Oath Bound (An Unbound Novel) (23 page)

Vanessa blinked at me, and suddenly there was caution in her expression. Wariness. There was something she didn’t want to tell me.

“Just say it, Van.” Though I wasn’t sure I really meant that.

“Kris, Nadia wasn’t pregnant. She survived the initial attack, but died in the hospital the next day of a stab wound to the abdomen, without regaining consciousness.”

As I struggled to think around a thick fog of confusion—the truth was there, but it wasn’t sinking in—Van turned her laptop around so I could see it.

The headline ripped me wide open, and horror leaked into my soul.

Pregnant Woman Survives Home Invasion;
Loses Baby

I got through the first three sentences of the article before my eyes closed on their own, as if they’d seen all they could take. I couldn’t breathe. That horror had clawed its way up my throat and was blocking my air passage.

Sera had been four and a half months pregnant when she was stabbed in the stomach and left for dead.

Sera.
Not Nadia.

The police report said she came out of hiding to defend her sister, fought with the intruder, then crawled to the telephone to call for help after their attacker fled the scene.

That’s why she hid.

She wasn’t protecting herself. She was protecting her baby.

I shoved the laptop away so suddenly it was teetering on the edge of the mattress when Van grabbed it.

Sera had been pregnant. She saw her parents murdered. She saw her sister brutalized, and when she tried to help Nadia, she’d lost her own unborn child. And nearly died along with her sister.

But even as I thought that over, trying to digest the horror and depth of her loss, the totality of the rage and isolation she must be suffering with every beat of her heart, some small detail nagged at the back of my brain, clamoring for attention.

I opened my eyes and pulled Van’s laptop closer to read the first line again. And there it was, in black and white. I hadn’t really noticed it my first time through because the crime itself was shocking enough.

She’d kept her last name secret, but it turns out I hadn’t known her first name either.

Sera was Sera Brandt.
S-E-R-A.
Short for Serenity.

Holy shit
.

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

I shoved the laptop at Van again, then stood and crossed the floor in three steps. I pulled the door open so hard and fast the hinges groaned with the pressure, then I raced into the hall and down the stairs, leaving Vanessa staring after me in surprise. In the living room, I grabbed my bag from the end of the couch and pulled out Noelle’s notebook, then started flipping through it frantically, still standing.

I was four pages in when I found the first mention.

Find serenity.

Noelle had said it in her sleep, twelve years ago. Then again, five months after that.

Save serenity.

And twice more, over the next two years.

Serenity waits.
and
Family, serenity.

I hadn’t once capitalized her name, because I hadn’t realized it was a name.

Noelle had been trying to tell me all along, though she probably didn’t understand the message at all. Sera hadn’t appeared in the notebook to help me—she’d appeared so I could help
her
.

Stunned, I closed the notebook and dropped it into my bag, disgusted with my own ignorance. Horrified by my own failure. What good did it do for me to have glimpses of the future at my fingertips when I couldn’t make sense of a damn one of them?

I was supposed to save Sera and her family. I was supposed to find her and stop the bastard who broke into her house and slaughtered her entire family. Including her unborn child. Hunting down their killer was a secondary goal, only necessary if I failed to keep him from committing the prophesied atrocities in the first place.

Which was exactly what I’d done.

I’d given up. I’d put the notebook away and turned my back on every preventable accident and atrocity predicted within it, because I wasn’t smart enough to figure out the puzzles.

Because of me, Sera had lost everyone she’d ever loved.

How the hell was I supposed to tell her that?

Fourteen

Sera

W
hen I came downstairs that afternoon, finally drawn from my room by the scent of homemade chili, Kris was at the kitchen table again, alone this time, his nose buried in that journal, his jaw clenched with some intense emotion I couldn’t define or understand. I wanted to talk to him, despite my lingering embarrassment. I wanted to know why he was so angry, and whether or not I was the cause.

I wanted to know if he’d found my family online. If he’d read about what had happened to them. To
us.
I wanted to know whether I’d see pity or anger in his gaze when it next met mine, so I could plan my response accordingly. I’d lied to him about what happened, so any anger on his part was probably warranted, and most people would think pity was appropriate, as well, but I couldn’t stand to see either. Not from Kris.

So I only watched him for a minute, knowing I should have been relieved by how focused he was on that stupid notebook. Keeping my distance from him would be easier with Noelle standing between us.

But I didn’t feel relieved. I felt...alone.

Kris didn’t notice me, so I snuck out with a smile and nod to Gran, who was stirring a big pot on the stove.

I hadn’t had chili in months. My dad had made it once a week, every winter of my life. He’d spent Saturdays soaking beans and Sundays simmering sauce on the stove, and if I asked nicely and used a clean spoon, he’d let me have an early taste. I’d missed weekend chili when I’d gone off to college, but every time I came home for winter break, I’d find a pot on the stove and a clean spoon waiting for me on the counter.

There would be no more of my dad’s chili. That hadn’t occurred to me until I saw Gran making hers, and as I fled the kitchen, I fought a sudden, irrational urge to dump her chili into the garbage disposal because it dared to exist when my dad’s chili never would again.

In the living room, Van was curled up in the armchair with her laptop, clicking away as if her fingers would never tire. She glanced up at me and smiled, and I found sympathy in her gaze. No—worse—empathy.

She’d found news coverage of my family’s deaths, at the very least. I could tell from the new way she looked at me, and if she knew, Kris knew. They might all know. But she didn’t call me over or try to ensnare me in some kind of bullshit therapeutic chat, for which I was eminently grateful.

Kori and Ian sat on the couch, talking in hushed tones with a map spread out on the coffee table in front of them. He was shirtless again, with a big white bandage taped over his shoulder. When he twisted to reach for a pen on the end table, I saw a matching bandage on his other side. The bullet had gone all the way through.

When Ian had winced and sucked in a sharp breath three times in less than a minute, Kori stood and tossed her pen onto the end table, mumbling something about stubborn-ass men who made no use of the available resources. She stomped down the hall and into the closet, where—presumably—she disappeared through the shadows, despite his protest.

Several minutes later, the closet door opened again and everyone who had a gun drew it, just in case. Then Kori stepped into the hall again with a woman I’d never seen before, but everyone else seemed to recognize.

“Meg, you really didn’t have to come,” Ian said, but Kori rolled her eyes and Meg waved away his congenial objection.

“You’d do the same for me or Steve.” This was Ian’s twin brother’s wife. Meghan. The Healer.

I watched, fascinated, as she sat on the center couch cushion and gently peeled off the bandage on the front of Ian’s shoulder. “Ready?” Meg asked, and Ian nodded, his jaw already clenched against the pain.

Meg took a small bottle of hand sanitizer from her pocket and rubbed a dollop onto her palms, then pressed her right hand against Ian’s bare, still-bloody wound.

He hissed again and Meghan stiffened, and a second later, thin black lines appeared on the back of her hand and across her arm, as though her veins were rotting from the inside out. I’d never seen anything like it, and could only assume that was normal for a Healer when no one else seemed impressed or upset.

A couple of minutes later, Ian’s jaw unclenched, and a minute after that, Meg let him go and slouched sideways against the back of the couch. When she’d caught her breath, she inspected the wound, which had closed but was still an angry red color, beneath smears of Ian’s blood. “That’s better.” She nodded, obviously satisfied. “Not perfect, but good enough that you should be able to use it, if you’re careful.”

“Thanks, Meghan.” Ian squeezed her hand and Kori took his bloody bandages to the bathroom, where she would burn them in the sink to destroy the viable blood sample. Gran brought two smaller clean ones, and Meghan carefully taped them over the wound again.

Then Kori took Meg back to wherever she and Steven were staying while he finished recuperating.

“Liv and Cam got called in,” Vanessa said when I settled into Gran’s rocker across the room. “They’ll be back, though, and hopefully I’ll have something for them to go on by then. The police questioned a couple of possible suspects in your case, both parolees with convictions for breaking and entering and burglary. But neither of them match your description, and neither have a history of violence.”

“So, no other leads?” I tried not to sound as disappointed as I felt.

“Not yet. But the police have plenty of...physical evidence. All the blood they found belongs to...your family. But it’s possible that Liv can find something they missed. She only needs a drop or two to get a feel for the owner, so if he bled on anything, she’ll be able to tell us if he’s anywhere within her range. The tricky part will be getting our hands on the evidence. Not impossible for a group with our varied talents. But too complicated a project for today.”

“Of course.” I had to remind myself that I was in no hurry. Kenley was in immediate danger, so her case had to come first. The sooner we found her, the faster they’d be free to help me hunt down and kill the bastard who’d taken my whole life from me.

“How can I help?” I said when Ian looked up at me and smiled. “What are we doing?”

“Van got us a partial list of the Tower syndicate’s real-estate holdings, so we’re going through the list of warehouses, looking for one that could possibly work for the blood farm.”

I stared at all the red circles on their map, trying to make sense of names and places I’d never seen before. “Any luck?”

“Too much luck.” Kori walked out of the closet and closed the door, stepping into our conversation as easily as she’d stepped out of the shadows. “Tower owns nearly two dozen warehouses in the city alone, and who knows how many in other areas. I’ve been to several of them, and the truth is that any one of them could house the blood farm. Julia has the money to set up all of the necessary supplies and equipment anywhere she wants, and it could take us days to search all of these individually.”

“And this is just a partial list,” Vanessa added, peeking over her laptop screen.

Ian looked grim as he studied his list, then circled another point on the map. “We need some way to narrow them down.”

“That’s what Kris is working on.” Skepticism was thick in Kori’s voice. “Did he tell you about the notebook?”

“Yeah. And about Noelle.” Did I sound bitter about the fact that she’d had him for so long, but I never would? I must have—Kori’s pale brows rose and I swear she almost smiled. “You guys are all messed up. Your relationships are, like...twisted.”

Ian laughed, but Kori only nodded. “Sometimes when you’re tied too tightly to the people you care about, the strings get tangled. You can either cut them loose or pull them tighter. I’m sure you can figure out which one we chose, based on the knot we’re in now.”

Yeah. They were tied so tightly together I couldn’t tell where one relationship ended and the next began—siblings, lovers, friends, caretakers, defenders and coworkers. They were everything to one another, and I could see that sometimes those bonds chafed, but from where I stood—a single thread dangling alone in the wind—their tangled knot looked pretty damn secure.

“So, do you think he’ll find anything in that notebook? Do you think it’s even possible?”

Ian and Van looked to Kori for an answer, and I found myself doing the same. Kori shrugged. “It’s more than possible. I never knew Noelle to be wrong. But the chances of anyone figuring out what she was talking about in time to be useful are slim to none.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t put money on that, because I’d own every cent you have right now,” Kris said, and I could practically hear the smile in his voice. When I looked up to find him standing in the kitchen doorway, his index finger marking a place in the closed notebook, I could also see the spark of excitement in his eyes.

“You found something?” The rational part of me wanted to be happy for him. That other part wanted to poke him in the eyes to get rid of that spark, put there by a dead girl he’d loved and who might be trying to tell him to kill me, either to put an end to the Tower empire, or because even in her grave, she was a jealous bitch.

My money was on the latter.

Kris nodded eagerly. Kori scooted over and he sat next to her on the couch, then set his journal on the coffee table, open to a page about a third of the way through the notebook. “Ned said they were moving everything to a warehouse, right?” Kris said, and I nodded. I was the only other one who’d heard Ned. “Well, there it is.” He underlined a passage several lines from the top with his finger.

We all leaned in for a closer look, and I had to read upside down from my chair on the other side of the coffee table. Fortunately, the line was short, and Kris’s script was a neat, masculine cursive, with long narrow letters. Easily legible.

“Blood in the trees,” Ian said, echoing the phrase as it played in my head. “What the hell does that mean?”

Kris rolled his eyes and snatched the printout of Tower’s real estate holdings from his sister’s hands. “That one. The warehouse on Sycamore Grove, in the south fork. See?” But no one saw. “It’s the only one with trees in the address.”

“Kris, that could mean anything....” Vanessa said, but he spoke over her.

“Look. It’s in here again.” He flipped more pages to a point farther back in the notebook, marked by his own folded copy of the property list. “‘Hidden in the grove.’”

“Kris, there’s no rhyme or reason to this.” Kori frowned at the notebook. “It looks like those two phrases were spoken months apart.” But it was closer to a year, if the glimpse of the dates I’d gotten could be trusted. “How do you know those two are even related?”

“I don’t.” Kris leaned back on the couch and crossed his arms over his chest, and I did
not
think about how, the day before, I’d seen him without a shirt. And touched his stomach. I didn’t think about that at all. “What I do know is that we’re looking at a list of more than twenty warehouses, and those are just the ones Vanessa’s been able to verify as Tower’s. But nothing else on that list sounds like anything I’ve found in here after reading and rereading the damn thing for nearly two hours. But
two
of these phrases could be pointing at the warehouse on Sycamore Grove.”

He flipped back to the first passage and spoke over another objection. “
Blood
in the trees.” Then he looked up, eyeing each of us expectantly. “We’re looking for a blood farm. A hidden blood farm.” He flipped back to the second passage, still marked with his index finger. “
Hidden
in the grove.”

“It can’t hurt to look.” Vanessa shrugged and closed her laptop. “We have to start somewhere, and that’s one of only two properties that won’t take us into Julia’s territory.”

Kris sat up straight on the couch, enthusiasm echoing in his very bearing. “Which is more evidence that Elle was right. Julia knows we’d expect her to hide her most valuable assets in her own territory, where it’s easier to protect them. Relocating to the south fork is ballsy. But then, so is Julia.”

“The south fork?” I glanced around the room in question.

“The south side of town, defined by a fork in the river that divides the city,” Ian said. “Tower rules the west side. Cavazos has the east side.”

“They’ve been fighting over the south side for years,” Kori added. “But so far, neither has a foothold. The south side is your best bet if you want to avoid syndicate entanglements.”

“So, if the blood farm is on Sycamore Grove, Julia’s effectively hiding it in plain sight?”

“Well, I doubt she hung up ‘Coming Soon’ signs or set out a welcome mat.” Kris smiled at me, and I looked away, and when he continued, his voice was...different. Disappointed, maybe. But not angry. He wasn’t mad that I’d lied to him, but I’d almost rather see his anger than his pity. “But she’s definitely hidden it where we’d be least likely to look for it.”

“Where
anyone
would be least likely to look.” Van glanced from me to him, then back to me, silently questioning the change between us. But it was nothing I could explain to her, or to any of them without further embarrassing myself.

“Why are Seers always so damn obscure?” I flipped through the notebook absently. Casually. “What good are her predictions if they’re too vague to be used?”

“She wasn’t always vague.” Kris took the journal from me and closed it. “Her waking predictions were usually much clearer, like what Hadley told us the other day. But when Elle was asleep, she couldn’t elaborate, and when I woke her to ask, she never remembered what she’d been dreaming.”

“Okay. So we’re going to do this.” Van closed her laptop and stood.

“Yes.” Kris stood and slid the notebook into his duffel bag on the floor by the couch. “But you’re staying here.”

“No way.” Vanessa clutched her laptop to her chest. “Kenley needs me.”

“She needs you to stay alive and unharmed. You have no combat experience, and I don’t want to leave Gran alone if I don’t have to.” Kori glanced at me as she lifted a shoulder holster from the arm of the couch and slid her arms through the straps. “You, too.”

Vanessa looked as if she’d argue, if she didn’t already know it would do no good.