Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

because of the weather. What’s your interest in her, anyway?”
    Gentry tucked the picture back into her coat pocket. “No reason.”
    I gave her a bored look, as though I couldn’t have cared less about whatever she was up to, and went back behind the counter. For the next thirty minutes, I went through the motions, seeing to my other customers, refilling drinks, swiping credit cards, giving change. But I kept one eye on Gentry and Sydney.
    The bounty hunter looked over everyone in the restaurant in between bites, her eyes moving from one face, one body, to the next in a slow, deliberate way. Sydney was much more interested in her food. The girl wolfed down her cheeseburger and fries in three minutes flat, so Gentry had me bring her another plate of food. Sydney might have gone hungry, but I didn’t think that Gentry was the one who had starved her. The girl gave the bounty hunter an adoring, grateful look for ordering her the second burger and made a visible effort to eat it a little slower than she had the first one. A sad, weary smile creased Gentry’s face at Sydney’s obvious efforts to please her.
    The two of them reminded me of Fletcher and the relationship I’d had with the old man when he’d first taken me in. I’d been so grateful to Fletcher for rescuing me from the cold, hard streets that I would have done anything for him—
anything
. Sydney had the same sort of obsessive, fawning gratitude toward Gentry. I wondered why; what bad thing had happened to the girl that Gentryhad rescued her from. Maybe Finn could find out for me, since I’d asked him to look into the bounty hunter.
    Curiosity. It was what was staying my hand now and keeping me from dragging Gentry into the alley and stabbing her to death. Ah, curiosity. It always got the best of me, even when I should have known better.
    I should just have gutted Ruth Gentry where she sat. The bounty hunter had already proven that she was smart and dangerous. Instead of doing something stupid and pointless like staking out the police station or Bria’s house, Gentry had thought to come to the Pork Pit instead—a place where my sister was known to hang out. That showed me the bounty hunter was definitely someone to be wary of.
    I let Gentry and Sydney finish their meal in peace. Eventually, they came over to the counter to pay up and leave. Somewhere along the way, Gentry had found a toothpick in one of her pockets that she’d stuck in one corner of her mouth, giving her a hillbilly air.
    “That was a fine meal,” Gentry said, digging into her jeans and coming up with some small, crumpled bills.
    The motion pushed back her jacket, and I spied the pearl revolver sitting in a holster on her black leather belt.
    “Thanks,” I murmured, careful not to stare at the gun. “But I can’t take all the credit. Most of it goes to my cook over there.”
    Gentry’s eyes flicked to Sophia, lingering on the spiked, black leather collar around her neck. She tipped her head to the dwarf. “My thanks then.”
    Sophia just grunted and turned back to the stove.
    While I totaled the order and made change, my eyesstrayed to Sydney. She stared at one of the glass cake stands full of sinfully sweet sugar cookies that sat on the counter. Hunger and longing filled her hazel eyes, but she bit her lip and looked away from the treats.
    Her small, wistful gaze hurt worse than a knife ripping into my heart.
    I remembered feeling that way once upon a time, back when I’d been living on the Ashland streets. I’d spent hours staring in through restaurant windows and longing for all the food I saw inside—food that was hot, clean, and free of the worms and maggots that littered the scraps I’d been eating out of the Dumpsters. Oh yes, I’d stood outside those restaurants, and I’d stared in, hunger twisting my stomach into knots so hard and tight that I thought they would never straighten out again.
    Some sort of wild, crazy emotion seized me then, and I put Gentry’s change down on the counter. Before I knew quite what I was doing, I’d lifted the glass lid on the stand of cookies, gathered them all up, and dropped them into a white paper bag, which I shoved into the girl’s thin chest. Sydney stared down at the pig logo printed on the side of the bag, the longing in her eyes so bright and hard that it took my breath away.
    “Take ’em,” I said in a thick voice. “We’re getting ready to close, and they won’t be eaten tonight.”
    Surprise filled the