[English] HEART OF VENOM

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 30



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...

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 31



"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.

Chapter Twenty-eight

The next morning, I went to the Pork Pit and opened up the restaurant right on time, just like usual.

Despite the fact that I was being hunted by a couple of Fire elemental psychopaths, I still had a barbecue joint to run. Besides, Grimes was looking for a woman who said that her name was Gin Blanco, and everyone knew that the Pork Pit was mine. I only wondered how long it would take him to realize that I really was the Spider and come here to confront me.

The only thing missing from the restaurant was Sophia. She was still stashed away at cooper's house, along with Jo-Jo. I'd told the sisters to take it easy and rest up, that nothing was going to happen today. That I had Finn tracking down some leads and was formulating a plan on how best to deal with Grimes.

I didn't tell them that I'd already worked everything out with Finn, Owen, Phillip, and Bria. I didn't want Sophia and Jo-Jo involved in my scheme, and I didn't want them anywhere near me, not when I was waiting for Grimes to make the first move. They'd already faced him twice, which was two times too many. I was going to handle things from here, like I'd promised Fletcher. I didn't want Sophia and Jo-Jo to set eyes on Grimes ever again - at least, not until after I'd killed him.

I didn't think that the sisters really believed me, but they'd reluctantly agreed to stay put, especially since neither one of them was a hundred percent. Despite the fact that cooper continued to use his magic on her, Jo-Jo was still weak, and Sophia, well, Sophia had been shot, kidnapped, and tortured. She needed some time to recover from that and from all the grievous wounds that she had on the inside, the ones that no magic could ever fix.

It made me a little melancholy, stepping into the restaurant and not seeing Sophia standing behind the counter, slicing up her homemade sourdough rolls for the day's sandwiches, or hefting a big pot of Fletcher's secret barbecue sauce onto a back burner to bubble away. But it was good that she wasn't there. If she was, all I would do was worry about her, and I couldn't afford to do that. I couldn't afford to be distracted for a moment, not when Grimes and Hazel were coming for me.

So I did my usual sweep of the restaurant for bombs, explosive runes, and any other nasty surprises that someone might have planted on the doors, inside the storefront, or even back in the restrooms overnight. When I was satisfied that no one had been inside the restaurant who shouldn't have been, I flipped the sign on the front door over to Open , tied a blue work apron on over my clothes, and switched on the appliances to start cooking.

The waitstaff showed up about half an hour later. A few were surprised when I told them that Sophia wouldn't be in for the rest of the week, but nobody said anything to me about it. They were all too worried about what I might do to them as the Spider to give me any lip about working a little harder because we were a man down.

But the day passed quietly. I cooked, waited on tables, cooked some more, and even managed to read a few chapters of Dr. No by Ian Fleming, which I was reading for a spy-literature class that I was going to start over at Ashland community college in a few weeks.

People came and went, flowing in and out of the restaurant in a regular, familiar, comforting rhythm. No one entered the Pork Pit who shouldn't have, and no one tried to kill me. All in all, it was a rather boring day.

I knew that it wouldn't last, though. And I was looking forward to showing Grimes that I really and truly was the Spider.

Grimes's men showed up at the Pork Pit just before noon the next day.

Oh, they tried to hide who they were by trading in their usual old-fashioned suits in favor of jeans, cowboy boots, and western shirts, complete with pearl-button snaps. But their clothes were obviously new, judging from the stiff, starchy look of their shirts, the sharp creases in their jeans, and the fact that there wasn't so much as a speck of dirt on their fancy boots. Plus, one of them brought his brown fedora into the restaurant and threw it down onto the booth beside him, a hat exactly like the ones all of Grimes's men had worn.

For all intents and purposes, the two men looked like a couple of wannabe cowboys who'd come to the restaurant in search of a good, hot, greasy meal. But their eyes tracked my every movement, and they paid more attention to me than they did to their food. Pity. The strawberry-peach pie was quite excellent that day.

Either they were there to kill me and prove what badasses they were to the rest of the Ashland underworld, or they were watching me on Grimes's orders. Since they didn't try to murder me in front of the cash register or lie in wait and jump me in the alley when I took out the trash, that meant that they were most likely on a reconnaissance mission.

The two guys lingered in the restaurant for more than two hours, ordering second helpings of everything, including the pie. I hoped they enjoyed their last meal.

While the men were finally, slowly, finishing up their second servings of pie, I plopped down on my stool behind the cash register, pulled my cell phone out of my jeans pocket, and called Finn.

"Finnegan Lane, always at your beck and call," he answered in a cheery tone.

"It's on for tonight."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

I opened my book to the page that I'd marked earlier with a cre***-card receipt, as though my conversation with Finn was so casual that I could read a few pages and talk to him at the same time. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one of the men shoving a bite of pie into his mouth and staring at me.

"I'm sure. Let the others know. I'll keep to the schedule that we worked out."

"Roger that."

Finn hung up, and so did I. Now all that was left to do was wait and see exactly when Grimes would strike.

The men eventually finished their meal, paid up, and left. They didn't say anything to me, and they didn't approach me at the cash register, instead leaving more than enough money on the table to cover what they'd ordered.

I dropped the change into the tip jar for the waitstaff to share.

But apparently, Grimes wasn't content simply to know where I was, because not ten minutes after the first pair of fake cowboys had left the Pork Pit, another set took their place. Same starched shirts, same creased jeans, same spotless boots. Their clothes were an exact match for the ones worn by the first set, and these two followed the same routine. Ordering lots of food, lingering over everything, not paying up until two hours later.

After they finally left, a third pair came in ten minutes later, just like clockwork, to rinse and repeat the whole process yet again.

Well, Grimes was definitely thorough. I'd give him that. He'd managed to keep at least two sets of eyes on me most of the day. I wondered if he really thought that I was stupid enough to lead him to Sophia and Jo-Jo and that I hadn't anticipated that he'd come after me in the first place.

"People sure must be hungry today," catalina Vasquez, one of my waitresses, remarked as she grabbed a pitcher of water from the counter behind me. "Because those guys who just came in ordered a truckload of food. That's the third table that I've waited on today that's wanted practically everything on the menu."

"Must be the heat," I drawled. "Nothing works up people's appetites quite like being in the great outdoors, hiking up and down mountains,...

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 32



One minute, I was alone, sipping my beverage and wondering how much longer I'd have to sit out here before Grimes and Hazel took the bait that I was so thoughtfully dangling in front of them - me. The next, I heard a car start rumbling up the gravel driveway. Then another one. Then another one. Three vehicles total, all churning up the hill as fast as they could, as if they thought that I would run once I heard them coming and realized who they were.

I wasn't running, not tonight.

The cars left the driveway and skidded to a stop in the yard near the edge of the trees, spewing dirt and gravel everywhere, and cutting off any escape I might have thought of making to the woods. Men erupted out of the vehicles a second later. Guns drawn, they spread out in front of me. There were only eight of them, which was about what I'd expected. I recognized six as the watchers from the Pork Pit earlier, although they'd traded in their cowboy clothes for their regular old-fashioned suits, boots, and fedoras. But it didn't much matter what they had on. Because every single one of them was dead - they just didn't know it yet.

Finally, two more figures climbed out of the last car: Hazel and Harley Grimes.

Hazel marched over to join the group of men clustered on the lawn, but Grimes lingered by the car, staring up at Fletcher's house. I wondered if he was thinking about building some similar, twisted version of it up on his mountain. Well, he wasn't going to get the chance.

I put one foot up on the railing, tipped my rocking chair back a little farther, and took another long swig of my lemonade, completely unconcerned by all the guns pointed at me.

Finally, Grimes walked over and joined Hazel and his men, standing in the middle of them all. He too was wearing another old-fashioned suit, this one in a black that was as dark as his soul. His hat was black too, with a white feather jauntily perched in the brim just like usual.

Hazel had on a white wrap dress with black ribbon pip - ing down the seams. More diamond pins glittered in her wavy black hair, this set shaped like tiny roses. I wondered if the brother and sister had matching funeral outfits. I hoped so. They'd need them soon enough.

Ever so politely, Grimes lifted his hat for a moment before bowing his head to me. "Ms. Blanco," he said.

"Please forgive me for my disbelief during our previous encounters at my camp. According to everything that my men have heard, you are indeed who you say you are, the Spider."

"Well, it's about time you figured that out," I drawled, and took another sip of my drink. "I would have thought that all of those dead bodies that I left up at your place would have clued you in to that simple fact. But I guess you're just a little slow on the uptake."

"And I see that you've picked up the same insolence that Sophia has," Grimes murmured. "But Hazel can quickly cure you of that."

Hazel smirked at me, elemental Fire flashing in her eyes in anticipation of the fight to come. She was looking forward to torturing me with her magic again. Good.

Because I was looking forward to cutting her throat.

Grimes's gaze flicked around the yard again before scanning the front of the house, trying to see if there were any lights on inside or any hints of movement through the windows. "Where is Sophia? I thought that she would be here with you, given how . . . protective you've been of her."

"You might as well forget about Sophia, because she's somewhere where you will never, ever find her."

Grimes gave me a thin smile. "I rather doubt that, seeing how easily I found you. I've had my men watching you all day long at that restaurant you run downtown."

I returned his smile with an even colder one of his own. "You think I didn't know that? You really shouldn't have dressed them all up like cowboys. Or at least you should have made sure that their clothes weren't so obviously brand-spankin' new."

Grimes studied me, trying to figure out whether I was telling the truth. "If you knew that they were there, that they were watching you, then why didn't you try to slip away from them?"

"Because I'm not afraid of them - or you. You're a small, petty, mean little man who gets his kicks by hurting others. If I ran every time one of those came into the restaurant, well, I'd never be open for business."

His frown deepened, and anger sparked in his eyes.

He didn't like hearing the truth about himself. Too damn bad.I drained the last of my lemonade, put the glass down on the railing, got to my feet, and stepped off the porch.

I walked out into the yard and stopped about twenty feet away from Grimes and Hazel. They stood in the middle of the eight goons they'd brought along with them. Not exactly the position that I'd wanted them in, but they were here, and that was all that really mattered.

"You should send your men away," I said. "Unless you want them to die in the crossfire. We all know that this is between you and me and Hazel."

Grimes gave me an amused look. "You really think that you can beat Hazel and me and our combined Fire magic? Is that why you let my men follow you home?

Because you have some fanciful notion of defeating us in an elemental duel like you did Mab Monroe?"

I shrugged. "I didn't feel like hiking up your stupid mountain again. Besides, I figured that it was time for you to come to Ashland and see how we do things down here in the big city."

Grimes glanced around at the house and the clearing again, and his lips curved into a mocking sneer. "You mean living out here all by yourself in that run-down house? I prefer my camp. You'll come to love it there, too, over time, Gin. I just know that you will."

Once again, that greedy, lustful look flared in his eyes, and his oily, lecherous gaze tracked up and down my body, trying to see my curves through the jeans, long-sleeved black T-shirt, and matching black vest that I had on.I gave him a flat look. "I said it before, and I'll say it again, I'd rather be dead than be one of your playthings.

I managed *****rvive the mountain. I'll survive you, your twisted sister, and what's left of your little army too."

"You stupid bitch," Hazel snarled. "You think that you can take all of us on by yourself?"

"Why, sugar," I drawled, "who ever said that I was by myself?"

She looked at me, and I grinned back at her. Grimes frowned at my words, but it was Hazel who finally realized what I was up to and why I'd let them follow me home. She cursed, and a ball of elemental Fire flashed to life in her hand.

A perfect signal, if ever there was one.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

Gunshots rang out from the woods to the left of the house. The first wave of shots took out two of Grimes's men. The others saw their buddies hit the ground, then ducked down and scrambled back behind their cars for cover. They raised their own weapons and started firing toward the trees where the bullets were coming from, but I didn't bother ducking or running for cover. The bullets weren't meant for me. I'd let Grimes and his men follow me back to Fletcher's so that I could lure them into my own trap, into my own sticky web of death, and Grimes had been arrogant enough to fall for it.

While I'd been sitting on the porch, drinking lemonade, Finn, Bria, Owen, and Phillip had been getting into position in the woods, ready to snipe at Grimes, Hazel, and their men when they showed up.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

My friends fired another hail of bullets at the gangsters, shattering the windshields and denting the car doors that they were crouched behind. But I kept my eyes fixed on Grimes and Hazel, who were staring right back at me, as unconcerned by the bullets as I was. I stayed where I was, because this was the moment I'd been waiting for, my chance to finally take them out.

For Sophia, for Jo-Jo, and for Fletcher.

"What did you do?" Hazel spat out.

"Just made sure that you all get what you so richly deserve," I snarled back at her.

Hazel shrieked with rage, and the flames crackling in her palm intensified. I tensed, thinking that she might hurl her ball of elemental Fire at me, but instead, she turned and threw it into the woods. The Fire hit a tree and exploded, sending flames shooting into the air and licking at the leaves and grass along the ground.

In the distance, I could hear Finn yelling at Bria and the others to watch the Fire. He knew as well as I did that they couldn't afford to let the flames get out of control, or the whole ridge might go up, along with Fletcher's house - and then we'd all be dead.

Hazel laughed with dark delight when she realized that the flames were spreading. Bria left her hiding spot in the woods to rush over to the burning tree. Grimes's men drew a bead on her, but Finn and the others laid down another round of gunfire to cover her. A bluish-white light flared in Bria's hand, and she sent out a blast of Ice magic that quickly turned the flames into thick, twisted icicles.

Hazel's cackle cut off. Another ball of Fire popped into her hand, and she reared back, ready to throw it at Bria and roast my sister where she stood. I palmed my knives and charged at her, determined to keep that from happening.

Hazel saw me coming out of the corner...

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 33



Slice-slice.

Whiff-whiff.

A cut on her left arm this time, followed by a gash to her stomach. Hazel lurched forward, still swinging at me, but I easily sidestepped her blows.

Slice.

Whiff.

A deeper, more brutal strike went in and skittered off her collarbone before my knife slid free of her body. Hazel screamed and lurched forward again, but I ducked her awkward blows.

She shook off the rest of her daze and moved to block my next attack. I'd raised my knives as though I was going to try to stab her again, but it was a feint to disguise my real intention. Hazel stepped up to grab my arms once more, but I ducked down and lashed out with my foot, sweeping her legs out from under her. She let out a scream of surprise as she fell, and her head cracked against the ground.

Before she could recover, I threw myself on top of her.

I raised my knife, ready to plunge it into Hazel's black, venomous heart - A blast of Fire knocked me off her.

I'd been so focused on Hazel that I'd lost track of Grimes during the fight. He might have liked to watch two chicks rough each other up, but apparently, he drew the line at me actually killing his sister. I tried to get up, but another wave of Fire washed over me, even hotter and more brutal than before. I sucked down a breath in surprise, and I could feel the flames trying to force their way down my throat, but I managed to use my own Stone magic to block the attack.

This time, I was the one who was dazed, but I staggered to my feet anyway and turned to face my enemies.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

In the distance, Finn, Phillip, and Owen were still firing at what remained of Grimes's men, while Bria worked to contain the bursts of Fire that Grimes had sent hurtling their way. But I pushed away all thoughts of my friends and the flames still licking at the edge of the woods. I couldn't afford to be distracted by anything right now, or I was dead.

Which was still a distinct possibility.

It was a risk, taking on two elementals at once, but it was a chance that I had to take. I hadn't wanted Sophia and Jo-Jo involved in this fight, but the truth was that I hadn't wanted Finn, Bria, Owen, or Phillip in it either.

That's why I had insisted that they stay in the woods, instead of Bria and Owen standing with me and using their magic like they'd wanted to. I'd felt how strong Grimes and Hazel were in their magic on the ridge, and I hadn't wanted the others to be tortured with it if things went bad. This way, even if they used their combined power to kill me, my friends would still have a chance to snipe at them from the woods. I'd told Finn, especially, to kill Grimes - even if he had to sacrifice me to do it.

And it looked like that was what it had finally come down to.

"It doesn't have to be like this," Grimes said. "Tell me where Sophia is, and I'll let you live, Gin. You and Sophia.

You can both come with me, stay with me. You're both strong. You both belong with someone who can handle that strength, tame it, shape it - someone like me."

He was so focused on me that he didn't see the evil glare that Hazel shot him. She'd make sure that I wouldn't live a week if I was stupid enough to take Grimes's up on his offer.

"You'd better kill me now," I rasped, my voice rough and raw from the elemental Fire that I'd inhaled. "Because you will never break me, and I will never, ever stop thinking of ways to kill you. And sooner or later, I'll succeed."

Grimes shook his head, as though my threats of death deeply saddened him. "As you wish, then."

He held his hand out to the side. At first, I wondered why, but then Hazel stepped up and twined his fingers with hers. She gave me another evil grin, happy that her brother had reached for her. Elemental Fire hissed, sparked, and crackled where their hands met, and the flames there grew and grew. Grimes and Hazel lifted their free hands. Flames exploded there as well, burning as big and bright as twin bonfires. Once again, their magic was perfectly in sync, ebbing and flowing in time, yin and yang reunited. Or evil and more evil, in this case.

Separately, each of them was a strong elemental. But together, their combined magic rivaled Mab's. Hell, they might have even surpassed her. I'd gotten stronger myself since I'd fought Mab, but the intensity of their magic made me snarl and grit my teeth like a rabid dog.

I reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin once again.

Grimes and Hazel stretched their arms out in front of them. They let their Fire build and build.

Then they threw it at me - all their strength, all their power, all their hate.

Wave after wave of searing, smoking, unbelievable heat slammed into my body. I gritted my teeth much tighter to keep from screaming. It was all that I could do to use my power to block the combined strength of theirs.

I tried to get to them, tried to get close enough to cut just one of them with my knives, but every time I managed to stagger forward a few feet, another wave of Fire magic would send me sliding back. But I kept struggling, kept fighting, kept churning forward, even though all I was really doing was digging my heels into the burning grass underfoot. All I needed was to separate them, to stop them from sharing their magic and throwing the combined force of it at me, and then I could kill them.

At least, that's what I told myself, even if I knew that it wasn't true.

Because I'd already used up a fair amount of my magic fighting Hazel, and I didn't have enough left in the tank to stop them both. Even with the power I'd put back into my spider-rune ring over the past two days and what was in the knives in my hands, I was still going to run out of magic before they did. Then their elemental Fire would wash over me and reduce me to soot and smoldering ashes on the spot.

And there wasn't a damn thing that I could do about it.

"Gin!" I thought I heard Owen yell. "Hang on! I'm coming!"

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

My friends fired still more shots, but what was left of Grimes's men returned their fire, holding them at bay.

They wouldn't reach me in time, and we all knew it. Still, I was going to hold on for as long as I could. Because if I couldn't kill Grimes and Hazel, then maybe they could.

Because, magic or not, if Finn and the others pumped them full of enough bullets, then their magic would wane, and Finn could step up and finish the job - Through the smoke and flames, I saw a figure slam

into Grimes and Hazel, and I realized that it was Owen.

He threw himself at the brother and sister, and all three of them went down like pins knocked over by a bowling ball. Even though he had shattered their concentration, Grimes and Hazel were still holding on to their magic, and the flames washed over Owen, as though he were the wick in the center of a burning candle. His hoarse screams echoed all the way around the ridge.

"Owen!" I screamed, staggering toward him. "Owen!"

The three of them were still rolling around on the grass, but they finally came to a stop. Grimes's head snapped against the ground, stunning him, but Hazel positioned herself on top of Owen. She snapped her hand back and reached for her Fire magic once again.

I reached through the flames, dug my fingers into her hair, and yanked her off him. I tossed her aside as hard as I could, tearing clumps of black hair out by the roots.

Hazel shrieked with pain, but I didn't give her time to recover. She hit the ground, and a second later, I was on top of her. Hazel reached for her Fire, throwing it into my face.

I ignored the flames searing my skin, raised my knife high, and buried it to the hilt in the bitch's black, burning heart.

Hazel arched her back and let out a bloodcurdling scream. I ripped the knife out and drove it right back into her chest, twisting and twisting and twisting it in. Muscles ripped, tendons snapped, and one of her ribs cracked under my brutal assault. Hazel slapped at me, her blows getting weaker and weaker with every passing moment, the Fire on her fingers giving way to smoking red and orange sparks. I tore the knife out of her chest once again.

And this time, I slit her throat with the blade.

Blood gushed out of the wound, spattering onto me, as hot as the flames still licking at my skin. Hazel's screams died down to gurgling wails, then were choked off altogether. She stared at me, the bright, shimmering Fire in her eyes slowly, stubbornly dimming and dulling as death crept up on her. Her head lolled to the side, and the last of the flames dancing on her fingertips vanished into smoke. After a moment, even that drifted up into the evening sky and dissipated.

When I was sure that she was dead, I crawled over to where Owen lay on his back on the grass. Deep, dark, ugly red burns and blisters covered every part of him that I could see - his chest, hands, arms, and face. His eyebrows had been singed off, and his scalp gleamed a baby pink in places where his black hair had been burned way.

Bile rose in my throat at his devastating injuries.

"Gin . . ." he rasped.

"It's okay," I whispered, trying not to let him see how worried I was. "You're going to be okay - "

A shadow fell over me, blotting out the evening sun.

I looked up. Harley Grimes had shaken off his daze and now stood over me, more Fire pooling in the palm of his hand. He reared back his arm, ready to throw...

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 34



For a while, Grimes was able to block her blows, and all they did was exchange punch after punch after punch.

But Sophia slowly wore him down. He missed a block, and she socked him square in the jaw. He missed the next block, and she slammed her hand into his sternum, cracking a rib, judging by the way he suddenly started gasping for air.

Grimes went on the attack, swinging, swinging, swinging, but Sophia swatted away his blows one after another after another. He overextended himself, and she slammed her boot into one of his knees. He howled with pain, but before he could stumble out of range, she clamped her hands on his arms and rammed her boot into his other knee. The cracking of his bones rattled through the entire yard.

Sophia let go, and Grimes dropped to the ground like a cement block. That's when we all knew that it was over.

Sophia positioned herself on top of Grimes and started hitting him, over and over again, as though she were working a heavy bag at the gym.

Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.

She pounded away at his chest, focusing on his ribs and driving all of the air out of his lungs, so that he couldn't even scream at what was being done to him - just like she hadn't been able to scream after he'd destroyed her vocal cords by making her breathe in elemental Fire.

Jo-Jo. cooper. Finn. Bria. Phillip. They all stood there and watched Sophia beat Grimes to death, while I huddled on the ground next to Owen. Nobody said a word, although Bria winced at the brutality that Sophia unleashed. But she hadn't been up at the camp. She hadn't seen the pit, so she didn't fully understand his depravity.

But I did. More important, I understood Sophia's response to it and why she had to do this herself.

I'd wanted to spare her and Jo-Jo from facing Grimes again, but they'd come anyway because they needed clo - sure. They needed to help defeat him. And most of all, they needed to know that the nightmare was truly, finally over.

Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.

And Sophia was making sure that happened with every single blow she landed.

Eventually, cooper helped Jo-Jo over to Owen. The two dwarves settled themselves on the scorched earth, took Owen's hands in theirs, and reached for their Air magic, healing the horrible burns on his body. Then they used their power to heal me as well. Finn, Phillip, and Bria moved silently through the yard, their guns still drawn, checking on Grimes's men to make sure that they were all dead.

I got to my feet and went to stand close to Sophia.

And I stayed right there, watching her, supporting her, through the whole thing.

I couldn't tell exactly when Harley Grimes died. One moment, he was still rasping for breath. The next, I realized that his eyes were focused on Sophia but that he wasn't seeing her anymore.

Sophia kept beating Grimes long after he was dead, but I didn't say anything, and I didn't try to stop her. She deserved all the time that she needed, for everything that he'd done to her and Jo-Jo.

Finally, though, her blows slowed, sputtered, then stopped altogether. Sophia sat back on her heels, breathing hard, covered in more blood than even I'd ever had on me. Her arms were completely coated with it, and it dripped off the ends of her fingertips like scarlet tear - drops.

I looked down at Grimes - at least, what was left of him. It wasn't pretty. Sophia had used her dwarven strength to its fullest. His face was a bloody, pulpy, bony mess; his chest had ****d in; and his knees were sprawled out at awkward, impossible angles where Sophia had broken them. If I hadn't known that it was the body of a man, I would have thought him no more than a pile of roadkill, bloated, bloody, and rotting on the side of some country road.

I stepped in front of Sophia where she could see me, then held out my hand, which was still covered with Hazel's blood. After a moment, she took it and let me pull her to her feet. She started to let go, but I tightened my grip on her hand.

"Not alive," I said. "Not anymore."

Sophia looked at me with a somber expression. But after a moment, she grinned, her smile wider, happier, and brighter than I'd ever remembered it being.

"No," she rasped. "Dead - finally."

Chapter Thirty

We spent the rest of the night cleaning up the mess.

Or, rather, Sophia did.

One by one, she packed the bodies of Grimes, Hazel, and their men into the trunk of her classic convertible.

When that was full, she stuffed the other ones into Roslyn's car, which I was still driving, since it was already such a lost cause. But instead of using her Air magic to sandblast away and dissolve all the blood into nothingness the way she normally would, Sophia left the stains where they were in the yard. The weather would take care of them soon enough. Besides, this wasn't the first blood that had been spilled in front of Fletcher's house, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Still, as I watched her work, I thought about what she'd told me at cooper's house, about how being with the bodies in the pit had been the only peace that she'd ever gotten while she'd been Grimes's prisoner. I wondered what she was thinking now that his was one of the bodies that she was disposing of, but I didn't ask. We all had our own demons, and Harley Grimes was one of Sophia's, to deal with in her own way and time. Besides, for once, I rather enjoyed the irony of the situation.

Still, I went over to Sophia, who had a tape measure out, trying to determine how many more bodies she could stuff into the trunk of Roslyn's car. I put my hand on her arm. She stopped measuring and looked up at me.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked in a quiet voice. "I can get rid of the bodies. You shouldn't have to do this anymore. Not for me. I don't want you to do it anymore."

Sophia stared at me, her black eyes thoughtful.

"It's who I am," she rasped. "It's what I do. For Fletcher - and for you too."

"But you shouldn't have to clean up my messes," I protested. "Not when I know what it reminds you of. Not when I know how much it hurts you."

Sophia stabbed her finger at her heart. "My choice. Not yours."

"But - "

She reached up and cupped my cheek with her bloody hand. "No buts. I love you, Gin. And this is how I show it."Then she smiled, and I got a glimpse of the girl she had once been, before Grimes, before the pit, before everything.

"Not soft," Sophia rasped. "Neither one of us. Not anymore. Never again."

I blinked, surprised that she remembered the conversation we'd had in the Pork Pit so long ago after we'd battled those two giants. But she was right. We were definitely not that. Broken, maybe. But not soft.

"Okay?' she rasped, her black eyes searching mine.

"Okay."

I didn't like it, and I would always feel guilty about it, but it was her choice, just as it had always been. Sophia patted my cheek. Then she picked up the last man's body, stuffed it into the trunk of Roslyn's car, and slammed the lid.And that was that.

"Gin!" Finn called out. "come here and look at this!"

Before Sophia had started packing the bodies into the cars, Finn had quickly rifled through all of the dead men's pockets, including Hazel's and Grimes's. When he realized that they didn't have anything terribly interesting on them, Finn had gathered up their car keys and had started going through their vehicles one by one.

Now, he had reached the last car, that of Grimes and Hazel. He stood next to the open trunk, along with Bria.

They both wore grim expressions.

"I thought that you'd want to see this for yourself."

Finn gestured at the open trunk, then stepped to one side.

A couple of foam-lined cases sat inside the space, all with their lids hinged open to reveal the guns grouped inside. Rifles, shotguns, revolvers, even some semiauto - matic weapons. It was quite an assortment. Another case held boxes and boxes of bullets.

"There are more guns and more ammo in the trunks of the other two cars," Finn said, his voice more serious than I'd heard it in a long time.

"So Grimes was going to deliver some guns to someone," I said. "So what? We knew that already. Remember, I told you about the person who was at his house. This is probably that order."

Finn and Bria glanced at each other, and then Bria leaned into the trunk and slowly closed the lid on one of the cases. A small yellow note was stuck to the top of the plastic. A name was scrawled on the paper:

M. M. Monroe.

My mouth dropped open, but no words came out. I blinked and blinked, but the name on the paper didn't change. If anything, it seemed to loom even larger, as though the black letters were some sort of rune that was smoking with elemental Fire and about to explode in my face."We didn't think much of the guns either, until we found that ," Bria said in a flat voice.

"The same note is on all of the cases in all of the cars," Finn added.

Once again, I wondered about the person I'd seen at Grimes's house. I still didn't know if it had been a man or a woman, but now I had a much more pressing concern. Had that been the mysterious M. M. Monroe? Or a hired hand whom M. M. Monroe had sent to deal with Grimes? It could easily be one or the other or...

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 35



Owen sighed. "I won't argue with that."

I took his hand in mine. "How are you feeling?" I asked, searching his face for any sign of pain or discomfort.His lips curved up. "Like your barbecue, roasted low and slow."

His words made me chuckle, but the more I stared at him, the more I flashed back to how he'd looked lying in the yard, burned, bruised, and battered. The mere memory made my heart squeeze tight with pain and fear.

"You didn't have to do that," I finally said in a soft voice. "You didn't have to throw yourself into the middle of my fight with Grimes and Hazel. You could have shot one of them with your gun instead. What were you thinking? They could have easily killed you . . ."

"I wasn't thinking about my gun or shooting them," Owen replied. "I was thinking that I couldn't stand by and watch you die, Gin. That I was going to do whatever it took in order to save you."

"Well, I appreciate that, but I'm pretty good at taking care of myself." I tried to keep my voice light, but it didn't work. "More important, you don't have to prove anything to me. I know that you care about me. That was just a foolish risk to take."

This time, I couldn't stop Owen from getting up. He slid off the couch and onto the floor so that we were sitting side-by-side. Then he turned to face me.

"That's where you're wrong. I do have to prove something to you: that I'm as committed to you as you are to me. That I would do anything for you, anything ."

I sighed. "You don't have to make up for what happened with Salina. That was a difficult situation. An impossible situation. I'm not going to hold it over your head."

Owen let out a breath. "I know you won't, because that's not the kind of person you are. But I'm holding it over my own head. I need to make up for it. Because you were only trying to help, only trying to protect me, Eva, cooper, and Phillip, and I let you down in the worst possible way. I'm going to spend the rest of my life making up for it, if that's what it takes to win you back. To undo the damage that I did to you - to us ."

It was more or less the same thing that he'd told me that night in the forest by the fire. His violet eyes locked with mine, letting me see how serious and earnest he was - and just how much he loved me.

Fletcher had always said that pretty words were all well and good, but people's actions were what really mattered in the end. In the past few days, Owen had climbed a mountain to help me rescue Sophia, searched miles of forest for me, fished me out of the river, and kept me safe from Grimes's men. Then he'd thrown himself into the middle of my fight with Grimes and Hazel, with no hesitation and no thought to the damage that he might do to himself. I hadn't asked him to do any of that - not one single thing - but he'd done it all anyway.

That told me everything that I needed to know, especially about how he really felt about me.

"I asked you before on the mountain, and I'm going to ask you again now," Owen said, his eyes still searching mine. "I want to try again, Gin. Please?"

My heart swelled with love for him, and this time, I didn't try to fight it, and I wasn't afraid of it, or him, or even of having my heart broken again. I might have lost sight of it in the forest, but if there was one thing that all my years as the Spider, all the battles, all the brushes with my own death, had taught me, then it was this.

That this was what was important. This moment right now and all the ones that we were lucky enough to have after it. Today, tomorrow, hell, maybe even forever.

Me. Him. Us. Together.

Yeah, we'd hit a big bump in the road, and we still had some work to do. I needed to learn how to trust him fully again. He needed to forgive himself for Salina's crimes.

And we both needed to learn how to let go of and move past the pain that we'd caused each other, learn how to work on our problems together.

"Gin?" Owen asked a third time, his eyes burning into mine.

I leaned forward so that my forehead was touching his.

"Yes," I whispered. "Yes."

I cupped his face in my hands. Owen snaked his arms around my waist. Our lips met somewhere in the middle.

It was a slow, languid, lingering kiss, a perfect meeting of lips and tongues and mouths and breaths. That familiar spark of desire flared to life low in my stomach, then spread through the rest of my body, but this wasn't about giving in to that want. At least, not yet. No, this was about the silent, heartfelt promise that we were both making to each other, never to take this, us, for granted again.

Finally, the kiss ended, although I kept staring into Owen's eyes, wondering at all the love that I saw there.

I drew away from him, got to my feet, and held out my hand. He took it.

I led Owen to a bathroom on the other side of the house, where we would have some privacy. This was the largest bathroom in the house, with two sinks and an oversize, walk-in shower that took up most of one wall.

I shut and locked the door behind us, then turned the water on in the shower. Not too cold, not too hot.

We'd both be that, soon enough.

The steady hiss of the water was the only sound as we slowly undressed each other. I helped him shrug out of his shirt. He unzipped my vest. I unbuttoned his jeans. He did the same to mine. Our clothes quickly disappeared, until we stood there naked in front of each other. I smoothed my hands over his broad, muscled shoulders and then down his chest. He traced his fingers down my neck, before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to the hollow of my throat, making me shiver.

I held my hand out again. He took it, and I drew him into the shower.

Steam rose all around us as I grabbed the soap, lathered up my hands, and ran my fingers over his body, from his slightly crooked nose to his flat stomach and strong legs and all the way down to his toes. I went slowly and carefully, gently washing off all the blood and dirt of his battle with Grimes and Hazel. Owen had done the same thing for me once upon a time, and it seemed fitting to return the gesture. A fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning, in more ways than one.

I kissed every spot that I cleaned, lightly nipping at some of the more sensitive areas with my teeth. By the time I'd worked my way down to his ****, he was more than ready for me. I kissed that too, running my lips and tongue all over him.

Owen groaned. "If you keep doing that, this shower is going to be shorter than either one of us wants it to be."

I grinned and kept up with my ministrations a minute longer before kissing my way back up his body.

"Tease," he muttered in a hoarse voice, his violet eyes as bright as amethysts.

"And don't you love it."

He grinned and reached for the shampoo.

Owen turned me around so that my back was to him, then started washing my hair. I moaned at the feel of his fingers digging into my scalp. Soap suds cascaded down my body, and Owen's fingers quickly followed. Still behind me, he cupped my breasts in his hands, his fingers circling and massaging my nipples before moving lower.

His fingers tangled in the curls at the junction of my thighs before sliding lower still. He dipped his fingers inside me, rubbing slow, lazy circles that made every part of me thrum with desire.

I arched back against him. "Tease."

"And don't you love it," he whispered, mocking me with my own words.

He stroked me until I was just as ready for him as he was for me. I turned around to face him, and we moved together with one thought. Our lips met and opened, our tongues stroking together, slow and soft at first, then quicker and more demanding as our hunger built. The water trailed down our bodies, and our hands followed suit, gliding, stroking, caressing, even as our kisses grew harder and greedier.

Owen left the shower long enough to grab a condom from his wallet. I took my little white pills, but we always used extra protection.

He stepped back into the warm spray of water. I reached for him, but he was quicker. He picked me up, put my back against the wall, and slid into me with one smooth thrust. I groaned and wrapped my legs around his waist, my hands digging into his shoulders.

"Now, this would be teasing," Owen rasped against my lips.He withdrew, then surged into me again, making me groan once more.

"I think I've had enough teasing," I said, nipping at his lower teeth with my lip. "Haven't you?"

He responded by thrusting into me again, even deeper than before. My nails dug into his skin. Oh, yeah. We were definitely done teasing.

What started out slow, soft, and sweet quickly boiled up into something quick, hard, and wickedly good.

Owen thrust into me over and over again, and I matched him, rocking my hips against his. Our movements were so quick, so hard, so frantic, that my wet back slid down the shower wall. Owen growled and lowered me to the ground, the water pounding into his back even as he kept moving inside me, going deeper and deeper.

We rolled together, and then I was on top. I drew back, then rocked my hips forward in a long, slow glide that finally sent us both over the edge. Owen growled again, even lower and fiercer than before, and pulled me down on top of him. His lips met mine, both of us sucking the air out of each other's mouth,...

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 36



Bria smiled a little, but then her face turned serious.

"There's something else."

This time, she pulled a brown envelope out of her backpack and slid it over to me.

"I also took the liberty of going through Grimes's house and removing all those creepy pictures of Sophia that he had," she said in a soft voice. "I figured that nobody needed to know about Sophia except for us."

I nodded and pulled the envelope over to my side of the table. "I appreciate that, and I'm sure that she and Jo-Jo will too."

"How is Sophia? I've been so busy up here that I haven't had a chance to drop by the salon and see her or Jo-Jo."

"It's hard to tell with her. She keeps everything to herself."

Bria gave me a wry grin. "That sounds like someone else I know."

I stuck my tongue out at her, but I couldn't refute her words, because they were all too true. And I had my own nightmares about Grimes and his camp.

More than once in the past few days, I'd dreamed of being down in the pit, clutching Sophia's shovel, and seeing nothing but tombstones looming over me. All the stones had been covered with my spider rune, drawn in my own blood.

Every time, I'd woken up in a cold sweat, thrashing against the sheets, gasping for breath, my skin stinging as though I'd been cut a hundred times with my own knives. I could only imagine how much worse Sophia's nightmares were.

"I think that Sophia will be okay," I said, finally answering Bria's question. "It'll just take some time, like everything does. The good news is that Jo-Jo finally has her strength back. She looked at her hair in the mirror yesterday morning and about had a heart attack. The next thing I knew, she was yelling at me to go get the car and take her to the salon so she could get the right kind of highlights to put on her hair."

Bria's grin widened. "Ah, the joys of having houseg - uests."

Sophia, Jo-Jo, and Rosco were staying with me at Fletcher's until we could fix the damage that had been done to their home. It was a little strange having them with me when it had just been me in the house for the past several months, but I didn't mind the company. In fact, it was rather nice, even if Sophia did stay up until all hours of the night watching old movies on TV, Jo-Jo muttered under her breath about the fact that I only had one kind of shampoo and con***ioner, and Rosco kept scratching at the door to Fletcher's office, wanting to see what was in there and if he could eat any of it.

A bell rang, signaling that the lunch break was over and it was time for the latest shift to hike back up to the camp. Xavier had Sophia wrap up his cheeseburger to go, while Bria reluctantly got up and threw her paper plates away before coming back over to me. I got to my feet too.

"Duty calls," she said.

"What will happen to the camp now?"

She shrugged. "There's been some talk by the forest service of renovating the camp and turning it into some sort of nature center. Maybe even establishing it as a get - away for folks hiking through the mountains."

"Do the forest guys really think that people will want to stay in a place where so many bodies have been found?"

Bria shrugged again. "Technically, it is their land, after all. I guess they can try, at the very least."

The thought of Grimes's camp made me think of another empty residence in Ashland: Mab's mansion. Now that M. M. Monroe was back in Ashland, or had at least turned his or her attention in this direction, the logical thing would be to take up residence there, since it belonged to him or her. But so far, the mansion remained empty, at least according to Finn's spies.

Like Bria, Finn hadn't been able to find out anything else about M. M. Monroe and what this person might be up to. But like we'd figured, it couldn't be anything good, not with M.M. buying so much ordnance. At least we'd thwarted that part of the scheme. I'd kept all the weapons and ammo that had been in Grimes's trunk and the other vehicles, moving them into the underground tunnel below Fletcher's house for safekeeping, and the po-po had seized all of the weapons that they'd found at the camp itself. So M.M. would have to get his or her guns somewhere else. A small inconvenience, more than anything else, but I was hoping that it would at least give Finn enough time to track this person down and figure out what he or she was really up to in Ashland.

That bell chimed again, telling folks to get their butts in gear, or else.

Bria hugged me and told me that she would call later if there were any updates or if she found anything else interesting at Grimes's camp. She went over to speak to Xavier, and then the two of them shouldered their gear and fell into step with the others. Bria waved at me a final time, then headed into the woods.

But she wasn't the only one. The coroner also gave me another jaunty wave before he followed her up the trail.

I grinned and waved back. What could I say? I was starting to like that guy.

The esteemed members of the po-po trudged back up to Grimes's camp, leaving Sophia and me behind to pack up the leftovers. We put the remaining food in the ice-filled coolers that we'd brought along, then moved through the picnic area, picking up the used paper plates, cups, and utensils and throwing everything into the trash bins.

We were about to grab the coolers and walk down the steps to our cars when I touched Sophia's arm and handed her the envelope that Bria had given to me.

"Bria found these at Grimes's camp," I said. "She said that they were all over his house and that she took them down before anyone else saw them. I thought that you might want them."

Sophia's fingers curled around the envelope, and she hefted it in her hand, as though it weighed more than it actually did. Or maybe that was because of all the bad memories associated with what was inside.

Sophia sat down at one of the picnic tables, opened the envelope, and flipped through the photos, but I didn't join her. This was her pain, not mine, and I figured that she might want a few moments to herself. So I busied myself by going through the area one more time and making sure that we hadn't forgotten anything. Every once in a while, I would glance over to see how she was doing. Her expression was flat as she looked at first one picture, then the next, but I could see the pain shimmering in her eyes.

Finally, after she'd gone through them all, Sophia grabbed the photos and the envelope, got to her feet, and went over to one of the trash cans. She drew a long, thin lighter out of her jeans pocket, the one she'd used to light the sterno cans that warmed the baked beans and other food. She flicked the lighter on and held it up to the edge of one of the photos. She watched as the flames licked at the paper, then tossed it down into the trash can with the other garbage. I stood by, still and silent, and watched her.One by one, Sophia burned all of the photos, until flames flickered out of the top of the trash can. The smell of burning paper filled the air, along with bits of ash.

Finally, Sophia got down to the last photo in the envelope, the one of her wearing that white dress that had been on Grimes's desk. She started to toss it in on top of the rest of the burning mess, but she hesitated. Instead, she stared at the photo for a long while, before finally sliding it back into the envelope.

Sophia noticed me watching her. "To remember," she rasped.

I nodded. I understood that sentiment all too well. It was why I had so many rune drawings on the mantel at Fletcher's house.

We stood there and watched the rest of the photos curl and burn, until there was nothing left of them but ash - and the memories, which weren't nearly as easy to get rid of.

Chapter Thirty-two

A little more than a week after Harley Grimes had first stormed into Jo-Jo's house, I found myself back in the salon. Only this time, I wasn't getting my nails done. Instead, I was the one painting.

I stepped back, my eyes tracing over the wall and making sure that I hadn't missed any spots. Since the salon had been so damaged during Grimes's attack, Jo-Jo had decided to do a little remodeling. That meant a fresh coat of white paint everywhere.

However, not everyone was happy about being on paint duty instead of being pampered, like we'd first planned.

"Oh, sure," Finn muttered, dabbing his brush at the wall a few feet away from me. "

Now you let me come. Now that there's work to be done and not just sitting around in your pajamas, drinking mimosas, and eating bon-bons."

I gave him an amused look. "Less whining, more painting. Jo-Jo wants to reopen the salon next week, remember?"

Finn let out another huff, but he leaned forward and started some trim work around the doorframe.

"Well, I agree with Finn," Owen drawled from the opposite side of the salon, where he was working on another wall.

"I could do with less painting and more pampering myself."

Beside him, Bria snorted. "Men. And they think that we're the weaker ***. At least we don't whine about every little thing, now, do we?"

Finn turned around and stabbed his paintbrush toward her. "I will have you know that I don't whine about every little thing. I only whine about the important things, my own comfort...

--- Gộp bài viết: 07/06/2016, Bài cũ từ: 07/06/2016 ---

Heart of Venom
Heart of Venom Page 37



I sat back in my rocking chair and took another bite of my pie, letting Jo-Jo's words wash over me, enjoying the day and being with some of the people I loved most in the world.

My own heart's desire.