Oath Bound (An Unbound Novel) (7 page)

No exits, no neighbors and no phone.
I was
screwed.
Unless
...

Maybe there was a landline. Some people still had those.

When a glance around the living room revealed no phone, I stomped into the kitchen, and he only watched me, still icing his jaw. “What are you doing?”

There was a phone on the wall by the fridge. A really
old
phone, connected to the handset by a long, curly, yellow cord. I picked up the handset and started to dial—until I noticed there was no dial tone.

“We never hooked it up.” He picked up his drink, drained it, then set the empty glass on the counter next to an open box of macaroni and cheese. “No need, with cell phones, right?”

Speaking of which...
I could see the outline of his in his back pocket. Maybe I could hit him with something, then take his phone and lock myself in another room long enough to call for help...

“It’s passcode protected,” he said when he turned and caught me staring at the seat of his jeans. “More useful as a paperweight than as a phone, if you don’t have the code. Or were you just staring at my butt?”

“I wasn’t...” I stopped, angered anew by how flustered I was. “Unless your phone is ancient, it’ll still make emergency calls.”

“True.” My kidnapper pulled the phone from his pocket and held it up. “Do I need to smash mine, too?” He looked reluctant, but willing. I shook my head because I couldn’t steal it later if he busted it now.

He pulled a clean rag from a drawer and wrapped his ice pack in it, then pressed it to his jaw again. “You throw one hell of a punch.”

“You smashed my phone.”

“Sorry. I couldn’t let you call Julia.”

“Julia?” I scowled and backed slowly toward a microwave cart on the other side of the room, where several steak knives were spread out on a folded towel, evidently set out to dry. “I told you I don’t work for her. I was calling the police.”

He shrugged. “Well, that’s almost as bad. I’m sorry about your phone, though.”

“What kind of kidnapper apologizes? And lives with his grandmother? And forgets to take away the victim’s phone?” My spine hit the cart and I slid one hand behind my back, feeling for the handle of a knife. “You’re the worst kidnapper
ever.
”

He watched me closely, but stayed back. “I’m not a kidnapper.”

“My unwilling presence in your home says otherwise.”

“Okay, yes.” He acknowledged my point with another shrug. “But there are extenuating circumstances. Why don’t we sit and discuss this over a drink? Or are you hungry? I’m not much of a cook, but I can handle boxed mac and cheese, if you’re interested.”

I wouldn’t eat or drink a damn thing he gave me, but...

“What happened to the stove?” I glanced pointedly at the front of the ancient appliance, where all four of the burner-control knobs were missing. Was
nothing
normal in his house?

“Oh. Gran nearly burned the house down yesterday, so we had to take the knobs off the stove, and now I can’t remember where Ian hid them...” He turned and took a cookie jar from the top of the fridge, and when he peered inside, I let my fingers skim the cart at my back, searching for the knives.

My kidnapper huffed in frustration and put the jar back. “They were in here yesterday, but now they’re gone...”

My fingers closed around the handle of a knife and my stomach roiled when I brandished it at him, trying not to think about the damage a different blade had done behind my parents’ locked doors. Could I do to my kidnapper what was done to my entire family? Even though he hadn’t laid a hand on me?

Yet.

He hadn’t laid a hand on me
yet.
And he claimed not to want me to return to Julia Tower, but hadn’t he already proved he’d do anything to get his sister back? Why wouldn’t he trade me for her? I’d do it in a heartbeat, if our situations were reversed.

“Give me your phone, or I swear I will gut you.” By some miracle, my hand was steady. The same could not be said for my stomach. I
hate
knives.

His pale brows rose and he crossed his arms over his shirt. “Then how will you get out of here? You don’t know where you are, and it’ll take the police forever to trace a cell phone. My grandmother doesn’t have one. And she’s not a Traveler.”

I frowned and glanced at the kitchen window, mentally working on a Plan C.

“You could break the glass and shout for help,” he suggested. “But I can’t let you go, and even if you tried, you’d cut yourself trying to climb out.” Only an idiot would leave her blood lying around for anyone with the requisite Skill to use against her. “And there’s no one around to hear you scream for help. The nearest neighbor is more than a mile away.”

More than a mile between houses? Either he was lying—though the lack of traffic noise said he wasn’t—or his range was much better than I’d guessed.

Either way, I had to get out, and I had to do it before his friends came back and my odds got even worse.

“Why don’t you calm down and have a seat?” He glanced at the kitchen table and the four chairs around it. “If I put my gun down, will you put your knife down?”

“Hell, no! I’m not going to put the knife down, I’m not going to sit, and I don’t want to talk to you. So you can either let me out of here, or you can get ready to bleed.”

I scanned the kitchen, looking for something light enough to lift, but heavy enough to break glass.

“Sera...” His tone resonated with warning as he set the ice pack on the counter, tense now, as if he might pounce if I made one wrong move. “Whatever you’re thinking...don’t.”

My gaze landed on a ceramic napkin holder shaped like two halves of a pineapple, sitting on top of the microwave. The kidnapper took one step toward me, arms out at his sides, as if I might rush him at any moment.

Instead, I grabbed the napkin holder and hurled it at the nearest window.

Glass shattered and a jagged hole appeared in the pane. Both halves of the pineapple landed on the dark grass outside, about a foot apart.

“Damn it,”
he swore.

“Kris?” a woman’s shaky voice called from the other end of the house, and recliner springs groaned as his grandmother sat up in her chair.

“It’s okay, Gran. Go back to sleep,” Kris—finally the kidnapper had a name!—said without taking his gaze from me. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered, and anger flickered across his expression.

“I probably shouldn’t do this either, then, right?” I grabbed a wooden rolling pin from a stainless steel canister of large utensils and swung it at what was left of the window. Glass exploded outward, onto the grass.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” his grandmother demanded, and the chair groaned again. “If one of you hellions put another pool cue through my—”

“It’s fine, Gran,” he called back. “Stay in your room.”

I kept swinging and glass kept breaking. I knocked as much of it out as I could, to make the window safe to crawl through, and he only watched me, his eyes narrowed in irritation, a red blotch growing on his chin where I’d punched him.

When the glass was gone, I met his gaze, trying to decide whether to relinquish the bludgeoning weapon or the stabbing weapon—I’d need at least one free hand to climb through the window.

“Please don’t do this,” he said, and the earnest note in his voice actually made me hesitate. For about a second.

Then I threw the rolling pin at him and lunged for the window while he ducked.

I was halfway out when he wrapped one arm around my waist and tried to drag me back in. My heart beat so hard my chest almost hurt. I clutched the window frame and swung the knife behind me. The serrated blade caught on material and when I jerked it free from the snag, he swore again. But he didn’t let go or stop pulling, and I wasn’t strong enough to keep him from hauling me back into the house. At least, not without the use of both hands.

In the kitchen once again, he pinned my left arm to my side with his other arm wrapped around my waist. I shoved the knife in my right hand backward, hoping to catch a vital organ, but he caught my wrist before the blade made contact.

“Please drop the knife, Sera. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Sorry I can’t say the same.” I tried to twist my arm free, but his grip was relentless and I couldn’t reach anything with the blade.

“Kristopher, what the hell is going on?”

My shoes brushed the floor when he spun with me still in his grip, evidently as startled as I was to find his grandmother standing in the kitchen doorway, her stern frown aimed at us both.

“Call the police,” I demanded, tossing hair out of my face. He grunted when my skull smashed into his...something. “I’m a hostage being held against my will.”

Her frown bled into a sympathetic smile. “Oh, hon, you’re not being held, you’re being
moved.
We’re the good guys. But I need you to hold it down, so you don’t wake up the rest of the kids.”

“The rest...” Fresh panic made my pulse trip faster. “How many other hostages do you have?”

“None.” Kris groaned in frustration. “She’s not a kid, Gran. We don’t have any kids right now, remember?” He shifted, and his next words were softer, spoken near my ear. “You’re not a hostage. She’s confused.”

The old woman propped wrinkled fists on ample hips. “Kristopher, let her go. That’s no way to earn her trust.”

“I can’t let her go. She has a knife.”

“Good. I hope she skewers you with it.” His grandmother marched past us both, glanced in obvious irritation at the stove with no knobs, then pulled a mug from the cabinet above the coffeemaker. “You can’t keep bringing them in with no notice, Kris. We don’t have a bed for her right now. One of the boys will have to sleep on the couch until we find someplace safe to send her.”

Boys?

Kris groaned again. “She’s not a kid, Gran. She’s
fully
grown.” His declaration carried equal parts appreciation and frustration over that fact, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “And we’re not sending her anywhere.”

“What the
hell
are you people talking about? I haven’t been rescued, I’ve been kidnapped.”

Kris’s grandmother shot him a questioning look over her mug, as if
I
were the one who made no sense.

“I didn’t kidnap her. Exactly,” he said. “But if I let her go now, she’ll stab me. Again.”

Again?
Was he already bleeding?

The grandmother pulled the full carafe from the coffee machine. “Is this decaf? You know I hate decaf.”

“It’s fully leaded,” he said, his mouth inches from my ear, his grip on me unrelenting.

“What is
wrong
with this family?” I demanded when the hard kick I landed on his shin did no good, and she made no move to help me.

Gran gave me a stern frown and poured coffee into her mug. “We have a strict no-weapons policy for the residents. He’ll let you go as soon as you put the knife down, but not a moment sooner.”

My grip on the knife tightened. “Who
are
you people?”

“Don’t tell her anything,” Kris said, hauling me backward when I tried to kick the nearest cabinet. “I think she works for the Towers.”

Gran’s eyes widened. Then she blinked and gave her head a little shake, as if she’d just woken up and needed to clear the cobwebs.

I kicked backward again, and again I caught Kris’s leg. He grunted, but didn’t let go. “I don’t work for anyone,” I insisted, but no one was listening.

His grandmother looked up from her mug, scowling fiercely, and everything about her was suddenly different, from the harder edge to her voice to the stiffness of her posture. “Kristopher Daniels, tell me you did
not
bring a Tower employee into this house.”

Kris groaned into my ear. “Gran, my
name
is top on the list of things you weren’t supposed to tell her!”

“Take her back.” Gran blew calmly over the surface of her coffee as I kicked her grandson over and over again, growing angrier each time he only grunted and squeezed me tighter. “If she works for the Towers, she’s dangerous.”

“Taking her back won’t make her any less dangerous. And anyway, I can’t take her back.” Kris
oofed
when I threw my head back and my skull caught his...chin? But his grip around my waist never loosened. “They tried to shoot her. Right now, I can’t really blame them.”

“Why would they shoot their own employee?” Gran asked.

“I don’t work for them! And they weren’t shooting at me, they were shooting at
him.
” Though they were clearly willing to count me as collateral damage.
“Let me go!”
I shouted when my anger crested, and I shoved the knife back with all the strength I had.

The blade snagged on material again, and Kris gasped, then grunted in frustration. “
Damn it,
Sera!” He let go of my waist, but before I could do anything with my freed left arm, he spun me around and slammed me against the front of the refrigerator.

Air burst from my lungs, then his forearm pressed into my collarbone through my sister’s yellow scarf, pinning my shoulders to the fridge. Panic tightened every muscle in my body. I fought blindly as memory obscured reality and it became hard to focus on his face.

His free hand curled around my right one, which still gripped the blade. His angry blue-gray gaze bored into me, his legs pinning mine so that I couldn’t kick. “
Please
drop the knife, Sera! You got me. I’m bleeding. You win.”

“Open the door and let me out,” I growled through clenched teeth.

He exhaled heavily. “I can’t. I’m sorry you can’t see that, but I can’t let you leave yet, for your safety and for ours. I have to ask you some questions, and you
have
to answer them. But it doesn’t have to be this hard. Please, please, please let’s do this the easy way.”

“Fuck you.” I glared into his eyes from inches away. “I don’t owe you anything.”

His expression hardened. “Fine. We’ll do it the hard way. Just keep in mind that that was your choice.” He squeezed my left wrist, but I gripped the knife in spite of the growing pressure and pain until I actually lost control of my own fingers.