I tuned out their surprised yelps and reached for my Ice magic again, gathering up more and more of my power until I had two silvery balls of magic pulsing in the palms of my hands. Then I threw both hands forward at the same time, aiming at the two posts that I’d already cut into and frozen over.

   My Ice magic slammed into the two posts, and the already weakened wood snapped like a couple of matchsticks.

   Crack! Crack!

   Without those two posts for support, the tower couldn’t stay upright. With a loud, ominous creak, the wooden container tipped forward and toppled to the ground, splintering into a thousand pieces and spewing water over everything in its path—including the three giants who were still sitting in the middle of the walkway on my sheet of elemental Ice.

   The giants yelled and tried to scramble to their feet, but it was too late. Water gushed out like a geyser from the broken container, drowning out their panicked cries. Even as the water cascaded over them, I stepped forward, raised my hands, and sent out blast after blast of Ice magic, right into the center of all that rushing liquid. The water was already cold from sitting in the tank in the December chill, which made it easier for me to freeze—and the giants right along with it.

   The water hit the ground, then blasted up in sheets of elemental Ice, frozen solid by my magic. I thought that the giants shouted for help or maybe even screamed curses at me, but I was too busy sending out wave after wave of magic to care. My mother had been right. These men had come into the park to murder me, so they were getting exactly what they deserved.

   A minute later, all the water was gone, but a field of elemental Ice had risen up to take its place, the odd dips, waves, and curls reminding me of the tumbleweeds that were scattered throughout the park.

   And the giants were frozen solid, right in the middle of it all.

   They were still sitting down, although their hands were raised up over their heads, as they’d instinctively tried to ward off the water crashing down on them. They looked like three cowboy statues that had been erected in the center of the walkway.

   I studied the giants, but they were all encased in solid sheets of elemental Ice. If they weren’t already dead from being flash frozen, they would suffocate soon enough. No way was any air getting in through all those cold, thick layers.

   Nine down, four to go—

   Crack! Crack! Crack!

   Once again, bullets sprayed all around me, cracking my elemental Ice sculptures and spraying sharp shards everywhere. I ducked down behind a water trough and peered around the side. The three remaining giants were at the far end of the street, beyond my Ice field, with Brody standing at the head of them.

   “Shoot her! Shoot her, you idiots!” he screamed, waving his gun at me.

   The giants raised their guns to fire at me again, but I whipped around and sprinted down the walkway, heading even deeper into the theme park.

25

   The sounds of gunfire continued behind me, but they quickly stopped once the giants realized that I was out of range. I kept running, though, determined to make the most of my head start. I had a straight shot to where I was going, and the giants would either have to pick their way across the elemental Ice field or spend precious time going around.

   But they wouldn’t come charging blindly at me anymore. They’d be far more cautious this time, and they’d stay together in a group. I would need all my skills to end them. Good thing I had one more trick up my sleeve.

   So I headed for the centerpiece of Main Street—the Good Tyme Saloon.

   I pushed through the broken doors and hurried over to the bar, where I’d lined up those four bottles of liquor, complete with white rags peeking out the tops of them. I grabbed the bottles along with the cigarette lighter, and sprinted up the stairs to the second floor.

   Brody and the giants would expect me to hole up behind the bar, since it was made out of thick, heavy wood that would offer the most cover and protection from their bullets. But Fletcher had often said that the key to surviving was to do something entirely unexpected, and that was my plan right now. So I lined up three of the bottles on the second-floor railing, close to the support beam that I ducked behind. The fourth bottle was in one of my hands, and I had the lighter in the other.

   Once I was in position, I started counting off the seconds in my head.

   Five . . . ten . . . fifteen . . . thirty . . . sixty . . .

   Five minutes passed before I heard a telltale creak on the wooden sidewalk in front of the saloon. The giants must have spotted the broken doors and realized that I’d come in here. Good.

   “Give it up, Blanco!” Brody called out. “I’ve got this place surrounded! You can’t escape! Not this time!”

   I grinned. Surrounded? Please. He had three men left. That wasn’t enough to surround an armadillo. Besides, I didn’t want to escape. Not until I’d killed every last one of them.

   “Blanco!” Brody yelled again. “This is your last chance!”

   I still didn’t respond, although I could hear the other three giants muttering to each other out on the street.

   “Do you really think that she’s in there?”

   “Maybe this is another trap.”

   “Maybe she’s already long gone.”

   “She’s not leaving without her friends,” Brody snapped, cutting into the chorus of doubt. “Trust me on that. And the doors are busted wide-open. She’s in there, all right. Now, are we going to go in and get that bitch, or are we just going to stand here and argue about it all night? Because I don’t want to be the one to go back to Tucker and tell him that the four of us couldn’t capture one woman, do you?”

   The other three giants muttered their agreement, apparently more afraid of Tucker than they were of me. I shook my head. Fools. You should always be most afraid of the person who could kill you most immediately. In this case, me.

   The giants kept debating and arguing among themselves. I rolled my eyes, wanting them to get on with things already and quit wasting my time. Because once they were dead, I could check in with Silvio and see if he’d set eyes on Finn, Bria, and Owen yet.