Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

girl’s thin face, followed by a more tremulous emotion—hope. Her hands tightened around the bag, making the paper crack and crinkle. I wondered how long it had been since she’d had something as simple as a cookie. I wondered how long it had been since someone besides Gentry had done something nice for her. Iwondered—I wondered too fucking much. Saw too much of myself in her, in Gentry. They were hunting me, hunting Bria. That made them my enemies, nothing more.
    “Can I, Gentry?” the girl asked in a faint, whispered voice, looking over at her mentor. “Please?”
    Another sad smile creased Gentry’s face, making her look old, small, and tired. “Of course, Sydney. Just remember your manners to the nice lady.”
    Nice lady? If Gentry only knew that I was the one that she was looking for—that I was the Spider. The wanted assassin who could net her upward of five million dollars. Gentry would snatch those cookies out of Sydney’s hands and draw her revolver faster than I could palm one of my silverstone knives.
    Sydney beamed at her, then me. “Thank you, ma’am.”
    “It’s Gin,” I quipped. “Like the liquor. Not ma’am. I hate it when people call me ma’am.”
    Sydney mumbled an apology around the cookie that she’d already stuffed into her mouth. I picked up Gentry’s change from the counter and passed it over to her. The bounty hunter took it and stared at me, her sharp eyes searching my face for something that only she knew or could even see.
    For a moment, I wondered if she’d figured it out. If she realized exactly who I was.
    But then, when she didn’t draw her revolver, I knew that she hadn’t and that she wouldn’t. Because how could an assassin like the Spider, a cold-hearted killer, ever do something as good as give food to a hungry girl?
    “Thank you, Gin,” Gentry said in a soft voice. “For everything.”
    “No problem,” I replied in a mild tone, playing the part of the simple restaurant owner once more. “Y’all come back now.”
    Gentry gave me a small smile. “We will.”
    Then she put her arm around Sydney, who was on her third cookie, and the bounty hunter and her apprentice left the Pork Pit.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Is it too much?”
    Finn tilted his head and gave me a critical once-over. “You’re dressed up as an ice queen dominatrix. I don’t think there
is
such a thing as too much.”
    I stared at myself in the floor-length mirror that had been set up in the den in Fletcher’s house. Trust Finn to perfectly describe my garish getup. I wore a pair of ice blue leather pants that laced all the way up my legs on both sides. A leather bustier done in the same color and trimmed with silver thread covered my chest, pushing my breasts up to new and spectacular heights. A matching collar set with silverstone squares ringed my neck.
    A leather jacket covered the bustier, which let me tuck my two usual silverstone knives up my sleeves. I sported another knife against the small of my back, while two more waited in the sides of my stiletto boots.
    Jo-Jo had come over a little while ago to do mymakeup, which consisted of rimming my eyes with silver liner and painting my lashes and lips the same cold color. The dwarf had also pulled my chocolate brown hair up into a high, tight ponytail and sprinkled silver glitter over the slicked-back locks. All put together, I looked like I was in the mood for a night of cold sex and frostbitten pain.
    “Where did you get all this leather from?” I asked, turning to stare at myself from another angle.
    “From Roslyn’s stash of costumes at Northern Aggression,” Finn said. “Where else would I get such come-hither clothes?”
    Since leaving the Pork Pit, Finn had used his various connections to find out that there was a theme to tonight’s masquerade ball—Fire and Ice. How ironic. Finn had even managed to get photos emailed to him of what some of the other folks would be wearing in order to help Owen and me blend in. Hence all the leather.
    “You look like a completely different person,” Bria said from her spot on the couch.
    I turned and looked at my baby sister, who had an unreadable expression on her face. After closing down the restaurant, I’d come over to Fletcher’s house to tell her what was going on—and exactly what I was up to. Bria hadn’t liked it, hadn’t liked my making another run at Mab, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Not without getting captured by Gentry or one of