Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(69)

“Well, I can hear it all the way out here on the street!” he yelled again. “Which means that the guards can hear it too!”

“Stay here,” I told Owen. “I’ll go inside and search for Elissa.”

He nodded and raised his gun, his gaze locked on the mansion in the distance, where the interior and exterior lights were also flashing in time to the cottage’s alarm system. He would watch my back and hold off the guards as long as he could, but I needed to do my part fast. So I put my shoulder down, rammed the door open, and hurried inside.

The front part of the cottage was one enormous open space that was a den, kitchen, and dining area all in one. I’d already seen all of this through the windows, so I moved over to a door that led into a bedroom and shoved it open. Elissa wasn’t in this room either, so I wrenched open the closet door. That too was empty, so I headed into the attached bathroom. Still no sign of her, so I went back out into the main part of the cottage, looking around again.

Now that I was actually inside the structure, the stones’ shrieks were harsher and louder than ever before, ringing in my ears right along with the alarm. This was definitely the place where Rivera held his victims for days on end before he beat and strangled them to death. But where was Elissa? If she was yelling at me to help her, I couldn’t hear her over the alarm’s constant blaring.

So I moved through the cottage again, searching everywhere, and counting off the seconds in my head. Owen and I probably had about five minutes before the guards would arrive in full force, and I needed to find Elissa and get her out of here before then.

I had started to go back into the bedroom to search in there again, even though I’d already cleared that area, when I noticed a crack in the stone floor, one that was peeping out from underneath the corner of a rug that I’d pushed aside with my boots when I first stormed in here. I glanced at the surrounding stones, but the crack didn’t match the rest of the floor pattern.

So I slid my knife back up my sleeve, dropped to the floor, and ripped the rug aside. A secret trapdoor was set into the floor, complete with a large metal ring to open it. I grabbed the ring with both hands and pulled on it with all my might, but the thick door was far too heavy for me to open.

Since I didn’t have the strength to pull up the trapdoor, I decided to go right down through it. I dropped back to my knees, slapped my palms on the floor, and blasted it with my Ice and Stone magic, just like I had done to the front door.

The floor was much harder and thicker than the wooden door had been, but I was motivated, and I forced my Ice magic down into the trapdoor, used my Stone power to crack it away, hooked my fingers into the jagged chunks of rocks, and tossed them aside as fast as I could. The sharp, splintered rocks cut into my hands, but I ignored the painful stings and focused all my magic on the floor.

Ice, Stone, blast, blast, grab, lift, throw away . . .

I repeated the motions over and over again until I’d blasted the entire trapdoor out of the way. I waved away a cloud of gray dust, leaned over, and peered down through the jagged hole that I’d made in the floor.

A glimmer of gold glinted in the dark space below.

For a moment, the odd, horrible thought filled my mind that I’d only discovered Rivera’s stash of lipstick. But the dust cleared, and I realized that the golden glimmer was actually a strand of long blond hair.

I’d finally found Elissa.





23


I sat down, scooted over, and dropped through the hole in the floor. My boots hit hard-packed dirt, and I straightened up and glanced around.

The area was only about six feet high and twelve feet wide, making it bigger than a crawl space but not quite large enough to be a bona fide basement. A wooden ladder that I hadn’t noticed before led up to what had been the trapdoor. Shelves lined the walls, but I didn’t take the time to see what was perched on them. Dust hung in thick clouds in the air, the particles slowly drifting down and turning everything a dull, murky gray.

Elissa was sitting just to the right of the trapdoor ladder, tied to a chair, with heavy ropes binding her wrists and ankles. She wore a fancy red cocktail dress, along with matching stilettos, and someone had taken the time to curl her long blond hair into sleek waves that cascaded over her shoulders. She looked beautiful, and if not for the ropes, I would have thought that she was a model, patiently sitting and waiting to be called to some photo shoot.

Her head was bowed, her blond hair hiding her face from sight, and her entire body was still—much too still. My heart stopped, and my breath caught in my throat. I wondered if I was already too late, wondered if she was already dead, beaten and strangled by Damian Rivera like all those other women.

After several long, agonizing seconds, Elissa slowly lifted her head, shook her hair out of the way, and peered up at me, squinting against the harsh glare of the still-flashing lights in the cottage above. My heart started beating again, and my breath left my lungs in a rush. Alive. She was still alive.

But my relief was short-lived.

Elissa’s face had been carefully, expertly made up with foundation, powder, eyeliner, and shadow, highlighting her green eyes and beautiful cheekbones. But the thing that made my blood run cold was her lipstick—-Heartbreaker red, just like all the other women.

No cuts or bruises marked her skin, and no fingerprints ringed her throat. But that ugly stain on her mouth told me I’d gotten here just in time.