Oath Bound (An Unbound Novel) (28 page)

I swiveled back and forth in the chair, trying to exorcize my own nerves. “Did you know her well?”

Kori exhaled from the shadows. “I wondered when you’d ask.”

“How did you know I would?”

“Because you look at my brother like he invented sex, and you’d like him to show you how it works.”

“I do not.” I was suddenly grateful for the dark room, so she couldn’t see the fire surely glowing in my cheeks.

Kori actually laughed, and I almost died of shock. “Yes, you do, and you’re not the first.” She chuckled again. “But you’re a smart girl, so I figure that if you’re interested in more than one night’s worth of sweat from him...”

“I never said I was interested.” But she spoke right over me.

“...then you’ve already figured out your only real competition is a ghost.”

I hadn’t thought about it in so many words, and I wasn’t ready to admit to anything yet, but...yeah. He’d grown up with her. He’d been with her for years, even though they weren’t monogamous most of the time, from what I’d gathered. Hell, he kept a written record of everything she’d ever mumbled in her sleep!

“You didn’t answer the question,” I said when she leaned forward and peered into my eyes, as though she could read in them the things I wasn’t saying aloud. “Were you and Noelle close?”

“Best friends. When I found out she was sleeping with my brother, I was beyond pissed off at them both.”

“What’d they say?” I had no similar experience to compare that to. Nadia and I had been far enough apart in age that we couldn’t even wear the same clothes, much less compete for friends or boyfriends.

“I never told them I knew.” A slight shift in the shadows and the squeal of bedsprings told me she’d folded her legs beneath her on the mattress. “They clearly didn’t want anyone to know, and I sure as hell didn’t want to hear about it, from either perspective. So I left it alone. But I had no idea it went on as long as it did until he showed me the notebook. Three days ago.”

I thought about that for a moment. Then I kind of wished I hadn’t.

“What was she like?”

Kori leaned forward, her palms propped on the edge of the bed, and I could see her face now, still heavily shrouded in shadow. “Noelle was...a puzzle. I knew that even before I knew I should be putting the pieces together. You’re kind of like her, in that respect. But only that one.”

I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. “He loved her?”

“Yeah. He did.”

“Did she love him?”

Kori hesitated. “Maybe. In her own way. But things with Noelle were...complicated. We didn’t know it at the time, but in looking back, I don’t think she was ever really a normal kid. Because of her Skill. I don’t think she did anything—including my brother—without a reason related to something she’d seen in prophesy.”

“So...she used him?”
That bitch.
My own thought surprised me, but I refused to let myself overanalyze it.

“I think she really did care about him, but yes. She used him. For multiple...things. But I’m not sure he actually understands that, even now. I’m also not sure he’d want me to tell you any of this,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Then why are you?” I whispered back, my feet on the floor now, so the chair couldn’t spin.

“Because he doesn’t always know what’s best for him.” She paused and seemed to reconsider. “I take that back. He almost
never
knows what’s best for him.”

“And you do?”

She shrugged. “I know it’s no better for him to keep living in the past than it is for Gran.”

“And by ‘the past,’ you mean Noelle?”

Kori frowned. “I mean all of it. Kris is a man on a mission that can never be fulfilled, without a time machine. He can’t go back and save Elle from a bullet. He can’t go back and save Kenley or me from the Towers, and no matter how many kids he shuttles from one safe harbor to the next, he can never undo what happened to Micah.”

“Kids?”
Micah?

“The kids he works with.”

“How do kids fit in with bail bondsmen and private collectors?” Something wasn’t adding up...

Kori frowned. “That’s what he told you? That he rounds up criminals and collectibles?”

I nodded slowly. “So it’s not true?” My chest ached. He’d lied to me.

“Oh, that’s true, but it’s only half the story. Kris is a smuggler.”

“A smuggler?” Pieces were falling into place in my head, but the big picture wouldn’t come into focus. “A...
kid
smuggler?” Were those the kids Gran was talking about? “So he
is
a kidnapper?”

Kori shook her head. “No, he’s a liberator. And they’re not small kids. They’re mostly teenagers. Kids who’ve just discovered their Skill and are at risk of being ‘recruited’ by the mafia.” The bitter scowl that accompanied her air quotes spoke volumes about her own recruitment. “He gets them out of the city and helps place them with families in the suburbs. Families with Jammers. Like you. To keep them safe until they learn how to hide themselves.”

Holy crap. “And does Gran...cook for them?” Suddenly the four huge cans of marinara made sense.

“She did, before he had to take away the knives and stove knobs. She’s only truly with us about half the time now.” Kori shrugged. “Of course, all of that’s on hold now while we’re here helping Kenley break her bindings.”

“He didn’t tell me.”
Why
didn’t he tell me? “Does that mean he doesn’t trust me?”

Another shrug. “He’s just really careful. It’s his life’s work, and a lot of people would get hurt—or killed—if the wrong people find out.”

People, like the Towers.

“Kenni and I didn’t know about it until our bindings were broken. He couldn’t tell us, because we’d have had to report it.”

I was still mulling that over when she sat up straight and her face receded into the shadows. “I think I know why you can’t stop me from traveling into the closet,” she said, and girl-chat time was obviously over.

“Why?”

“Because you don’t give a shit whether or not I can travel into the closet. When you stopped us earlier, it was because you
really
didn’t want us to go without you. Right?”

I nodded. I could see where this was headed. “So, I’m only going to be able to stop people from using Skills I
really
don’t want them to use?”

“At first? Yes. But you’ll get the hang of it with practice, and for now, the good news is that if someone’s Skill threatens you or someone you want to protect, I’m guessing you
really
won’t want him to use it. Right?”

“I guess.”

“Let’s test the theory.” She stood and grabbed my hand, then leaned forward to kick the bedroom door closed, cutting off most of the light from the hall. Which left us standing in almost total darkness, thanks to the thick drapes. “I’m guessing the place you want least in the world to be right now is...your parents’ den.”

My hand clenched around hers and my heart tried to claw its way up my throat.

“That’s where it happened, isn’t it? That’s where you saw him on top of your sister? Where you heard her screaming? Where you realized what he would do when he was done with her? Right?”

“Kris told you?” My voice sounded hollow. Dead.

Kori shook her head, but I didn’t so much see that as feel it—movement in the dark. “I read the police report.”

Then she knew the rest of it.

“It’s none of your business,” I whispered, but when I tried to pull my hand from hers, she only tightened her grip.

“I know. I’m sorry for what happened to your family, and for invading your privacy. But if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t know where they lived, and I wouldn’t be able to take you there now. He’s not there anymore, Sera. I can take you back there, and
he won’t be there.
”

“No.” I tried to pull my hand from hers again, but she wouldn’t let go.

“Good. Stop me if you can. This will be a good test. But if you can’t block me, just remember that he won’t be there when we get there. No one will be there. You can go back there this one time and put the whole thing behind you.”

But that wasn’t true. I couldn’t go back there. And even if I could stand to be in that room again, being there wouldn’t fix anything. Not as long as he still had a pulse.

“I’ll be right there with you. No matter what happens, this is a step in the right direction.” She tried to pull me forward, but I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t. So she pulled harder, and I stumbled after her. One step. Two. Three, and we crashed into Gran’s dresser.

“Shit!” Kori dropped my hand to clutch—whatever had banged the dresser.

The bedroom door flew open behind us, and I whirled around an instant before the overhead light blinded me. “What’s wrong?” Ian demanded as Kris pushed past him into the room.

“She did it.” Kori was smiling—
beaming
—like she was proud of me, or maybe proud of herself, but all I could hear was what she’d said before. In the dark.

I can take you there.

All I could see was the tall man with the curly hair. Blood leaking from my sister’s stomach to pool on the floor. The tall man’s creepy grin as he lurched after me and grabbed my shoulder, his knife already dripping...

“Kori tried...” I said, but I couldn’t finish it. “She tried to...” My arm took over when my tongue failed for a second time. My fist crashed into her jaw and Kori stumbled backward into the dresser.

“You ungrateful little bitch!” She bounced back faster than I could believe, brow furrowed in anger, both fists clenched and ready to swing. “I was trying to help you!”

My heart thumped painfully and my fists rose—I was too busy being scared of the tall man to be scared of her.

Kris jumped between us. Ian pulled Kori back with one arm wrapped around her waist.

“What happened?” Kris’s gaze bounced from me to his sister.

“I’m fine. Let me go,” she said, and Ian let her go, but stayed close. “I was trying to help her. I
did
help her. She blocked me.”

They both turned to me for my version. “That crazy bitch tried to shadow-walk me into my parents’ house. Where they all died.” Where I’d lost everything.

“Kori!” Kris looked furious.

“I wasn’t really going to do it.” She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed in exasperation. “You know I can’t go that far in one shot.”

She couldn’t?

“I was just going walk her into the hall closet, but she had to
think
I was taking her somewhere she didn’t want to go, or she couldn’t block me.” She turned to Ian. “It’s just like what you did for Kenley to help her break my binding. She had to really want it. Same principal, right?”

“That was an emergency, Kori,” he said, in that way he had of making quiet words seem more important than shouted ones. “Most people don’t respond well to the shock-and-awe approach.”

“What the hell were you
thinking?
” Kris demanded, and his arm slid around my waist. Maybe I should have pushed him away, to prove I could stand on my own, but instead I scooted closer, and his arm tightened around me, and I realized he wasn’t trying to protect me—he was standing with me.

“I was thinking that she had the balls to do what needs to be done, no matter what that requires.” Kori gestured angrily as she spoke. “She’s the one who wants to charge into enemy territory, and we can’t send her in unprepared. She has to be able to use her Skills.”

“Kori...” Kris started, but she cut him off, her anger clashing with his.

“Listen up, all of you.” She stepped away from Ian and addressed us as a group—as if she were in charge—and my blood boiled. “None of you know what Julia’s capable of. Not like I do.”

“She can’t hurt me,” I insisted, clinging to that very thought.

Kori turned to me, eyes narrowed, studying me. “She can’t
physically
hurt you, or order someone else to. But there are many kinds of pain, Sera. What that man did to your sister? What you saw? Julia can and
will
make that happen all over again. Maybe to someone you know—she’ll pluck your best friends right off the street, if she can find them. She’ll make you watch them tortured, for no reason other than to see you suffer. To make you remember what you would do anything to forget.”

My friends?
College felt like a lifetime ago. My friends were a universe away—I hadn’t seen even one of them since the funeral. But they weren’t beyond the Towers’ reach. “Why would she...” My question had no end. I couldn’t say it.

“To make you give up your birthright. To illustrate what a heartless bitch she really is. Because she’s premenstrual. Because she’s bored. Because she
can.
She doesn’t need a reason to cause pain, but she has plenty of them to choose from.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Kris swore. Then he turned on his sister. “Get out.”

“You’re sending a lamb to the slaughter, Kris. You all need to
listen
to me.”

“And you need to back the fuck off and get out of here!”

Kori blinked, stunned. Then she glanced at me and backed slowly toward the door.

“If Sera goes in there and her plan falls apart—hell, even if it
doesn’t
fall apart—they’ll use every weapon at their disposal to break her. And her weak spot is pretty fucking obvious.” Her hand found the doorknob and one foot landed over the threshold in the hall. “She needs to deal with that shit before she goes in there, or they’re going to rip her heart out and serve it on crackers.”

With that, she stomped past Ian into the hall and out of sight.

“I’m sorry,” he said, when she was gone. “She really does mean well. And she speaks from experience you can’t even...” He stopped and studied me for a minute. “Well, maybe you
can
imagine. Her approach was wrong, but her heart’s in the right place. She really was trying to help.”

I couldn’t quite bring myself to accept his apology, in part because it wasn’t his to give. But his point lingered. And I suspected he was right—they both were. Not that I was eager to go home again. That house was haunted, if not by ghosts, then by memories. By loss. And if I couldn’t face my own memories, how the hell was I supposed to face down Julia Tower?