Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(60)

I shifted on my feet and winced as another hidden rock poked into my heel. Stupid rocks. Stupid tree roots. Stupid everything. A harsh, bitter wail rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. Crying certainly wasn’t going to help anything. All it would do was tell the Fire elemental and her men exactly where I was. Not to mention Hugh, that creepy vampire. I couldn’t let any of them find me.

So I bit my lip and considered my options. I could keep walking through the woods and wind up who knew where. It wouldn’t be daylight for hours, and I could get so turned around in here that I’d never find my way out again, especially since I didn’t have any food, water, or other supplies. Or I could walk back toward the flames, the mansion, and orient myself.

It was a big risk to take, especially since I didn’t know where the Fire elemental, her men, and that vampire were. I hadn’t seen any flashlights bobbing up and down in the woods, so maybe they were searching in a different area. Maybe they’d already passed me by. Maybe they’d already given up and left. Either way, my best chance to get away from them was to go back to the house. If I was lucky, I could slip down to the road and follow it . . . somewhere, anywhere but here.

So I turned around and trudged back toward the mansion, using the flames as a homing beacon to light my way. I’d been so panicked that I hadn’t gone nearly as far as I’d thought, and I quickly made it back to the edge of the woods. I slid behind a tree, looking out at the mansion, but I didn’t see anyone moving through the backyard or wandering around this side of the crumbled structure. My heart lifted. Maybe I could make it down to the road after all—

A hand clamped on my shoulder and spun me around.

A giant grinned at me, his crooked teeth gleaming in the ambient glow cast from the flashlight in his other hand. “Hello, little girl. I know someone who wants to talk to you.”

Panic flooded my body, and fresh waves of pain exploded in my burned hands at the thought of facing the Fire elemental and her cruel magic again. I didn’t think. I just reacted. I lashed out and kicked the giant in the knee as hard as I could.

I didn’t do any real damage, since I wasn’t wearing shoes, but the blow surprised him and made him lose his grip on my shoulder. I ducked under his arm and darted away.

“Hey!” he hissed. “Come back here!”

I expected him to start yelling that he’d found me, but the woods remained quiet, except for the continued spitting, hissing, and crackling of the mansion fire. The giant must have thought that he could chase me down himself.

He wasn’t wrong about that.

I wove in and out of the trees, trying to disappear into the shadows, but something sliced into my bare feet with every single step, and I was limping along more than I was actually running. My heart pounded, sweat streamed down my face, and a stitch throbbed in my side, growing more painful by the second. Finally, that pain forced me to stop and catch my breath. I crouched down behind a large bush with snarled branches, squinting into the shadows, expecting the giant to come crashing through the woods at any second.

Think, Gin, think! I chided myself. The giant was much bigger and stronger than I was, and he probably had a gun too. I couldn’t outrun him, so how could I possibly escape?

Not just escape. A sick realization filled the pit of my stomach. I needed to keep him quiet about seeing me too. I needed to silence him.

I needed to kill him.

I couldn’t let the giant go back and tell the Fire elemental that I was still alive. That would ruin whatever small chance I had of escaping, of surviving. But how could I defeat him? What could I possibly do against someone who was so much bigger, tougher, and stronger than I was?

I forced myself to take in slow, deep breaths, trying to calm my racing heart and come up with a plan. Then I looked around again, trying to figure out where I was.

I’d learned my lesson before and had stuck close to the tree line this time instead of plunging deeper into the woods, but there was nothing that would help me. I couldn’t even go much farther in this direction, since there was a canyon up ahead, one with sharp rocks on either side and all along the bottom. Far too many rocks for me to climb down, much less over and up again in the dark, without cutting myself to pieces. And that was if I didn’t slip, fall, and break my neck outright.

I loved to tromp around in the woods, pretending that I was a great warrior on a grand adventure and an epic quest to save my kingdom. Mom had indulged me, letting me come out here whenever I wanted, but she’d always warned me not to go near the canyon. My heart squeezed at the thought of my mom, at the fresh, horrible memory of her charred, ashy body, but I forced the images away and thought. And a simple conclusion came to me.

If the canyon rocks could break my bones, maybe they could break the giant’s too.

“Hey!” A voice sounded behind me. “You there!”

A bright beam of light slashed across my face, blinding me, so I threw my hand up and squinted against the glare. The giant had his flashlight pointed directly at me. My heart sank. No way he didn’t see me. I was out of time, so I did the only thing I could.

I lurched to my feet and ran for the canyon, hoping that my desperate plan would somehow work . . .

“Gin? Gin, darling, wake up.” A soft, soothing voice penetrated my nightmarish memory.

The phantom feeling of rocks cutting into my feet slowly faded away, and my eyes fluttered open. Jo-Jo was leaning over me, the milky-white glow of her Air magic wisping like hazy clouds through her eyes, while the afternoon sun made her white-blond curls shimmer like pure spun gold. It reminded me of the lipstick tube.