The Change (Unbounded) (18 page)

People who believed they were above the law.

“You stay here.” Ritter opened my purse and took out the handgun he’d given me earlier, fitting a silencer to the top. “Shoot anything that tries to get in.”

“I can’t stay here. I’m too exposed. There’s a bunch of bushes in the back of my neighbor’s yard. That would be a better place to hide.”

He nodded. Reaching inside his duffel, he pulled out a couple green shirts. “Put on one of these.” I chose the cleanest, pulling it on over my dress. The shirt was far too large, obscuring half the ruffled skirt of my red dress, but I knew that was the point.

Ritter passed me an extra magazine for my gun, which I tucked into my bra.

We kept to the line of bushes marking the side property line, running until we reached thicker shrubbery in the back. Together, we peered over the fence at the deceptively quiet house.

He turned to me. “I’m going in. Don’t move from here. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.” Still, he hesitated.

We were standing close, almost touching. I started to step back, mistrusting the uncontrolled emotions that were bubbling up inside me, but he leaned into me, his powerful arms pulling me close enough that his machine gun jabbed into my chest. His lips came down on mine. Not a tentative kiss, but one that burst into full passion from the beginning touch. I could feel my response echoing through every nerve as my mouth opened to his. A rush of warmth, my skin tingling. His hands on my back trailed fire. We were both breathing hard when we pulled away.

“What defense was that?” I challenged, my voice surprisingly steady despite the erratic pulsing of my veins.

He shook his head. “No defense in the world for that. That’s the problem. But you never know when it might be your last chance.”

He vaulted over the fence before I could reply. I sagged against the wood, trying to catch my breath. Trying to understand. Ritter both repulsed and attracted me, but for those few seconds, I’d lost myself in him. I hadn’t done that since college, not even with Tom. It scared me.

I waited for the sound of bullets. I knew the Unbounded and those who worked for them had silencers, but if Jace had his army-issued handgun, or had managed to get to our father’s hunting rifle, the noise would echo throughout the entire neighborhood.

Scooting behind the bushes, I found an old knot in the wood fence that I could see through. Ritter was scaling the back of my parents’ house, heading to the second floor on the opposite side from where my parents had their adjoined sitting room and bedroom. I wondered why he chose there.

My heart tightened as gunfire burst like thunder through the silence of the neighborhood, spattering in rapid succession.
Jace!
I thought. More shots continued, slower now, but still coming one after the other.

My mother’s scream pierced the air. Then everything fell silent.

T
EARS SLID DOWN MY CHEEKS.
My pulse raced. I had to do something! I was practically immortal, yet here I hid while someone terrorized my family. What if Ritter couldn’t save them? What if he was killed or captured? I might not be as powerful as he was, but I had a gun and I knew how to shoot.

I was standing before I realized it, kicking off my useless heels and climbing the neighbor’s tree. From there I stepped out onto the fence and jumped down into the safety of the bushes on our side of the fence.

The yard was empty. Not even Max was out where he should be. I swallowed hard, but that did nothing for the lump of fear in my throat. I forced myself to run across the lawn to the flowerbed near the house. I was glad now that I’d neglected to trim the overgrown snowball bush. Ducking behind it, I took a deep breath, willing my nerves to be calm.

Movement. I brought up my gun, hoping the silencer worked well enough not to alert anyone if I had to shoot. Carefully, I worked my way farther into the bushes. My foot hit something. I was about to step over it, when I saw what it was—a body. No, two bodies. Both lying at unnatural angles. One obviously had a broken neck; the other was missing half his face.

I gasped, biting my lip to stop further reaction. I’d never seen the men before, but since they were dead and I hadn’t seen Ritter fire any shots outside, I bet they belonged to his mortal security team. Probably assigned to watch my family.

“Come out,” said a voice I didn’t recognize.

I didn’t move.

“Shall I just shoot through the bushes?”

Maybe that’s what
I
should do. But what if I shot one of Ritter’s men who could help my family? Slowly, I worked my way out, switching my gun to my left hand so I could keep it hidden until the last moment.

I peeked around the bush to see an Unbounded man waiting. Not just any Unbounded, but the gray-haired man from the restaurant. He chuckled when he saw me. “Well, look who’s here. You’ve saved us the trouble of finding you. Come out slowly, and I won’t hurt you.”

I didn’t believe him for a minute. My finger tightened on the trigger. A soft thud came as he jerked back.

I kept firing. Bullet after bullet went into his body. I knew I couldn’t kill him with this gun, but I might be able to damage him enough that he wouldn’t be able to follow me. One of my bullets hit the middle of his chest. He staggered, squeezing his own trigger belatedly. To my relief, his shot went wild. Then he was down.

Swiftly, I retrieved my spare key from the frog in the flowerbed and went downstairs to my apartment, but the door was unlocked. Inside, the curtains were drawn shut, the room only dimly illuminated by the light that managed to bend around the edges of the material. Sensing movement at the end of the room near the stairs, I dove behind my couch.

There was a soft whimper, and I looked to see Max lying next to me, blood glistening on his golden coat. He put his nose into my hand and licked me weakly. I could feel his hurt and puzzlement at being shot, and the rage that boiled under the surface of his happy-go-lucky self. Or maybe the rage came from my heart. I wasn’t a dog person, but I didn’t like anyone making any animal suffer, much less one that so foolishly loved me.

“Von? That you? I tell you, there’s no one outside. Would you stop being so paranoid? No one knows we’re here. We got them cornered in the bedroom. Julio is sweet-talking them out now.”

I sat up and fired. My shot missed, but I caught a glimpse of a Nordic-looking man, sliding toward me with that familiar Unbounded confidence. He jumped for cover as I let off another shot. He didn’t make a sound, but I knew I’d hit him.

He was still coming, though, so I had to act. I crawled to the end of the couch and lifted my head to gauge where he was.

A body slammed into me, knocking me to the soft carpet. I pulled the trigger again, and my attacker grunted as the bullet sank into his chest. He brought his own weapon to my heart but stopped abruptly. “You,” he muttered. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

He knew me? But I’d never seen him before. “Tough luck for you.” I fired again. Nothing. I was out of bullets.

Chuckling, the man switched his gun to his other hand, balling his fist. I knew what was coming. Now I’d be the one out of commission while he took care of my family, after Julio or whoever got them out of the bedroom. Where was Ritter?

Gathering my strength, I twisted at the last moment, and he hit me off-center. Even so, I reeled with the pain that spread through my jaw. This man wasn’t nearly as fast as Ritter, but he was experienced and strong. I had only seconds to decide what to do. He was on top of me, easily half again my weight. I wouldn’t be able to beat him in hand-to-hand combat, even if I were properly trained. But like the man outside, his orders didn’t seem to be to kill or to even seriously wound me. If I could get to my knives, they might give me an upper hand.

I started reaching, but his leg was in the way. His fist came up again.

A low growl was the only warning before a golden shape sailed into the blond man. A scream burst from him as Max’s heavy body knocked him to the side, freeing me. I grabbed a knife as Max snapped at his throat. The Unbounded hit Max’s jaws away with his gun, bringing the weapon into position to fire at the dog’s head.

“No!” I swung the knife, missing Max by inches but successfully embedding it into the man’s gun shoulder. He winced and dropped the gun. By then I was slapping the new magazine into my gun. I fired once, twice.

That was enough. He lay still. I didn’t know how long it would take him to revive, but I didn’t worry about tying him up. Instead, I pulled off Ritter’s shirt, used my teeth to rip it, and tied the cloth around the bloody wound in Max’s body. “You stay here, buddy. I’ll be back for you.”

Yelling from upstairs spurred me to action. I had to be in time to help my family. Fighting the urge to vomit, I pulled my knife from the man’s shoulder and gingerly wiped the blade on his shirt before replacing it in my sheath. I hurried up to the kitchen and around to the front entryway stairs. I took them two at a time.

Ritter was in my parents’ sitting room behind the sofa, shooting into the short hallway that led to my parents’ bedroom. Return fire came, the rapid shots so muffled as to seem surreal. I couldn’t see the Emporium men from the top of the stairs, and they couldn’t see me, but Ritter could.

He scowled and motioned me away. At that moment, a bullet slammed into his exposed shoulder and he fell. At once three men pounced on him. Shaking, I lifted my gun to do something, anything to help, but Ritter threw off the men and was up and moving like the wind, unheeding of the blood streaming down his arm. He knocked down one opponent, then another. The first man got up again as Ritter faced the third, who didn’t move with the Unbounded confidence his companions possessed. Ritter sent an uppercut to the man’s chin, felling him heavily, before whipping around to land a powerful kick in the midsection of the first, slamming the man into the wall with a sickening thump. I could only watch in horrified amazement. Then the second man was coming at Ritter again.

Something was behind me. I whirled, barely catching a glimpse of the gray-haired man as a hot, slicing pain bit into my thigh. He was halfway up the staircase, blood spattered over his chest. His gun pointed at my chest. I fired and he fell, tumbling backwards down the stairs. Once at the bottom, he didn’t move. I turned back to the other fight.

All Ritter’s opponents were down. Ritter stood over one of them, aiming his gun at his heart. He fired. He moved to the next and did the same thing. When he reached the third, I called out, “He’s not Unbounded.”

Ritter’s hand wavered, though his face was like granite. He didn’t ask me how I knew, and I couldn’t tell him. “Fine.” He hit the man in the head with the gun instead before striding to my side. “You okay?”

The gentleness in his voice was more unnerving than my gunshot wound, but I was determined not to turn all weepy now. Never mind the blood dripping down my leg. “Yeah. Mostly. You?”

He flashed me a grin before glancing at his shoulder. “Perfect.” A moment later the mirth left his face as he stared down at the man I’d shot, noting the many bullets holes in his chest. “He’ll have already called others so we don’t have much time to get your family out of here. At this point it’s a guess who will come first, the police or more Emporium Unbounded. Depends on how many strings the Emporium can pull to delay law enforcement. So go talk to your family. We need them to open the door.”

My hurt leg screamed in agony as I forced myself into the sitting room where the attackers lay sprawled, but the pain had already subsided from the initial impact, as though my body had rushed natural painkillers to the spot in order to allow me to keep functioning. I’d have to ask about that. I didn’t remember it from before, so maybe my body was getting the hang of this Unbounded thing.

On my way to the short, bullet-riddled hallway to my parents’ bedroom, I passed the mortal Ritter had almost killed. His face was deathly pale, and I saw that at some point he had been shot in the calf, but the bleeding didn’t look serious. He had straight, chin-length brown hair and a nice face. Young and handsome. About my age. What was he doing with Unbounded?

“Jace?” I called. “Mom, Dad? It’s me, Erin.” The bedroom door was splattered with bullet holes and several jagged fist-sized openings. The barrel of a rifle poked from one of these.

“Erin?” It was my mother.

“Mom, you can open the door now.”

“Are they threatening to hurt you if I don’t?”

“No, we’ve taken care of the guys who attacked you, but they could be sending more. Or the police will come. Either way, we have to get out of here. It’s safe to unlock the door—I promise.”

My mother’s eye appeared briefly in one of the larger holes. The door flung open, and she ran into my arms, sobbing loudly. “They shot your father! In the chest. We could barely get him up here, and Jace, he’s been shot, too. So much blood! I didn’t know what I was going to do if they started shooting again.”

I wanted to rush to my dad and Jace, but my mother clung to me as though she were drowning. I held her tightly for a moment, my tears flowing into hers. “It’s okay, Mom. Help is coming.”