Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

knife into his chest as hard buckled, and I stumbled back, grabbing the edge of the cash and deep as I could.
    register for support. My shoulder burned with pain, just like Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 136-137
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    138 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 139
    my palms had when the Fire elemental who’d murdered my of my eyes. My psych professor at the community college family had tortured me by making me hold onto my own would have said the dreams, the flashes of my past, were spider rune medallion. The giant vampire flopped on his my psyche’s way of dealing with the trauma. of heal stomach and crawled around the counter. Some small part of ing. Quack. To me, the dreams, the memories, were tir my mind realized that he wasn’t fighting me anymore, that ing trials, like Marley’s ghost rattling his heavy chains at he was actually trying to get away from me. Scrooge. I’d lived through the events once already. I didn’t But I still went after him.
    need the Technicolor replay at night.
    I threw myself onto his back and plunged the knife in And I certainly didn’t need to dwell on them now. between his shoulder blades. With my weight behind it, the So I crawled into bed, snuggled back into the warm weapon sank up to the hilt in his flesh. This time, Douglas spot underneath the flannel sheets, and forced myself to didn’t scream. Something seemed to give in his body, and he relax. To let my body sink into the mattress. To unclench stilled. I raised the knife and stabbed him again—my jaw, uncurl my fists, and forget about the night I’d so Rough hands settled on my shoulders. I flailed against brutally killed a man inside the Pork Pit. one of many. them, but they were stronger, pinning my arms to my sides. But despite my best efforts, it was still a long, long He pulled me close to his chest, and the smell of chicory cof- time before I drifted off to sleep once more. fee washed over me, penetrating the coppery stench of fresh blood.
    “It’s over, Gin,” Fletcher said in my ear. “It’s over. He’s dead. You can quit stabbing him.”
    Fletcher crooned soft words into my ear, still cradling me in his arms. The knife slipped from my cramping hand and clattered onto the floor—
    The sound might have only been in my dream, but its sharp echo woke me. So suddenly, that I was standing in the middle of my bedroom headed for the door before I realized it was only a dream, another one of my ugly memories manifesting itself. For a moment, I felt that hysterical rage burning through me, that gut-deep, primal need to survive no matter what the cost or consequences. The instinct that had dictated so much of my life. I sighed and rubbed the gritty crud out of the corners Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 138-139
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    powerful, corrupt lawyer in his own right, but he must have had more influence than I’d realized, if he could convince people to stay away from the Pork Pit two days 13
    in a row. I wondered how long the lawyer could keep up the pressure—and what I could do about it. other than kill the bastard. Which would only cause more problems for me, in the end.
    “Did you send everyone home with pay already?” I asked. “Is that why there’s nobody here but you?”
    “Um-mmm.” Sophia’s grunt for yes .
    The Goth dwarf started stirring the dressing into a mound of chopped green and purple cabbage and carrots, even though there wasn’t going to be anyone around to eat it. A shame, really.
    “This is getting to be an annoying occurrence,” I said. Finn wasn’t due to show up for a few more minutes, so Just before noon the next day, I stood in the storefront I decided to fix myself a plate of food while I waited. Noof the Pork Pit. once more, the restaurant was as empty body else was going to be clamoring for barbecue today. as a church on Saturday night, except for Sophia DeverA barbecue beef sandwich, baked beans, iced blackberry aux, who was at the back counter mixing white vinegar, tea, some coleslaw from the dwarf’s metal vat. I took my sugar, mayonnaise, and black pepper to make the dressing food and sat at one of the tables in the middle of the resfor a batch of coleslaw. The Goth dwarf had lightened taurant, so I could watch for Finn coming down the street up her wardrobe a bit today. Instead of her usual black and still talk to Sophia.
    T-shirt, she wore one that was blood red—and decorated I was halfway through my food when the bell over the with lacy