Spider's Revenge

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.

The next time that I woke up, it was for good. I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at a cloud-covered fresco on the ceiling. I sighed with relief, and more than a few tears slipped out of my eyes. I was safe at Jo-Jo’s house once more. Somehow, I’d done the impossible — killed Mab Monroe and lived to tell the tale. Wow. Sometimes, I surprised myself. I grinned. But in a good way.

Dark cloaked the room, although it was slowly giving way to dawn. A soft snore rumbled close to my left ear, and my eyes flicked over to find Owen asleep in the rocking chair next to the bed, a blanket covering him.

I wondered how long Owen had been sitting there, watching over me, waiting for me to wake up. He looked as exhausted as I felt. Deep lines grooved into his face, purple circles ringed his closed eyes, and a thick growth of black stubble covered his face, as though he hadn’t shaved in a week. I couldn’t see his clothes, but I imagined that they’d be just as rumpled as the rest of him.

Still, the sight of him sitting there, watching over me even when he was so obviously exhausted himself, made me happier than anything had in a long, long time.

But instead of waking him up, I carefully turned over onto my side. Blankets had been piled on top of me too, so I couldn’t see what kind of shape I was in. Curious and a little afraid of what I might find, I lifted the covers.

White gauze covered me from head to toe, wrapped around my legs, arms, torso, toes, and everything in between. I’d never considered myself to be a particularly vain person, but my fingers trembled just a bit as I put my hand up to my face.

More gauze there too, although at least it wasn’t an inch thick like it was on the rest of me. I felt like a mummy. Give me a pyramid and some dusty treasure to guard, and I’d be right at home in a horror movie. I looked like a monster too, given all the gauze and the ointment that I could feel underneath it soaking into my skin — or what was left of it.

But I wasn’t too worried. I was still alive, still breathing when I shouldn’t be. That was a victory in and of itself. Jo-Jo could fix the rest, no matter how long it took.

The small, slow movements took every bit of nonexistent energy that I had, but I struggled against the blackness that threatened to swallow me. I wasn’t going back down the rabbit hole — not until I told Owen how I felt about him. So I lay there and watched my love sleep. Seeing him here, knowing how much he cared, was the best medicine for me. Just his presence alone soothed me.

Time went by. Eventually, I heard others moving in the house. Doors opened and closed softly, and footsteps tread lightly, as my friends and family crept around so as not to wake whoever else was still sleeping. But I didn’t call out to whoever was already up. Instead, I just lay there in bed and looked at Owen, grateful that I’d survived Mab’s Fire — and more than grateful that Owen was here when I’d woken up.

I didn’t know how long he slept or how long I watched him, but eventually his snores slurred, softened, and faded away. His head listed to one side, and I could sense that he was rising up out of the black void of exhaustion.

Owen’s eyes fluttered open — his beautiful, beautiful violet eyes. The ones that never held anything but warmth and understanding and love and respect whenever he looked at me.

Owen rubbed his eyes, then ran his hands through his black hair, making it stand straight up. He let out a soft, tired sigh and looked over at me. Apparently he still expected me to be asleep because he frowned and blinked a few times, as if he wasn’t quite sure whether I was really awake.

“Gin?” he asked, tremulous hope making his voice crack.

“Back from the dead, again.”

I meant for my tone to be light, playful even, but my voice came out as a harsh rasp. I sounded — I sounded exactly like Sophia. Like I’d spent my life smoking, snorting, and drinking everything I could get my hands on. For a moment, I wondered why; why my voice would be this way, and then I remembered what Jo-Jo had told me. How the younger Goth dwarf had been forced to breathe in elemental Fire — just like I had.

My voice didn’t bother Owen, though. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. All the tension that had been coiled around him fell away, like chains being lifted off his arms and legs. Owen shuddered out another breath, and a tear tracked down one of his cheeks.

“Hey now,” I rasped again. “Tears are a waste of time, energy, and resources. That’s what Fletcher always used to tell me and Finn.”

Owen gave me a crooked grin, although I could tell that it was an effort to be cheerful on his part. “That may be what you think. You gave us all quite a scare, you know.”

“How much of a scare?”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “From the fast and furious rumors that are going around Ashland, you could see the elemental flames from your battle with Mab from a half mile away. After you stabbed Mab, the two of you were just lying there in the courtyard. Just — burning. Bria used her Ice magic to try to smother the flames, and Jo-Jo and Sophia did the same thing with their Air power, but it took so long. By the time that we put them out, most of your skin was just — melted. Gone. Down to the bones. We didn’t even think that you were still alive until you opened your eyes and spoke to Finn.”

Memories of my conversation with Fletcher filled my mind. I didn’t know if what I’d seen at the Pork Pit had been a dream, a vision, or just wishful thinking. Didn’t much matter. I’d gotten to see the old man again, gotten some of the answers to my questions, even if it was only in my head, and that was what really mattered.

“I asked for Fletcher, didn’t I?”

Owen nodded. “You did.”

We didn’t say anything. Owen moved over to the bed, sat down, and put his arm around me, as gentle and easy with me as if I were made of the most delicate crystal. Even then, I could tell that he was making an effort to touch me, to be close to me, though his every instinct must be screaming at him to get as far away from me as possible. I wasn’t a pretty sight right now, which is why his devotion touched me all the more.

Even though I was still exhausted and close to sinking back down into the blackness, I forced myself to sit up and move deeper into his embrace. Then I leaned forward, put my head against his chest, and sighed.

“Is something wrong?” Owen stiffened in alarmed. “Am I hurting you?”

I laughed, although it wasn’t a pleasant sound, given my ruined voice. “Of course not. I was just thinking that there was nowhere else I’d rather be than right here with you, right now.”

“Me too,” he murmured. “Me too.”

“I’m glad that you were here when I woke up. More than you’ll ever know.”

His arms tightened around me. “I’m just glad that you woke up, Gin. More than you’ll ever know. Because I just can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

This time, my eyes were the ones that filled with tears. The salty drops slid down my cheeks and soaked through the gauze covering my face, stinging my new, healing skin, but I didn’t care.

“You know,” I murmured. “You said something to me the night we made love before I went after Mab. Before all that crazy stuff happened in the courtyard. And I think it’s past time that I told you I feel the same way. I love you, Owen. Completely, totally, irrevocably. I have for a while now. It’s just that I’ve lost so many people in my life so brutally. My mother, my older sister, Fletcher. It’s hard for me — to let people in. To let people — get close. I wanted to tell you how I felt before, but I couldn’t. I just — couldn’t…”

Emotion clogged my throat, cutting off my words. But it was okay, because this time, I’d finally said all the things I’d needed to, that I’d wanted to for so long now.

Owen’s arms tightened around me that much more. Underneath my ear, I could hear his heart beating in his chest, keeping perfect time with mine.

“I know, Gin,” Owen rumbled in a soft voice. “I know. And I love you too. And now that I’ve got my arms around you, I’m never going to let you go.”

“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t ever want you to.”