Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14)(95)

my shoulder. My eyes latched onto the one closest to me, and I quit hitting

Santos. Instead, I reached down with my right hand and grabbed the handle on

the end of the box. At least, I tried to, but the dust and sweat coating my

hand made my fingers slip off the handle. I growled with frustration, although

it sounded more like a whimper.

Santos must have thought that I was flailing around for no reason because he

laughed. “Not so tough now, are you, Blanco? I’m going to enjoy squeezing

the life out of you for all the trouble you’ve caused me.”

I ignored his taunts and his hands tightening around my neck. My whole world

had shrunk to hooking my fingers through that handle and sliding the box free

from the wall. My fingers slipped, and slipped again, but I kept trying.

Santos shook me again, moving my arm just enough for me to wrap my fingers

around the handle and tug the box free from the wall. Whatever was inside was

heavy—heavy enough to yank my arm down—and I almost lost my grip on the

whole thing. Even though my strained muscles were screaming at me to let go, I

gritted my teeth and used the downward momentum to swing the box right back up

and smash it into Santos’s face.

The box cracked against his left cheekbone hard enough to leave a dent in the

metal. The sharp blow stunned him, making him loose his grip on my throat and

stagger back. I fell to the floor, coughing and wheezing, but I hung on to the

box, surged back onto my feet, and slammed it into his face again, this time

catching him in his already broken nose. At this impact, the box popped open,

spilling black velvet bags everywhere. Loose diamonds came tumbling out of the

bags, sparkling like ice chips embedded in the rubble.

Santos growled and clapped his hands to his nose. I wrapped my hand around the

handle and swung my entire body around, driving the box into his head as hard

as I could. I managed to get the angle just right, and one of the metal

corners stuck in the sweet spot at his temple, cracking his skull open like an

egg. Blood sprayed everywhere, and this time, Santos was the one who

whimpered. His shoulders slumped, his knees buckled, and he crumpled to the

floor, his body sprawling at an awkward angle on top of the shattered stones.

I stood there, sucking down dusty air, and watched him bleed out on top of all

those diamonds. Then I tossed the safety-deposit box aside, staggered over to

the wall, and followed it over to the vault entrance.

The dust had finally started to dissipate, letting me see that Finn was gone,

cut ropes hanging over the chair that he’d been tied down to. I squinted, but

I didn’t see him or the others. Santos must have hit me harder than I’d

thought. I blinked and peered down the hallway again—

A blast of cold hit me from behind.

I screamed as the wave of magic slammed into my back, catapulting me right out

of the vault. I hit Finn’s chair and bounced off, face-planting onto the

marble floor of the hallway. In an instant, my body burned with cold, my back

turning stiff and brittle, just like the crystals that were spreading across

my skin, trying to freeze the rest of me. I immediately pushed back with my

own magic, stopping the crystals in their tracks, but the damage had already

been done, and most of my back was frozen solid. I felt like an ice cube that

had somehow grown arms and legs, but I groaned, grabbed hold of the chair, and

pulled myself back up onto my feet.

Deirdre stood in front of me.

I’d been so concerned with keeping Santos from choking me to death that I’d

lost track of her. She too was covered with marble dust, and blood dripped

down her face, neck, and arms from where the stone shrapnel had shredded her

coveralls and cut into her skin. Deirdre was wounded, but she was by no means

dead. Her pale eyes glittered in her face, and the cold blue-white flames of

her Ice magic shot out of her clenched fists like frosty fireworks exploding

over and over again.

“You meddlesome bitch!” she hissed.

Deirdre shoved her hands forward, shooting out a spray of long, jagged Ice

daggers at me, any one of which would be enough to end me if it hit in just

the right spot. I covered my head and face with my good arm and ducked back

behind the chair, using it as a shield.

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk.

The chair took the brunt of Deirdre’s assault, the wood splintering apart as

the Ice daggers speared it, but one of the cold, sharp projectiles punched

into my thigh. I screamed and staggered back, but my knee buckled, and I

sprawled in a heap on the floor. Still, I kept going, clawing at the floor

with my one good hand, trying to pull myself over the slick marble and away

from her.

Too late.

Deirdre marched down the hallway and kicked me in the ribs, forcing me to roll

over onto my back and look up at her.

“Well, now I realize why the others were all so worried about you.” A sneer

twisted her lips. “At least killing you will earn me some favor with them.”