something else. Yowza. Trust me. I definitely would have remembered her.”

Even though he couldn’t see me, I still rolled my eyes. “You mean you would have definitely remembered hitting on someone like her.”

Finn might be involved with Bria, but that didn’t keep him from being an incorrigible flirt. If someone was female, then Finn felt it was his duty to charm the socks off her, no matter her age, attractiveness, or availability. And he was amazingly good at it too. Finn could flirt his way into or out of almost any sticky situation, including those involving irate husbands and jealous boyfriends.

“I might not know who they are, but I can find out easily enough,” he murmured. “At least when it comes to the giant.”

“Really? How?”

“See that watch on her wrist? It’s an expensive bauble. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down who it belongs to, especially since there’s only one store in Ashland that sells that particular brand of bling—and the Posh manager happens to owe me a favor.”

I squinted at the screen, but it just looked like a watch to me. “Everyone in this town owes you some sort of favor.”

“It does help to be popular.” Finn’s voice was smug in my ear. “Although technically, I suppose that it’s your favor, since you were the one who actually saved her and her assistant from that dwarven robber.”

“Nice to know how you’re cashing in my favors.”

“Always,” he chirped, not the least bit ashamed.

We hung up, with Finn promising to roust some unsuspecting manager on my behalf. I dialed Owen next. He was understanding and sympathetic as always, the calm sounding board I needed him to be, especially when it came to the sudden tension between Bria and me.

“Siblings fight,” Owen said. “You know that. Eva and I have had some doozies over the years. We always manage to find a way to get past it. You and Bria will too.”

I sighed and snuggled down deeper into the couch cushions. “I do know that, all of that. But you should have seen Bria tonight. She was practically foaming at the mouth at the thought of using Catalina’s testimony against Benson. It reminded me of . . .”

“Yourself?”

Owen’s voice was gentle, but I still winced all the same.

“Yeah.”

“Bria’s a cop,” he said. “She’s just as tough and strong as you are, and when she has a job to do, she doesn’t let anything get in her way. The two of you are eerily similar that way. Must be a Snow family trait.”

His teasing tone brought a ghost of a smile to my face, but it fled all too quickly, and my gray gaze drifted up to the fireplace mantel, where a series of framed drawings perched.

The runes of my family, dead and otherwise.

My mother Eira Snow’s snowflake, for icy calm. My older sister Annabella’s ivy vine, representing elegance. Their matching silverstone pendants draped over their respective drawings. The neon pig sign outside the Pork Pit that I’d drawn in honor of Fletcher. Owen’s hammer for strength, perseverance, and hard work. And finally, Bria’s primrose, symbolizing beauty.

“She’s always going to be my baby sister,” I replied, staring at the primrose drawing. “The one whose hair I used to brush while she drank invisible tea and chattered nonsense to her dolls.”

“I know,” Owen said. “But you can’t protect her forever, Gin. At some point, you have to let go.”

I didn’t want to let go. Because every time I did, I lost someone else I cared about. I’d watched my mom disappear in a ball of Mab’s elemental Fire. I’d let Annabella pound down the stairs at our house, and she’d been burned to ash by Mab too. I’d left Fletcher to go do a job as the Spider, which turned out to be a trap, and he’d been tortured to death in his own restaurant. So no, I wasn’t letting go. I wasn’t losing Bria too because I’d stood by and failed to act. Even if I was still angry and hurt by all of her harsh words and actions tonight.

“Gin?” Owen asked.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, lying through my teeth. “I should let Bria handle this one.”

We talked for a few more minutes. Owen promised to come by the Pork Pit for lunch tomorrow, and I told him how much I appreciated him letting me vent. Then we hung up.

I tossed my phone down onto the coffee table, making the fork rattle on my empty plate. I stared at the fork, then at the runes on the mantel, then back at the fork.

What the hell. I went and got a third piece of cheesecake.

Sometime between polishing off my latest round of dessert and watching some mindless TV, I fell asleep on the couch.

The dreams started soon after that.

My dreams were more than weird, random images strung together—they were memories of all the bad things I’d seen, done, and survived. Most nights, I dreamed of the jobs I’d gone on as the Spider, the people who’d tried to murder me, and all the ones I’d killed in return. But tonight was a real blast from my past, back before I’d met Fletcher, back when I’d just started living on the streets and didn’t know how I was going to make it from one day to the next . . .

I was so hungry.

Hungrier than I’d ever been before in my entire life. So hungry that I was actually considering eating the withered brown apple I’d plucked out of the Dumpster behind this dive bar in Southtown. I didn’t know why there was an apple in the trash outside a gin joint, but it was the only thing I’d been able to find today that was even remotely edible.

Despite the constant grumbles in my stomach urging me on, I still held the apple out with two fingers, as if it might bite me like the rats that lived in the alleys sometimes did. I turned the fruit this way and that, carefully scrutinizing every single part of it.

It only had two bites taken out of it. Most of it was still good. That’s what I told myself. And really, I was too hungry to care how long it had been rotting in the Dumpster, what kind of germs it had on it, or how sick it might make me. Most nights, I just wanted to go to sleep in some dark alley and never wake up. If the apple killed me, well, maybe that would be for the best.

So I sank my teeth deep into the fruit, trying to tell myself that the bitter, sour taste was normal—natural, even. But it didn’t stop me from devouring the whole thing. All too soon, the apple was gone, and I was left with nothing but a rotten core.

And I was still hungry.

Sighing, I tossed the core behind some trash cans for the rats to fight over, then turned back to the Dumpster and stood on my tiptoes so I could peer over the side and see if there was anything else lurking in the dark, damp corners that I’d missed. And not just food. Even though it was September, the nights were getting colder and colder, and I’d quickly learned that wrapping a few newspapers around your body was better than letting the wind whistle down the alleys and sink into your clothes. But I’d lost my stash of papers to a bum a few alleys over. Apparently, I’d been sleeping in his spot, over this sewer grate that blew up warm air, and he didn’t like it. My ribs still ached from where he’d kicked me awake this morning, and I could still feel his dirty hands and sharp nails ripping the papers off my body so he could clutch them to his own sunken, shriveled chest.

After that, I’d started running, and I hadn’t stopped until I couldn’t run anymore, which was how I’d wound up in this alley, scrounging for food yet again—

“What do you mean, you’re finished?” an angry male voice called out.

“I mean I’m finished. You got what you paid for. You want something else, you pay for it up front. Those are the rules, pal,” a younger, feminine voice snarked back.

I hunkered down beside the Dumpster and peered around the side. Two people stalked into the alley. One was a middle-aged man wearing a cheap suit, with a bad comb-over and a big, round belly that made it look like he’d swallowed a basketball. The other was a thin girl with teased bright crimson hair, a silver sequined tank top, and silver shorts that were way too short and tight, given the cool fall breeze. The girl wasn’t that much older than me, maybe fifteen or sixteen, despite the heavy makeup that rimmed her brown eyes.

“I told you that I’m good for the money,” the guy pleaded, scurrying along beside the girl, who was walking fast, despite the strappy silver stilettos on her feet.

“Sure you are, hon,” she snarked again. “Just like all my other special friends.”

“Well, if you won’t give it to me, then I’ll just take what I want,” he snarled.

He reached out and shoved her up against the wall.

“Hey!” the girl shouted, slapping her hands across his face and chest. “Let go, loser!”

But he was stronger than she was, and I knew what was going to happen next. I’d seen it happen before to other girls in other alleys. Guys too. I should have slipped away while I could, before the man spotted me, but I couldn’t ignore the way his hands tore at her skimpy clothes like the bum’s had done to mine this morning. And suddenly, I was more angry than scared.

Before I even really knew what I was doing, I grabbed an empty beer bottle from beside the Dumpster, darted across the alley, and smashed it down on top of the guy’s head. He growled as the glass shattered and sliced into his skull, but he whirled around to face me.

“You little bitch!” he yelled. “You’ll pay for that!”

He reached for me, but I lashed out with the broken end of the bottle. It was a wild swing, but I got lucky, and the glass cut through his jacket and shirt and sliced a jagged gash all the way up his forearm. Blood spewed everywhere, the coppery scent overpowering the stench of garbage in the alley, but strangely, I wasn’t afraid. It actually felt . . . good to do something other than run away.

“You little bitch!” the man hissed. “You cut me!”

He staggered forward, but the other girl stuck her foot out, tripping him, and he fell onto his hands and knees.

“Run!” the girl yelled, grabbing my hand and pulling me along behind her. “Run!”

So we ran and ran and ran, ending up in another alley four blocks over before we collapsed on top of the steps that led up to the bright, glossy, crimson-painted back door of a ratty-looking apartment building. I put my hands on my knees, sucking down giant gulps of air, but the girl started pacing around me, grinning from ear to ear.

She laughed and threw her hands out wide. “That was awesome! I loved the look on that guy’s face when you cut him. Son of a bitch wasn’t even going to pay for it. He deserved that—and more.”

She spat onto the cracked asphalt before facing me again. “You know, you were pretty good with that bottle. You done that before?”

I glanced down and realized that I was still clutching the neck of the broken beer bottle—and that the man’s blood was all over my hand. I dropped the glass and kicked it away, sending it skittering down the alley. I grabbed the end of the red-and-black plaid flannel shirt I’d swiped off a Southtown clothesline a few days ago and used it to wipe the blood off my hand, wincing as I rubbed the raw, red skin of my palm.

The girl frowned. “What’s wrong with your hand? What’s that mark on it?”

My fingers curled into a fist, hiding the silverstone spider rune that had been branded into my palm. “Nothing. I just burned myself a while back.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m Coral,” she said. “What’s your name?”

I shrugged, instead of answering her. I knew better than to tell anyone that my name was Genevieve Snow. If the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family ever found out that I was still alive, she’d come and kill me too. I just knew she would.

Coral eyed me, taking in the long floppy shirt that covered the three mismatched T-shirts I had on underneath, the gray cargo pants I’d tied around my waist with string from a kid’s discarded kite, and the tattered too-big sneakers I’d stolen from a yard-sale table when no one was looking. The dirt and grime of living on the streets were smeared all over my face and hands, with even more matted in my dark brown hair. I hadn’t had a shower in more than a week, and I smelled even worse than I looked.

Still, Coral’s gaze took on an almost speculative look, as if she could see through the layers of grungy clothes and filth to the person I used to be. The nice, quiet girl with plenty of food and clothes and a family that loved her.

“You hungry?” she asked. “You want some food?”

She said the magic word, and a loud, demanding rumble erupted from my stomach, answering her question.

Coral laughed. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you a hot meal and get you cleaned up.”

She drew a key out of the pocket of her silver short-shorts, slid it into the crimson door, and opened it. Coral crooked her finger at me. I bit my lip, hesitating, knowing that it was dangerous going anywhere with a stranger, no matter how nice she seemed. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I had absolutely nothing to eat, so I followed her inside, into the shadows, letting the door bang shut behind me . . .

I woke up with a gasp, the sound of that long-ago door slamming rousing me out of my dream. For once, I didn’t sit bolt upright or thrash around. Instead, I lay there on the couch, my head twisted at an awkward angle, staring at the rune drawings on the fireplace mantel. I sighed, and some of the tension left me, even if the memories didn’t.

They would never, ever do that.

I untwisted my neck and swung my feet over the side of the couch, sitting upright. I scrubbed my hands over my face, then stared down at the scars branded into my palms. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. My spider rune. The symbol for patience.

Something I had run out of a long time ago when it came to my memories. But ever since Fletcher had been murdered, they’d just kept coming and coming, reminding me of so many things in my past that I would rather forget. But the nightmares had been getting worse, the dreams more frequent, violent, and vivid, the closer it got to my birthday. They were so bad that I would sometimes have odd little daydreams about them, flashing back to whatever bad thing was buried in my subconscious at any given moment, even when I was wide awake. Like seeing Fletcher’s blood on the floor of the college yesterday.

Like I’d told Owen, this wasn’t my favorite time of year. Not by a long shot. But I’d get through it, the way I had everything else.

So I sighed again, turned off the TV, and went upstairs to bed, even if I knew that sleep would be a long, long time coming tonight.