Unraveled

by Jennifer Estep

  A minute later, all the water was gone, but a field of elemental Ice had risen up to take its place, the odd dips, waves, and curls reminding me of the tumbleweeds that were scattered throughout the park.

  And the giants were frozen solid, right in the middle of it all.

  They were still sitting down, although their hands were raised up over their heads, as they’d instinctively tried to ward off the water crashing down on them. They looked like three cowboy statues that had been erected in the center of the walkway.

  I studied the giants, but they were all encased in solid sheets of elemental Ice. If they weren’t already dead from being flash frozen, they would suffocate soon enough. No way was any air getting in through all those cold, thick layers.

  Nine down, four to go—

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Once again, bullets sprayed all around me, cracking my elemental Ice sculptures and spraying sharp shards everywhere. I ducked down behind a water trough and peered around the side. The three remaining giants were at the far end of the street, beyond my Ice field, with Brody standing at the head of them.

  “Shoot her! Shoot her, you idiots!” he screamed, waving his gun at me.

  The giants raised their guns to fire at me again, but I whipped around and sprinted down the walkway, heading even deeper into the theme park.

  25

  The sounds of gunfire continued behind me, but they quickly stopped once the giants realized that I was out of range. I kept running, though, determined to make the most of my head start. I had a straight shot to where I was going, and the giants would either have to pick their way across the elemental Ice field or spend precious time going around.

  But they wouldn’t come charging blindly at me anymore. They’d be far more cautious this time, and they’d stay together in a group. I would need all my skills to end them. Good thing I had one more trick up my sleeve.

  So I headed for the centerpiece of Main Street—the Good Tyme Saloon.

  I pushed through the broken doors and hurried over to the bar, where I’d lined up those four bottles of liquor, complete with white rags peeking out the tops of them. I grabbed the bottles along with the cigarette lighter, and sprinted up the stairs to the second floor.

  Brody and the giants would expect me to hole up behind the bar, since it was made out of thick, heavy wood that would offer the most cover and protection from their bullets. But Fletcher had often said that the key to surviving was to do something entirely unexpected, and that was my plan right now. So I lined up three of the bottles on the second-floor railing, close to the support beam that I ducked behind. The fourth bottle was in one of my hands, and I had the lighter in the other.

  Once I was in position, I started counting off the seconds in my head.

  Five . . . ten . . . fifteen . . . thirty . . . sixty . . .

  Five minutes passed before I heard a telltale creak on the wooden sidewalk in front of the saloon. The giants must have spotted the broken doors and realized that I’d come in here. Good.

  “Give it up, Blanco!” Brody called out. “I’ve got this place surrounded! You can’t escape! Not this time!”

  I grinned. Surrounded? Please. He had three men left. That wasn’t enough to surround an armadillo. Besides, I didn’t want to escape. Not until I’d killed every last one of them.

  “Blanco!” Brody yelled again. “This is your last chance!”

  I still didn’t respond, although I could hear the other three giants muttering to each other out on the street.

  “Do you really think that she’s in there?”

  “Maybe this is another trap.”

  “Maybe she’s already long gone.”

  “She’s not leaving without her friends,” Brody snapped, cutting into the chorus of doubt. “Trust me on that. And the doors are busted wide-open. She’s in there, all right. Now, are we going to go in and get that bitch, or are we just going to stand here and argue about it all night? Because I don’t want to be the one to go back to Tucker and tell him that the four of us couldn’t capture one woman, do you?”

  The other three giants muttered their agreement, apparently more afraid of Tucker than they were of me. I shook my head. Fools. You should always be most afraid of the person who could kill you most immediately. In this case, me.

  The giants kept debating and arguing among themselves. I rolled my eyes, wanting them to get on with things already and quit wasting my time. Because once they were dead, I could check in with Silvio and see if he’d set eyes on Finn, Bria, and Owen yet.

  Finally, Brody and the other three giants realized that I wasn’t going to come out, and they decided to come in after me. I held my position behind the support beam, the bottle and cigarette lighter still in my hands, with the three other bottles all in a neat row on the railing in front of me.

  The broken doors creaked open, and a lone black hat appeared. I tensed, but then I realized that it was only a hat on a stick that someone, probably Brody, was waving around.

  Someone around here had watched a few too many Western movies.

  Still, I’d give the giants credit for trying to get me to make the first move and give myself away. But I’d been doing this for a long, long time, and a hat on a stick wasn’t going to fool me, so I held my position and waited for them to come inside.

  A minute passed, then two, then three, and still the giants stayed outside. Finally, though, one of them let out a frustrated snarl and threw the hat and stick out into the middle of the saloon. The stick clattered to the floor, while the hat spun around and around before finally settling down.

  I stayed in place, the same as before. I’d seen more than a few Westerns myself, thanks to Sophia, who loved them, and there was a reason why people always said not to shoot until you saw the whites of your enemies’ eyes.

  That meant that they were finally close enough for you to kill them.

  Slowly, the doors swung open, and all four of the giants crept inside, guns up and ready to fire. I thought that Brody might be leading them, but he was the last to enter the saloon. Smart. Very smart. I wondered if his men realized that he’d set them up to walk into my trap and die first. Probably not.

  The four giants tiptoed forward, and they looked right and left, examining the saloon. But they only saw empty chairs, and they didn’t pay any attention to the liquor bottles that I’d positioned like centerpieces on some of the tables when I’d first broken in here. I could have cracked open some of the bottles and doused everything in alcohol, but the giants might have smelled that, and I didn’t want them to realize exactly what they were walking into until it was too late.

  Brody stepped forward and stabbed his finger at the bar, thinking that I was hiding back there. He held up his gun and waved it at the other men in a clear signal. They all nodded, then raised their own weapons, took aim at the bar, and started firing.

  Crack!

  Crack! Crack!

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Brody and his men shot up the bar, putting hole after hole into the thick, heavy wood. Splinters flew through the air, and the mirrored shelves and bottles of liquor behind the counter shattered, spewing glass everywhere. Someone couldn’t hit the broad side of the bar.

  One by one, the giants emptied their guns, although they all quickly reloaded their weapons. For a moment, everything was eerily quiet. The stench of gunpowder filled the air, along with the harsh, caustic scent of all the spilled booze.

  Finally, Brody pointed his gun at the bar again. “Check it!” he hissed at the lead giant.

  The other man swallowed, reached up, and adjusted his hat, tipping it back a little on his forehead. He also checked his gun, making sure that it was fully loaded again, and raised the weapon up into a firing position. Then he drew in a breath and eased forward, surprisingly quiet for such a large man. He moved closer to the bar . . . and closer . . . a
nd closer still. . . .

  Behind him, the other two giants spread out, with Brody taking up a position closest to the double doors. All three men aimed their guns at the bar, expecting me to pop up from behind the long slab of wood at any moment. But I didn’t do that, and every second that passed only ratcheted up the tension. The lights might be on, but the heat wasn’t, and the December chill had already sunk into the building, making the giants’ breath steam in the air.

  The lead giant came at the bar from an angle, and he finally got close enough to stand up on his tiptoes and peer over the side. He frowned, his eyebrows creasing together, and blinked a few times, as if the empty space behind the bar confused him. After a few seconds, he surged forward, put one hand on the wood, and leaned over it, his head snapping left and right as he looked for me.

  He whipped back around to Brody. “She’s not back there!”

  Brody frowned. “What do you mean she’s not back there?”

  The giant flung his hand out. “I mean, she isn’t hiding behind the bar—”

  He never got the chance to finish his sentence.

  I clicked on the cigarette lighter, ignited the white cloth in the end of the bottle of gin that I was still holding, and tossed the whole thing down below right into the middle of the saloon.

  Whoosh!

  My makeshift Molotov cocktail exploded with a roar and a bright ball of orange-red flame.

  The giants yelled and scrambled out of the way, but I was already lighting the next bottle of gin and tossing it down on top of them. This time, my aim was better, and I hit the giant by the bar square in the chest. The bottle shattered on impact, splashing gin all over him, and the alcohol ignited instantly. The giant screamed and screamed, slapping at the flames that danced all over his body, searing his skin, but it was no use. He crashed into a table, which splintered under his weight, and did a nosedive onto the floor. All around him, the pieces of wood began to smoke as they too started to catch fire.

  Brody and the other two giants finally realized that I was on the balcony and raised their guns to fire at me. I lit my third and fourth Molotov cocktails and tossed them down in quick succession, this time aiming for two separate tables, each one with a bottle of liquor sitting in the center of it.

  Bull’s-eye.

  Both bottles landed exactly where I wanted them to, and that entire area exploded with flames, catching another of the giants by surprise. Once again, liquor splashed everywhere, and he too lit up like a Christmas tree. This giant did the smart thing and stopped, dropped, and rolled around on the floor, just like you were supposed to. But what he didn’t realize was that he was rolling around in the growing fire that was spreading around the first giant that I’d hit. So instead of putting out the flames, all the second man did was spread them around the rest of the saloon. Red-hot sparks and embers flew everywhere, and small fires sprang up among all the old, weathered wood.

  Through the smoke and flames, Brody and the fourth giant raised their guns again and finally started firing at me, but I took hold of the railing, swung my legs up and over it, and leaped off the balcony. On the way down, I grabbed hold of my Stone magic, turning my body into a hard, impenetrable—and heavy—shell.

  Crash!

  I did the perfect swan dive right on top of the two of them, sending all three of us crashing to the floor. Brody cursed and quickly scrambled up and back out of my reach, but the other man’s head snapped against the floor, stunning him, and I took advantage, palming a knife and cutting his throat. He died with a bloody gurgle.

  “You bitch!” Brody snarled.

  He raised his gun and started firing at me again, even as he backed toward the doors. I kept my grip on my Stone magic, and the bullets harmlessly ping-ping-pinged off my body and rattled into the walls, wrecking even more of the saloon. I tightened my grip on my knife, got to my feet, and started forward, but Brody decided not to stick around to meet the same fate as his buddies. He fired off a few more shots, then ran out the double doors.

  This time, I chased him.

  At least, I tried to.

  I headed for the saloon doors, but a blast of fire made me stop short. The saloon was more of a tinderbox than I’d thought, and the flames from my Molotov cocktails had already spread throughout the first floor. Thick black smoke boiled up into the air, making it hard to breathe, and the heat licked at my skin, eager to burn right through all my Stone magic. I had to get out of here, or the smoke and flames would quickly overcome me.

  Coughing all the while, I headed toward the saloon doors again, but another explosion ripped through that area, and the flames started burning there even brighter and hotter than before. Since I couldn’t get out through the double doors now, and the flames had already blocked the rear ones behind me, I went for the only other exit. I used my Stone magic to make my skin even harder and dove headfirst through the plate-glass window that lined the front of the saloon.

  Crash!

  I flew through the glass, which busted with a roar, and hit the wooden sidewalk outside. My momentum propelled me forward, and I rolled off the sidewalk, hit one of the water troughs, bounced off it, and ended up sprawled at an awkward angle in the dirt street. To add insult to injury, I hit the trough hard enough to rock the water inside, making a wave of it spill out over the top and cascade all over me, soaking me to the bone. In an instant, I was bitterly cold, despite the growing heat from the saloon fire. The shocking chill also made me lose my grip on my Stone magic. Sputtering, I staggered up and onto my feet, my knife still in my hand, swiping the wet, loose strands of hair back from my face. Brody was still out here, and I wouldn’t put it past him to double back and attack me if he thought that he finally had the advantage—

  The giant’s fist cracked into the side of my face.

  The blow sent me stumbling back, and I ended up sitting ass-down in the water trough, just like all the cowboys so comically had during the park’s high-noon show yesterday.

  “Fuck taking you alive,” Brody growled, raising his gun.

  Before he could pull the trigger, I whipped up my hand and sent a spray of Ice daggers shooting out at him. The giant growled and turned to the side, ducking most of the blast. For such a big guy, he was quick, much quicker than me, especially when I was so waterlogged.

  I tried to climb out of the trough so that I could stab him with my knife, but Brody finally wised up and quit trying to shoot me. He dropped his gun and surged forward, wrapping his hands around my throat. Given his bigger frame and far heavier weight, he easily shoved me back down into the trough, well under the water. My wrist banged against the side of the wood, and my knife slipped from my fingers and disappeared into the water. Without a weapon in my hand, all he had to do was hold me under long enough for me to pass out. Then he could either fish me out and take me to Tucker or drown me like he really wanted to.

  I was betting on that second option.

  I kicked and bucked and thrashed and heaved, but I was no match for Brody’s superior strength, and I was too far down in the water to fight back. The only part of him that I could even reach were his hands and arms, and I couldn’t do enough damage to any of those to kill him before he suffocated me.

  So I quit thrashing, since all that was doing was wasting precious air and energy, and thought about how I could escape from the giant. Or at least get out of the water long enough to take a breath.

  My Stone magic might save me from bullets, but it wouldn’t do me any good in this situation, so I focused on my Ice power. I’d used up most of it freezing the giants in the street earlier, but I still had the reserves stored in my spider rune ring and matching necklace. But just freezing the water in the trough wouldn’t do me any good, since I would still suffocate without any air, so I focused on the only other thing I could do with my Ice magic.

  Break the wood around me.

  No wood meant no trough and no cont
ainer to hold all the frigid water. So I dropped my hands from Brody’s, no longer trying to pry his fingers off my neck. Instead, I held my hands out wide so that I was touching both sides of the trough at once, my spider rune scars mashed up against the cold, slimy wood. Then I let loose with my Ice magic.

  Even with the magic stored in my ring and pendant, it was still hard, especially since more and more white, gray, and black spots began to swim in front of my eyes. But I focused and managed to blast the wood on either side of me. The second I thought that it was frozen enough, I sent out another blast of Ice magic, cracking away all those cold crystals.

  Come on, I thought. Break, damn you, break!

  But the wood was old, tough, and weathered, and it didn’t want to bend, much less break outright. But I kept blasting it with my Ice magic over and over, and I finally forced a few cracks into the boards. At least, I thought I did. I couldn’t see what I was doing since Brody was still holding me underwater, choking the life out of me. But I reached and clawed and scraped up all the Ice magic in my spider rune ring and pendant, blasting it outward through my hands, forcing it into the wood over and over—

  Whoosh!

  The wood finally broke apart, the trough split into pieces, and water gushed everywhere. I barely managed to suck down a breath before Brody slipped and fell down on top of me, driving the air right back out of my lungs again with his heavy weight.

  He came up sputtering, but he didn’t loosen his grip on my throat, not even for an instant. “You bitch!” he yelled. “Why won’t you just die already!”

  I didn’t bother wasting precious breath to answer him.

  My Ice magic was gone, and I couldn’t get to my knives, given the way that his body was pinning me in place. But I could reach one other weapon—the spare gun holstered to Brody’s belt.

  So I shoved my hand down in between us, trying to get to the gun, but Brody was wearing one of those oversize belt buckles that Roxy was so fond of, and it kept getting in the way of my cold, numb grasping fingers.