Heart of Venom

Chapter Eleven

Words just . . . failed me.

For a moment, I was completely speechless. Of all the people who would offer to help me with something like this, I hadn’t thought that Owen would be one of them.

Not anymore. Not after I’d killed his first love. But here he was anyway, despite everything that had happened between us. And it felt . . . good. It felt . . . right.

“Phillip called and told me what happened,” Owen said. “I tried to call you, but your phone kept going straight to voice mail, so I called Finn. He said that he was driving back to Ashland but that he wouldn’t be here for a couple of hours and that you were determined to go after this guy Grimes immediately. So I came to help.”

Anger sizzled in my chest, but I couldn’t blame Phillip and Finn for their actions. Like Phillip had said, they were just trying to make sure that I didn’t go off and get myself killed out in the middle of the woods. I would have done the same thing if they, Bria, or anyone else I cared about had been bound and determined to go after a dangerous criminal by herself. Well, actually, I probably would have hog-tied them and gone in their place.

Still, Owen and I . . . we weren’t exactly together these days. Sure, I’d gotten him out of the vault and away from clementine and her giants at the Briartop museum, but

I didn’t want him to think that he owed me anything for that, because he didn’t. Not one damn thing. I would have gladly battled clementine a thousand times for him, even now, after he’d broken my heart. Because that’s what you did for the people you loved. You fought for them no matter what—and no matter how terribly they hurt you.

“You don’t have to go with me,” I said. “It’s not your fight.”

“Yes, it is,” Owen replied. “I care about Jo-Jo and Sophia too. More important, I care about you, Gin. I know how much this has to be hurting you right now.”

That was the one thing about Owen that continually surprised and scared me, just how well he could see past my usual indifferent mask and suss out my true, buried emotions.

Still, I kept that mask up and locked in place as I stared at him, trying to see if he really meant what he said. But his eyes were clear, his stance tall, his jaw tight and determined. He seemed like the Owen of old, before Salina had wreaked such havoc on us.

But there was something else lurking in his face, a wariness that I hadn’t seen before. It almost seemed as if he was holding his breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

As if I was about to say or do something that would injure him so greatly that he would never, ever recover from it.

But I had no idea what that could possibly be.

“You don’t owe me anything, if that’s what this is about,” I said, struggling not to show anything of what I was really feeling. “Not for what happened at Briartop and not for Salina either.”

Owen did the last thing that I expected him to: he smiled. A great, big, beautiful smile that brightened his whole face. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“Okay,” I said, not quite sure what he was getting at.

“But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

Owen nodded. Then he blew out a breath and raised his eyes to mine. “Look,” he said. “I’ve been an idiot about a lot of things—a lot of things. You, me, and especially Salina and everything that happened with her.

But I’m not being an idiot about this. Finn said that you told him that Sophia was injured. At the very least, you’ll need some help getting her off the mountain. At the very worst, well, we both know how bad that could be. And we both know that this Harley Grimes isn’t just going to let you leave with her.”

“No. But then again, I didn’t plan on asking his per— mission.”

Owen’s grin widened. “I didn’t figure that you would.”

His voice had taken on a sly, teasing tone, and I found myself grinning back at him, despite the seriousness of our discussion.

“What can I say? I am rather headstrong that way,” I quipped.

“Headstrong is one way of putting it,” he drawled.

“Mule-headed stubborn is another.”

“That sounds like something Jo-Jo would say.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them, wiping the grin off my face and snuffing out the easy banter between Owen and me. A shadow enveloped me once more at the thought of Jo-Jo and how she was laid out on cooper’s kitchen table, still fighting for her life. Owen’s smile vanished too, as if he shared in my dark thoughts.

He probably did. No doubt Phillip had told him how much blood Jo-Jo had lost and how hard cooper had had to work simply to stabilize her.

“Listen, I’m going with you whether you want me to or not,” Owen finally said in a quiet, determined voice.

“And not because of Salina or Briartop or anything like that.”

“Then why?”

“Because I’ve spent too much time lately not having your back, and you need that today more than ever.”

Our gazes locked, gray on violet, with so many emotions, so many memories, so many words spoken and unspoken ebbing and flowing between us. Once more, I looked at Owen— really looked at him—as if I could peer through his eyes and see all the deep, dark secrets of his heart and soul lurking underneath. Trying to determine if he really meant what he said. But his eyes remained clear, his stance stayed tall, and his jaw was as tight as it had been before. I didn’t sense any hurt in him. No anger, no blame, no accusation of any kind. Just the quiet determination to stand by me through this, no matter how bad it was already and no matter how much worse we both knew it was going to get.

Still, I decided to give him one last chance to back out.

“I don’t think that you understand what I’m going to do now,” I said. “Because Harley Grimes is pure evil, and I’m going to have to be that way too in order to rescue Sophia. Violent. Vicious. Vindictive. With no quarter asked for and sure as hell none given. Not to Grimes, not to his men, not to anyone who gets in my way.”

“I know,” Owen replied in a quiet voice. “I know, and I don’t care. Not anymore. You do what needs to be done to save Sophia. I’ll be right there with you, every step of the way. No matter what. I promise.”

His words touched me more than he knew. Because this was what I’d wanted him to say when everything had gone so horribly wrong with Salina. That he understood why I’d killed her even as he asked me not to. Because it simply had to be done before she hurt anyone else Owen cared about, including himself. By killing Salina, I’d been trying to protect Owen from, well, Owen. And more important, from being responsible for the death of someone he’d once loved.

I had carried that burden around every single day, ever since I hadn’t been able to save Fletcher from being tortured to death inside the Pork Pit, so I knew how very heavy, how very wearisome, it was. Now it seemed like Owen wanted to return the favor by going with me into Harley Grimes’s lion’s den and helping Sophia and me however he could.

“Trust me on this, Gin,” Owen said. “Please.” It was that soft, final please that did me in. Because I could see how hard he was trying and how much he meant what he said.

“All right,” I said. “All right. You win. If you’re so bound and determined to go with me, then let’s get moving. We have a long way to go before we reach Grimes’s camp.”

After another quiet moment, we both shouldered our gear again. Owen started to head back over to his car, but I shook my head and gestured for him to follow me to

Roslyn’s vehicle.

“This one already has blood all over the inside. No reason to mess up anyone else’s ride today.”

Owen opened the back door, stopping a moment to stare at stains forming all across the leather seats. He dropped his backpack onto the floorboard, on top of one of the bloody towels that I’d used on Jo-Jo’s wounds. I put my bag down next to his, then slid into the driver’s seat. A minute later, we were headed down the driveway.

As I drove, I told Owen everything that I knew and suspected about Grimes. While I talked, he leaned over into the backseat, unzipped my backpack, fished out

Fletcher’s file on Grimes, and started reading through it.

Owen frowned. “The name sounds familiar. Why do you think Grimes came after Sophia again after all these years?”

That newspaper clipping of Jo-Jo flashed through my mind. Guilt twisted my stomach, but I made myself shrug. “Probably for pure meanness. Fletcher took her away from him, and Grimes didn’t like that. So he finally decided to do something about it. The coward just waited until after Fletcher was dead to make his move.”

“Do you think that he knows about you?” Owen asked. “That Fletcher trained you?”

I thought of the way Grimes had so casually thrown his Fire magic at me, then walked away, so sure in the knowledge that the flames would roast me where I stood.

“I don’t think so. Otherwise, he would have brought more men, at the very least, and he wouldn’t have left me alone with the ones he did bring.”

Owen nodded his agreement, then hesitated. “I haven’t said this yet, but I should have. I’m glad that you’re all right, Gin.”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road and my face blank, not letting him see how much his words meant to me, how much they would always mean to me.

I left the suburbs behind and wound my way up through Northtown, the rich, fancy, highfalutin part of Ashland, where the wealthy, social, and magical elite lived. We passed mansion after mansion, all with tasteful yards that were as lush and green as they could be, despite the scorching summer sun beating down on them. I drove fast, and we soon left the immaculate estates behind and started winding our way up through the mountains above Ashland.

Our route took us by country Daze, an old-timey store owned by a friend of Fletcher’s. Several cars were parked in the gravel lot that fronted the store. But that wasn’t what caught my attention—the man standing by the stop sign did.

He was an older man, with a bit of wispy white hair that stood straight up as if in defiance of the wilting humidity of the day. Despite the heat, he wore brown boots, along with blue pants and a long-sleeved blue cotton work shirt, and his dark, burnished skin hinted at his cherokee heritage. An old, weathered brown satchel sat at his feet.

But the most interesting thing about Warren T. Fox was the rifle that he had casually propped up on his shoulder, as though it was perfectly normal for him to be standing by the side of the road holding a gun. Well, this was Ashland. I would have been more surprised if he didn’t have a weapon.

Warren peered at our car as it approached him. He must have spotted Owen and me, because he grabbed his bag, straightened up, and started walking in our direction, rifle and all.

“What is he doing?” I asked. “Has Finn made some pass at Violet that I don’t know about, and Warren is finally going to shoot him for it?”

Violet was Warren’s college-age granddaughter and Eva Grayson’s best friend. Finn liked to flirt with Violet as much as he did with every other woman who crossed his path, despite his involvement with Bria.

Owen shifted in his seat. “After Finn called me, I made a few calls myself.”

“To Warren? Why?”

“Because nobody knows these mountains better than he does,” Owen said. “Warren’s told me more than one story about his hiking and hunting adventures, and I thought that we could use his help finding Grimes’s camp.”

It was a smart idea, something that I should have thought of myself. Sure, I had Fletcher’s maps of Grimes’s camp, but there was nothing like firsthand knowledge. As much as I would have liked to tell Owen that we didn’t need Warren, I couldn’t. I didn’t like putting Warren in danger, but Owen was right. If Warren knew the area around Grimes’s mountain hideout, then that gave us an even better chance of finding and rescuing Sophia as quickly as possible. Besides, even I had no desire to tangle with an irate old coot like Warren T. Fox.

So I rolled down my window, slowed, and stopped in the middle of the road. Warren ambled over to my side of the car and leaned down so he could peer inside at us.

“I’m looking for a guide,” I drawled. “Or maybe a hunting buddy, depending on your point of view. know where I might find somebody like that?”

A grin creased his face, adding more layers of wrinkles to his features. “I think that I know just the fella for you, Gin.” His smile vanished. “I only wish the circumstances were different.”

“Me too, Warren. Me too.”

I unlocked the car, and Warren opened the back door.

He paused a moment, staring at all the blood staining the backseat, just like Owen had. Warren harrumphed, as if the sight offended him, or maybe it was because he knew that it was Jo-Jo’s blood. But he got in anyway and shut the door behind him.

“How is Jo-Jo?” he asked in his high, thin, reedy voice.

“Hanging on—for now. I figure that having Sophia there when she wakes up will make all the difference.”

He nodded. “That it will. So why don’t you stop lolly— gagging in the middle of the road, and let’s get on with it.”

“Why, Warren,” I drawled again. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I put the car back into gear, eased forward, and made a turn at the stop sign, going even deeper into the mountains and drawing that much closer to Grimes’s camp— and Sophia.