Deadly Sting by Jennifer Estep Page A

giants might want me dead, it could be any number of reasons. But I kept wondering. Why would the giants consider me such a threat? There were lots of bad people here tonight. So why target me and not someone else?
    This had the feel of a hasty hit, something arranged and executed on the spur of the moment. If all they’d wanted to do was murder me, then Clementine and Dixon had already succeeded—or at least thought they had. With their mission accomplished, they should be hightailing it out of Briartop and off the island, not dragging Jillian’s body off to parts unknown. Even more telling was the fact that they hadn’t bothered to hide or clean up the mess they’d left behind. Jillian’s blood was sprayed all over the bathroom door and the floor in front of it for all the world to see. Then there were the other teams they’d checked in with—and why they needed so many other people in the first place. No, something else was going on here besides killing me. That alone made me curious enough to figure out what Clementine and her pals were up to and do whatever it took to derail their scheme.
    I reached the end of the hallway. I eased up the corner and peered around it, expecting to see the two giants heading toward the doors that led outside at the far end of the corridor.
    But the hallway was empty, completely empty.
    I looked behind me, then up ahead again, but no one else appeared. This particular hallway branched off in two directions. If Clementine and Dixon hadn’t gone for the exit, that left only one other destination: the rotunda.
    I frowned. Why would they go back there? Especially since Dixon was dragging Jillian’s body around like a rag doll. What good would that do—
    Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
    The harsh, stinging retort of gunfire exploded in the museum, followed by the even louder, sharper sounds of people screaming. Crashes, bangs, breaking glass—all that and more reverberated through the hallways, echoing back on one another until it sounded like someone had detonated a series of bombs inside the marble walls. Maybe they had.
    I cursed. I should have taken care of Clementine and Dixon outside the bathroom, not let them get so far ahead of me that they’d been able to put their plan into action . . . whatever it was. I’d wanted to be quiet and cautious about things, and now it was coming back to bite me in the ass.
    Even as I hurried down the hallway toward the rotunda, I realized that I was already too late. An iron gate barred my way, stretching from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, just like a portcullis in a real castle. I reached out and rattled the metal—or at least tried to—but it was no use. There was a lock on the other side of the gate, and even if I’d managed to open it with a couple of elemental Ice picks, I simply wasn’t strong enough to lift the heavy sheet of metal.
    Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
    More gunshots and more screams rang out as the violence continued inside the exhibit space—where my friends, my family, were.
    I cursed again and backtracked, hurrying down hallway after hallway around the rotunda, but all of the entrances were similarly blocked by gates. That must have been what at least some of Clementine’s teams had been standing by for, her signal to lower the gates and trap all the partygoers like fish in a barrel.
    Well, if I couldn’t go through or around the gates, I’d go up instead. I backtracked yet again until I reached a set of stairs to the second-floor balcony overlooking the rotunda. Unlike the ones that led to the museum’s upper levels, the stairs here hadn’t been blocked off for the gala, I supposed so folks could get a bird’s-eye view of the exhibit if they were so inclined.
    I crept up the staircase and paused at the top. A gate was hanging up here too, but it hadn’t been lowered like the ones on the first floor. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy of the giants not to have secured all the entrances to their little show. Then again, most