Elemental Thief

Chapter 30

"Ridley?" Shen said. "What—how are you—why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" Ridley demanded, managing to climb to her feet despite the world still swaying around her. The flames she'd sent running up the table leg fizzled away, and an entirely new kind of nausea filled the pit of her stomach. "Oh, watch out!" she shouted as Lawrence lunged for the gun. Shen swung his arm around and elbowed Lawrence in the face. He fell back against the railing, his head smacking on the glass as he let out a yelp.

"I don't ... I don't understand," Ridley said. It was as if the world had tipped upside down and she was looking at everything from entirely the wrong angle. Her best friend wanted to kill people, and the guy who represented everything she hated was the one helping her to right her wrongs and find her father. "Did you ... were you the one ... Did you kill that man in the alley?"

Shen's grip tightened on the gun. His eyes moved to Ridley's hands, where the blue beneath her skin was fading away now that she was too shocked to focus on her magic. His eyes rose to meet hers, and there was no sign of surprise in them. "Yes."

"But you weren't there. You were somewhere else. Doing a delivery or—"

"He was there," Lawrence said, rubbing the back of his head. "I looked up and saw him on your roof. That's why I had no problem telling Archer's lawyers to comb through the drone footage from the area and stick his face onto the original video."

"That was your idea?" Ridley asked.

"I should have killed you then too," Shen hissed, pointing his gun at Lawrence again. Archer moved as if to get to his feet, and Shen swung the gun toward him.

"No, wait, please," Ridley said. "You don't need to kill anyone here."

"I know you've tried to kill me before," Lawrence said to Shen, his voice oddly calm given the situation. "You probably don't know that I saw your face that time, but I did. Never knew who you were, of course, so I couldn't go after you. But I recognized you immediately when I saw you in the alley on top of that roof."

Ridley's eyes bounced back and forth between the two of them. The effect of the arxium particles she'd breathed in had just about worn off. She could probably turn herself to air now. She could try to take Archer with her and get out of here before Shen hurt either of them. But she was so confused, and her feet seemed rooted to the spot, and she just needed to know. This was her best friend standing here with a gun, and she needed to understand what had led him to this point. "Shen, what's he talking about?" she asked. "Why would you have tried to kill him before?"

"Because he killed Serena," Shen said, squeezing both hands around the gun and pointing it at Lawrence again.

Lawrence's expression didn't change. "I will neither confirm nor deny that accusation, but either way, what's it to you if I had anything to do with Serena Adams' death?"

Shen ground his next words out between his teeth: "I loved her. And you killed her because of magic."

"That doesn't explain why you killed that man outside Ridley's place," Archer said. He'd risen to his feet now, and his hands were raised at his sides. His nose was swollen, and blood covered part of his upper lip and chin.

"I was trying to kill you!" Shen shouted. "But you moved!"

"What a terrible tragedy," Lawrence deadpanned.

"But why?" Ridley cried. "Just ... why? I know we've never liked the Davenports, but why would you want to kill one of them?"

Shen gave her a pleading look. "You have to trust me on this, Rid. You don't know who these guys are. You don't know what they've done and what they're capable of. As soon as I saw Davenport was back in the city—that he was in your shop—I had to do something. I had to get rid of him, to make sure he'd never go near you ever again."