Oath Bound (An Unbound Novel) (24 page)

I knew no such thing.

“I’m going.” If Kris was right and the blood farm was at the Sycamore Grove warehouse, then there was every chance in the world that I could cull a couple more indentured servants from Julia’s bonds, and a couple of guns made loyal to us—or at least removed from Julia’s arsenal—could mean the difference between life and death if Kris and his crew found themselves outnumbered.

Beyond that, I was
not
giving up another chance to test my newly inherited bonds and to free more of the poor bastards bound by them.

Of course, I’d have to do it without anyone seeing, but I was up to the challenge.

“She’s right,” Kris said, and I turned to find him wearing a double holster, armed with a gun on each side. Could he shoot left-handed? “You’ll be safer here.” There was no malice in his eyes. He wasn’t just trying to cut me out of the action.

“I thought you needed me to jam your psychic signal. I can’t do that from here.”

“That’s a moot point in this scenario,” Ian said, and I decided, for the moment at least, that I hated every single one of them. “We can’t break Kenley out of a secure building we’ve never even seen before without being noticed by the enemy. In which case they won’t have to track us. They’ll be able to see us.”

“But couldn’t you use an extra hand? Holding an extra gun?”

Kori shrugged a jacket on over her shirt and shoulder holster, then gave me an almost sympathetic smile. “You don’t shoot. Guns, at least. And this time I doubt they’ll leave bottles of spray cleaner around to tempt you.”

I glared at Kris. He didn’t have to make me sound like such an...amateur. Even if I was one.

“Liv and Cam can’t make it right now, but they’ll check in later to see if they’re still needed,” Kori said, reading from her cell phone screen.

“Fine. Don’t give me a gun.” I followed them into the hallway, pissed off even further over being forced to beg like a puppy. “I’m not bad with a knife, and I know you have extras.”

“Not this time, Sera.” Kris held the closet door open while Kori and Ian stepped inside.

“Don’t you dare close that door!” I demanded as he stepped in after them. Kris gave me an apologetic look, then closed the door in my face. “You are
not
going without me!” I yelled at the closed door, my hands balled into impotent fists.

Furious, I kicked the door, and something inside me...slipped. It felt like the mental version of bumping into a dresser and knocking one of the drawers open a few inches.

My kick to the door was followed by a louder, deeper thud from inside the closet.

“What the
fuck!
” Kori shouted, and the closet door swung open so fast I had to jump back to keep from getting smacked by it.

“What happened?” Vanessa said from the end of the hall, and I could see Gran behind her, both of them drawn by Kori’s shout. Or maybe by my own heartfelt objection.

“I don’t know.” Kori stuck her head out of the closet and Kris pushed her aside so he could step into the hall. “I tried to travel, and nothing happened. It’s like the shadows are
locked.
We ran into the fucking door.”

Gran burst into laughter, then headed back into the kitchen, and briefly, I wondered what she’d heard that I hadn’t. Did Alzheimer’s make unfunny things sound funny?

Van turned from Gran back to Kori, frowning. “Has that ever happened before?”

“No,” Kris and Kori said in unison.

“Maybe you’re just tired,” Ian said, joining the rest of them in the hall.

Kori nodded. “I’m going to try it again.” She stepped into the closet alone and closed the door as I backed slowly, silently into the living room. I wasn’t sure what I’d done, but I was almost sure I’d done
something.
I’d felt it, right after I kicked the door. Maybe if I removed myself from the situation, things would go back to normal.

I sat on the couch, staring down the hall at Van, Ian and Kris as they watched the closed closet door. A second later, another thud came from within, and this time the string of expletives Kori shouted could have singed the hair off a sailor’s butt.

She tried to travel from the closet twice more, getting angrier and angrier with each failure before Kris insisted she give him a shot.

He ran into the closed door so hard he came out with a nosebleed.

I tried not to laugh. I really did.

After that, they turned off the lights in Gran’s bedroom—including the infrared bulb—and tried to shadow-walk from there, with no success. Then Ian called up the darkest darkness he could manage, and they both tried to travel through that, to no avail.

That’s when Gran stepped into the living room with a bowl of chili in one hand, a full spoon halfway to her mouth. “All three of you owe Sera an apology. Maybe once she gets it she’ll take us out of lockdown. Though I wouldn’t blame her for keeping you here, considering that’s exactly what Kris did to her.”

I gaped at Gran, wondering how she knew what I still hadn’t figured out. But she only shoveled that first bite of chili into her mouth, then laughed around it on her way back into the kitchen.

When I turned, four sets of eyes were staring at me. Kori looked beyond pissed off. Kris looked confused and a little wary. Van and Ian looked fascinated.

Kori rubbed the fresh bruise on her forehead, frowning at me expectantly. “What the hell is she talking about?”

I could only shrug. “In the two days I’ve been here, I’ve understood very little of what that woman says.”

“Gran, how old am I?” Kris stared over my head into the kitchen with a bathroom rag pressed to his dripping nose.

“What kind of dumb-ass doesn’t know his own age?” she called back, and wood creaked as she settled into the far chair at the table—I’d already grown to recognize the sound.

“My kind. How old am I?”

“Thirty, last May. Do you need a fucking diaper change, too?”

Vanessa laughed, and Kori rolled her eyes.

“Just checking.” Kris’s gaze settled on me again. “She’s coherent, which means she knows what she’s talking about. What the hell did you do?”

“I don’t know. I swear. I just...didn’t want you to walk through the shadows without me, and the next thing I knew, you were running into closed doors. Repeatedly.” My gesture took in the bloody rag he still had pressed to both nostrils.

Evidently I was the only one who could see the humor in the situation. Probably because I was the only one who kinda wanted to see Kris bleed. Just a little.

“Gran, what do you know about this?” Kori stomped past me to stand in the kitchen doorway, where she could see everyone all at once.

“More than any of you, apparently,” Gran said, and I shimmied sideways past Kori and into the kitchen, where Gran gave me a conspiratorial wink. As if we were in cahoots about the whole thing. Then she turned back to Kori. “If you want information from me, you better dig up some fucking manners, young lady.” Gran took another bite of chili, and I decided then and there that Alzheimer’s or not, she was the coolest grandmother ever.

I’d never even met any of mine.

“Gran.” Kris sank into the chair across from her. “We’re trying to go after Kenley. Remember? We need to get this fixed. Now.”

“Please tell us,” I added.

This time Gran looked surprised when she met my gaze. “You don’t know?” I shook my head and she turned back to her audience, and I could tell by her solemn expression that she now understood the stakes. “Sera’s a Blocker.”

“No, I’m a Jammer.” That was one of very few facts I was sure of.

“What the hell is a Blocker?” Kori asked, and everyone else looked just as clueless.

“It’s a myth, that’s what it is.” Gran dropped her spoon into her bowl and pushed it back as Kori and Van sank into the chairs on either side of Kris, who kept looking at me, then looking away when I noticed. Ian and I stood against the wall, on opposite sides of the doorway, and every gaze in the room was glued to Gran. “I’ve never actually met one,” she continued. “Most people don’t believe in them.” She shrugged. “But then, most unSkilled don’t believe in Skills, either, so who the hell are we to say what’s real and what’s not?”

No one had an answer, but she wasn’t really looking for one.

“Sera’s real, and she’s a Blocker.” Gran leaned back in her chair, easing effortlessly into that instruction-mode only perfected by raising children. My mother had done it well. “My grandmother always told me that blocking was a piggy-back Skill—that it only manifests in someone who already has a primary Skill. I’m guessing she was right, considering that you’re a Jammer, too.”

I nodded.

“So, she can block other people’s Skills?” Kris asked, and I knew he was right the moment I heard the words. That’s what I’d done. I’d blocked his ability to travel. I’d kind of mentally bumped both him and Kori and knocked their Skills out of alignment. Or something like that.

Gran nodded. “My grandmother theorized that there were more Blockers out there than anyone really knew. Her idea was that most of them never discover the piggy-back Skill, because they don’t know they can do it, and they stop looking for abilities once their primary Skill manifests.” Gran shrugged, and her steel-colored hair caught the light. “Maybe she was right. Maybe Sera never would have discovered she could block you if she hadn’t
really
wanted to keep you here.”

Everyone was looking at me with a certain kind of aggravated respect now, and I would have thoroughly enjoyed that...if I’d intentionally done the thing they respected.

“She can take it back, right? She can just...turn our Skills back on?” Kori looked to me for an answer and when I didn’t have one, she turned back to Gran, who could only shrug.

So we tested it out. Kori tried to travel out of the front closet for at least the fifth time in the past quarter hour, to no avail.

“I’m sorry,” I said when she emerged angrier than ever. “I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t even know how I’m doing it. I just...don’t want you guys to go without me.”

“That’s it.” When we all turned to look at him, Ian wore a quiet smile, but it appeared to be all for me. “It’s just like Kenley and binding. She has to truly
want
to break a binding, in order to remove her will from it, and you have to truly want us to go, for us to be able to leave.”

“But I don’t want you to go without me.” Kris and Kori started to object, but I cut them off. “Arguing isn’t going to help. And I’m not going to feel guilty for insisting that you treat me like an equal. I may not be able to shoot the wings off a fly at forty paces, or whatever, but I can do things none of you can do. Useful things. So...either let me join in your reindeer games, or it looks like no one’s going to play.”

Vanessa chuckled. “You’re going to have to take her with you.” She shrugged. “At least until she learns how to control the blocking. That’s how it works for all Skills, right? They take practice to control?”

Kori nodded reluctantly, and Kris looked almost amused. “I have to admit, that’s impressive.” He grinned as if he’d forgotten about the night before. About how kissing me was a mistake. “Your psychic temper tantrum put the lockdown on this entire house.” He turned to Kori and Ian before I could object to the characterization of something I couldn’t yet control as a child’s fit. “Maybe we need her with us after all.”

Kori didn’t look pleased and Ian seemed reluctant to put me in any more danger—they all did, since they’d found out about the smiling man’s knife and the weeks I’d spent in the hospital. But when neither of them could think of a logical reason to object, I knew I’d won.

A minute and a half later, Kris and I stepped out of the hall closet and into a small, dark bathroom in the warehouse on Sycamore Grove—the only patch of darkness in the whole building. Kori and Ian stepped out of the deep shadows behind us a few seconds later, and we tiptoed toward the line of light we could see beneath the door.

Kris opened the door carefully, and when no one burst in aiming guns at us, he pushed it the rest of the way open. Then nearly choked on shock.

The rest of us peered around him, and my entire body went cold when I saw what was waiting for us in the hall, facing the door we’d just opened in the only dark spot in the building.

A spot that had been left dark for us on purpose, I realized, as I stared at what Julia Tower had left behind.

Ned-the-guard. Dead, with a neat-ish hole in the center of his forehead. Nude and propped up in a sitting position, with a paper note safety-pinned to the flesh above his heart. His dead eyes stared up at us, and I knew what he was meant to be even before I read the note, which appeared to have been written in blood. Probably his.

Ned was a message from Julia Tower. To me.

I should have known she’d kill him if he was no longer useful to her. And if she knew I had set him free, then she knew I’d figured out exactly who I was and what I could take from her.

Pretense was over. The battle had just begun.

Only one of us could survive.

Fifteen

Kris

“O
h, shit...” I tried to block the dead man from Sera’s line of sight, but I could tell by her suddenly rapid breathing that she’d already seen. She tried to push past me, but I refused to move. I’d already lost Kenley by letting her rush into an unknown situation, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Wait!” I whispered when she wouldn’t stop shoving. “It’s probably an ambush.”

“Bullshit.” Sera didn’t even bother to whisper. “They obviously knew we were coming—this was left here for us. If this were an ambush, they wouldn’t want us to know they knew we were coming.”

I had to think about that for a second; however, once I’d untangled her sentence, I couldn’t argue with it. But caution never hurts.

Kori and I fanned out for a quick search of the four other rooms emptying into the hallway, while Ian and his gun—fortunately, he’d been shot in his left shoulder—stood guard over Sera.

When we were sure the immediate area was deserted, I motioned for Ian to let her out of the men’s room. Sera shot an angry glance at me, but I was starting to get used to those. And I refused to feel guilty for trying to keep her safe. Angry-Sera was better than dead-Sera any day of the week.

Although agreeable-Sera would have been a nice change.

She knelt by Ned’s body, and when Kori and Ian took up posts on either side, I knelt with her to read the note pinned to the dead man’s bare chest.

His blood is on your hands.

“That’s Julia’s handwriting,” Kori said, and I looked up to see her staring at the note as if she’d seen a ghost. “She doesn’t usually get her hands dirty, but this time I’d bet my last drop of vodka that the bitch pinned it to him herself.”

“But how is his blood on our hands?” Sera said. “We let him live.”

Kori snorted. “That’s what got him killed.”

Sera stood and covered her face with both hands, then ran her fingers through her hair. Her hands were small. They looked softer than Kori’s and more feminine, with short rounded nails instead of bitten stubs. I wanted to touch one of them. Then she dropped them, and for a second she was looking right at me—until that seemed to make her uncomfortable and her gaze found the corpse again.

I tried not to be offended that she’d rather look at a dead man than at me.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath, obviously collecting her thoughts. Trying to mentally move past the dead body. “My guess is that if your sister was ever here, she’s gone now.”

“Kenley was here.” I was sure of that. “They knew we’d figure it out, after talking to Ned, so they moved her and left him here for us to find. Unless you think Julia left us a rotting welcome gift at every warehouse we might think to search?”

Sera shook her head and I watched her, studying her intense focus. “You think Julia killed Ned because he didn’t kill us? Or because she knew it would upset you? Or because he told us they moved the blood farm to a warehouse?” It was a trick question, intended to test her growing understanding of syndicate life. The answer was: D. All of the above. Julia had killed him because she could.

“He’s dead because she doesn’t know
what
he told us,” Sera mumbled, rereading the note for at least the hundredth time, and I shook my head.

“Julia Tower is a Reader. The only way to keep her in the dark is to say nothing, and Ned didn’t have that option. He was bound to her.”

Sera started to argue—I could see it coming before she even opened her mouth—then seemed to think better of it. “Either way, they obviously knew we were coming. My bet is that this place is deserted.”

“Or they want us to
think
this place is deserted, so they can ambush us when we search it.” The warehouse was a trap. It had to be. If Julia wanted us dead—and she did—and knew we were coming—which she did—why not take advantage of the opportunity?

“Okay.” Kori glanced from Ian to me. Sera looked miffed that she wasn’t being consulted about the plan. “This hall has two exits.” The only two doors we hadn’t checked, because they were locked. “You two go left, we’ll go right. Stay together. If it gets dangerous, go home. Immediately.”

Ian could make his own shadows for them to travel through, but I’d have to destroy the infrared lighting grid for a chance to travel. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” I reminded her.

“Well, it is hers.” Kori shot a pointed glance at Sera.

“What, the last mostly deserted building doesn’t count?” Sera demanded softly. “If I hadn’t seen that guard in time, Ian would have been hit in the chest, instead of the shoulder.”

My sister scowled. “And if you’d known how to disarm him, Ian wouldn’t have been hit at all.”

“If I haven’t already thanked you...thank you,” Ian said.

Kori turned toward the door on her end of the hall and he followed her with a reassuring smile at Sera.

“Is your sister always so bossy?” Sera whispered as we headed toward our locked door.

“Yeah. We let her think she’s in charge, because it’s easier than arguing with her. But if her way isn’t the best way, I do things my way.” I shrugged and leaned closer to whisper near her ear, hyperaware that Vanessa’s strawberry-scented shampoo made Sera smell like she might actually be edible. And I wanted a taste. “Sometimes I do things my way anyway, just to watch her head explode. Though I usually save that for when the cable goes out and everyone’s bored.”

At the end of the hall, I tried the doorknob one more time, to make sure nothing had changed. It was still locked. I glanced back just in time to see Ian pull a deep column of darkness out of nowhere for them to step through, then I holstered my gun and took a longer look at the door and lock.

It was an interior commercial door. Aluminum and hollow, with a standard doorknob lock. Easier to kick open than to shoot.

“Stand back,” I said, and Sera backed up to give me some space. Two heel kicks to the left of the knob, and the door swung open with minimal noise and no real mess.

I stepped into the dark interior office beyond and did a quick security check, then motioned for Sera to follow me inside. Though the only visible light came from an open supply closet, I could feel the infrared grid blazing above me, rendering every shadow shallow and useless.

The office held two metal desks, each with the drawers open and emptied. A laptop power cord trailed across the surface of each desk, but the computers themselves were gone, along with whatever information they’d contained.

The wall opposite the door I’d kicked in held a long glass panel overlooking the warehouse itself, a good six feet lower than the rest of the building. A quick glance inside showed that it was empty, too, except for a couple of abandoned medical gurneys and several scraps of tubing, IV bags, and other medical supplies on the concrete floor.

“They left in a hurry.” I crossed the room, toward the entrance to the warehouse. “Maybe that means they’re still setting up the new place.”

“Or that they already had it ready, just in case.” Sera followed me down the steel grid stairs into the body of the warehouse. There was a set of bathrooms on the far side of the huge room, both doors standing wide open, but other than that, I saw nowhere for anyone to hide.

“So, what?” She ran one hand down the length an abandoned gurney, and I wanted to tell her to stop—that there was no telling what she could catch. Then I remembered that Tower’s victims weren’t sick. They were kept unconscious for ease of handling. “They strap these poor people to the bed and drain them?” Sera looked horrified all over again now that she could see a little of what Jake Tower had started and his sister was continuing. “A little at a time, or all at once?”

“Kori didn’t mention straps, and these gurneys aren’t equipped with them. She says they keep the donors sedated via IV drip and they never take enough blood to kill. Tower was very interested in the renewable aspect of his...resources.”

“The bad guys are going green?”

“Only if the color refers to cash. They’re trying to milk every dollar they can out of each body before it finally gives out. The Towers are motivated by two things—money and power. The only things they like better than money and power are more money and more power. I think it’s some kind of chromosomal abnormality. They lack the genes for compassion and morality.”

Sera scowled and her green eyes darkened.

“What now?” I’d thought we were making progress. She was speaking to me again, and as soon as I had a moment alone with her, somewhere other than an enemy warehouse, I was prepared to declare myself an idiot and apologize for the night before. So why was she getting angrier with every word I spoke?

“Nothing.” She started across the warehouse toward the bathrooms.

“Sera, wait,” I said, and when she finally turned to face me again, her scowl had etched deep lines in her forehead. “Okay, I know you’re mad about what I said last night, and I know I deserve it—”

“I’m not mad. You were right.” Her gaze met mine with what looked like considerable effort. “I’m not in the best state of mind, and if I’d been thinking clearly, I wouldn’t have thrown myself at the first available warm body.”

“I was just the first available...”
Ouch.
I tried to pretend it didn’t sting to hear that mine was a bed of convenience. That any port in the storm would have done.

“Yeah.” She shrugged, but the motion looked stiff and insincere. Or was I imagining that? “So...thanks. You saved us both from a big mistake.”

A mistake? My jaw clenched. Was she throwing my own words at me out of anger, or had we really switched positions so quickly?

“Anyway, you’re off the hook,” she continued, oblivious to my confusion. “I won’t be throwing myself at you anymore. I promise.”

“Um...okay.” I hid disappointment behind what I hoped was a casual smile. “But to prove I have no hard feelings, if you change your mind and decide to throw yourself at me again, this time I promise to catch you.”

Her brows rose in surprise. “Are you flirting? Because you should know, that kind of comes off as a mixed signal, after last night.”

“Sera, I’m so sorry about last night. I had my wires totally crossed, but today they’re all straightened out. I swear.”

The crook in her eyebrow said she was intrigued, but the downward tilt of her lips said she was also feeling cautious. I’d never wanted to turn a frown upside down so badly in my life. “I’m not sure what that means, Kris.”

“That means I want to be here for you. Whatever you need.”

“Thanks, but seriously, you were right. I shouldn’t jump into anything right now. I think we’d both regret that.”

She was wrong. But... “Hot chocolate, then. With or without the Peeps. Or a shoulder to lean on. A hand to hold. An ear to bend. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just promise you won’t dial me out next time you need something. Okay?”

Her frown finally died, but that caution still swam in her eyes. As if she wasn’t sure she could trust me.

I chuckled. “You really make a man work for it, don’t you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Work for what?”

“A smile,” I said, and her suspicion disappeared. “All I want is a smile. And you’re really making me work for it.” Okay, a smile wasn’t
all
I wanted. But it’s what I wanted
first.
I wanted to be able to make her think, just for a minute, about something other than what she’d lost. How she’d nearly died three times since meeting me. How we were no closer to finding the man who’d stolen everything from her.

I wanted to give her something. And I would start with a smile.

“This isn’t the kind of place that inspires smiles,” she pointed out. “And this isn’t exactly a happy time. There’s a dead man in the hall.”

“I’m happy he’s not you.”

“I’m happy about that, too.” She glanced at her hands for a second, then met my gaze again, and I could see it in her eyes. I almost had her. “I’m also happy that he’s not you.”

And finally she smiled.

I felt absurdly triumphant, and I’m sure my own goofy grin reflected that. Even if neither of our smiles would last. And they couldn’t, considering where we stood.

With another glance around the warehouse, solemnity returned, and Sera was all business again.

“Why do you think they left these two gurneys?” she asked, but she’d already drawn the same conclusion I had. I could see that in her eyes as she ran one thumb over a dark spot on the edge of the thin white sheet. “These two didn’t make it, right?” She looked up at me, and I could only shrug. “They poured bleach over the blood—I can smell it—but it’s still damp. We didn’t miss them by much. The cleanup crew, anyway,”

I couldn’t tear my gaze from that spot of blood. Until I noticed another one. And another, leading to a larger stain where the donor’s elbow might have been. Had the donor woken up and struggled? Had something gone wrong with the IV? Had Julia simply cut her losses on a couple of the more fragile donors, who might not be worth the trouble of moving?

“I’m sure Kenley wasn’t one of them.” The compassion in her voice drew my gaze.

“She wasn’t. Julia can’t afford to let her die.” But she wasn’t truly letting Kenni live, either. “Stay put while I check the bathrooms.”

Sera’s brows rose over what she evidently saw as an order.

“Please,” I added as an afterthought, and she gave me another small smile.

“See? That word really can work magic.”

I laughed, and as I crossed the floor toward the bathroom, I began composing a mental list of every possible way to use her “magic word” in my own favor. The entries were not all G-rated.

The men’s room door was open widest, so I checked that one first, careful not to turn my back on the ladies’ room, even with Sera there to shout if someone tried to sneak up on me. The men’s room was small and empty, and far from fresh, in spite of the fact that Julia’s people obviously kept plenty of bleach on hand.

The ladies’ room was just as small and empty, and only marginally cleaner.

With the restrooms clear, I crossed the room to tug on the padlock bolting the exterior door, then gave the rolling bay doors a tug, too. Everything was locked up tight, from the inside.