Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

Christmas tree. The runes glowed with a cold, silver light—the kind of light that flared whenever I used my Ice magic. But … I wasn’t doing that right now. At least, I didn’t think that I was. Or if I was, I didn’t know why or how.
    It kind of freaked me out, since the last time that my palms had glowed like this was when I’d finally broken through the silverstone embedded in my hands. The metal had been absorbing my Ice magic until I’d forced myself to blast right through it and had brought an entire coal mine down on top of myself and the men who were trying to kill me.
    But this? Now? I had no idea what was going on. I stared at my glowing palms another minute.
    Fuck. This couldn’t be good.
    But I put my wonky magic out of my mind. I managed to unzip the pocket on my vest and pull out my cell phone. I squinted at the glowing screen, which meant that I still had a signal. Somehow Elektra LaFleur’s magic and my swim in the river hadn’t completely fried the device. Better than a Timex and much more useful right now. It took me three very slow, concentrated tries before I managed to hit one of the numbers on the keypad and then send the call.
    He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
    But it wasn’t Finn’s voice on the line—it was Owen’s. I must have hit the wrong number on my speed dial, because I’d wanted to call Finn, not Owen.
    “Ow … Ow … Owen,” I managed to get out throughmy chattering teeth—teeth that I couldn’t even feel at the moment.
    “Gin? Where are you? Are you okay?” Concern filled his voice.
    “T-tr-train yard. I-I—jumped in river. Down—downstream now. Finn—Finn has the girl.”
    I knew that I wasn’t making a lot of sense, but I just couldn’t think. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything. My whole body, my mind, everything was just numb. Dead and numb.
    “Are you hurt? Where are you?”
    The phone slipped from my deadweight fingers and plopped onto the muddy riverbank.
    “Gin? Gin?”
    Owen’s voice was the last thing that I remembered hearing before the world went completely cold, dead, and black.

19
     
    “Gin!” the hoarse, worried whisper roused me out of the liquid blackness I’d been so peacefully drifting along in. “Gin! Are you out here?”
    The sound of my own name startled me the rest of the way awake, and my eyes snapped open. At least, I thought that they opened. I certainly wanted them to. But since the world still remained pitch-black, I wasn’t quite sure about that.
    After a moment, the events of the night filled my mind, vague flickers and flashes of images that should have made more sense to me than they did. McAllister and LaFleur eating at the Pork Pit. Me sneaking into the rail yard. Finding Natasha. Torching the old depot to create a distraction. LaFleur’s eerie green lightning racing along the metal rails toward me. That last one made me shudder. Her power had hurt so much—
    “Gin!” the voice called again.
    And now someone was out here looking for me in the dark—but was it friend or foe?
    “We’ve looked everywhere,” a second voice said. “She’s not here, and she’s not answering her cell.”
    A woman. That was a woman talking.
    My mind wasn’t working quite the way it should, but I knew I didn’t want a woman to find me. Didn’t want Elektra LaFleur to find me. I shuddered and curled into an even tighter ball, barely daring to breathe. If the other assassin discovered me now, she’d finish me off with her lightning. Then LaFleur would go after Bria, Finn, and everyone else I cared about, and there would be no one to stop her. I wouldn’t be around to stop her—
    “Let me concentrate,” the first person rumbled again. A man, given the deep pitch of his voice.
    Some small part of my mind frowned. That voice sounded … familiar. Why? Why did it sound so familiar? Why did I like the deep, rumbling sound of it so much? Why did I want to call out and answer it?
    I felt a bit of magic surge to life somewhere nearby. But it wasn’t LaFleur’s crackling electrical power or Mab Monroe’s red-hot Fire magic. Surprisingly, this magic felt similar to my own Stone power—cold, still, calm, comforting. Not exactly the same, but it wasn’t the complete wrongness of another element either.
    “This way.”
    Something rustled over my head, and I heard heavy footsteps. Someone’s boots squished in the mud, getting closer and closer with every step. I tried to bring my hand up to my vest to grab