23
I sat down, scooted over, and dropped through the hole in the floor. My boots hit hard-packed dirt, and I straightened up and glanced around.
The area was only about six feet high and twelve feet wide, making it bigger than a crawl space but not quite large enough to be a bona fide basement. A wooden ladder that I hadn’t noticed before led up to what had been the trapdoor. Shelves lined the walls, but I didn’t take the time to see what was perched on them. Dust hung in thick clouds in the air, the particles slowly drifting down and turning everything a dull, murky gray.
Elissa was sitting just to the right of the trapdoor ladder, tied to a chair, with heavy ropes binding her wrists and ankles. She wore a fancy red cocktail dress, along with matching stilettos, and someone had taken the time to curl her long blond hair into sleek waves that cascaded over her shoulders. She looked beautiful, and if not for the ropes, I would have thought that she was a model, patiently sitting and waiting to be called to some photo shoot.
Her head was bowed, her blond hair hiding her face from sight, and her entire body was still—much too still. My heart stopped, and my breath caught in my throat. I wondered if I was already too late, wondered if she was already dead, beaten and strangled by Damian Rivera like all those other women.
After several long, agonizing seconds, Elissa slowly lifted her head, shook her hair out of the way, and peered up at me, squinting against the harsh glare of the still-flashing lights in the cottage above. My heart started beating again, and my breath left my lungs in a rush. Alive. She was still alive.
But my relief was short-lived.
Elissa’s face had been carefully, expertly made up with foundation, powder, eyeliner, and shadow, highlighting her green eyes and beautiful cheekbones. But the thing that made my blood run cold was her lipstick—Heartbreaker red, just like all the other women.
No cuts or bruises marked her skin, and no fingerprints ringed her throat. But that ugly stain on her mouth told me I’d gotten here just in time.
“Who are you?” Elissa’s lips moved, forming the words, but her voice was so weak and low that I couldn’t hear it over the blaring alarm.
“I’m a friend of Jade’s!” I shouted, trying to get her to understand that I was here to rescue her.
Elissa’s eyes widened. “Jade!”
I nodded, stepped forward, and palmed a knife, quickly cutting through her bonds. Then I slid my knife back up my sleeve and helped her stand. Elissa wobbled, her body stiff from sitting in the same position for so long, but she gripped my arm and let me lead her over to the ladder.
“Go!” I yelled, although I wasn’t sure that she heard me over the alarm. “Go! Go! Go!”
With shaking hands and legs, Elissa climbed the ladder. I hung on to the side and helped her. It seemed to take forever, but she finally crawled through the opening at the top about ten seconds later. I scrambled up after her, as nimbly as a spider climbing its own web, and pulled her up and onto her feet. Elissa wobbled again, a result of the towering high heels she was wearing, but she staggered across the cottage and out through the open front door.
Owen was waiting outside, his gun up and ready to fire. “They see us!” he yelled. “The guards see us, and they’re heading this way!”
Sure enough, several dwarven guards armed with guns were up at the mansion, frantically running around the pool area and searching for who or what had triggered the alarm. Owen was right. A couple of them had spotted us and were yelling at their friends and pointing in this direction. The men began racing down the lawn toward us.
Owen stepped up and fired off several shots. Even though he was too far away to hit them, the gunfire still made the men stop and hunker down behind the bushes and trees for cover. But I knew that it wouldn’t be long before they charged at us again.
“Don’t let them take me back down there!” Elissa sobbed, tears running down her face and ruining her perfect makeup.
I looked her in the eyes. “The only place you’re going is back home to your sister. Now, do what Owen tells you, and everything will be fine. Do you understand?”
Elissa glanced from me to Owen and back again. She nodded, her head snapping up and down, ready to do anything to escape from this nightmare.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the guards getting to their feet and creeping in this direction again. Owen noticed them too, and he fired off a few more shots. The men scattered again, but this time, they started darting from bush to bush and tree to tree, hopscotching down the lawn until they could get close enough to open fire on us. Time to go.
I handed Elissa over to Owen, then raised my hand to my ear, trying to hear over that damn alarm, which was still ringing as loudly as ever. I’d be surprised if they couldn’t hear it all the way over in Cypress Mountain.
“Finn?” I said. “Finn? Are you still there?”
His voice crackled in my ear. “Of course I’m still here! What’s going on?”
“We found Elissa, but the guards are heading toward us. I need you and Bria to come back to the woods to help Owen.”
“On our way,” Finn replied.
I looked over at Owen. “Go. Get her out of here. Now.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked, worry flashing in his eyes.
I whipped up my knife. “I’m going to take out as many of the guards as I can. Don’t worry. I’ll hold them off until you guys have a good head start, and then I’ll be right behind you. Now, go. Go!”
He didn’t like leaving me behind, but he knew that I could take care of myself and that getting Elissa to safety was the most important thing. Owen gave me a sharp nod, then grabbed Elissa’s hand and pulled her away from the cottage toward the woods. She stumbled along behind him, moving as fast as she could.
The second that they disappeared into the woods, I turned back to the guards. With Owen and the threat of his gun gone, they left the trees and bushes behind and ran straight toward me. I palmed a second knife, so that I had one in either hand, and charged up the lawn to meet them.
• • •
Normally, people run away from goons with guns, so my unexpected sprint toward the dwarves made a couple of the men pull up short, raise their weapons, and take aim at me. But I didn’t slow down, not even for an instant. Instead, I reached for my Stone magic and hardened my skin, turning it into an impenetrable shell—and not a second too soon.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Bullets kicked up the dirt and grass at my feet and zinged through the air all around me. A couple even hit my body, but they bounced off my Stone-hardened skin and rattled away.
And then the men were on me, and I was on them.
I sliced my knife across the chest of the first guard who came at me, making him scream and stagger away. His buddies snapped up their guns and started firing at me again, but I kept my grip on my Stone magic, ignored the hard continued blasts of bullets against my skin, and waded right into the center of them.
My knives sliced every which way, the silverstone blades gleaming in the late-afternoon sun, and I cut into every single man I could reach. Blood spattered through the air like sheets of rain, the stench of it mixing with the acrid scent of gunpowder.
The guards quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be felled by mere bullets, and they whirled around and ran away, trying to get back to the mansion so that they could regroup.
Too late.
As they ran, I summoned my Ice magic, shooting out spray after spray of deadly daggers, which punched into their backs, making them fall face-first onto the ground. The perfectly pruned grass quickly turned a dark, mottled black with blood.
In less than two minutes, it was over, and half a dozen guards littered the lawn, all of them bleeding out from the vicious wounds that I’d inflicted on them.
I glanced behind me, but Owen and Elissa were long gone, and I didn’t hear any sounds of gunfire coming from the front of the mansion.
“Owen?” I said. “Owen, what’s going on?”
A second later, his voice sounded in my ear. “Elissa is with Jade. Finn and Bria are here too. The only one we’re missing is you.”
A grin curved my lips. “On my way.”
I turned to go, but one of the guards rose and grabbed my ankle. I tried to pull free, but he was a dwarf, with a strong, firm grip, despite the fact that his guts were leaking out all over the lawn. So I kicked him in the face with my other foot, breaking his nose with my heavy boot, and he screamed and slumped back down onto the ground. I stepped over his body, ready to head back to my friends—
“Well, this is a surprise,” a voice slurred. “And way more exciting than my trip to the bank was.”
I whirled around.
Damian Rivera stood on the edge of the stone patio. Wavy black hair, dark eyes, bronze skin, shockingly white teeth, expensive suit. He looked just like he had when I spied on him in his office two nights ago, and it was obvious that he’d been drinking just as heavily today as he had been then. A ruddy flush stained his cheeks, and his eyes were glassy and bloodshot at the same time.
He gave me a lopsided, goofy grin, as though it amused him to see his men crumpled all over the lawn like paper dolls that I’d shredded to pieces. Rivera didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned by his moaning, groaning guards or the blood dripping from the knives in my hands. The longer he looked at me, the wider his grin became, as though he were actually pleased to see me.
After several seconds of grinning like a fool, his brow furrowed, and he snapped his fingers over and over again, as if trying to remember who I was or where he had seen me before. It must have come to him, because he snapped his fingers a final time, much louder than before, and stabbed his index finger at me.
“Gin Blanco, right?” he said in that same slurring voice.
I flashed my bloody knives at him. “The one and only.”
Rivera nodded and grinned again, happy that he’d figured out who I was. “So you’re the one who’s been causing so much trouble lately.” He shook his head. “You’re really starting to annoy Mason. And let me tell you from personal experience, that’s not something you want to do.”
My eyes narrowed. Mason? Who was Mason?
Was he—could he be—was he the leader of the Circle?
My breath caught in my throat, but I forced myself to rein in my shock and surprise. Instead, I tightened my grip on my knives and slowly sidled toward Rivera, not wanting to startle him in his obviously drunken state.
“Gin?” This time, Bria’s voice was in my ear. “What’s going on? What’s taking you so long? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Rivera’s here,” I muttered. “And he seems to be in a chatty mood. I’m going to ask him a few questions. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You need to get out of there,” she said in a worried voice. “Silvio says that three more SUVs are pulling up to the front of the mansion. Whatever alarm you triggered, it’s summoned a lot more men.”
I’d been so focused on taking down the guards that I hadn’t noticed that the alarm had finally quit blaring. The lights in the mansion had also quit flashing. Someone had shut off the alert system. I wondered why, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“All I need is one more minute,” I said.
“And I’m telling you that you don’t have one more minute. Get out of there, Gin. Get out of there now!” Bria yelled at me.
But I couldn’t go. Not yet. I’d blown my cover with Rivera, and I couldn’t leave him alive to tell Hugh Tucker that I’d been here and had killed his men. Tucker would realize that I’d identified Rivera as one of the Circle members, and the rest of them would start closing ranks. So I might as well stay and get the answers that I wanted—needed—about the Circle.
It was worth the risk.
“Tell me about Mason,” I called out, as I crept closer to Rivera. “Is he your boss? Is he the one who runs the Circle?”
Rivera gave me another sloppy grin, but his eyes sharpened, telling me that he wasn’t quite as drunk as I’d thought. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He frowned, as though some odd thought had just crossed his mind. “Although I’m wondering how you found out that I was a member of the Circle. That’s most upsetting.” He paused. “Isn’t it, Porter?”
Porter. I’d forgotten all about Bruce Porter, but he’d driven Rivera to the bank, which meant that he’d come back to the mansion with his boss.
A shadow moved out of the corner of my eye, and Porter hurtled out from behind a bush, catching me square in the chest and driving us both down to the ground. My knives flew out of my hands, but I channeled my Stone magic into my fists, making them as hard and heavy as concrete blocks, and started pummeling Porter.
But he was a dwarf, and a tough one at that. Porter grunted under my blows, but they didn’t do much more than bruise his thick hide.
Then it was his turn to pound on me.
Thwack-thwack-thwack.
The dwarf hit me over and over again. My silverstone vest took the worst of the blows, but I still felt every hard, bruising punch. I tried to wriggle out from underneath him, but he locked his arms around my body and flipped me over, so that his back was pressing into the ground and I was lying on top of him, my arms and legs sticking up into the air like a turtle that was upside down on its shell and couldn’t right itself. I couldn’t even reach down far enough to touch and blast him with my Ice magic.
That was bad enough, but the view didn’t make me any happier. By this point, the guards Bria had warned me about had made it around the side of the mansion and all the way back here. More and more men darted past Rivera to surround Porter and me, their guns drawn and leveled at my head.
Fletcher had a saying: Arrogance will get you, every single time. I should have listened to Bria and left while I had the chance, but I’d thought that I could get my answers and escape too. And what had my arrogance gotten me? Nothing but caught.
“Hit her with the stun gun!” Porter yelled, still holding on to me, even as I struggled against him. “Quick—I can take it!”
Uh-oh.
I reached for my Stone magic, ready to send it rushing out through my entire body and harden my skin again, but one of the men was quicker. He threw himself down onto the ground and slammed a stun gun into my side. Electricity surged through my body, hot and caustic, singeing every single one of my nerve endings and making me scream and scream.
In an instant, my vision went white, then gray, then utterly, finally black.