Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

spider rune in between my hands and then superheated it with her Fire magic. Everything that had followed afterward—my thinking that Bria was dead, living on the streets, being taken in by Fletcher, training to be an assassin—all of that had just been leading up to thisone, inevitable moment. Maybe it was fate, or maybe it was just my own bad luck, but there was nothing I could do to change the past. All I could do now was try to survive long enough to give Bria a new future.
    “And how do I know that this isn’t some kind of trick?” Mab repeated.
    “You don’t,” I snapped. “But we both know you want to kill me too badly to turn down a free shot at me. And one more thing—I want Bria there in one piece. That means no rape, no torture, no burning her alive with your Fire magic like you did to the rest of our family.”
    Mab let out a little chuckle. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that last one, Genevieve. Your sister’s already screamed quite nicely for me.”
    For a moment I thought I might lose it. That I might start screaming and never, ever stop. Mab had tortured Bria, had burned my baby sister with her elemental Fire magic. The thing that I’d feared the most had already come to pass, but there was nothing I could about it now, no real way I could help Bria, except by trying to spare her more of the same and keep her alive long enough for me to try to rescue her.
    “Then you stop the torture right now.”
    “Or what?” Mab sneered.
    “Or I won’t show tomorrow, and you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life looking over your shoulder—until I kill you. That’s what. You really want to take that chance just so you can get a few hours’ amusement out of torturing Bria? Besides, we both know you’d have more fun with me anyway. I didn’t break and tell you what you wanted to know when I was a kid. Just think of all thelong hours you could work on me this go around, the happiness that would bring you. Bria’s a small fish, Mab. I’m the catch of the day—the catch of a
lifetime
. You can either stop torturing Bria and have me, or you can start counting down the days until I kill you. Your choice.”
    More silence.
    Finally, Mab huffed out a sigh of displeasure. “Fine. I won’t torture your sister… much more.”
    It was the best I could do, given the circumstances—no matter how much it hurt. No matter how much my heart was breaking for Bria and what she was suffering right now. “Good. So why don’t you tell me when and where, and we can get on with things?”
    “Tomorrow. Dusk. As for the place, why don’t we go back to the beginning?”
    My stomach twisted at her nasty tone. “What do you mean?”
    “Let’s go back to the very beginning, since you seem to be such a fond student of history,” Mab said. “Meet me at your old house, Genevieve Snow. The place where I tried to kill you all those years ago. I’m sure you remember where it is. And don’t worry. Because this time I plan on succeeding.”
    I opened my mouth, but for once, Mab hung up on me.
    I closed the cell phone and turned to face my friends. If they’d been shocked before, they were simply horrified now—eyes wide, mouths open, faces pinched white with fear for me and what I was about to do.
    “What did Mab say?” Finn asked. “Will she go for the trade?”
    I handed his phone back to him. “She’ll go for it. She wants to kill me too badly not to.”
    “You’re not actually going to go through with it?” Eva piped up from her spot on the couch. “It’s suicide, Gin!”
    I shrugged. “No more so than any of the other things that I’ve done over the years.”
    Roslyn, Xavier, Finn, Eva, Violet, Warren—they all tried to talk me out of it, of course. They listed all the reasons why meeting Mab would result in nothing but my own death, along with Bria’s. They ranted and raved up one side and down the other that I was being foolish, stupid even, if I thought that Mab would let either one of us live.
    But they didn’t change my mind.
    If I had to sacrifice myself to save Bria, so be it. I didn’t care anymore as long as she was safe. It was all I’d ever wanted since this whole thing had started.
    Jo-Jo and Sophia didn’t join in the others’ protests. Instead, the two dwarven sisters stood still and silent by the fireplace. They both knew that there was no use trying to talk me out of meeting Mab. Hell, maybe Jo-Jo had seen this was what was going to happen, thanks to her Air