Jennifer Estep - Venom

So I left the folder where it was, swallowed the rest of my bitter gin, and headed upstairs to bed.

The fist came out of nowhere. One minute I was running through the smoky interior of our house trying to get away from the men who were chasing me. The next I was confronted with a giant’s fist, larger than my head. It filled my vision for half a second before slamming into the side of my face. Pain exploded in my body, and the force of the blow threw me ten feet through the air. I landed hard on a patch of sooty, smoldering carpet.

I groaned, rolled over, opened my eyes — and found myself staring at a charred, blackened husk of a body. My mother, Eira. Even through the crispy, ruined skin and flaky ash, I could see the white gleam of her teeth, her mouth open in one last scream. The only other thing the Fire elemental’s magic hadn’t melted was my mother’s silverstone snowflake rune, the one she always wore around her neck. The symbol for icy calm. The rune gleamed like a silver diamond against my mother’s burned skin. Tears filled my eyes at the horrific sight. I turned away and tried not to vomit.

An hour ago, I’d woken up to find giants breaking into our home. And they hadn’t been alone. A Fire elemental was with them — a woman. Her laughter rang through the house like a dark dirge, along with the hot, pricking feel of her magic. The Fire elemental and her men had stormed into our house and left a path of death and destruction in their wake. My mother had gone down to try to stop the Fire elemental. So had my older sister, Annabella.

Through the smoke and haze, I’d seen my mother duel the elemental, using her Ice magic to try to overpower the other’s Fire. But the other elemental had been stronger, and my mother had vanished in a ball of Fire. Furious, Annabella had thrown me off and rushed to our mother’s defense. Annabella had died a few seconds later in another explosive ball of flames — her white nightgown lit up like a macabre candle. The Fire elemental had laughed all the while.

I’d run.

Away from the elemental, away from the fire, away from the nightmarish, burned figures that had been my mother and older sister. I’d raced down the hall, snatched Bria out of bed, and pulled her through the house as fast as I could. We had to get away. We had to get out of the house. I’d shoved Bria onto a stone terrace that overlooked the gardens, hoping to get out that way. But there were more men waiting outside the house. They’d seen me and given chase. So I’d hidden Bria in one of our favorite spots and run back into the house, leading them away from her.

But one of them had been lying in wait for me inside — the giant who’d just punched me. I tried to get to my feet, to run away again, but someone grabbed my long, tangled, brown hair and pulled me upright. It was hard to see through the smoke that blackened the room, but I saw the giant draw back his fist to hit me again. Maybe it was the smoke, but he seemed to be a pale, ghostly figure, like some sort of horrid ash golem come to life.

Even as I whimpered and waited for the blow, I found comfort in one thing. Bria was safe, hidden in the spot where I’d left her. The Fire elemental’s men would never find her, and she’d be safe from the flames spreading through the house. That was all that mattered—

I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew, I was sitting upright. I jerked, but heavy ropes held me down. My hands felt like they were lashed together too, with something cold and metal stuck in between them. I concentrated on the shape and realized it was my spider rune. Someone had taken the silverstone medallion off my necklace and stuck it between my hands. But why?

I tried to open my eyes to see what had happened to me, to try to figure out where I was and how I could get away, how I could get back to Bria. But something scratched against my eyelids and weighted them down. Cloth, maybe. Was I blindfolded?

“There’s no use in struggling,” a female voice said in my ear. “I’ve made sure those ropes are quite secure.”

The low, sibilant voice reminded me of a copperhead’s rasp. A fingernail slid down my cheek, leaving a ribbon of fire in its wake. I yelped and jerked my head back from the burning sensation. The Fire elemental had me. I could tell it was her by the way her hot magic lashed and pricked against my skin, even if I couldn’t see her.

“What do you want?” I whispered. “Why are you doing this?”

She laughed. A low, mocking sound that told me exactly how helpless I was. “Because I can. Because your bitch of a mother took far too many things from me over the years. Because the very existence of your happy little family sickens me. Because it needed to be done before the Snow sisters became any kind of threat to me. But mainly, because I wanted to.”

How could anyone want to hurt us? Why? What had we ever done to her? Sour bile filled my throat. Somehow I choked it down. Throwing up would only make her angrier.

“Now, dear, sweet Genevieve,” the Fire elemental purred. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Wh — what?” I stammered.

“Tell me where your sister Bria is.”

So the Fire elemental and her men hadn’t found my baby sister yet. She wouldn’t be asking about Bria otherwise, and I wouldn’t still be alive. Relief filled my body, along with a small bit of determination. A cold little knot deep in my stomach. I wasn’t going to tell the elemental where Bria was, I vowed. No matter what she did to me. I wasn’t going to kill my sister. Not now, not ever.

The elemental dug her cruel fingers into my hair and yanked my head back. “Tell me now!”

Just the touch of her hand against my head made it feel like she was scalping me with a red-hot knife. Tears of pain filled my eyes and soaked the blindfold, but that small knot of determination tightened inside me.

“No,” I whispered. “I’ll never tell you.”

Silence.

After a few seconds, the Fire elemental let go of my hair. Footsteps sounded, and I had the sense she was circling me the way a vulture would fly around a carcass. The footsteps stopped. I turned my head this way and that, trying to figure out where she was and what she would do next. No use.

“Fine,” she murmured. “We’ll do it the hard way. It’s always more fun. In case you haven’t realized, I took the liberty of removing that quaint little rune you wear around your neck. I had one of my men duct-tape it inside your hands. You’re going to tell me where your sister Bria is, or I’m going to use my magic to heat the rune. I trust you know what burning flesh smells like by now. Imagine that being your own. The stench, the excruciating pain, the knowledge that your own skin is melting away into nothing. Tell me, is your sister worth all that?”

I thought of Bria. Sweet little Bria with her chubby fingers and big blues eyes and shy smile. She was worth it. Worth all that pain and more.

“Go — go to hell, bitch,” I said in the strongest voice I could muster. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“So brave, so young, so very stupid. Have it your way then,” the Fire elemental said.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then I felt a hot, pricking sensation gather between my palms. The silverstone spider rune grew warm between my hands, and I started sweating, more out of fear than the heat. She was really going to do it. Really going to torture me. Really going to heat the rune until it burned my palms. I wondered if it would actually catch fire, and if I’d be engulfed in flames along with it.