Web of Lies

32

I crabbed away from the hole on my hands and knees. I made it twenty feet before the last of my strength gave out, and I did a header into the ground. For a long time, I just lay there on the forest floor breathing in the earthy scent of the leaves that formed a rough, crackling blanket beneath me. There was noise twittering above my head. More bats?

No, I realized after a moment. Birds. The birds were singing. Which meant I’d definitely, finally, escaped from my underground labyrinth.

A smile stretched across my battered face. I let go, and the world faded to black.

——

Some time later, I woke up in the same position I’d been in when I’d collapsed. One cheek planted on the ground. Arms and legs splayed out at awkward angles, heavy and numb. I tried to get to my knees and immediately groaned as pain filled every single part of my body.

Fuck. It hurt to be alive.

Somehow I managed to roll over onto my back as tingles of pain shot through my limbs. A maple tree spread its branches over my head, offering a bit of shade. The sun was higher in the sky now. Looked like it was around noon. Once my arms and legs quit burning with pain, I raised my head up and studied my surroundings. I lay in the middle of a thicket of woods. Maples, pines, poplars, and more flanked me like soldiers. Rhododendron bushes and patches of briars snaked through the trees like strings of green and brown Christmas lights.

I sighed. Although I wanted to do nothing more than lie here and sleep for the next three days, I knew I had to move. I didn’t know where the hell I was, which meant the others had no chance of finding me. They probably thought I was dead already, trapped beneath the earth with Tobias Dawson and his two giants.

I grinned. I’d enjoy coming back from the grave just to see the look on Finn’s face.

It took me awhile, but I propped myself up on my elbows, then sat up. It took me even longer to get up to my knees, then my feet. I looked around the clearing where I’d emerged from the earth and found a piece of fallen wood. Using it as a sort of walking stick, I hobbled forward.

Pain pulsed through my body with every step. I’d cut my feet badly on the rocks inside the mountain, and the briars, brambles, and twigs that littered the ground didn’t help. But I stumbled forward.

I didn’t know how long I walked, an hour, maybe two, but eventually I came to a small stream. Maybe it was the one that had run over the cavern. I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care. I lowered myself down onto one of the rocks and dipped my feet into the water. Cold as ice, but it felt like heaven on my swollen feet and ankles. I gulped down several mouthfuls of the water and washed off my hands and face as best I could. I was careful to let one part of my body dry before I moved on to the next. I didn’t want to get hypothermia from the shock of the cold water.

But cool wetness helped revive me — and made me realize just how much fucking pain I was in. Every single part of me hurt, but the real problem areas were my broken jaw, aching skull, and scraped, bruised, bloody hands, knees, and feet. Jo-Jo Deveraux was going to have her work cut out for her when she started healing me.

The thought made me smile, which turned into a grimace as the muscles in my jaw screamed in pain.

Once I felt strong and dry enough, I used my walking stick to push myself up and plodded on. I’d been walking about thirty minutes when I stumbled across what looked like two ruts in the middle of the forest. I frowned. Did somebody have a house up here? That could be good or bad. Good, if they were gone and had a phone. Bad, if they were home and got a clear look at me.

But I stepped into the smooth track and headed left, climbing upward to whatever might lie at the top of this rise. I got all the way up to the clearing before I realized where I was — on the access road that overlooked Tobias Dawson’s coal mine. I could still see the tire tracks in the mud from where Donovan Caine and I had driven up here the night we’d broken into the dwarf ’s office. Hell, I was probably standing in about the same spot I’d been in when I’d stripped for the detective.

Irony. What a fucking bitch.

I shook my head and trudged on toward the edge of the ridge. Noise drifted up to me from the basin below.

Men yelling at each other, along with the grind of heavy machinery. I hobbled closer to the edge of the ridge and stared down. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the scurry of activity. Men and women, mostly firefighters, cops, and other rescue officials, stalked back and forth on the rocky floor below me. Some of them had driven their vehicles into the basin, and the red and blue lights spun around and around. The sirens had long ago been turned off, though. The people hung together in small clusters talking among themselves, but mostly what they did was stare at the mine before them.

Or what was left of it.

The right wall of the basin, which had once been just as tall and strong as the others, had crumbled in on itself, like a cheap piece of tinfoil. The entrance to the coal mine and the second, smaller shaft that led to the diamonds had been completely obliterated. Dirt had spilled hundreds of feet outside the original opening, burying the metal tracks that had led inside the mine. The whole side of the basin looked a sandcastle somebody had kicked over.

Me. I’d been the one who’d done the kicking. I’d used my magic to escape Tobias Dawson, and I’d crumbled half the mountain in the process. I’d always thought Jo-Jo Deveraux had been blowing smoke up my ass when she claimed I had more Stone magic than anyone she’d ever seen. That she’d just been pretending when she said I was even more powerful than she was. But as I stared at the shattered mountain, I really, truly, started to believe her.

The thought made my stomach clench.

“Damn,” I whispered.

For a moment, another image flashed before my eyes.

The ruined, crumbled shell of my own childhood home.

I’d used my magic to destroy it as well, to bring all the stones down, to try to save myself and Bria. I shook my head, and the image vanished. But the tightness in my stomach didn’t go away.

I looked down and I realized my hands were glowing again. The spider rune scars on my palms burned with cold, silver flames once more — even though I wasn’t consciously holding onto my magic. I curled my hands into fists and willed the light, the magic, away. After a moment, the flames died, vanishing back into the scars as though the silverstone in my flesh was somehow the source of their power. I couldn’t quit staring at my palms.

Was it my imagination or had the spider rune scars become more pronounced? For some reason, they looked like pure silver swimming in my flesh now, instead of the paler scars they’d been before. I rubbed my aching head.

Something to worry about later. Much later.

I focused on the basin once more, my eyes flicking over the many figures below. Despite the crowd, it didn’t take me long to find him — Donovan Caine. The detective stood near the entrance to the mine, peering at what looked like a map spread over the hood of a truck. Probably a map of the coal mine itself. A white hardhat covered the detective’s head and cast his features in shadow, along with those of the man beside him. But I recognized him too. Owen Grayson.

I frowned. Why would Owen Grayson be here? Then I remembered. He was into mining just like Dawson had been. With the dwarf buried underneath the mountain, Grayson was the closest thing to an expert the city of Ashland had been able to call upon. Behind the two men, various bulldozers and backhoes moved earth out of the way. Tobias Dawson was dead. They should have saved their gas.

I stood there on the ridge and stared at Donovan, drinking in the sight of the lean, rugged detective. After this was finished, after I was healed, he and I were going to have a long talk — about us. Because I wanted the detective and he wanted me too — and I was tired of his morals, his guilt about wanting to be with me, getting in the way of what we could have together.

Even though I was thousands of feet away, Donovan Caine somehow sensed my steady gaze, the way people do when you stare at them long and hard enough. His head turned right, then left, trying to find the source of his unease. He said something to Grayson and headed in my direction. Donovan kept looking right and left at everyone he passed. I stepped farther out onto the edge of the ridge, so he could hopefully see me. The detective walked back through the mass of people and machines.

After a moment, Owen Grayson followed him. Probably curious as to what the detective was up to.

Donovan Caine was halfway across the basin toward me when he stopped and finally looked up. Our eyes met and held over the distance. Gray on gold. Owen Grayson reached his side and followed the detective’s line of sight.

He spotted me too. He actually smiled.

At least somebody was glad to see me, because Donovan Caine wasn’t. He tipped his hardhat back, and I spotted the frown on his face. The sight, his lack of happiness or even just some relief, cut me more than the rocks that had sliced into my feet.

I focused on Donovan Caine and lifted my bloody hand in greeting. The detective stood there for several seconds — immobile. Then he turned and said something to Grayson, who frowned and nodded his head. Grayson walked a few feet away and pulled out a cell phone. He punched in a number and spoke to someone, still looking at me.

Grayson finished his call and said something to Donovan, who nodded back. Then the detective turned and walked toward the entrance of the collapsed mine. He didn’t even glance back at me.

And it fucking hurt.

Donovan turning his back on me hurt far worse than anything Tobias Dawson had done to me in the coal mine. Or anything else I’d endured these last few hours.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on the detective’s harsh reaction because of Owen Grayson.

Grayson didn’t stay where he was, but he didn’t go back either. Instead, he walked closer to me, glancing over his shoulder every once in a while to make sure no one was too interested in his whereabouts. He stopped close to the bottom of the ridge where I stood, close enough now that I could see the grin that stretched across his features.

Too bad the smile was on the face of the wrong man.

But what was even more curious was the fact Grayson started climbing up the ridge. I stepped away from the edge and hobbled back into the clearing. I didn’t want anyone seeing me in my current state — or guessing where I’d been. Let them think Owen Grayson wanted a better view of the disaster I’d caused. But there was nothing I could do about Grayson now, so I sat down on the bare earth and leaned against a tree. Waiting.

It didn’t take him long to climb up the ridge. He didn’t even bother to dust the mud and leaves off his jeans. Instead, he came straight to me and stopped, his violet eyes flicking up and down my body, assessing my injuries.

“You look like you’ve been to hell and back,” he murmured.

I almost managed a smile. “You might say that.”

Grayson took off his leather jacket and carefully draped it over my chest. His scent drifted up to me — that rich, earthy aroma that made me think of metal.

“Can I do anything for you?’ he asked. “The detective asked me to call your friend Finnegan Lane. I had a rather interesting conversation with him at Mab Monroe’s party last night. I don’t think Mr. Lane believed me when I told him you were standing on the ridge above the coal mine. He called me a cruel, lying bastard, but he said he was on his way. And that if I was lying, he’d beat me to death with his bare hands.”

“Finn was probably just upset. He tends to be emotional in times of crisis.”

“And what do you do in times of crisis, Gin?” Grayson asked.

I stared at him. “I survive.”

A grin spread across his face, and emotions flashed in his eyes. Admiration mixed with amusement. A look I’d never seen in Donovan Caine’s golden gaze.

“Did Donovan say anything else to you down in the basin? Anything at all?”

Grayson’s face shuttered. “Nothing important.”

His voice was so kind, so pitying, it made me want to stab him with my walking stick. I hated being pitied.

“Donovan wasn’t happy to see me, was he? He thought I’d died in that mine with Tobias Dawson and the others, and he was happy about it. Or at least relieved.” My heart twisted as I said the words, but I knew they were true.

That was the only way to explain the detective’s cold reaction to me. “He didn’t want me to be alive. Not really.”

Owen Grayson shrugged. “I don’t know what Detective Donovan Caine thinks or wants, but I consider him to be an enormous fool.”

“Why’s that?”

He stared at me. “Because he’s down there looking for Dawson, and I’m up here with you.”

I didn’t say anything. My emotions were too raw, too fresh for that. Owen Grayson opened his mouth again, but the sound of a car engine cut him off. He got to his feet.

“I think your friend Finn is here,” he murmured.

Grayson held out his hand to me, but I didn’t take it.

Instead, I heaved myself to my feet, using my crude walking stick for support.

“You know you can lean on me if you need to.”

I shook my head. “No need. I’m fine.”

Again that small smile quirked his lips. “I think your definition of the word fine needs a serious overhaul.”

The sound of the engine grew louder. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry. A few seconds later, Finn’s Cadillac Escalade burst through the trees and skidded to a stop in front of us. The tires turned and threw mud all over me and Owen Grayson. I grimaced. A final, messy insult on what had been one hell of a night.

The SUV doors opened. Finnegan Lane stepped out first. His green eyes swept over me, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The other doors popped open, and Jo-Jo Deveraux got out of the car. So did Sophia. The three of them stood there by the vehicle just staring at me.

Finn looked flabbergasted, overjoyed, and stunned at the same time. Jo-Jo had a thoughtful, knowing look in her pale eyes I didn’t like. And Sophia, well, the Goth dwarf was actually smiling at me — as much as she ever smiled at anyone.

“Did you guys miss me?” I croaked.