I groaned and slowly rolled off him, flopping down onto a small patch of snowy mud. Rocks sliced into my side and back, drawing blood and making me hiss, but I welcomed the pain. It told me that I was still alive.
For another minute, I lay there, surfing the waves of pain until they died down to a more manageable level. Then, just as slowly, I pushed myself up onto my elbow. It took me another minute to get my breath back enough to sit up the rest of the way and another minute still before I was able to glance over at the dwarf, even though he was right next to me.
Porter looked like he had broken every single bone in his body. His arms and legs were stuck out at impossible angles from the rest of his torso, and hard lumps jutted up against his skin from where the shattered bones had been forced so far out of place. His spine must have been crushed too, because it didn’t seem he could move a single muscle, not even his head to look over at me.
But believe it or not, he was still alive.
His eyes were still open and blinking, so I leaned over where he could see me. Slowly, his blue gaze focused on my gray one. He coughed again, more blood bubbling up out of his mouth, although the rest of his body didn’t actually move with it.
“You know what, Porter? You actually got one thing right,” I said, my words slurring a bit from the concussion.
“What’s . . . that?” he rasped.
I leaned down so that my face filled his entire vision. “Blondes really do have more fun.”
A low rasping sound rippled out of his throat. It almost sounded like a laugh of agreement. Then he coughed again, and a familiar glassy sheen covered his eyes.
I sat there and watched Bruce Porter, the Dollmaker, die.
• • •
Despite the fact that I was more or less in one piece, I didn’t have the strength or energy left to try to get to my feet, much less find a way out of here. So I rifled through Porter’s pockets, hoping that he had his phone on him and that it had somehow survived the fall. My fingers wrapped around a hard plastic case, and my heart rose. I pulled it out of his pants pocket and held it up where I could see it. The screen was cracked in three places, but the phone turned on.
It took me several tries, and I cut my fingers on the broken glass, but I finally managed to punch a number into the phone. And when it actually started ringing? I’ll admit it. A couple of tears slid down my face that had nothing to do with my concussion or cracked ribs.
“Gin?” Owen answered on the first ring, his voice sharp with worry. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
I told him where I was—or at least where I thought I was—on the Rivera estate. After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
Owen stayed on the phone with me the whole time, talking to me, telling me that he and the others were on their way and that everything would be all right. But the phone was on its last legs, and his staticky voice cut in and out, so I gave up trying to talk back to him. Plus, my brain felt like it was stuffed full of wet cotton, and everything seemed far away.
Eventually, I was too tired to even sit upright anymore, so I lay down on my back in the cold mud and rocks with the phone wedged up against my ear, listening to the crackle-crackle of static. If nothing else, maybe the phone would stay on long enough for Finn and Silvio to track it back to me.
For the longest while, I drifted in and out of consciousness. Concussion and cracked ribs aside, it wasn’t so bad, really. Porter might be a bloody, broken mess, but his body was warm enough next to mine to keep me from freezing to death before Owen and the others found me. Plus, it was quiet here, and the only sound was the steady rush of the river a few feet away. I didn’t even mind the cold sting of the snowflakes hitting my cheeks one after another.
I didn’t know how much time passed, if I slept or just passed out, but eventually, I found myself staring up at the night sky. The storm clouds were still up there, but the snow had tapered off to light flurries.
That was the only reason I could see the man standing over me.
He was bundled up and dressed all in black, from his toboggan to the scarf wrapped around his face to his long coat and boots. A small black bag dangled from his right hand, reminding me of a doctor’s satchel. Something about how he was dressed seemed familiar, although my head was hurting too much for me to figure out what it was right now.
“Owen?” I rasped, thinking that he’d finally arrived.
But the man didn’t answer me. Cold unease trickled down my spine. Owen would have already been holding me tight, telling me that everything was going to be okay, but this man kept his silence and his distance. I didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but if he thought that I was an easy target just because I’d jumped off a cliff, well, I’d show him just how wrong he was.
The man kept staring down at me, and I crawled my hand through the cold mud, searching for a loose rock or a broken piece of driftwood that I could use as a weapon.
The man bent down. For a second, I thought that he was going to lean down right next to me, but he maintained his distance. A familiar clank-clank sounded, like metal scraping against metal. Then he straightened up and stared down at me again.
I blinked, and suddenly, the man was gone. I rolled my head from side to side, peering into the snowy dark, but I didn’t see him anywhere. I would have thought him a figment of my imagination except for one thing: the black satchel now sitting on the ground next to me.
I still didn’t have the strength to sit up, but I wormed around in the mud until I could reach out, grab the satchel, and drag it over to my side. My fingers were so cold and stiff that it took me a couple of tries to unhook the clasp. But I finally managed it, reached down, rooted around in the bag, and came up with . . .
A knife.
I squinted at the weapon in my hand. It blurred in and out of focus, but I knew that shape, that length, that weight. More important, I could feel the symbol stamped into the hilt pressing into my palm: a small circle surrounded by eight thin rays.
Not just any knife—my knife.
I used the tip of the knife to jiggle the satchel. Sure enough, more clank-clanks rang out, telling me that more knives were in the bag, probably the other four that I’d been carrying when I was captured. I wondered what Rivera and Porter had done with my knives and especially why the man in black would bring them to me. I didn’t know, and right now, I didn’t care.
I dragged the satchel even closer and hooked my arm through the loops, so that I wouldn’t lose it and no one could take it away from me. Then, my knife in my hand, I closed my eyes and drifted off again . . .
“Gin!” a voice shouted. “Gin!”
My eyes snapped open. Once again, a man dressed in black was standing over me. But this man dropped to his knees in the mud right beside me, and Owen’s face came into focus right above mine, his violet eyes filled with worry.
“Hey,” I rasped. “There’s no need to shout. My hearing is just about the only part of me that’s working properly right now.”
He laughed at my black humor, then leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my cold lips. He pulled back, and I realized that my friends were gathered around me in a tight circle—Owen, Bria, Finn, Silvio, and Jo-Jo. They were all staring down at me, horrified expressions on their faces, their gazes fixed on the makeup smeared all over my face and especially my unnatural blond hair.
“Where’s Jade?” I asked. “And Elissa?”
Jo-Jo dropped down beside me. “They’re at the salon, along with Sophia and Dr. Colson. Now, we need to take you there too, darling. I’m going to heal you up enough so that we can move you.” She took my hand, sympathy filling her eyes. “I won’t lie, Gin. This is going to hurt.”
I grinned up at her. “Do your worst. After the night I’ve had, it will feel like a picnic.”
She smiled back at me, then gently pried my knife out of my cold,
stiff fingers. She handed it over to Finn. He eyed the satchel, obviously wondering where it had come from, but he slipped it off my arm and put the knife in the bag with all the others.
“All right, then. Here we go, darling,” Jo-Jo said.
She smiled at me again, and then her eyes began to glow a milky-white, and her Air magic gusted over me.
The sharp, pricking pins and needles of Jo-Jo’s Air magic flooded my body, filling in the cracks in my ribs, soothing out all my many bumps, cuts, and bruises, even easing the pounding pressure and cottony, disconnected feeling in my head. She was right. Getting everything healed hurt just as much as hitting the ground had, and I had to grind my teeth to keep from screaming. Owen held my hand through the whole thing. He didn’t wince, not even once, despite the intense pressure I was putting on his fingers.
Finally, about ten minutes later, Jo-Jo’s eyes cleared, and the uncomfortable sensation of her Air magic vanished. I lay in the mud another minute, just getting my breath back. Then I held my hand out, and Owen helped me sit up and eventually stand on my own two feet. But I wobbled so badly that he scooped me up into his arms. Still, I felt much better than before, and I could actually focus again.
I looked down at Bruce Porter—or what was left of him. The dwarf was in the same position as before, his body broken from the fall and his sightless eyes staring up into the night sky. But what made my stomach twist was his mouth. He’d coughed up so much blood that his mouth was a dark red stain against the rest of his face, almost as if he’d painted his own lips with Heartbreaker lipstick.
I shivered, and Owen pulled me a little closer.
“What do you want to do about Porter?” Silvio asked.
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Leave him. Out here in the open, just like he left all those poor girls. The bastard doesn’t deserve a proper burial.”
And that’s exactly what we did. One by one, we looked at the Dollmaker a final time, then turned and left him behind, as bloody, broken, and dead as his victims.
28
I didn’t remember everything that happened after that. Just bits and pieces. Owen carrying me along the riverbank. Jo-Jo keeping a close eye on me, making sure that I was healed well enough to keep going. Bria, Finn, and Silvio asking me questions. Me babbling and babbling, trying to tell them what had happened. I didn’t know if they understood everything I said, but I thought they got the gist of what had gone down with Tucker, Rivera, and Porter.
“Rivera,” I said at one point. “We need to go back to the mansion. We need to get Rivera before he gets away . . .”
“Don’t worry about Rivera,” Bria said in a grim voice. “I’m working on a warrant to arrest that son of a bitch, and Xavier is watching the mansion. Rivera’s not going anywhere.”
“But we have to get him now . . .”
“No, darling,” Jo-Jo said in a firm voice. “We have to get you out of here. Rivera can wait.”
I’d never been able to argue with Jo-Jo, and I was still a little out of it, so I fell silent. But my mind churned, plotting the best way to go after Rivera as soon as possible.
Eventually, the high, jagged cliffs dwindled down to a small hill, and we were able to climb back up into the woods and leave the Rivera estate far, far behind. Owen tucked me into his car, and the next thing I knew, Bria was helping me get into the shower, and I was crawling into bed in one of the guest rooms at Jo-Jo’s house. I fell asleep almost immediately, and for once, no nightmares disturbed me.
Sometime late the next morning, sounds started intruding on my peaceful slumber. Namely, the bedroom door opening and someone tiptoeing inside, trying to be quiet, although he stepped on a creaky floorboard, totally ruining the surprise. I rolled over onto my side and opened my eyes to see Owen standing by the foot of the bed, holding a tray full of food.
“Hey,” I said, my voice still thick with sleep.
“Hey, yourself. It’s almost noon, but I thought you might want some breakfast.”
I thought of the meal that Bruce Porter had laid out on his kitchen table last night. “Just as long as it’s not lemon-pepper chicken.”
Owen frowned, not understanding what I was talking about. But I didn’t want to ruin the lighthearted mood, so I decided not to fill him in on that particular detail. Not yet anyway. I propped some pillows behind my back so that I could sit up.
Owen bowed low, then set the tray down on my lap and gave an elaborate flourish with his hand. “And breakfast is served, Madame.”
“You’ve been hanging around Finn too long.”
He grinned. “Maybe, but it seemed like the appropriate thing to do.”
“Just don’t go around talking about yourself in the third person. Or with an English accent.”
“I’ll try to refrain from that.” He paused and added a suave note to his voice, doing his best impression of Finn. “Although it will be hard, considering how absolutely, incredibly, adorably awesome I am.”
“You are adorably awesome, especially when you’re bringing me food,” I teased.
Owen winked and saluted me with his hand. “Happy to oblige, ma’am.”
He settled himself on the bed next to me, and the two of us dug into the breakfast that he’d prepared. Blueberry pancakes, applewood-smoked bacon, and a light, refreshing fruit salad made with strawberries, white grapes, kiwi slices, lime juice, and a drizzle of sourwood honey for extra sweetness.
Finally, we finished our meal, and Owen addressed the elephant in the room.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, his gaze flicking to my still-blond hair.
“Not really, but I guess I should.”
Owen removed the tray from the bed, sat back down next to me, and put his arm around my shoulders. I told him everything that had happened last night, much more coherently than I had done before, from waking up in Porter’s cottage, to using my Stone magic to escape, to throwing myself and the dwarf off the side of the cliffs.
“But what about your knives?” Owen asked. “How did you get them back? And why were they in that black satchel?”
“I’m not sure. That part is still a little fuzzy.”
I wasn’t lying. It was still a little fuzzy, although I thought that I knew exactly who the man in black was. But I had no way of confirming my suspicions at the moment, so I kept my theory to myself.
Owen looked at me, concern filling his face. “Are you sure that you’re okay, Gin? Last night, everything that Porter said and did, that had to be horrible, even for you.”
“Okay?” I shrugged. “I don’t know about that. But I’m as well as can be expected. I’m just glad that we were able to save Elissa.”
“She owes you her life,” Owen said.
I winked at him. “And I owe you mine.”
“Nah,” he said, winking back at me. “You saved yourself, just like you always do.”
I leaned over and put my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “Maybe. But it’s still nice to know how much you care.”
Owen wrapped his arms around me, pulled me even closer, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll always be here for you,” he said in a hoarse, ragged voice. “When you were missing, when we couldn’t find you . . . my heart was just . . . gone.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “I know.”
And we stayed like that, holding each other close, for a long, long time.
• • •
It took some doing, but I finally managed to convince Owen that I was fine and that he should go into work. He reluctantly agreed but made me promise to call him if anything happened. But nothing was going to happen. At least, not until I figured out the best way to get close to Damian Rivera. No doubt he’d doubled or even tripled his security by now, but a few extra guards weren’t going to stop me from finally asking him all my many questions about the Circle.
Owen left, and I took a long, hot shower to ease some of the lingering aches and pains in my muscles. Then I put on fresh clothes and headed downstairs.
Since it was Friday, I expected the salon to be full of customers, but only four people were in the room: Jo-Jo and Sophia, along with Jade and Elissa.
Elissa perched on one of the cherry-red salon chairs. A hot-pink cape was draped over her body, and her long blond hair was lying wet, flat, and straight against her head. Jade sat in the chair next to her sister, while Jo-Jo stood at the counter, sorting through some scissors, looking for just the right pair. Sophia relaxed on the floor next to Rosco’s basket, stroking the basset hound’s long, floppy ears while he grunted with pleasure.
At first glance, everything seemed normal. But Elissa’s face was pale and strained, and Jade glanced over at her sister every few seconds, as if making sure that she was really here and that she hadn’t vanished again. Jo-Jo was right. Damian Rivera could wait. At least for another hour or two. Making sure that Elissa was okay was the most important thing right now.
“What’s going on in here?” I drawled, leaning against the doorframe.
All four of them looked at me, and Rosco let out a loud woof! of greeting. He was the only one who didn’t do a double take at my dyed hair.
Jade cleared her throat and gestured at her sister. “We crashed here last night. We just got up a little while ago and had some breakfast. Since we were already here, Elissa wanted to get her hair done before we go back home. Jo-Jo was nice enough to close the salon down for the rest of the day just for us.”
Jo-Jo smiled at the two of them. “It’s no problem at all, darling. I’m happy to help in any way that I can.” She finally picked out a pair of scissors, along with a wide-toothed comb, and went over to stand beside Elissa. “All you have to do is tell me what you want, and I’ll work my magic.”
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