Jennifer Estep: By a Thread

“Well,” he said, stepping away from the car. “You girls have fun.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We will.”

Finn eyed me. “You say that now, Gin, but let’s face it: your idea of fun is different from most folks’. That’s what worries me.”

“I’m with Bria. No blood and bodies this weekend. I promised her. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

I made the matching gesture over my chest, but Finn just snorted and shook his head in disbelief. Couldn’t blame him for that. Trouble had a way of finding me whether I wanted it to or not.

That had been several hours ago, and now we were almost to our destination—Blue Marsh, a swanky beach town situated on an island on the Georgia–South Carolina line that was within spitting distance of Savannah.

It had been my idea to make the journey down here into a road trip with just the two of us, since Finn and Owen Grayson, my lover, were tied up until tomorrow. Finn was using his wiles as an investment banker to broker some huge, supersecret deal for Owen, who was one of the wealthiest and most powerful businessmen in Ashland. I didn’t know the details, and I didn’t really want to. Finn wasn’t always legal and aboveboard in his methods, any more than I was in mine.

I was glad that the boys weren’t with us because it gave me a chance to spend some quality time with my sister—something I thought we needed now more than ever. Even though Bria had been back in my life for several months, I couldn’t help but stare at her whenever we were together, and not just because she was beautiful. So many bad things had happened to me over the years, to us, that some small part of me couldn’t help wondering when it would all end. When I’d wake up from this wonderful dream I was having of Bria’s being back in my life. Of our trying to be a family again, trying to be sisters again. Hell, just trying to be friends instead of strangers who shared the same magic and DNA—strangers who seemed to be growing further apart instead of closer together, no matter how hard I tried to make it otherwise.

The truth was that with Mab dead, my baby sister didn’t need me to protect her anymore. The danger was over, the threats were past. Bria was to free to live her life on her own terms—with or without me in it. The idea that she might choose to do it without me scared me more than I ever would admit to anyone—even myself.

That’s why this trip was so important to me and why I’d suggested that we come down a day early. I wanted to get to know Bria—the real Bria, the person she was when she wasn’t out chasing bad guys, being threatened by Mab, or otherwise in danger.

I needed this weekend to work, to be fun and relaxing and carefree. I needed Bria to see that there was more to me than just being the Spider—that there was more to us besides banding together to fight a common enemy and being sisters in name only. I just hoped Bria felt the same way—that she realized there was something special between us. Something worth saving.

“What are you staring at?” Bria asked when the last song on the CD finally ended. “Do I have a bug in my teeth or something?”

“You,” I said. “I’m staring at you because you look . . . happy.”

I didn’t think my sister had been happy since she’d come back to Ashland late last year. After Mab had killed our mother and older sister when we were kids, Bria and I had been separated, each of us thinking that the other was dead. I’d lived on the streets, while Bria had been adopted by a family in Savannah. But my mentor, Fletcher Lane, had managed to bring us together after his death. He’d sent me a photo of Bria, letting me know that she was alive, and he’d done the same to Bria by sending her a picture of one of the spider rune scars on my palms. We’d both started searching for each other as a result, but our reunion had been anything but smooth.

Bria was a cop, one of the few honest ones in Ashland, and she’d been determined to discover the Spider’s real identity and bring her—me—to justice. When my sister had found out that her long-lost big sister, Genevieve Snow, had grown up to be a notorious assassin, well, let’s just say it wasn’t the best news she’d ever heard.

We’d been working on our relationship ever since. I’d thought we were making some real progress—until Mab had kidnapped Bria several weeks ago. The Fire elemental had figured out my connection to Bria, so she’d put a price on my sister’s head to smoke me out. A bounty hunter named Ruth Gentry had eventually captured Bria and taken her to Mab.

The Fire elemental had wasted no time torturing my sister.

Mab had used her cruel magic to burn and blister Bria’s delicate skin all the way down to the bone in places. Torture was something that the Fire elemental had excelled in. I knew from personal experience.

My eyes dropped to Bria’s throat and the silverstone rune that she wore on a chain around her neck. A primrose, the symbol for beauty. I’d once had a necklace like hers, except mine had been shaped like a spider rune. The night that she murdered the rest of our family, Mab had duct-taped my spider rune between my hands, then used her Fire magic to superheat the metal until it had melted into my skin, forever marking me with two matching scars.

As if she could hear my thoughts, Bria reached down and fiddled with the two silverstone rings she wore on her left index finger. One of the bands featured small snowflakes, while ivy vines curled through the other, representing the runes that our mother, Eira, and older sister, Annabella, had worn. A snowflake for icy calm and an ivy vine for elegance.

A matching ring glinted on my right index finger, one that had a spider rune stamped into the middle of the band. Bria had had the rings made and had worn them for years as a reminder of our family. She’d given me the spider rune ring for Christmas. I wasn’t much for jewelry, but I wore it every day, hoping that Bria would realize how much it—and she—meant to me.

“I am happy,” Bria said, finally responding to me. “It’s nice to come back for a visit, you know? Blue Marsh was my home for a long, long time. I miss a lot of things about it. The sand, the sun, the quiet. Especially the quiet.”

There was no malice in her voice, no sarcasm or hidden meanness, but her words still pricked my heart. Sometimes, I wondered if Bria would have been better off not knowing that I was still alive. She’d suffered so much, been brutally tortured and almost killed because of me. Bria didn’t talk much about what Mab had done to her, but I could see the shadowy horror of it in her eyes when her thoughts went back to that night, that long, dark night when she’d been at the Fire elemental’s mercy.

I could also sense her disappointment in me—and her seething anger.

Oh, Bria tried to hide it, but the emotion was always there, simmering just below the calm mask that she presented to the world. I could see it glimmering in her eyes whenever she looked at me and in the way that she stiffened and her hands clenched whenever I was near her. Bria blamed me for Mab’s torturing her, and part of her wanted to lash out at me, even hurt me the way that the Fire elemental had hurt her. I could tell that Bria was trying to get past her anger, trying just as hard as I was, but neither one of us seemed to know what to do or say to the other.

More than once, I’d thought about apologizing to my sister for who and what I was, for what she’d suffered because of me, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Fletcher had always said that apologies were just empty words, and that actions were all that really mattered in the end. But try as I might, I couldn’t think of what I could do or say to make things better between me and Bria, to bridge this chasm that still stretched between us.