Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(70)

“Who are you?” Elissa’s lips moved, forming the words, but her voice was so weak and low that I couldn’t hear it over the blaring alarm.

“I’m a friend of Jade’s!” I shouted, trying to get her to understand that I was here to rescue her.

Elissa’s eyes widened. “Jade!”

I nodded, stepped forward, and palmed a knife, quickly cutting through her bonds. Then I slid my knife back up my sleeve and helped her stand. Elissa wobbled, her body stiff from sitting in the same position for so long, but she gripped my arm and let me lead her over to the ladder.

“Go!” I yelled, although I wasn’t sure that she heard me over the alarm. “Go! Go! Go!”

With shaking hands and legs, Elissa climbed the ladder. I hung on to the side and helped her. It seemed to take forever, but she finally crawled through the opening at the top about ten seconds later. I scrambled up after her, as nimbly as a spider climbing its own web, and pulled her up and onto her feet. Elissa wobbled again, a result of the towering high heels she was wearing, but she staggered across the cottage and out through the open front door.

Owen was waiting outside, his gun up and ready to fire. “They see us!” he yelled. “The guards see us, and they’re heading this way!”

Sure enough, several dwarven guards armed with guns were up at the mansion, frantically running around the pool area and searching for who or what had triggered the alarm. Owen was right. A couple of them had spotted us and were yelling at their friends and pointing in this direction. The men began racing down the lawn toward us.

Owen stepped up and fired off several shots. Even though he was too far away to hit them, the gunfire still made the men stop and hunker down behind the bushes and trees for cover. But I knew that it wouldn’t be long before they charged at us again.

“Don’t let them take me back down there!” Elissa sobbed, tears running down her face and ruining her perfect makeup.

I looked her in the eyes. “The only place you’re going is back home to your sister. Now, do what Owen tells you, and everything will be fine. Do you understand?”

Elissa glanced from me to Owen and back again. She nodded, her head snapping up and down, ready to do anything to escape from this nightmare.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the guards getting to their feet and creeping in this direction again. Owen noticed them too, and he fired off a few more shots. The men scattered again, but this time, they started darting from bush to bush and tree to tree, hopscotching down the lawn until they could get close enough to open fire on us. Time to go.

I handed Elissa over to Owen, then raised my hand to my ear, trying to hear over that damn alarm, which was still ringing as loudly as ever. I’d be surprised if they couldn’t hear it all the way over in Cypress Mountain.

“Finn?” I said. “Finn? Are you still there?”

His voice crackled in my ear. “Of course I’m still here! What’s going on?”

“We found Elissa, but the guards are heading toward us. I need you and Bria to come back to the woods to help Owen.”

“On our way,” Finn replied.

I looked over at Owen. “Go. Get her out of here. Now.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, worry flashing in his eyes.

I whipped up my knife. “I’m going to take out as many of the guards as I can. Don’t worry. I’ll hold them off until you guys have a good head start, and then I’ll be right behind you. Now, go. Go!”

He didn’t like leaving me behind, but he knew that I could take care of myself and that getting Elissa to safety was the most important thing. Owen gave me a sharp nod, then grabbed Elissa’s hand and pulled her away from the cottage toward the woods. She stumbled along behind him, moving as fast as she could.

The second that they disappeared into the woods, I turned back to the guards. With Owen and the threat of his gun gone, they left the trees and bushes behind and ran straight toward me. I palmed a second knife, so that I had one in either hand, and charged up the lawn to meet them.

? ? ?

Normally, people run away from goons with guns, so my unexpected sprint toward the dwarves made a couple of the men pull up short, raise their weapons, and take aim at me. But I didn’t slow down, not even for an instant. Instead, I reached for my Stone magic and hardened my skin, turning it into an impenetrable shell—and not a second too soon.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Bullets kicked up the dirt and grass at my feet and zinged through the air all around me. A couple even hit my body, but they bounced off my Stone-hardened skin and rattled away.

And then the men were on me, and I was on them.

I sliced my knife across the chest of the first guard who came at me, making him scream and stagger away. His buddies snapped up their guns and started firing at me again, but I kept my grip on my Stone magic, ignored the hard continued blasts of bullets against my skin, and waded right into the center of them.

My knives sliced every which way, the silverstone blades gleaming in the late-afternoon sun, and I cut into every single man I could reach. Blood spattered through the air like sheets of rain, the stench of it mixing with the acrid scent of gunpowder.

The guards quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be felled by mere bullets, and they whirled around and ran away, trying to get back to the mansion so that they could regroup.