Blood Bound

  “You better tell me what the hell is going on, or I swear I’ll kill you justn taon’t have to listen to you.”

  I laughed. “Good to see you, too.”

  She shoved wavy, white-blond hair back from pixieish features twisted into her usual angry scowl. “I’m not fucking kidding.”

  “Me, neither.” I’d actually missed her crass, sarcastic affection. Kori only yelled at people she liked. She didn’t bother with anyone else. “It’s been too long.”

  “No, it hasn’t been long enough. What the hell happened to the second oath?”

  “Anne burned it.” Cam tossed her a beer and Kori caught it one-handed, without even looking. She’d always been eerily well-coordinated, though I could find no correlation between that and her Skill as a Traveler.

  “That mousy little bitch…” She twisted the top from her bottle as she crossed the room, then tossed the cap onto the coffee table and dropped onto the couch next to me. “Make this quick.”

  “Okay, the short version…” I couldn’t quite escape the feeling of déjà vu. We’d sat just like that—with Anne and Noelle—all the time as teenagers, sharing an honesty everyone else in my life seemed to have outgrown.

  Everyone except Kori.

  “On Thursday night, Anne’s husband was killed. She asked us to track and kill the murderer, so Cam and I did. But it turns out he was after her daughter, not her husband. Somehow, the Tower syndicate is wrapped up in this….” I said, and she glanced briefly, pointedly at Cam. Did she know about his binding? “But we’re not sure how, or how far up it goes, except we have reason to believe that whichever high-level initiate hired the killer also paid for him to have some kind of blood transfusion—of Skilled blood.”

  Kori blinked. Then she took a long, long chug from her bottle, and I couldn’t help wondering if she was just stalling until she could come up with some clever, curse-riddled response. “Do you always jump right into the deep end?” she said finally. “What happened to wading in a little at a time?”

  “Wading into what?”

  “Into trouble, Liv.” Kori set her bottle on the coffee table and gave me a half amused, half exasperated look. “You’re swimming with the fuckin’ sharks, and you’re too stupid to even know it. Those fins circling you? Those are warning signs. Take heed, and get the fuck out of the water before they eat you alive.”

  “I didn’t jump in, I got pushed,” I insisted. “And I can’t just crawl out. We’re talking about Anne’s child, Kori.”

  “Anne has kids?”

  “One. A daughter. She’s five.”

  Kori shrugged. “Well, she musta been an accident. Last time I saw Anne, she was in grad school, taking a bunch of sociology and psychology classes, talking about how pointless it was to bring another kid into the world, when there were already thousands of them in this country alone who didn’t have homes, or a fuckin’ thing to eat.”

  “Well, things change. People change.” I shrugged. “Now Anne has a daughter, and Jake Tower is trying to kill her.”

  Kori leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, first of all, if Tower wants Anne’s kid, it’s not so that he can kill her. It’s so he can keep her.”

  “Keep her?” The horrifying conclusions that accompanied that thought were too awful to fully focus on, so I pushed them aside for the more immediate question. “How do you know what Jake Tower does or doesn’t want?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted the answer, but I was suddenly absolutely convinced that I needed it.

  She downed the last third of her beer, then waved the empty bottle at Cam, wordlessly demanding another. “Okay, look,” she said finally, turning back to me. “I take this little command appearance to mean that I don’t have any choice but to help you with this.”

  “That’s right,” I said, as Cam twisted the top from a fresh bottle and handed it to her.

  “Fine.” She took the bottle and drank the neck in one gulp. “The truth is that I won’t hate doing what I can for Anne and her unlikely progeny. If we’re keeping score, I probably owe her anyway.”

  In fact, if we were keeping score, Kori would be in debt up to her hair follicles to me and Noelle, too. If Elle were still alive.

  She took another gulp, then continued. “But before you start officially asking me for help, you need to understand that there are certain requests I can’t carry out, and making those particular requests would be like pushing my self-destruct button. I’ll implode, like the fuckin’ Death Star.”

  “Um, point of fact, I believe the Death Star exploded,” Cam said, leaning back on a bar stool, his elbows propped behind him on the counter. “Twice.”

  “Congratulations. Your official super-nerd badge is in the mail,” Kori said, but I couldn’t get past the part about me accidently pushing her self-destruct button. Shit. Shit, shit, shit! “Please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means….”

  Instead of answering, Kori shrugged out of her jacket and twisted to show me the two black chain links inked on her upper left arm.

  “Son of a bitch!” The pressure building inside me had no outlet—I felt as if the top of my head was going to blow off. “Both of you?” I glanced at Cam, and as I’d expected, he showed no sign of surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  No wonder he had her number memorized and she knew where he lived…

  “It’s not my place to tell you about Kori’s marks. That’s up to her.” He glanced at her and shrugged. “Or not, if she chooses.”

  Kori rolled her eyes. “Like I had any choice but to show her.”

  She didn’t. And I didn’t. And Cam didn’t. We were fresh out of choices, and probabl running out of time. Working with them was like playing Marco Polo, with all the Polos gagged.

  “Does Tower know you’re bound to me and Anne?”

  “No, but only because he hasn’t specifically asked. I was searched for marks when I signed on and forbidden to take on any more while I’m in his service. But so far, he’s assumed his are the only bonds I have.”

  But if he asked, she’d have to tell him.

  Beyond frustrated, I scowled at them both. “How the hell am I supposed to be any use to anyone if neither of you can do what I need done or tell me what I need to know?”

  Kori shrugged, and the gesture looked well-worn. “Work around the bindings.”

  I’d been working around my bindings to Cavazos for a year and a half, but I rarely had to work around anyone else’s marks….

  Cam lowered himself onto the coffee table in front of me, and I didn’t miss Kori’s look of surprise when I let him take my hands. “Yes, our bindings to Tower complicate things. But your own professional life isn’t exactly simple at the moment.”

  “My ties to Cavazos are nowhere near as restrictive as yours to Tower. And Ruben isn’t trying to kill a five-year-old!” Though if I failed to find his missing son in the next six months, I was going to wish he’d killed me.

  “Wait, what? She’s bound to Ruben Cavazos?” Kori’s eyes widened dramatically, then she grinned and grabbed her beer. “You two take the concept of star-crossed to a whole new level.”

  “So glad we amuse you,” I muttered, trying to refocus my thoughts and work around her chain links. “Okay, instead of just flat-out asking you to do some things, which would compel you to do them, I’m going to ask you if you can do what I need done.” I’d rather her help us of her own will anyway.

  Kori nodded. “Greatly appreciated.”

  “Okay, here goes. When Anne and Hadley get here, can you take them and Cam through the shadows to an apartment if I give you the address?”

  “How far away is it?”

  “About six miles. Less, as the crow flies.” Much less, as the shadow-walker travels…

  “No problem. Anything else?”

  I inhaled, debating my next request. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could…not tell your boss where she is, or that we have her?”

  Kori frowned at me. “Have you really been
here for years, ’cause you sound like you just fell off the truck, fresh from the fuckin’ farm.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not green. I was just hoping you might be able to…work around your own bindings.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” she said. “But if Tower asks me a direct question, I’ll have to answer.”

  “I know.ut we’d appreciate any sidestepping you’re able to do.” I shrugged and sipped from my bottle of water. “Hopefully, though, it won’t matter either way. We’re putting her deep in the east end, and I can’t see Tower making a move for her there, considering he’d have to physically break into the apartment once we get all the lights on.”

  “So, what’s the plan after that?” Kori wore skepticism like some women wore jewelry. “Cower under a desk and hope nothing falls on your head? You can’t hide from Tower forever. Trust me.”

  “I know. This is just to keep her safe while we figure out why he wants her and how to stop him. I don’t suppose you could help with any of that?” I watched Kori closely, expecting to learn as much from what I saw on her face as from whatever she’d actually say.

  But her expression gave away nothing. It was carefully guarded and practically blank, which told me she knew something. Something big.

  “I don’t have any knowledge of Anne’s kid specifically,” she said. “But I know that Tower’s working on a big project and that it requires a lot of…resources. Which may be why he wants her.”

  Resources? Project? What kind of project could be so important, so top secret that he’d need a five-year-old to… To what?

  “What big project?” Cam demanded, his irritation bordering on anger.

  Kori shrugged. “If you don’t know, it’s because he doesn’t want you to know.”

  “I want me to know,” he insisted.

  “Well, then, it’s too damn bad you don’t have your own mark tattooed on your arm, instead of his,” Kori snapped. “You know how this works, Cam. I don’t make the fuckin’ rules.”

  “I also know you don’t mind breaking them whenever possible.” His frown deepened. “Or whenever it benefits you.”

  “Look, I would tell you if I could.” Kori set her empty bottle down on the coffee table. “But I’m strictly prohibited from talking about the project. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about that.”

  But if I caught her off guard with a good guess, her surprise—or lack thereof—might say as much as her silence.

  “He’s selling Skills, isn’t he?” I asked, making a sudden, mental leap between two pieces of the puzzle we hadn’t yet connected. And her surprise—then quick poker face—was like a little gold star for my internal score card. “We thought Tower just paid for Hunter to have the procedure—whatever it is—but actually, he’s the one who provided it.”

  “No.” Cam shook his head firmly. “It’s not possible. There’s no way Tower could be up to something that big without me hearing about it.”

  Kori laughed out loud. “I’m not sure if you’re overestimating your own abilities or underestimating Jake’s, but you’re—” she hesitated, evidently running up against a verbal line she was forbidden to cross “12;inaccurate, at best,” she concluded, her amusement dampened by the restriction.

  “And you’re saying he wants Hadley for this little project?” I said, while Cam sat in stunned anger.

  “I’m not saying a damn thing,” Kori insisted, and I ignored her words, again focusing on her expression, which seemed to give a little this time. She looked…pleased.

  “Does he want to use her blood for a transfusion?” Cam asked, when he caught on to my game. “She’s supposed to be one of his resources?”

  Kori crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t answer that.” Which was an answer in itself. “Nor can I confirm my own involvement in collecting these resources.”

  Which was as good as admitting that Tower had made her kidnap people to be used in his new project.

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I said, to Cam this time. “Hadley hasn’t come into her Skill yet. We don’t even know what Skill she’ll have. If she even has one.” I turned back to Kori. “Anne’s husband wasn’t Hadley’s biological father. Anne doesn’t even know who the father is.” And again I was struck by how odd that was—Anne just wasn’t the type to not know something like that. “It’s entirely possible that her father was unSkilled, and that Hadley’s not going to inherit any ability at all.” And honestly, if she inherited Anne’s Skill, she wouldn’t be much of a prize. Readers were a dime a dozen. “Why would he go through so much trouble to get her if he doesn’t even know whether or not she’ll be Skilled?”

  Kori’s brows rose and she looked right into my eyes. “He wouldn’t.”

  I glanced at Cam, but he looked as surprised as I was. “You’re saying he knows she’ll be Skilled? How can he possibly know that unless…?” My voice trailed off as synapses misfired in my brain. Surely not…

  “Unless what?” Kori prompted.

  “Unless he knows who her father is.” I blinked and glanced at Cam, but he only shrugged, as if he was following my train of thought and reluctant to derail it. “But how could Tower know, if Anne doesn’t even know?”

  “Maybe she does know.” Kori grabbed my water bottle and helped herself to several gulps. “Our binding doesn’t prevent us from lying to each other….” She left that reminder hanging in the air while she drank the rest of my water.

  And suddenly everything I thought I’d known about Anne and her child was thrown into question. I felt as if I was standing on my elementary-school merry-go-round, watching the world spin around me, struggling to identify the now-blurry landmarks I’d known all my life.

  I turned to Cam to find him frowning, his grip on his own water bottle tight enough to crack the plastic. If Anne had lied to me, she’d lied to him, too.

  “Be right back,” Cam mumbled, then set his bottle down on his way to the bathroom.

  When the door closed behind him, I turned to Kori, unable to purge my own curiosity. “So, you and Cam work together? How dd that happen?”

  She shrugged. “We don’t so much work together as work near each other. I see him all the time, but we’ve only been paired up for a couple of jobs.”

  “Was he already bound to Tower when you…signed on?”

  “No, but he came on board soon after,” she said. I started to ask how the hell she’d wound up working for Tower, but she spoke before I could. “Speaking of familiar faces, you ever hear from Elle?”

  I frowned, and she saw it on my face before I could figure out how best to say it.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah. I’ve tried to track her over and over, and I’m not getting even a blip of an energy signature from her name.” And I didn’t have a blood sample, of course.

  Kori nodded. “I had a feeling. Her brother’s been looking for her for a while, without any luck.” Her petite features betrayed no hint of emotion, but I saw through her mask of disinterest. She and Elle were close once, like Anne and I had been.

  Then Kori blinked, as if someone had pressed her reset button, and I knew she was going to change the subject—a tried-and-true defense mechanism. She twisted to face me, one arm resting on the back of the couch, and I should have recognized the look on her face. As if she was bored and ready to start trouble. I should have remembered….

  “So, I’m kinda surprised to see you and Cam together again, after what happened at that party. Especially with Anne coming over.”

  Anne? I shrugged. “That was six years ago. I made a mistake, but that’s all over now.”

  Kori blinked, surprised. “You made a mistake?”

  “I dumped him in the middle of the party, Kor. He deserved an explanation, at least. Then maybe I wouldn’t have lost six years with him. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost touch with the rest of you, either.”

  Kori just frowned at me. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” Why was my heart
beat suddenly painful? Why did it hurt to inhale?

  “Shit.” Kori glanced at the ceiling for a second, then met my eyes again. “I didn’t wanna be the one to tell you. I figured you knew and just decided to sweep it under the rug. Or whatever.”

  “Knew what, Kori?”

  “Cam slept with Annika. That night at the party. I thought you knew. Hell, I thought that’s why you walked out.” She watched me, waiting for my reaction, but I didn’t have one. Her words bounced around in my head and the hollow echo reverberated the entire length of my body. “Six years ago. Do the math, Liv.”

  So I did the math. And suddenly wished I’d never learned how to add.

  Twenty

  The apartment was quiet when I stepped out of the bathroom. That should have been my first clue that something was wrong.

  “Liv?” I called. There was no answer, and my skin prickled. “Kori?” I ducked back into the bathroom to grab the spare 9mm I kept between the two bottom towels stacked beneath the sink.

  “She left to give us some privacy,” Liv called. I exhaled in relief and headed down the hall. I should have known better.

  “We need privacy?” I leaned against the living-room doorway to find Liv waiting for me on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, gaze hard. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re Hadley’s dad?” Her voice could have cut glass. “When were you going to tell me?”

  Every single hope of a permanent reconciliation I’d harbored in the past twenty-four hours died a bloody, violent death and a deep, numbing cold grew in my chest. “No, Liv, it’s not like that.” Damn you, Kori! I crossed the room toward her, but Liv stood and backed away from me, keeping the coffee table between us.

  “Really? What is it like, Cam? Is it like you sleeping with my best friend at a party while Elle was telling me you’re probably going to kill me someday? Because that’s what it sounds like. Is that why Tower wants Hadley? Because he knows she’s yours, so she has a fifty-fifty chance of becoming one of the best name-Trackers in the country?”