Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

hurt me anymore. things through before you do them.”
    There was nothing down here but me and the rocks and I didn’t know about all that. But I decided to take what the water. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
    Fletcher was offering me. Grab on to it with both hands and So I began to blink, focus, and strain my eyes. Slowly, never look back. Genevieve Snow was dead. Her family was the blackness lessened to a midnight gray, and the world dead. But Gin Blanco was still alive. And I wanted to stay came back into focus. What I could see of it, anyway. that way.
    Which was nothing more than a big pile of rocks. They
    “Okay,” I said. “You can train me.”
    partially blocked the entrance to the small recess where Fletcher nodded. “All right then. We start tonight. Come I’d taken shelter from the cave-in. I stopped a minute to on. Let’s go back into the restaurant.”
    assess my body. Wiggled my fingers and toes, and went He got to his feet and stretched out his hand to me. I through the whole routine I’d done when I’d first woken stared at it a minute. I was going to be an assassin. Might as up in the cavern. Sore, scraped, raw, aching, bone-weary. well start acting like one. Which, to me, meant getting to my Same as before, but everything was more or less in work own feet by myself. Which I did. ing order.
    Fletcher’s green eyes brightened as he smiled—
    I reached down, searching for my purse and the healI gasped in a breath, waking from the dreamy memory. ing supplies Jo-Jo Deveraux had given me. But the purse It took me a moment to remember where I was, what was long gone. So was my blond wig, and I didn’t feel the had happened—and the fact I was probably buried alive. blue contacts in my eyes anymore. They’d popped out Panic welled up in me, threatening to break loose. But I somewhere along the way. The only thing I had left were pushed down the hot, worrisome emotion, smothering my black dress and stilettos, which were no help at all. So it with cold logic. I was still alive, still breathing. Which I blew out a breath, crawled forward, put my hands out, meant I still had a chance, however small it might be. and shoved.
    I didn’t know how long I’d huddled there under the lip To my surprise, the rocks moved. Bits and pieces of rock, with the earth shaking below my body and the broke off like eggshells where I touched them, and I got cavern collapsing in on top of me. Minutes had passed, to work. I don’t know how long I crouched there, half maybe hours, for all I knew. But it was quiet now. The under the recess, scooping rocks out of the way so I could earth had quit trembling, and the stones had quit falling, wiggle forward and get to my feet. Slow going given my which meant it was time to come back to myself. various aches and pains, but eventually I cleared a space I opened my eyes to blackness. Again, panic filled me, large enough for me to worm my way through. I got up Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 348-349
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    350 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 351
    on my knees first, then lurched forward, and used my legs matched rubble, like a house that had fallen in on itself. to push myself up and out of the hole. The rocks tore into Tons and tons of earth, stone, water, and mud filled the the thin fabric of my dress and scraped my stomach, but entire stretch of the cavern, blocking the entrance back to I didn’t care.
    the mine shaft. I looked up. There must have been more Slowly, I got to my feet. There was almost no light, but rock above the ceiling than Tobias Dawson had let on, bemaybe I could fix that. I uncurled my dirty palms. Even cause the stone had formed a sharp, sloping roof, instead though I couldn’t see them, I knew the spider rune scars of the natural arch of the original cavern. were still on my hands. I’d always been able to create a I wasn’t getting out that way. Because even if I’d been little light with my magic, especially with my Ice power. at full strength, instead of beaten, bloody, and exhausted, The familiar silver light flickered over my palm anytime I I doubt even I could have managed to blast my way made a simple cube or Ice pick.
    through so much stone and earth. Elementals had a lot of But before, when I’d made that final, desperate reach raw power, but ultimately, we all had our limits. Even me. for my Ice magic to stop Tobias Dawson, the spider rune So I skirted around the edge of the rubble, slipping, scars on my palms had ignited and burned