The Girl With the Iron Touch by Kady Cross Page B

Leonardo Garibaldi in that glass womb, the man responsible for the deaths of Griffin’s parents and Finley’s father. The man who would have killed them all if he could. The man whose experiments led to Sam’s injuries.
    “Like hell I’ll fix him,” she said. She’d die first.
    Then there was a pinch in her arm. She turned around to see the pretty automaton girl standing beside her, a syringe in her hand.
    Then Emily’s knees gave out and everything went black.
    Even Jasper joined the search for Emily. He took off faster than a human could ever imagine, running through the grounds and the entire neighborhood. Sam checked her laboratory—again—and tried to reach her on her portable telegraph.
    The machine was on Emily’s workbench in the greenhouse, where Finley found it while searching the building her friend had been taken from. Sam had already been through it, but he asked her to look, too.
    “I don’t trust my own judgment,” he told her, fists clenched. “I’m too angry and I’m too scared, and I don’t mind admitting it, not when it could make the difference between finding Em and not.”
    It was an oddly lengthy bit of conversation coming from him. And she felt for him—sympathized even.
    Whoever took Emily had hurt her. The blood on the floor and splattered on a nearby plant was proof of that. No wonder Sam didn’t trust himself to be thorough. The thought of someone doing violence against her friend woke up that part of her Finley thought long gone, or at least long assimilated. It was her, but not her, and it wanted blood of its own.
    She couldn’t give in. She wouldn’t. Out of all of them Emily was the most fragile. Finley knew it wasn’t fair, but how could she not think that way? Next to Sam, Finley was the strongest of them all physically; Jasper could shoot the wings off a fly before you could blink; and Griffin could topple buildings. Emily could control machines but had no idea the extent of that ability. Unless she had some of her inventions with her she would have nothing but her wits to fall back on.
    Emily was a bloody genius, but her brain couldn’t rip the face off someone trying to hurt her.
    Her automaton cat sat nearby. The cat should have protected Emily as it was programmed to do, but someone had yanked the power cell out of its chest panel. Poor thing. If it had been like Garibaldi’s machines it might have defended itself, but it could only do what it was told. That was probably a good thing given that it had metal fangs—why Emily would install those was beyond her—and weighed more than a full-grown man.
    Finley replaced the cell and the metal shield that went over it. In a few seconds the cat’s eyes lit up and its engine engaged. She peered into its glowing gaze. Emily had placed something she called “optical aperture sensory devices” in the cat’s head so that it could record what it saw. Maybe it had “seen” Emily’s attackers before they disabled it.
    She rose to her feet and studied the ground. There was no blood except for that one spot, which she assumed to be Emily’s. No broken glass, no sign of a struggle. There were, however, little pits in the floor, as though something heavy and pointed had dug into it. There was also a set of footprints. Whoever left them had a heavy, shuffling gait.
    “Find anything?” Sam stood at the threshold, as though he was afraid to enter the building, or was perhaps a vampire who had not been invited in, like in Mr. Stoker’s book. After the past six months Finley wouldn’t be surprised to find out such monsters truly existed.
    Finley rose to her feet. “Maybe. Some interesting prints.”
    “I noticed those. Any idea what might have made those indents?”
    “None. But I think the cat might have seen the kidnappers.”
    His dark eyes brightened. “Yeah? Let’s take a look.” He crossed the threshold and the distance between them in a few long strides, and scooped the metal feline up under his arm. She had to