Widow's Web (Elemental Assassin) (19 page)

Finally, Dubois raised his head off the ground and looked out at his dinner guests, his friends and business partners. He started yelling at them to help him. But no one stepped forward—no one dared to, not with Mab staring at them.

No one wanted to share Dubois’s fate.

Finally, the giants finished their work and stepped back. A hush fell over the crowd, and even Dubois grew silent as Mab walked across the grass toward him.

“Daddy?” a voice called out. “Daddy!”

A girl a few years older than me sprinted across the lawn, her long, blond hair streaming out behind her like ribbons of silk. She must have been in some other part of the mansion, because I hadn’t seen her before at the party. A boy with black hair chased after her, catching her just before she reached her father. He wrapped his arms around the girl and held her tight, even though she struggled against him. Smart guy. He knew it was already too late for Dubois, even if the girl didn’t.

“Let me go!” she yelled. “We have to help him! Someone please help him!”

But no one did. Instead, they all looked at the girl with pitying eyes.

A couple of the giants moved toward the young couple, probably to try to get the girl to shut up, but Mab held up her hand.

“No,” she purred. “Let her watch. Let it be a lesson to her—and everyone else here tonight.”

Mab held out her hand, and elemental Fire sparked to life on her fingertips, hissing and crackling with evil intent. I could see the glow of the flames through the crowd, and once again, I felt the invisible waves of her power pressing against my skin. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I got the impression that Mab smiled before she bent down.

And then she started torturing Dubois.

I couldn’t see everything that was going on, but I didn’t need to. I didn’t
want
to. Dubois’s screams let everyone know exactly what was happening to him—and just how much it
hurt.

The stench of burning flesh filled the warm spring air, reminding me of the night that a Fire elemental had done the same thing to my mother and older sister, how she’d burned them to death. My stomach roiled, and bile coated my throat. For a moment, I thought I might vomit, but I managed to swallow down the bitter liquid that choked me. Other people in the crowd didn’t manage to do the same, turning to the side and retching up the food and drinks they’d just downed.

Fletcher put his arm around me and held me close, trying to tell me that it was okay, that he was here with me, that we would get through this, but there was nothing he could do—for me or Dubois.

But the worst part wasn’t the stench or the memories or Dubois’s pleas for mercy or the heat of the elemental Fire scorching my face. No, the worst part was that through it all, I could hear his daughter screaming—screaming for her family just like I had.

“Daddy! No! Daddy! Daddy—”

The dream abruptly faded, and my eyes snapped open, although I could still hear the faint echo of the girl’s screams in my head—Salina’s screams.

For a moment, I wondered what had pulled me out of the vivid memory, but then a creak sounded in the corner, and I realized what had woken me up.

Someone was in my bedroom.

16

My hand slid underneath my pillow and curled around the knife there. I also reached for my Stone magic, ready to use it to make my skin as hard as marble for when I leaped out of bed and—

“Gin?” a soft voice whispered in the darkness. “Are you awake?”

Eva. It was just Eva. Although she should have known better than to slip into my bedroom unannounced in the middle of the night.

I let go of the knife and sat up in bed, shaking off the last bit of the dream. Eva perched on a rocking chair in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest and her feet resting in the chair seat. She had her arms wrapped around her knees, hugging them in, as if that small motion would protect her from all the big, bad, scary things out there—things I imagined looked a lot like Salina to her tonight.

“Eva?” I asked. “What are you doing in here? You should be in bed, trying to rest.”

“I heard you talking in your sleep,” she replied. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I shrugged. “I had a bad dream. I have them quite often. You know that. So why did you really come in here?”

Eva didn’t say anything. The moonlight peeking in through the curtains illuminated the whole room, painting everything a soft silver. Even though she was curled up in the rocking chair, Eva still looked like a princess straight out of a fairy tale, her black hair gleaming, her blue eyes luminous, her porcelain skin pale and ethereal.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. “About Salina? And what you think happened back then? Because downstairs, you looked like you remembered things a lot differently than Owen did.”

“I don’t
think
anything,” she said. “I know exactly what happened. It’s not a figment of my imagination or a nightmare or some story Phillip told me. It’s the truth.”

“So tell me about it. Let me decide for myself what’s real and what isn’t.”

Eva shivered and hugged her knees in even closer to her chest. “I don’t remember a lot from that time. I was only four. Most of my memories are just hazy flashes of Owen and Phillip, the house we lived in, some toys I had, things like that. But when it comes to Salina, everything is crystal clear, and I can still remember what happened like it was yesterday.”

She gave me a bitter smile. “Even though I was a kid, I could always tell she never liked me, and I felt the same
way about her. But I had Owen and Phillip, and I was happy enough, even if I missed Cooper when we moved out of his house.”

“Until . . .”

“Until one day when Salina had on a new dress or maybe a necklace, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but she wanted to show it off to Owen. But he’d promised to play dolls with me so he told Salina he’d look at whatever it was later. Salina never liked being ignored, but I remember glancing up at her at that moment and realizing that she was staring at me with this . . . look on her face. It was just . . . evil.”

Eva’s voice dropped to a whisper, and it took a few seconds for her to regain her composure and continue.

“That night, Owen and Phillip went out. As soon as they were gone, Salina grabbed my arm and hauled me into the bathroom. She said she wanted to give me a bath, but I knew better. She never paid me any attention she didn’t have to. I kicked and screamed and tried to get away from her, but of course I couldn’t. She stripped off my clothes, forced me into the tub, and turned the water on, filling it all the way up to the top. . . .”

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“She stood over me, and she had this—this
smile
on her face. And then I felt these invisible hands wrap around my arms and legs, like tentacles sucking at my skin. They pulled me down under the water and held me there, and I couldn’t break free of them, no matter how hard I struggled. But the worst part was that I could—I could
see
her through the water. Standing beside the tub watching me drown—smiling while I was drowning.”

Eva turned her face, trying to hide the fact she was brushing away the tears rolling down her cheeks. She drew in a ragged breath.

“Eventually, Salina got tired of her game and let me out of the tub. I was too scared to even cry by that point. All I could think about was telling Owen when he got home, but Salina must have known that was what I was planning. She got right down in front of me, looked me in the eyes, and told me that this was our new secret game. She said that if I told anyone, anyone at all, that she’d have to play the same game with Phillip—and Owen too. I knew what she meant. That she’d hurt them the same way she had me.”

“So you kept quiet.”

Eva nodded. “The next night when Owen and Phillip went out again, she took me into the bathroom, made me get into the tub, and did the same thing—torturing me with her water magic over and over again. And the next night, and the next night.”

“Oh, Eva, how long did this go on?”

“A couple of weeks,” she whispered. “It could have gone on forever . . .”

“If Kincaid hadn’t gotten suspicious.” I finished her thought.

She nodded again. “I don’t know how he figured it out, but he did. Maybe because I was quiet and withdrawn, and I didn’t want to play with anyone anymore, especially not Owen. I was terrified that if he paid more attention to me than he did to Salina, she would hurt me that much more. Or that she’d hurt Philly and Owen like she’d said she would.”

“So what changed that last night? What happened?”

Eva drew in a couple of breaths and let them out. When she spoke again, her voice was even softer than before. “I was in the tub underwater, watching Salina smile at me, and then suddenly Philly was there. He shoved her out of the way, reached down, and pulled me up and over the side of the tub so I could breathe again. She came at him, trying to shove him into the tub too, and he started hitting her. You know the rest. What she told Owen, what he did to Philly because of her lies.”

I believed her. I believed Salina had tortured Eva with her water magic and that Kincaid had managed to save her. I couldn’t deny that I
wanted
to believe it, that part of me just wanted Salina to be an evil bitch so she wouldn’t be a threat to me and Owen. But as selfish as my motives were, Eva’s voice, her words, had a ring of truth to them I couldn’t deny. Even more than that, her story added up when what Salina had told Owen simply didn’t.

“I thought my brother was going to kill Philly, but he stopped himself,” Eva said. “I tried to tell Owen the truth, but Salina was there. While Owen threw Philly out of the house, she grabbed me and told me that I’d better keep my mouth shut. She said that if I ever—
ever
—told Owen what she’d done that she’d hurt him just like she’d hurt me. I believed her, so I’ve kept quiet like a coward and a fool all these years.”

Her fingers clenched and unclenched, like she wanted to rip the arms off the rocking chair she was sitting in. Like she wanted to scream and shout and tear something to pieces—tear Salina to pieces.

“You were a kid, Eva,” I said in a soft voice. “There was
nothing you could have done. Salina knew that—that’s why she preyed on you. It’s not your fault.”

Eva’s fingers curled around the chair arms again, so tight that I could see the whiteness in her knuckles from my position on the bed. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the anger drained out of her body, and her face twisted into a disgusted expression.

“Maybe,” she finally replied, bitterness making her voice harsh. “But that doesn’t make it right. So many times, I’ve thought about telling Owen what happened, about trying to get him to forgive Philly, but I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Salina ever found out—if she ever came back to Ashland. And now she has, and it’s my worst nightmare come to life all over again.”

I could have told Eva that I was sorry for what she’d been through, but I knew better than anyone else that
sorry
was just an empty word. It didn’t take away the pain—and it didn’t banish the memories, especially when they crept up on you when you were all alone in the dark of the night. That was why I spent so many nights tossing and turning before waking up with a scream stuck in my throat. Because part of me would never forget the things I’d seen, done, and suffered through—just like Eva would never forget what Salina had done to her.

“I know she probably killed Antonio and tried to kill Phillip just because she could, but I wonder . . .” It took Eva a moment to find her words. “I wonder if she also wanted to teach me a lesson because I was there tonight. I wonder if she wanted me to remember her promise to me. Poor Antonio . . . what she did to him . . .”

Eva shivered again. She didn’t speak for a moment,
but then she raised her eyes to mine. Anger and determination burned in her gaze, and her face looked as hard as marble in the moonlight. I’d seen this look on other people before. I knew what she was going to say next.