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I thought about everything that I'd gone through in the last few months. Grieving over Fletcher's death, my messy affair with Donovan Caine, taking on bad guy after bad guy, finding Bria, connecting with her, and now with Owen too, and all the things I felt for him. Fletcher was right. I'd worked too damn hard to get through all of that, to build a real life for myself, to give it up now.
Still, I got to my feet with a heavy heart. I should have headed for the door, but I lingered at the counter. I breathed in, and the old man's scent filled my nose-sugar, spice, and vinegar all mixed together, with just a hint of chicory coffee. The caffeine fumes comforted me the way they always did.
"Well, then, I guess this is good-bye. "
Fletcher gave me a sly smile. "For now. "
I nodded, turned, and walked over to the front door. For a moment, my hand hovered over the doorknob, and I wondered once more if this was the right thing to do. It would be easy to stay here with Fletcher-so easy. But like the old man had said before, I was Gin Blanco, Genevieve Snow, and the Spider. Easy wasn't in my vocabulary. It never had been.
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sp; I twisted the knob, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold. But I wasn't ready to go-not yet. I turned and stared back through the storefront windows, looking at the old man.
Our gazes met and held through the glass. Green on gray. Our love and respect for each other glowing as bright as the neon pig sign above the door.
Fletcher raised his hand to me in a silent wave, which I returned. Then the snow swirled between us once more, and he was gone.
Chapter 30
I shuddered in a breath and found myself staring into a pair of bright green eyes-eyes that were pinched tight with worry and fear.
"Fletcher?" I mumbled, my voice hoarse and raspy and broken. "Fletcher?"
I wheezed in another breath and wished that I hadn't. Pain flooded my body, snapping me out of whatever dream or limbo I'd been in. I was dimly aware of the agony coursing through my veins, of the sheer misery surging through me with every slow, erratic beat of my singed heart. But at the same time, I felt completely disconnected from myself, as though I were standing over my own body, watching my limbs twitch and writhe with pain with a dispassionate eye. I imagined the sensation probably had something to do with the fact that all of my nerve endings, hell, all my skin, had been seared off by Mab's elemental Fire.
But I'd gotten the bitch. I'd finally gotten her. I thought that I smiled then. I certainly wanted to, even as the blackness crept up on me again.
"No, it's Finn," my foster brother's familiar voice said. "Gin? Stay with me, Gin!"
Some indistinct murmurs sounded, and footsteps scuffled in the snow. But I didn't see anyone because my eyes were sliding shut again.
"She's alive!" Finn screamed. "Get Jo-Jo over here! Now!"
The world went black once more.
The next time I woke up, I felt like I was being stabbed with a hundred thousand red-hot needles-all at once. I cried out from the pain, screaming and thrashing. At least, I thought that I did. I certainly wanted to. Even Mab's elemental Fire hadn't felt as bad as all this, as painful, as agonizing, as brutal. It was like every last molecule of my skin was being ripped off and then stitched back on, one cell at a time. And there was no stopping it, no escaping it. Just pain, pain, and more pain.
"Hold her steady," someone muttered. "I can't have her thrashing around and tearing up what I've already healed. "
It might have been my imagination, but I thought that the pressure on my arms and legs increased that much more.
"You're exhausted," someone else rasped in a broken voice that sounded vaguely familiar. "Help you. "
"Me too," a higher, lighter, lilting voice chimed in. "I don't have Air magic, not like you do, but you can use my Ice power. I'll feed it to you however I can. Maybe it'll help. I have to do-something to help her. I can't-I can't stand to see her like this. So broken and melted-"
The voice cut off in a choked sob. After that, silence.
"All right," the first voice said, sounding more tired and weary than any person had a right to be. "Let's just hope that mashing all our magic together doesn't kill her outright. Because I'm running on empty at this point. "
For a moment, the needles faded away. I sighed with relief. But I'd barely drawn in a breath when they returned, even sharper and hotter than before. More and more of them, stabbing me over and over again in an unrelenting wave of agony.
I threw my head back and screamed and screamed and screamed into the blackness.
A soft, cool hand stroked my forehead, and I felt the faintest trickle of Ice magic glide over my body, enveloping me in its cold, sweet caress. I sighed with relief and tried to lean into the touch, but something stopped me. My whole body felt like it was immobilized, wrapped, bandaged, and strapped down like I was one of the poor souls languishing away in Ashland Asylum. Maybe the powers that be had fitted me for my straitjacket already, as crazy and jumbled as my mind was right now. I didn't have the strength to fight against whatever was weighing me down. I didn't have the strength to do anything.
"Rest, Gin," that high, lilting voice murmured in my ear, the same exhaustion that I felt coloring her words as well. "Just rest. "
So I did.
