Poison - (Elemental Assassin, #2.6)

Jennifer Estep - (Elemental Assassin, #2.6) Poison

Poison

I hated the girl.

I hated everything about her, from her painfully thin body to her big, wounded eyes to her absolute eagerness to do whatever my father, Fletcher Lane, told her to.

Most especially, I hated the fact that Dad had decided to train her to be an assassin instead of me.

The girl set a triple chocolate milkshake down on the counter in front of me. "Here you go, Finn."

Her voice was soft, just like everything else about her. Soft brown hair, soft gray eyes, soft, small body. Even her clothes were soft and big and baggy and utterly forgettable. She never raised her voice, she never interrupted a conversation, she never did anything the least bit dangerous or naughty or risky. It was as if she was determined to draw as little attention to herself as possible and blend into the background no matter what.

She annoyed the hell out of me.

I didn't even say thanks as I stuck a straw into the frothy concoction and started sucking down the milkshake.

"Do you like it?" the girl asked, a bit of hope creeping into her voice. "I followed Fletcher's recipe, but then I decided to add in even more chocolate to make it really rich and creamy."

The milkshake was wonderful, absolutely wonderful, and even better than the ones that Dad made for me here at the Pork Pit. But I wasn't about to tell her that. Most days, I didn't even bother to speak to her.

I grunted. "It'll do, I suppose."

Behind the counter, Sophia Deveraux gave me a sharp stare. Most people would have been intimidated by the look, since the muscular dwarf was as hard and blunt as the girl was soft. Sophia wore solid black from the bottom of her heavy boots to the T-shirt that covered her chest to the leather collar that wrapped around her neck. Even her hair was black, and she'd painted her lips the same dark color. Sophia was the real deal-a Goth through and through. She made the wannabes at my high school look like kids playing dress-up, which, of course, they were.

Sophia's pointed look didn't faze me in the least, since I knew that I had both Sophia and her older sister, Jo-Jo, wrapped around my finger. The dwarves had helped Dad raise me, and I knew that they thought of me as their own son. For some reason, though, both Sophia and Jo-Jo had taken an immediate liking to the girl, fussing over her just as much as they did over me. I didn't know why. I didn't think there was anything to like about Gin.

Gin-that's what the girl called herself. Heh. We all knew that wasn't her real name, but Dad had accepted it anyway. He'd even given her a last name too-Blanco. Gin Blanco. As if that wasn't the cheesiest thing that anyone had ever heard.

But Dad hadn't stopped there. He'd created a whole new identity for the girl, claiming that she was some distant cousin of his that he'd taken in after her family had died in a car wreck. She'd been with us several weeks now, and Dad had bought her clothes and fed her and even enrolled her in school with me. Since she was thirteen and I was fifteen, she wasn't in my class, though. One small thing to be happy about.

Since I was tired of looking at Gin, I swiveled around on my stool, still sucking on my milkshake. It was Monday afternoon, and business was a little slow at the Pork Pit, Dad's barbecue restaurant in downtown Ashland. Only a few customers sat in the blue and pink vinyl booths in front of the storefront windows, although they were all eating their barbecue sandwiches, baked beans, and thick, steak-cut fries with obvious enthusiasm.

A girl about my age put down her napkin, slid out of her booth, and started following the pink pig tracks on the floor to the women's restroom. I smiled at her as she passed. She stopped a moment to look at me, and my grin widened. With my walnut-colored hair and green eyes, I was the spitting image of my dad and just as handsome as he was. I winked at the girl, who giggled, ducked her head, and hurried on by.

Normally, my dad, Fletcher Lane, would have been here, sitting on a stool behind the cash register and reading a book in between helping Gin and Sophia dish up barbecue. But Dad was off on