Oath Bound

  “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.

  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 ang
rier 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.