Deadly Sting (18 page)

“M. M. Monroe?” Owen asked. “Did I hear you right?”

All I could do was nod.

Finn had mentioned there was a rumor that the contents of Mab’s will were going to be revealed at the gala tonight. Now that I’d read the document myself, I could easily imagine Mab arranging for things to go down like that. Like Finn had said, it would have been one last hurrah for her—an opportunity to remind everyone how powerful she had been, and a chance to announce her successor in the most dramatic way possible.

Because Mab hadn’t left anything to Jonah McAllister, her other business associates, or even charity. No, she’d given everything to this M. M. Monroe.

I wondered if this mysterious relative had the same devastating Fire magic Mab had wielded.

I wondered if this person knew about the massive fortune he or she had inherited.

I wondered if this Monroe would decide to come to Ashland to oversee Mab’s empire in person—and how much trouble he or she might cause for me if so.

My mother and Mab had been enemies for years before Mab had murdered her and my older sister. Their parents had been enemies before them, and their parents before them. At least, that’s how it had been according to Mab. So it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that the family feud would continue on into another generation, if that’s what this was. It already had with me and Mab, really.

Once again, I’d thought that I’d taken care of everything when I’d killed the Fire elemental, that I’d finally set myself
free
from her, but she just kept screwing with me, even from six feet under.

“It doesn’t really matter who Mab left her fortune to,” I finally said, rolling up the paper and sliding it back into the tube. “Just that we have the will and Clementine wants it. We can use it for leverage.”

Owen shook his head. “She’s not going to let the hostages go, if that’s what you’re thinking. You know that as well as I do. Not now, when everyone’s seen her face and knows exactly who she is. She can’t afford to let any of them live.”

“That’s what I thought at first too. But I think good ole Clem has a slightly different plan in mind.”

I told Owen about the bombs I’d found on the bridge and under the bumper of the moving truck.

He frowned. “Okay, I understand about the destroying the bridge to help with their escape, but why would Clementine want to blow up the moving trucks?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t quite figured that out yet. But it doesn’t really matter, because the only way she’s leaving this island is in a body bag.”

Owen studied me in the moonlight. “Because of what she and Dixon did to Jillian?”

I didn’t say anything, but he could see the answer in my cold, angry eyes—along with the guilt.

“That wasn’t your fault, Gin,” he said. “It was a mistake, her having on the same dress as you. Just a stupid, simple, cruel twist of fate.” He hesitated. “She was a friend, but you don’t have to avenge her for me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t ask you to do that.”

No, he wouldn’t. Owen preferred to handle such things himself, just like I did. It was one of the many things I admired about him.

“I know you wouldn’t ask me that,” I said. “But I need to avenge Jillian for
me
. Because it should have been my face that got blown off, not hers.”

“I’m not blaming you for Jillian’s death, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No,” I replied, weariness creeping into my voice. “You just blame me for Salina.”

His ex-fiancée’s name hung in the air between us, writhing around and around like a poisonous snake. But I’d said the words, and there was no taking them back. Despite the danger we were in, the danger we were
all
in, Eva, Phillip, and the others were right: Owen and I needed to start talking, to start figuring out where we stood and what kind of future we might have together. If I was going to die tonight, if we both might die tonight, well, I wanted to clear the air between us—about this, anyway.

Owen grimaced. He reached out and touched one of the brown briars wrapped around the weeping willow, sliding his thumb over one of the thorns. It was several seconds before he finally spoke.

“I don’t blame you for Salina’s death. You did what you thought needed to be done.”

“But you didn’t agree with it then,” I said. “And you still don’t now.”

He sighed, looking as sad and tired as I felt. “Like I told you before, everything’s all mixed-up inside me right now. You, Salina, how I feel about her death and your part in it. I keep going over it again and again in my head, wondering if I could have done something different, if I could have changed things. But I can’t see how I could have, other than waking up and realizing what Salina was really like when we were young. But I didn’t see the real her, and now she’s dead. I can’t change any of that, and I haven’t sorted any of it out. Not really.”

It was a shortened version of the same speech Owen had given me at the Pork Pit a few weeks ago, when he’d told me that he needed some time to himself. I’d hoped that tonight’s events, that the danger and emotions we’d shared, had meant that he’d come to terms with at least some of his issues. But he hadn’t, and I didn’t know if he ever would.

“Jillian was a friend,” he continued. “But I wasn’t one to her. Not really. Because I didn’t even realize that she wasn’t in the rotunda with the rest of us. When Clementine threw that body down, and I thought it was you . . . I couldn’t think about anything else but you being dead. I always seem to let down the people I care about. Eva, Phillip, Cooper, you. I let you all down because of Salina. And tonight, I didn’t even notice that Jillian was missing. Some friend that makes me, huh?”

Owen barked out a harsh laugh, his face twisting with guilt and misery.

“And that kiss you laid on me in the vault?” I asked.

He didn’t look at me. Instead, he pressed his thumb into the thorn, drawing a bit of blood, pain etching lines in his sweaty, rugged, soot-streaked face. “I was just so glad that you were alive, Gin. I will
always
be glad for that, no matter what.”

Despite the fact that I’d killed Salina. That’s what it seemed like he really meant. But I couldn’t blame him for his feelings. He’d loved her once, and I’d cut her throat even though he’d asked me not to. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you got over easily, if ever.

Still, I’d hoped—I’d hoped that by saving Owen, I could save us too. Hope. Such a stupid, foolish emotion. One that could lift your heart to the heavens and then grind it into the ground in the very next instant. My emotions felt as tangled and twisted as the briars around us. And every move I made, everything I did to try to make things better, just stabbed another sharp, brittle thorn deep into the desolate wasteland of my heart.

“Gin?” Owen asked again, all sorts of questions in the soft, single syllable of my name.

Before I could answer him, bullets zipped in our direction.

19

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Bullets zinged through the air. I started to throw myself forward onto Owen, but he shook his head and held up his finger, pointing at the tree branches above us, and I realized what he was getting at. Those shots had been far too high for someone to have seen us. So why was someone shooting? Why waste their ammunition like that?

Crack! Crack! Crack!

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” a mocking voice called out.

Owen and I looked at each other and reached for our weapons. I didn’t know how many giants were waiting, but we’d fight our way through them just like we had all the others tonight—

A loud sigh sounded. “Quit messing around, Dave,” a second voice, this one female, said. “We’re supposed to be searching for the thieves. Do you want somebody to hear the noise and shoot us by mistake?”

“Please,” Dave, the first giant, said. “Whoever set off that bomb is long gone. So I say we have a little fun before we go back inside. Besides, we’re the only ones still out this far. Everyone else has headed back to the museum already, from what I’ve heard on the radio.”

A knife in my hand, I crawled over to the weeping willow at the other end of the hedge of briars and slowly got to my feet. Owen took cover behind another tree. Using the long, fluttering tendrils as a screen to hide me from sight, I peered around the tree trunk.

I spotted two giants in the semidarkness, both holding guns and standing about twenty feet away from us beyond the row of thorns. The male was tall and extremely skinny, with a shaved head that looked like a cue ball in the moonlight, while the woman was a bit shorter, with a plump body.

“Come on, Dave,” the woman said again. “We need to get back so we can help load up the rest of the art.”

“Sure, Cindy. We’ll go back—in a minute.”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Dave laughed as he fired off a few more random shots.

“Will you stop that?” Cindy hissed. “It’s creepy enough out here already without you acting like a jackass—”

A sharp crackle of static filled the air, and a second later, Opal’s voice sounded. “Team one, what’s your position? I thought I heard shots in the trees near the west exit.”

Cindy raised her walkie-talkie to her lips. “It’s nothing, Opal. Dave thought he saw something and fired off a few rounds, but it was just a rabbit. We’re coming back inside now.”

“Roger that,” Opal replied.

Cindy clipped her walkie-talkie back to her belt and shot Dave another hot glare.

I put my finger to my lips, then made a circle and a slashing gesture with my knife at Owen. He nodded and held up his gun, telling me that he was ready to help.

Despite everything that had happened between us, Owen knew that we were in this together. Once we got off the island, well, we’d have to see where we stood. But for right now, we were together, and I was going to enjoy the solidarity while I could, even if I knew it was a result of circumstances, rather than of choice.

The tangle of briars wasn’t quite so thick around this tree, so I was able to maneuver around the far side of the trunk past the row of thorns and circle around so that I was parallel with the two giants.

“Come on, Dave,” Cindy said, a little more heat in her tone this time. “Let’s go back.”

“Fine,” Dave muttered, holstering his gun. “I’m out of ammo anyway.”

Out of ammo? What a shame. I smiled and headed toward my enemies. Maybe something was finally going to go right—

Cindy turned her head at exactly the right moment to see me step out from behind the trees.

“Dave!” she yelped. “Watch out!”

As always, I cursed fickle, fickle luck for messing with me yet again, but there was nothing I could do but follow through with my strike.

Thanks to Cindy’s warning, Dave was able to sidestep my initial attack. The giant was quicker than I expected, and he grabbed hold of my arm and shoved me into the closest tree before stepping up and driving his fist into my kidneys.

I hissed from the impact, but I returned the favor by snapping my elbow back into his ribs as hard as I could. Dave took several steps back, which put him right in Owen’s path. Owen crashed through the middle of the briars, raised his gun high, and smashed the weapon into the side of Dave’s head. The giant grunted, reached out, and tackled Owen. The two of them fell to the ground, rolling back and forth in front of the thorns.

I whirled to face the other giant, but Cindy must have started moving away the second she saw me, because she was already fifteen feet away from my position. Cindy kept right on moving, even as she fumbled for her walkie-talkie. I started after her, but I’d only taken three steps when my boot snagged on one of the briars, making me pull up short. Even as I tried to yank free, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to the giant in time. Helpless, I watched as Cindy raised the radio to her lips—

Pfft!

The walkie-talkie shattered into a dozen pieces.

Pfft! Pfft!

Two holes suddenly appeared in Cindy’s throat. Her eyes widened in pain and surprise, but she dropped to the ground without making another sound.

Dave managed to throw Owen off him and scramble to his feet. He turned to shout or maybe run—

Pfft! Pfft!

Two holes appeared in his forehead, and he went down as well.

I finally pulled myself free from the branch and darted behind the closest tree, wondering what this new danger might be, but there was no need.

A second later, Bria stepped into sight, Xavier right behind her, each holding a gun at the ready. I let out a tense breath and walked out where she could see me.

“Hey there, baby sister,” I drawled. “It’s about time you got here.”

* * *

We all stood there, listening, but the only sounds outside the museum were the wind rustling through the garden and Owen’s raspy breathing. Wherever they were, the other giants hadn’t heard the fight, which meant that we were safe for at least a few minutes.

Bria stalked over and hugged me tight. I returned her embrace, feeling a little bit of the worry ease from my body. Two against Clementine and the rest of her crew wasn’t great odds. Four against all those giants wasn’t much better, but it leveled the playing field a bit, especially given what I had in mind.

“Are you okay?” Bria whispered in my ear. “I was worried about you.”

I pulled back. “I’m fine. Just a little bruised and bloody, but that’s pretty much par for the course for me, isn’t it?”

Bria’s gaze swept over my body, taking in the tattered dress, the long, thin scratches on my hands, arms, and legs from crawling through the briars and bushes, the blood that coated me like some sort of macabre body art. She grimaced and shook her head, telling me exactly how battered and beat-up I looked. And that didn’t even take into account all of the dull, throbbing aches in my body from where the giants had hit me tonight. But I was still alive, breathing, and upright, at least.

My eyes dropped to the gun in Bria’s hand. “When did you get a silencer?”

“This?” she said, holding it up so I could see it better. “It was a present from Finn for our three-month anniversary.”

“How romantic.”

She grinned. “Well, at least it’s useful, and it does last longer than flowers or a box of candy. I thought it might come in handy tonight. I know how you love to keep things quiet.”

“That I do,” I said, moving past her.

I went over to Owen and touched his arm, the one that wasn’t injured. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, then winced as he gingerly probed a bruise that was already forming on his right cheek from where he’d been grappling with the giant. “I’ve been better, but I’ll live.”

I turned back to Bria. “Where’s Jo-Jo?”

“She’s on her way,” Bria said. “She and Cooper were having dinner at Underwood’s. She said it would take a while for them to get over here. She told me to come on, that you’d need me and Xavier before she could get here.”

I nodded. Jo-Jo had a bit of precognition. Most Air elementals did, since the currents and emotions on the wind whispered to them of all the actions people might take. I didn’t know what Jo-Jo might have gotten a glimpse of, but if she’d sent Bria on ahead, that meant that things were going to get a whole lot worse before they got better—if we all didn’t get dead in the meantime.

“Tell me about the giants.”

Bria shook her head. “We’d just made it across the bridge and slipped into the gardens when we heard them coming our way. One minute, Xavier and I were alone. The next, there were giants everywhere. In the parking lots, on the bridge, in the gardens. All yelling back and forth and looking for something—or someone. So we found a place to hide and waited them out. It took a while, but eventually, they all headed back up to the museum. The last we saw of them, they were clustered around some moving trucks by the entrance. That’s when we headed in this direction.”

“Yeah,” Xavier chimed in. “We were wondering where you and Owen might be, but then we heard someone shooting. So we just followed the sound of the gunshots. And look, they led us straight to you, Gin.”

He grinned at me, and I returned the gesture.

“Gunshots are a pretty good indicator that I’m lurking around,” I said.

“So what’s the situation on this end?” Xavier asked.

I quickly filled them in on all my wanderings, killings, and stealings in the museum, including how I’d gotten Owen out of the vault and swiped Mab’s will.

Bria frowned. “Okay, robbing the partygoers and the museum I understand. But why would Clementine want to steal Mab’s will?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but she must want it something fierce to go to all this trouble—”

The walkie-talkie on my belt crackled. I’d turned the volume down while Owen and I had been hiding, although I’d made sure it was loud enough for me still to hear the giants’ squawks to one another as they searched for us. But this voice sounded louder and far more forceful than the others, the cadence of the words different, so I adjusted the volume so that we could all hear what was being said. I didn’t catch all the words, but I didn’t have to, since she apparently decided to repeat herself.

Clementine’s voice came through loud and clear. “I’ll say it again. This message is for whoever’s been going around killing my boys. We need to talk.”

I raised my eyebrows, mildly surprised it had taken her this long to reach out to me. I grabbed the walkie-talkie, brought the speaker up to my mouth, and hit the button on the side.

“Why, hello, Clementine,” I drawled. “I was wondering when you might call.”