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"What about me?" Bria asked. "What do you want me to do?"
I looked at her. "You're going to call your boss in the morning and tell him that you've had a family emergency and are going out of town. "
Bria's eyes narrowed. "You want me to leave Ashland? Because of a few bounty hunters?"
I shook my head. "It's more than a few bounty hunters, Bria. Six guys jumped you tonight, and Mab had a whole dining room full of them at her house. There's got to be at least three or four dozen of them in Ashland by now, all eager to get their hands on you. Leaving town is exactly what they'll expect you to do, which is why you're not going anywhere. "
Bria looked at me. "You want me to go into hiding then, don't you?"
I nodded. "I do. I want you in Ashland, close by, somewhere I know that you'll be safe. Someplace that's easy to defend and hard to get into. Someplace where I know every single nook and cranny, so there are no surprises. "
"There's only one place that I know of that fits that bill," Finn said.
"Do you mind?" I asked in a quiet voice, staring at my foster brother. "Because, really, it's your house too. "
Finn just shrugged. "He left the house to you, Gin. He knew that you'd need it for something like this someday. We both know that. "
Bria looked back and forth between us. "What are you talking about? Where is this place?"
I stared at her. "We're talking about Fletcher's house. Baby sister, you're coming home with me tonight. "
Chapter 13
Bria argued with me, insisting that she could take care of herself. But I didn't budge, telling her that she was going to hole up in Fletcher's house even if I had to duct-tape her into submission and keep her that way. Still, Bria acquiesced only after I pulled a roll of the gray tape out of one of the kitchen drawers and starting slicing off strips of it with a silverstone kn
ife.
Deep down, Bria knew that staying out of sight was the smartest thing to do-for everyone. But that didn't mean she liked it. Grumbling under her breath about overprotective big sisters, Bria stalked off into the bathroom to try to wash some of the blood out of her clothes.
That left Jo-Jo, Finn, and me alone in the kitchen. When I was sure that Bria was out of earshot, I turned to Finn.
"You know what I have to do now," I said. "I have to kill Mab. The very first chance I get. That's the only way to lift the bounty on Bria's head. "
Finn slurped down another mouthful of his chicory coffee. "Yeah, you tried that last night, remember? It didn't work out so good for you. "
My lips curled back into a snarl at the memory of my epic failure, but I forced my anger at myself down into the pit of my stomach. "I don't care. Mab knows, Finn. She knows that Bria's my sister. That's why she put the bounty on her head. If Mab can't find me herself, then she can use Bria to make me come to her. "
Nobody spoke.
I drew in a breath. "So work your contacts, Finn. The second that Mab leaves her mansion, I want to know about it. I don't care where she's going, one of her businesses, out to dinner, even to the fucking mall. Wherever she ends up at, I plan to be there waiting for her, knives ready. "
Finn nodded, already pulling his cell phone out of his suit jacket to start making calls. Jo-Jo reached over and took my hand, her fingers warm against my palm.
"It's going to be okay, Gin," the dwarf murmured. "You'll see. "
I thought about how close I'd come to losing Bria tonight. How close Mab, her giants, and her bounty hunters had come to nabbing me at her mansion. How many times in the last few months that the Fire elemental or one of her minions had just missed killing me. I didn't say anything, but I squeezed the dwarf's fingers with my own, trying to reassure myself as much as her.
Finn promised to contact every single one of his sources to see what they had to say about the bounty hunters, Mab, and anything else that might be relevant or helpful. Then Bria came back into the kitchen, and I drove the two of us over to Fletcher's house. Sophia had already gotten rid of the old clunker that I'd used to escape from Mab's mansion last night, hauling it off to some junkyard where it belonged. Bria and I had met Finn at Jo-Jo's earlier, and since he'd driven the three of us over to Northern Aggression, I'd left my regular car at the dwarf's house.
Bria and I didn't speak on the ride over, although she grimaced and grabbed the door handle as my silver Benz churned up the driveway. Couldn't blame her for that. The steep, twisting path still rattled my bones every time I drove up it.
My Benz crested the top of the ridge, and Fletcher's house came into view. A lone light burned like a firefly over the front door, dimly outlining the sprawling structure. White clapboard, brown brick, and gray stone joined together to make up the building, along with a tin roof, black shutters, and blue eaves. You couldn't see much of the odd mishmash of styles and materials in the darkness, but I knew the lines and texture of the ramshackle house as well as I knew my own face.
"Home, sweet home," I murmured, stopping the car.
Bria stared out the window, peering into the shadows that covered the yard like puddles of gray ink oozing over the snow. Despite the fact that we'd been getting reacquainted with each other, my sister had never been up to Fletcher's house before. We always met in public places, like the Pork Pit or Northern Aggression, usually with Finn, Xavier, Roslyn, or one of the Deveraux sisters in attendance. Self-imposed chaperones to keep the long, awkward pauses to a minimum.
There were no chaperones, no safety nets tonight, and this place was as personal as it got for me. I'd loved Fletcher like a father, and his house was a natural extension of the old man himself, as much a part of him and his legacy to me as the Pork Pit was.
