Snared

by Jennifer Estep

  Either that, or Jade and Ryan were already dead.

  I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, driving as fast as I dared on the curvy mountain roads. Still, it took me ten long minutes to reach the subdivision where Jade’s house was, and my phone stayed silent the whole time. I made the appropriate turn and cruised into the neighborhood.

  The first thing I noticed was the black SUV parked about fifty feet away from Jade’s house.

  The car itself wasn’t unusual, but it was sitting down at the curb, instead of pulled up in someone’s driveway. It was also parked the wrong way on the street, pointing out toward the subdivision exit, as though someone thought he might need to leave in a hurry and didn’t want to waste precious time turning the vehicle around.

  As much as I wanted to zoom up the driveway, leap out of my car, and bust into Jade’s house, I forced myself to drive at a normal speed, just in case anyone was watching the street from inside the house. Sure enough, one of the curtains twitched, as though someone had pushed it aside just enough to peer through the crack in the fabric. On my passenger’s seat, my phone was as quiet as before, although I could hear a faint hum through the car’s sound system, telling me that the line was still open.

  I reached the end of the street and made a right, as though I were going somewhere deeper in the subdivision. Really, all I wanted was to get out of sight of Jade’s house. Since it was the middle of the day, the neighborhood was empty, with most folks at work and school. I steered my car up a driveway and parked in front of the first home I came to.

  I picked up my phone, listening, but everything was as quiet as before. A fist of fear squeezed my heart tight. If there had been noise—yells, shouts, screams—I would have at least known that Jade and Ryan were still alive. The silence told me nothing.

  So I ended the call and dialed Bria. It went straight to her voice mail, so I hung up without leaving a message and called Silvio. He picked up on the second ring.

  “Calling so soon?” he asked in a dry, amused voice. “You just texted me fifteen minutes ago. I haven’t even had a chance to start looking into your lipstick question yet.”

  “Someone’s in Jade’s house.”

  “Who? How many are there? What do they want? Is it the Dollmaker?” His voice sharpened with every word.

  I glanced around, making sure that no one was in the surrounding houses and watching me, but the neighborhood was as deserted as before.

  “Gin?” Silvio asked. “How many people are there? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

  He protested, wanting me to wait for him to call the others and for everyone to arrive so that I would have some backup, instead of going into the house blind all by myself.

  “No,” I said. “Jade and Ryan don’t have that kind of time. Whoever broke into her house has already been in there for almost twenty minutes. That’s more than enough time to kill them or do whatever they came here to do. I’m surprised that they’re still here.”

  Silvio sighed, realizing that I was right. “Well, at least promise me that you’ll be careful. That you won’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  Despite the tense situation, I still smiled, even though he couldn’t see me. “There you go, trying to mother me again.”

  “Well, someone has to,” he snapped.

  “Thank you, Silvio.”

  “I’m on my way right now, and I’ll call the others en route,” he snapped again, although his voice was a bit less peevish than before. “Do me a favor. Don’t die before we get there.”

  “Why, I wouldn’t dream of it,” I drawled.

  • • •

  I hung up with Silvio, palmed a knife, and got out of my car. Given the watcher at the front windows of Jade’s house, I didn’t dare use the street, so I walked around the side of the home I’d parked in front of, crossed the yard full of plastic castles, swing sets, and other toys, and slipped into the woods. It only took me a few minutes to work my way through the trees and back over to Jade’s house.

  I hunkered down just inside the tree line, watching the windows and glass doors on the back of the house. At first, I didn’t see anything, but then a shadow moved into my line of sight, one that became clear as someone stopped in front of the doors, stepped up to the frame, and looked outside—a dwarf wearing a dark suit and clutching a cell phone.

  Ryan had speculated that the Dollmaker was exceptionally strong, and dwarves were certainly that. Could this be him? Could this actually be the killer?

  The longer I studied the dwarf, the more familiar his features seemed to me, especially his thin black mustache. I’d seen him before. I was sure of it. But where? When? I thought back, but I couldn’t put my finger on how or when our paths might have crossed. I held my position, watching the dwarf, but after several seconds, he moved away from the doors.

  But he wasn’t the only one in the house.

  Through the windows, I spotted at least two more dwarves, also dressed in dark suits, moving from one room to the next, opening cabinets, looking in drawers, even standing on chairs so that they could peer into the air vents high up on the walls. They were obviously searching for something. But what? And why would they think it was in Jade’s house?

  Eventually, the dwarves headed back toward the front of the house, disappearing from my line of sight. The second they were gone, I sprinted from the woods, all the way across the yard, and over to the back corner of Jade’s house. I pressed my body up against the brick and started counting off the seconds in my mind.

  One . . . two . . . three . . . five . . . fifteen . . .

  A minute passed, and no shouts of alarm, surprise, or warning rang out. The men hadn’t spotted me, so I slithered forward, ducking down around the windows, still keeping my body pressed up against the side of the house. Now that I was closer, I could hear faint muttering, along with several thumps, bumps, and other crashing noises, confirming my theory that the men inside Jade’s house were tearing her things apart.

  I made it to the glass patio doors that led into the kitchen. When I was here this morning, the doors had been intact, but now the glass was completely busted out of one of them. This must have been how the dwarves had stormed into the house. Ryan must have heard the noise and dialed me on his phone.

  I palmed a second knife and peered around the edge of the broken door, but no one was in the kitchen. In the front of the house, the crashes, clangs, and bangs grew louder and louder, as though the men were in a frenzy now, tearing through everything they could get their hands on, whether or not it was actually what they were searching for.

  Go right ahead, boys. Make as much noise as you want. It will drown out the soft sounds of this Spider creeping into the house.

  My knives still in my hands, I stepped through the busted door, moving slowly so as not to make my boots crunch any more than necessary on the broken glass. More noises came from the front of the house, but they dwindled and slowly faded away. I tiptoed through the kitchen, stepped into the hallway at the far end, and sidled along the wall until I could peer around the corner up ahead and out into the office beyond.

  Jade and Ryan were sitting side by side on a couch along one wall, their hands tied in front of them with thick, heavy ropes. Jade had an ugly bruise on her left cheek, as though someone had backhanded her, while Ryan had multiple cuts on his face and a nasty, ­painful-looking black eye. Blood had dripped down his face and spattered all over the front of his dark blue sweater, and his knuckles were also bloody, bruised, and swollen. He’d fought back against the intruders. Good for him, although he’d gotten a vicious beating in return.

  Battered though they were, the sight of them eased some of my own tense worry and dread. Jade and Ryan were still upright, still breathing, still alive, and I was going to make sure they stayed that way.

  I tiptoed forward a few more steps
so that I could see the other people in the office. There were four of them, all dwarves, all wearing dark suits. Your standard low-level muscle. But muscle for whom?

  The men were picking through the wreckage of the office, particularly the corner where the boxes of evidence had been stacked. They’d torn the lids off each and every one of the boxes and had strewn all the documents, photos, and files across the floor, creating a thick carpet of paper. They’d also smashed several of the desks, chairs, and phones, adding more splintered debris to the mess.

  One of the dwarves stepped in front of Jade and scowled at her. “Is this it?” he growled, sweeping his hand out over the mess. “Is this everything?”

  Jade glanced at Ryan, who shook his head, telling her not to answer. The lead dwarf noticed the exchange, drew back his fist, and punched Ryan in the face, making his head snap back against the couch.

  “That’s it, Ken,” the mustached dwarf said, pumping his own fist in the air. “Hit him again!”

  “Happy to, Henry,” the other dwarf drawled.

  Ken punched Ryan in the face again, making him groan.

  Ryan blinked and blinked, trying to shake off the hard blows. After a few seconds, he raised his head and glared at Ken. “Is that all you’ve got? My grandma hits harder than that.”

  “Wise guy, huh? I’ll be happy to beat that right out of you.” Ken grinned and drew his fist back again.

  “Okay! Okay!” Jade held up her bound hands and tried to shield Ryan with them. “Stop hurting him. I told you before. All the files are here in the office.”

  Shock jolted through me. Files? The dwarves were here for the murder files? That meant they had to be involved with the Dollmaker. I studied the four men, once again wondering if one of them might actually be the killer. As dwarves, they all had the strength necessary to beat and strangle someone to death, as Ken had already demonstrated all over Ryan’s face. Still, they all looked like regular guys, all around five feet tall, with no odd or distinguishing features, except for Henry with his pitiful mustache. None of them looked like a cold-blooded killer.

  Then again, I supposed I didn’t look much like one either.

  But the vibe just felt wrong. From what little I knew of them, serial killers liked to work alone. Besides, the Dollmaker had left precious little evidence behind, and nothing in the files pointed to his true identity. If he’d thought that Jade had any real clue as to who he was, then he would have come here himself, tortured her for the information, and killed her. He might have even painted her lips the same gruesome blood-red as all his other victims, since she was blond, just like all the other women.

  But these run-of-the-mill goons were here instead of the man himself. Why? Had the Dollmaker sent them? Did they know who he really was? Or did they work for someone else entirely? Someone who had some other interest in the killer?

  I shook my head, trying to clear away all the questions that circled around and around and ultimately went nowhere. I felt like I was trying to solve two separate jigsaw puzzles at once, only I didn’t have enough pieces of either one to get a clear picture of anything—not one little thing.

  But the intruders were one problem that was easily solvable. Even better, I could wing one of them and then squeeze that man for answers. Normally, I didn’t hold back and take prisoners when my friends were in danger, but I’d make an exception, just this once, for Elissa’s sake.

  “I don’t believe you,” Ken growled. “There have to be more copies of this information. So where are they? Where are the files? And who have you told about them?”

  Jade glared at him, her mouth a flat line in her face. “I’ll tell you exactly where the copies of these files are—at the police station. Where did you think that I got them from in the first place? You idiot.”

  He glowered at her, but Jade lifted her chin, daring him to hit her again. After several seconds, he shrugged.

  “I’m not worried about getting into the police station. We’ll go right over there.” Ken grinned. “As soon as we finish burning this place to the ground—with you and your boyfriend inside.”

  Jade gasped, and Ryan reached over and grabbed her bound hands with his own.

  “It’s going to be okay, Jade,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  Ken chuckled. “Sure, it will be. Just as soon as the two of you are extra crispy.”

  Their faces both paled, making him chuckle again. He turned to the other three men, who were kicking through the mess of papers on the floor. “One of you go into the kitchen and see if you can find some matches. I’ll go siphon some gas out of the car to get things started in here—”

  I didn’t let him finish his gruesome sentence. Instead, I sprinted down the hallway, stepped into the office, drew my arm back, and let my first knife fly.

  Ken saw me out of the corner of his eye and turned in my direction, but it was too late, and the blade hit exactly where I wanted it to, sinking into his left forearm. The wound was deep enough to make him howl with pain and stagger away from Jade and Ryan. The other three goons whipped around, eyes wide, shocked that someone else was in the house, but I was already moving forward.

  The second dwarf raised his fists and lashed out at me; I ducked his slow, clumsy blow, came up inside his defenses, and stabbed him in the heart. He screamed and batted at his own chest, trying to dislodge the blade. I yanked it out and sliced it all the way across his throat in one smooth motion, cutting off his cries. He was dead before he even hit the floor.

  I whirled around to face the third dwarf, Henry, the one with the mustache. He pivoted on his left foot and raised his right leg, trying to do some sort of fancy roundhouse kick to my face, like you would in a video game. I put my head down, charged forward, and rammed my shoulder into the side of his body, shoving him off balance. He staggered back, hitting one of the walls, and I followed him, slashing my knife all the way across his stomach.

  Blood and guts sprayed everywhere, spattering all over the papers and photos still on the floor. Henry screamed and screamed, clutching his stomach and trying to hold his insides, well, inside, where they were supposed to be—

  A pair of thick, strong arms closed around me from behind, and the fourth and final dwarf lifted me off my feet. Since my legs were already off the ground, I kicked out, driving my boots into Henry’s bloody guts and making him scream again, even as his legs buckled and he crumpled to the ground.

  I propelled myself backward as hard as I could, and the last dwarf couldn’t hold me up in the air and keep his balance at the same time. He stumbled back, his foot slipped on some of the debris, and we both hit the floor. Since he was still holding on to me, I landed right on top of him. The dwarf yelped in pain and surprise, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he tightened his grip, his hands like steel vises pinning my arms in place.

  “Ken!” he yelled, his voice booming in my ear. “Kill this bitch!”

  Ken, the first dwarf I’d attacked, yanked my knife out of his own forearm and headed toward us, murder glinting in his dark eyes.

  I didn’t have the strength to break the dwarf’s grip, so I decided to make him wish that he’d never grabbed hold of me. I raised my knife and rammed it down into his right thigh, twisting and twisting the blade through all of his thick, hard layers of muscles. He bellowed with pain, right in my ear, but he still didn’t let go.

  Since my knife wasn’t working as well as I wanted, I decided on an even more direct, painful approach. I reached for my Ice magic, slapped my other hand down on his crotch, and let loose with a sharp, cold burst of my power, right on his family jewels.

  That really made him scream.

  The dwarf’s hands finally fell away from my arms. I rolled off him, ripped my knife out of his thigh, and stabbed it right back down into his chest. He screamed again, but he was a bleeding, half-frozen mess, out of the fight, and already closer to dead than alive.

  Ou
t of the corner of my eye, I saw Ken, the last dwarf standing, raise his foot back so he could kick me in the head. I yanked my knife out of his buddy’s chest, lurched forward, and rolled out of the way of Ken’s smashing wing tip. His shiny shoe slammed into his buddy’s side hard enough to lift the other man off the floor, but the guy was already dead, so he didn’t make a sound as he flopped back down to the ground again.

  I got back up onto my feet, sizing up my last opponent, wondering how I could put him down without actually killing him. Unlike his buddies, Ken didn’t rush blindly at me. Instead, he raised his fists, protecting his face, and rocked back on his heels, waiting for me to make the first move.

  But Jade beat me to it.

  She threw herself down off the couch and scrambled over to the mustached dwarf whose guts I’d sliced open. She shoved aside his bloody suit jacket, plucked the gun out of the holster on his belt, whipped it up, and aimed it at Ken.

  “No!” I yelled. “Don’t!”

  Too late.

  Jade pulled the trigger three times, sending three bullets straight into the dwarf’s back. Ken yelled and arched back in shock. For a moment, I thought that he was going to fall right then and there, but he snarled, lunged forward, and lashed out with my knife, taking me by surprise and catching me across the stomach. I hissed at the sharp, stinging pain, whirled around, chopped the knife out of his hand, and shoved him away.

  This time, Ken did crumple to the floor, snarling and sputtering curses all the while, although his legs didn’t move along with the rest of his body. Jade’s aim had been true, and it looked like all three of the bullets had punched into his spine.

  “Why did you do that?” I yelled, dropping down beside Ken and rolling him over onto his back, hoping that he was still alive.

  “I was trying to help you!” Jade yelled back.