“She’s doing much better,” Owen said. “cooper was able to rest and replenish his magic while we went after
Sophia. When he woke up, Jo-Jo was awake too, and she helped him use his Air magic to heal her more. She’s not a hundred percent, but she should be fine in a few days. cooper even had enough magic left to heal the worst of Sophia’s injuries. Warren’s too.”
I let out a breath. Warren, Sophia, and Jo-Jo were all safe and on the mend—for now.
I thought of what Grimes had said, about how he was going to go after Sophia again. He wouldn’t stop until he’d dragged her back up here to his twisted camp. He’d come looking for her sooner, rather than later, especially given what a mess I’d made of things. But Grimes was never getting his hands on Sophia again, I vowed. Because the next time I saw the bastard, I was going to end him.
“What about you?” Owen asked. “What happened?”
I told him everything that I had done to Grimes’s men and everything that Grimes and Hazel had said to me.
Owen listened in silence. Then, after a moment, he grinned. “You really set fire to his moonshine operation?
I would have loved to have seen the look on his face when he realized what you did.”
“It was rather impressive,” I said, grinning back at him. “At least, what I saw of it was. I was hoping that the flames would spread and burn the entire camp to the ground, but that was probably too much to wish for.”
“Probably,” he agreed. “Men like Grimes always seem to have nine lives.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing that I do too.”
Owen returned my grin for a moment, but the expression quickly slid off his face, and his features turned serious once more. He stared at me before his gaze dropped back down to the fire. He started stirring the flames with his stick again. I wondered what he was thinking about, but I decided not to ask. He’d tell me in his own time, and there were other things that I wanted to know right then.
“How did you find me?”
“Well, when I hiked back to the ridge, I didn’t see you anywhere in the camp. All I saw was a charred building and some guys putting out the smoldering remains of a fire. So I hiked back to the pit and the tombstones. I didn’t know what was going on or where you were, but eventually, I was able to creep up and eavesdrop on a couple of Grimes’s men. They were talking about how you’d jumped off a cliff and into the river. So I got out Fletcher’s maps, since I’d brought them back with me, and I tried to figure out where you might have ended up downriver.”
A piece of wood in the fire cracked, causing a few sparks to drift up into the air like fireflies. Owen watched them burn out before he continued his story.
“I hiked around the mountain until I reached the river, then followed it downstream for a few miles. I was searching for you, but I was also using my magic. I was just hoping that you still had on your silverstone vest.”
“So you used your elemental talent for metal to see if you could sense any of it in the area.”
He nodded. “And I finally did. I saw you half-submerged in the water in the canyon and fished you out. After that, well, here we are.” He spread his hands out to both sides, gesturing at the fire and the dark woods beyond.
His story touched me. “You went to all that trouble for me?”
“I’d do all that and more for you,” he said. “I’d do anything for you, Gin.”
I looked at him, wondering at the sudden fervor in his voice. “Owen?”
He hesitated. At first, I thought that he wasn’t going to say anything else, but then he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and looked me square in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” he finally said.
“For what?”
“For everything,” Owen replied. “But especially for the way that I treated you after you killed Salina. It was stupid and inexcusable of me.”
I thought back to everything he’d said at Fletcher’s house when he’d told me that he was going to help me rescue Sophia. “Is this one of those things that you’ve been an idiot about?”
He gave me a rueful grin. “One of many. Isn’t it obvious?”
“What changed?”
“I did,” he replied. “I finally grew up. I finally wised
up. And I finally realized just how much I love you.”
I blinked, taken aback by his words—words that I never thought I’d hear him say again. Hope blossomed in my heart that he really meant them, that we were finally dealing with our issues and making some real progress, but I tempered that warm, soft hope with cold, logical reason.
“But you loved Salina too,” I said in a soft voice. “You were . . . upset when I killed her.”
Owen grimaced. “That’s putting it mildly, don’t you think? I turned my back on you. I did the exact same thing to you that Donovan caine did, even though I’d made myself a promise that I would never hurt you like he did, that I would never take you for granted, and that I would especially never judge you for being the Spider. But I did it all anyway, just like he did. Like I said, I’m an idiot.”
I shrugged. Owen’s reaction had hurt, but it hadn’t been unexpected. It was always hard to watch someone you loved die, even when she wasn’t the person you thought she was, even when she’d hurt the other people you cared about.
“You were just trying to protect me from Salina,”
Owen said. “From having to deal with her myself, from having to kill her myself. Because that’s the kind of person you are, Gin. You take care of the people you love, no matter what. I think that’s the thing that I love the most about you.”
The words hung in the air between us, seeming as in— substantial as the smoke curling up from the fire. For a moment, the only sound was the cheery crackling of the flames. I didn’t say anything, but I let him see the doubt in my eyes—doubt that he really meant what he said.
Owen threw his stick down close to the fire, came over, crouched down in front of me, and took my hands in his.
“I love you,” he said. “I will always
love you. Sometimes it scares me just how much I love you. I will never love anyone the way that I love you.”
I couldn’t help but ask the question. “Not even Salina?”
“Especially not Salina,” Owen said. “I was a kid when
I met her, when I loved her. I was young, and I was blind to the kind of person that she really was. I loved who I thought she was, who I wanted her to be, not who she actually turned out to be.”
“But you still didn’t like me killing her. So what changed?”
His lips curved up into a humorless expression. “I did. It was a small thing, really. I’d gone out to have drinks one night with Phillip at Northern Aggression. We got into . . . some trouble, but we managed to get ourselves out of it.”
“Then what happened?”
“I took Phillip home to the Delta Queen, and he said something about how the fight that we’d gotten into was just like the good old days. He grinned at me, and I saw the scrawny kid he’d been back then. And I finally realized how much time Salina had cost me with him and with cooper too. Time that I can never get back. How she’d ruined Eva’s trust in me. How she’d hurt the people I’d cared about over and over again. I knew it all before, of course, but when he said that, it made me realize that I didn’t want to waste any more time, especially not with you. That I needed to quit feeling sorry for myself and guilty that I hadn’t been able to protect Eva, Phillip, cooper, and you from Salina. That what I really needed to do was fix things between me and everyone else.”
He stared at me. “I came up here today to help you rescue Sophia because it was the right thing to do. But I also came because I plan to spend the rest of my life making up for how much I hurt you . . . if you’ll let me.”
“And how long have you felt this way?” I whispered, my heart tightening painfully in my chest.
“I’ve always known it,” Owen said. “I knew how much I loved you the night that you killed Salina so
I wouldn’t have to. I knew it at the Briartop museum when you burst into that vault to rescue me. And I knew it again today when you sacrificed yourself so that I could get Sophia and Warren to safety. The people you care about . . . you love them completely, no matter what. And that’s the way that I feel about you too. I was just too much of a coward to admit it to anyone before. Not even to myself—and especially not to you.”
I sat there, digesting his words. For a long time, Owen held my hands and waited—just waited. Finally, though, he spoke again.
“I know that I don’t deserve it,” he said. “Not after everything that I’ve put you through, but I want to try again. I want a second chance, Gin. Please.”
These were the words that I’d longed to hear, that I’d longed for him to say to me for weeks now. And if he’d said them to me when I’d been facing down all those men on the ridge or Grimes and Hazel on the cliff, I would have said yes with no hesitation.
But words meant one thing in the middle of a life-or— death battle and sometimes quite another after the fighting was done.
He’d wounded me so badly, undermined all the trust that I had in him, in us —and especially in him not to hurt me the way that Donovan had. I loved Owen, had opened myself up to him, and he’d still hurt me. I’d had a lot of time to think these past few weeks that we’d been apart. Maybe too much time to think, to worry and wonder and obsess. Because when everything was said and done, I didn’t know if I wanted to go through that again, not even for him. Owen wasn’t the first person who’d broken my heart, but he was the one who’d done the most damage to it.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one here who was a coward.
“Gin?”
“I don’t know,” I finally said in a soft voice. “You . . . you broke my heart, Owen.”
“I know,” he said, his face tight with guilt. “I know how much I hurt you. But I promise you this, Gin, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. And if it takes you some time to trust me again, to love me again, then that’s okay. Days, weeks, months, years. I don’t care.
Because I’ll wait for you. I would wait forever for you.”
All the love that I had for him welled up inside me, blotting out everything else—except for a tiny, stubborn whisper of doubt in the deepest, darkest, blackest part of my heart. I almost said yes then, but I held back at the last possible moment.
Because I couldn’t ignore that tiny whisper and all the dread and fear that it brought along with it. Because I still remembered how it had felt to lose Owen. Because I didn’t want to go through that kind of heartbreak again.
And it could happen—easily. Because I was the Spider, for better or worse, and I would always be the Spider.
There would always be some sort of trouble headed in my direction, someone targeting me, someone wanting to murder me, and it would be all too easy for Owen and me to end up right back where we’d been after I’d killed Salina.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I just . . . I just don’t know.”
Owen gave me a small, understanding smile, although I could see the disappointment in his face. “And that’s okay too.”
We didn’t speak for a moment.
“come on,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.
“Lie back down. It’s been a long day, and we still have to hike out in the morning. You need your rest.”
He wrapped his arms around me, and together, we lay down on the sleeping bag and faced the fire. His rich, metallic scent once again filled my nose, mixing pleasantly with the woodsmoke, and the warmth of his body enveloped mine, driving away the last of my lingering chill.
I thought about everything that Owen had said and all the emotions that I’d seen flashing in his eyes—heat, desire, need, want, love, and hope. So much hope. A few hours ago, I’d thought that I’d never see him again, and
I would have done anything to have had one more moment with him. Now here Owen was, proclaiming his love for me, and I suddenly couldn’t let him back into my heart.
I could face down a psychopath like Harley Grimes any day of the week, but ask me to open up and risk my heart, and I reverted to that scared, angry, lonely little girl who’d lost her family and had vowed never to let anyone get too close again.
There was no maybe about it. I was definitely a coward.
Tonight, at least.
Chapter Twenty-five
A splash of sunlight on my face woke me early the next morning.
I squinted against the warm, golden glow. The fire was cold, but Owen must have covered me with the sleeping bag sometime during the night, because the fabric was tucked in all around me, making me feel like a mummy.
Even though I could have easily drifted back to sleep, I untucked one corner of the sleeping bag, threw the silky material aside, and sat up. I blinked a few times, trying to throw off the last comfortable, drowsy dregs of sleep.
“Owen?” I called out.
He didn’t answer me, and I finally realized that he was nowhere in sight. Not sleeping behind me, not crouched over the remains of the fire, not stretching his legs by walking back and forth in front of the rocky outcropping that I was still lying under.
For a moment, I was confused, wondering if perhaps I’d just dreamed that he was here the night before, but then I spotted his backpack, and I realized that he must be around somewhere. Maybe he’d gone to get some fresh water from the river, so we’d have something to drink on our hike back to the parking lot. Either way, I needed to answer the call of nature, so to speak, so I got to my feet—and then wished that I hadn’t.
I was bruised, battered, and sore from head to toe.
Blues, greens, purples, and yellows had blossomed like flowers overnight on my arms, mottling my skin from my shoulders all the way down to my fingertips. Given the stiffness in my muscles, I imagined that I had even more bruises on my back, chest, and legs, not to mention the burns and blisters from Grimes’s and Hazel’s Fire magic, which pulsed with tight, throbbing pain. Rolling down the river hadn’t been my best idea, but it had gotten me away from Grimes, which was all that really mattered.
I gingerly touched the bandage over the gunshot wound in my shoulder. Lucky for me, it was a through— and-through, and Owen had rubbed plenty of Jo-Jo’s healing salve on it. The wound was tender to the touch, but it wasn’t bleeding, and it didn’t have the hot, aching feel of infection. Maybe if cooper was up to it, I’d get him to heal me when we got to his house.
Because the sooner I was better, the sooner I could kill Harley Grimes, Hazel, and every other person on this damn mountain.
With that cheery thought in mind, I staggered away from our camp, found a private spot behind a tree, and did my lady business. When I was finished, I went back to the camp, but I didn’t hunker down under the rocks and curl back up on the sleeping bag. Instead, I stood by the remains of the fire and did some slow, careful stretches, trying to loosen up my stiff, sore muscles and get some blood flowing to them. Because it was still a long trek down the mountain, and we could still run into some more of Grimes’s men—
Thwack.
The distinctive sound of flesh cracking against flesh made me stop in mid-stretch.
“Where the hell is she?” a man’s voice growled.
Silence. Then—
Thwack.
“I asked you a question,” the man growled again, his voice much louder and angrier than before. “I suggest that you answer me.”
“Forget it,” Owen snarled back. “I’m not telling you a damn thing.”
Looked like Grimes’s men had come looking for me after all—and they’d found Owen instead.
I scanned the ground around our camp, searching for one very specific item, but all I saw were Owen’s backpack, a couple of empty tins of salve, and several crumpled, dirty rags that he’d used to wipe some of the blood and grime off me. No weapons.
“c’mon, c’mon,” I muttered, dropping to my hands and knees and crawling around the fire ring. “W
here did you put it, Owen? Where did you put it—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a piece of gray fabric sticking out from beneath the sleeping bag.
I stretched out my hand, grabbed the edge of the fabric, and pulled my vest out into the light.
It looked worse for wear, just like I did. The whole thing was covered with blood, mud, and grass stains, while jagged cuts crisscrossed the gray material, exposing the gleaming silverstone underneath. But I shrugged into it anyway, even though the motion caused even more pain to unspool through my muscles, especially the two holes in my left shoulder, and ripple down my arms.
I zipped the bloody vest up over my chest, then hurried over to the fire ring. Most of the wood had been burned away, but I spotted one stick that hadn’t been consumed by the flames, the one that Owen had been using to stir up the fire the night before. It was about a foot long and as wide as three of my fingers. The end wasn’t as sharp as
I would have liked, but I’d made do with worse before.
I also picked up one of the rocks from the fire ring itself and hefted it in my hands. Smooth, round, and heavy.
Perfect. crude weapons in my hands, I got to my feet and headed toward the sounds of Owen and his attackers.
I found them about two minutes later. They were definitely Grimes’s men—three guys with guns, all dressed in brown boots, old-fashioned suits, and fedoras. Two of them held Owen up against a tree, while the third used his fists on him. They must have surprised Owen as he was coming back from the river, because I saw a couple of full water bottles that had been kicked to one side of the tree.
If they’d walked fifty feet more to the west, they would have easily discovered our campsite. They might have even come upon us while we were sleeping this morning and put a couple of bullets in our skulls where we lay. Too bad for them that they hadn’t, because they weren’t going to walk away from this spot.
The guy drove his fist into Owen’s face, then hit him with a brutal one-two combo to his ribs. Owen hissed with pain, but he didn’t give the guy the satisfaction of screaming.
Elemental Assassin [9] Heart of Venom Page 21
