Several giants had been guarding the perimeter, and the gunshots sent all of them racing toward the warehouse, their own guns drawn, ready to shoot any shadow that moved. The snow had stopped while I was in the warehouse, and the moon was now shining big and bright in the sky. I slipped into the closest patch of shadows and hurried down a row of metal containers as fast as I could, kicking up sprays of snow.
I came to a corridor in the containers, cut to my right, then right again, heading back in the direction I’d just come from, hugging the sides of the containers to hide my tracks as best I could. Going back to the warehouse was dangerous, but there were two more things I needed to do: find out as much as I could about Tucker’s operation, and make sure that Deirdre was dead.
Less than a minute later, I was back at the front of the containers, peering over at the warehouse. I stopped long enough to fiddle with the guy’s cell phone, setting it to video mode. Then I found a small crack to hide in, worming my way in between two shipping containers. My hidey hole was cloaked in shadows but still gave me a clear view of the warehouse.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, Tucker stormed out, a gun in one hand and a phone in the other. I held up my own stolen phone and zoomed in on him.
“Find her!” he yelled.
Giants moved all around him, yanking out their guns, spreading out around the warehouse, and heading into the maze of shipping containers beyond. One of the keys to hiding was to remain perfectly still, as though you were just another part of the landscape, dull, harmless, and completely unworthy of notice. Darting around like a wounded animal would get you caught quicker than anything else, so I stayed still and quiet in my hiding spot.
And it worked.
The guards expected me to run as far and as fast as I could, not to double back and spy on their boss. They didn’t even consider the fact that I could be hiding so close to the warehouse, and more than one man ran right by me as they moved deeper into the shipping yard.
Tucker paced back and forth for a minute, texting furiously. His phone beeped back, and a smile curved his face. I frowned. What was he up to? He should be pissed that I’d escaped, not looking as pleased as punch.
Part of me wanted to slither out of the shadows, sneak up behind him, and put a bullet through his head. But two giants were standing by his side with guns out, so there was no way I could get close enough to kill the vampire. I stayed in my hiding spot, watching and waiting.
Tucker punched a button on his phone, then held it up to his ear. “Blanco escaped,” he said. “No, she didn’t shoot Deirdre. We have no leverage. She’s not going to fall in line.”
Well, he was certainly right about that.
“She has no idea who we are,” he continued. “The meeting can still take place as scheduled next month.”
My ears perked up. What meeting? Where? I needed more info.
“I’ve already put our contingency plan in place.” He checked his watch. “In fact, it should be coming to fruition any second now—”
Ice magic blasted me in the back.
I screamed, and another blast hit me in the same spot, freezing and burning my skin at the same time. The pain was bad enough, but even worse, the force threw me out of my hiding spot and sent me tumbling to the ground in the middle of the row of containers, right where Tucker could see me. He casually waved his hand, and his two guards raced in my direction.
My lungs felt as though they were frozen solid inside my body, and I gasped for air, even as I tried to scramble across the snow to where my stolen gun and phone had landed. But Tucker’s guards reached me first. They grabbed my arms and dragged me along the cold, snowy ground, then threw me down right in front of the vamp.
Tucker gestured for someone to step forward. A few seconds later, Deirdre limped up to his side, smirking down at me, the blue-white flames of her Ice magic dancing along her fingertips. She was favoring her right leg, and blood still oozed out of the cuts that dotted her body, but her silverstone cuffs were gone, and her face was smug now instead of fearful.
“I told you that she would double back and try to spy on you,” Deirdre said. “Just like Fletcher would have done. You really need to quit being so predictable, Gin.”
I huddled on my knees and focused on forcing air in and out of my frozen lungs, even as my hands curled into the snow, searching for a rock or a piece of metal or something else—anything else—that I could use to wipe that smirk off her face.
“Deirdre convinced me to give her a chance to redeem herself,” Tucker said. “Said that she could get you before you got out of the shipping yard. Looks like she was right.”
So that’s why he’d been standing out in the open—as bait. He’d wanted me to creep close enough for Deirdre to sucker-punch me in the back with her Ice magic, and I’d fallen right into their trap. I wondered if Tucker’s call had been fake too. No way to know.
He waved his hand at the Ice elemental. “Freeze her, and then my men can drop her into the river.”
Deirdre loomed over me, the flames of her Ice magic burning cold and bright on her fingertips. “I’m going to enjoy this,” she hissed.