Shadow Bound (Unbound)

by Rachel Vincent

  “I shot him,” she mumbled.

  “Your aim’s definitely improving.”

  “Kori, I shot the man who was here to protect me.” Her hands were shaking harder now, and I couldn’t tell how much of that was from resisting standing orders from Jake and how much was shock.

  “You didn’t kill him,” Ian pointed out. “You just kept him from shooting Kori.”

  “Anyway, he wasn’t here to protect you. He was here to do whatever Jake told him to do, and Jake told him to bring you in. That’s the opposite of protecting you.” I reached down for her arm and hauled her up. “Hold it together, Kenley. We have to get out of here.”

  She tried to pull her arm free, but I held on to it, looking right into her eyes to emphasize the importance of what I was going to say. “Call Van, if you want to bring her with us. It’s her choice, but if you can break my binding, you can break hers, too, right? And your own? We’ll all run, and when we’re safe, we’ll see what we can do for Ian’s brother.”

  My range wouldn’t be great with three other people in tow, but I could take them, even if we had to make several layovers to get where we were going.

  “What’s wrong with his brother?” Kenley asked, already digging her phone from her pocket. But before I could answer, Ian shook his head.

  “She can free…Van?”

  He glanced at my sister, and she nodded. “Assuming she sealed Van’s contract and remembers enough specifics about it. But I’m guessing Kenley didn’t seal her own binding.” He turned to her again for confirmation, and Kenley nodded again.

  “Barker did it.” He’d been Jake’s top Binder until Kenley was recruited as a naive, twenty-year-old prodigy.

  “Then only Barker can break the seal.” Ian frowned at her. “How do you not know any of this?”

  “Jake wouldn’t teach her anything she could use against him,” I said as the ramifications of what Ian had just explained sluggishly came together in my head. “So wait. I’m free, and Van can be free. But Kenley can’t?”

  “Not right this minute, no.” Ian sighed and met my gaze with a somber one of his own, and the clock in my head kept ticking, driving me as surely as my own pulse did. “There are three ways to free Kenley. We can find her contract and burn it. We can kill the Binder who sealed the contract. Or—and this is a long shot—we can convince him to break the seal himself, just like Kenley did for you.”

  “Okay, we don’t know where the contract is, and I don’t want to kill anyone,” Kenley said.

  “Do you know where Barker is?” Ian asked, and we both nodded.

  “Tower keeps him protected, but he’s not as hard to get at as Kenley is.” Especially for me.

  “Do you think you can convince him to break the seal?”

  I held up my silenced nine millimeter. “I can be pretty damn convincing.” But I was running out of places to stick guns. I needed a holster. A double.

  Ian shook his head. “You can’t scare him into it. He can’t remove his will as long as he wants her to be bound to Jake, and scaring him won’t change that.”

  “So we explain that he only lives if she goes free. He’ll want to break her binding to save his own life, right?”

  Ian shrugged. “I guess it’s worth a try.”

  I turned back to Kenley. “Throw some clothes and essentials into a bag and call Van while you pack. Don’t tell her what’s going on, though, or she’ll have to rat us out. Just tell her you want to see her. You can break her binding once we’re on our way.” I was afraid if she tried to break it without telling Vanessa what she was doing, Vanessa would feel the burn on her arm and accidentally give us away before she understood what was going on.

  Kenley nodded sluggishly, and I laid one hand on her arm. “You okay? Resistance pain?” I asked. The pain from unsealing my oath had passed, but as long as we were actively working against Jake, she would be hurting, and if we couldn’t break her bindings soon, that hurt would quickly become unbearable.

  “Just a headache so far.” Kenley dialed as she crossed the living room, then stopped cold less than a foot from the hall, phone pressed to her ear.

  “Kenley? What’s wrong?” I asked, and she turned slowly, eyes wide in terror, index finger pressed to her lips in the universal sign for “shh.” She pressed a button on her phone, and Jake Tower’s voice greeted the entire room, on speakerphone.

  “I heard her, Kenley. I know your sister’s there. Is Holt there with you?”

  Kenley glanced at me, the phone shaking in her hand, and I shook my head.

  “No,” she said, phone held near her mouth.

  “I know you’re lying, but I’m not angry,” Jake said, and Kenley swallowed nervously. “I understand why you’d want to protect them both. I also understand that you’re not responsible for the massive clusterfuck your sister has just laid on my doorstep. Did she tell you what she did in Holt’s hotel suite?”

  Kenley nodded, then when she realized he couldn’t see that, she whispered, “Yes.”

  “Avoiding police interference cost me quite a bit of money. More than your sister’s service is worth to me. More than her life is worth. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Kenley said, her voice no stronger now.

  “Good. Then you’ll understand how very generous I’m being with the offer I’m about to extend to her. Korinne, can you hear me?”

  “Fuck off, Jake,” I snapped, picking up the gun on the counter, just for the comforting feel and weight of it.

  “Kori, I’m willing to let you live if you bring your sister and Ian Holt to me right now. Walk them right into my darkroom, and you will all three live. You have my word.”

  “No way in hell,” I said, more than loud enough to be heard.

  Jake chuckled, but there was no true amusement in the sound. “That must hurt. Why don’t you be a good girl and do as you’re told, and that nasty headache will go away.”

  I glanced from Kenley to Ian in surprise, and we all seemed to come to the same conclusion—Tower didn’t know my marks were dead. And I saw no need to tell him.

  “I’d rather die from resistance pain than bring either of them to you,” I said, careful that every word I said was true, in case Julia was listening.

  “Okay, we tried this the civilized way,” Tower said, evidently speaking to all three of us. “Now I’m going to give you one guess where I’m standing, and who’s with me. I’ll even give you a hint.”

  There was a moment of quiet over the line, then a scream cut through the silence like a scalpel through flesh. I knew that voice.

  “Vanessa!” Kenley screeched, and Tower laughed again.

  “Good guess. Vanessa and I are in the basement, and she’s just had her first taste of my displeasure. Tell them what happened, Vanessa,” Tower said, and Van’s ragged, uneven breathing grew louder as the phone was moved closer to her.

  “Cut,” she gasped, and the word was bitten off, like she’d swallowed back sobs. “Fucker cut me.”

  “And I’ll let him do it again,” Tower said as Vanessa’s shocked pants faded. “Once every fifteen minutes until you show up. If the three of you aren’t here in ninety minutes, the last cut will be across her throat.”

  “Kenley, don’t—” Vanessa shouted, but her words were swallowed by another scream of pain, and tears rolled down Kenley’s face.

  “Ninety minutes,” Tower repeated. Then the phone went dead.

  “Oh, shit. Shitshitshit.” Kenley sank onto the couch in shock, her phone still cradled in her hands. She was pale from ongoing resistance pain, and her hands were starting to shake again. “What are we going to do?”

  “Surely he won’t kill her,” Ian said. “If she’s dead, what’s our motivation to turn ourselves in?”

  If Jake said he’d kill her, he’d kill her. Then he’d find new motivation. But I couldn’t say that with my sister listening.

  “But he’ll cut her!” Kenley shrieked.

  “There’s nothing we can do about that,” I said,
brushing past her and into my bedroom. “But we’re going to get her back, and then we’re out of here. All four of us. You can break her binding, and we’ll figure out how to break yours, even if it means killing Barker.”

  “The minute someone sees your dead marks and reports them, Tower will know Kenley broke your binding,” Ian said, following me into my room. “And he’ll know you’re going after Barker to free Kenley. Beyond that, if we get caught and Vanessa’s binding is already broken, he’ll have no reason to keep her alive.”

  I settled my double holster onto my shoulders and adjusted the straps, watching him in the mirror. “So Kenley won’t break Van’s binding yet, and he won’t know she broke mine.” I turned to my sister as I slid the silenced nine millimeter into the custom left hip holster. “Kenni, get a black permanent marker.”

  While she rooted through kitchen drawers, I handed Ian a spare double holster and he chose one of my extras to go along with Milligan’s gun, which he obviously meant to keep.

  When Kenley came back with the marker, I exchanged it for a slim folding knife. I would have given her a gun, except that she was still bound to Jake, and the gun would be easier for him to make her use against us.

  Then I turned to Ian with my left sleeve pulled up over my shoulder and handed him the marker. “Try to stay inside the lines.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Ian

  “How does it look?” Kori asked as I put the cap back on the marker.

  “Not bad. Unless he carries a magnifying glass, he’ll never know the difference. How did you know that would work?”

  She stood and examined her arm in the bathroom mirror. “I used a wig and a black permanent marker to sneak around the east side a couple of times when I first came to the city, before anyone really knew who I was.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” Kenley asked from the doorway, twisting her fingers together. She hadn’t stopped fidgeting since Tower hung up on her, and she kept ducking into the living room to check the clock hanging over the door.

  I’d been checking the time, too. Eight minutes until her girlfriend would get cut again. No wonder she was melting down.

  “Well, even if Jake doesn’t know my marks are dead, I’ll never make it to the basement like this,” Kori said, patting her guns in their holsters.

  “What if we go in from the basement?” I said, from my seat on the edge of the tub. “If I could get down there on my own and call up true darkness, you could come through it, right? We could grab Vanessa and go.”

  “Can you do that?” Surprise shone through the shock still lingering in Kenley’s eyes. “Can you make darkness deep enough to blind the infrared lights?”

  Kori’s brows rose. “Kenni, he can block out the fuckin’ sun.”

  “Not the whole sun,” I amended. “Just a little of its light.”

  “Daylight?” Kenley gaped at me. “You can kill daylight?” she said, and I nodded. “No wonder Jake wants you.”

  “Well, he’s not going to get me. He’s not going to get any of us.”

  Kori nodded, obviously thinking. “Okay, we’ll drop Kenley somewhere safe, then you’ll turn yourself in to Jake. Once you’re in the house, find some excuse to go to the basement. Say you won’t sign until you know Van’s okay, and if that doesn’t work, do whatever it takes to get down there, and I’ll come get you both. But take this gun and leave that one here.” She pulled the pistol from my right holster and replaced it with one from her dresser.

  “Why this one?”

  “Because they’ll confiscate your weapons, but if you don’t try to bring some in, you’ll look weak. And I don’t mind losing that one.”

  I gave her a grim nod, trying not to show how much this plan was growing on me. If Van was in the basement, Jonah would be, too. I would get a shot at him, and that would make the whole thing worth it. But…

  “But my brother comes first.”

  Both Daniels sisters looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Ian, Van’s being tortured,” Kori said.

  “So is Steven. He’s been on the verge of death for two weeks. His organs are failing. He can’t talk. He can’t sleep. He’s so pale you can almost see through his skin. He’s dying, and I’ve made him suffer two days longer than he had to because I didn’t want to hurt either of you. But now that I know Kenley can break his binding, we have to go help him. Now.”

  “Wait, he’s in breach?” Kori’s eyes were so big the rest of her features looked smaller in comparison. “You said he was bound, but you never said he was in breach of his binding. How could he survive that for two weeks?”

  “Meghan’s a Healer.”

  “Who’s Meghan?” Kenley asked, and Kori answered with only a brief glance at her.

  “Steven’s girlfriend.” She turned back to me. “Meghan’s been healing him for two weeks?”

  I nodded. “Almost two and a half, now. They’re both hanging on by a thread, and I came here to break the binding. And for that I need Kenley.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Kenley said, crossing her arms over her chest so I couldn’t see them shake—a clear sign of the resistance pain she was fighting.

  Kori’s hard gaze flicked from me to the clock over the microwave—we were all counting the minutes. “But you said she can only break bindings she actually sealed…”

  “Yeah. She’s the one who bound Steven. We don’t know what or who she bound him to, but we know it was her. The Tracker recognized her psychic signature—he evidently sees it a lot in this area.” Because Kenley had bound nearly three quarters of Tower’s current employees, according to Aaron’s sources.

  “Whoa.” Kori stepped away from me, eyes narrowed on me in suspicion. “You never said Kenley was the one who bound your brother.”

  “I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you any of this while you were still bound to Tower.” And now Kenley was suffering the resistance pain I’d tried so hard to spare Kori.

  “He works for Jake?” Kenley frowned in both confusion and pain. She hadn’t caught on yet to the truth already surfacing through her sister’s ambient anger. “Because I haven’t bound anyone to anything except service to Jake in six and a half years.”

  “This would have been sometime before that,” I said, watching Kori even as I answered her sister.

  “Why are you here, Ian?” Kori demanded, her voice as soft and dangerous as I’d ever heard it. “Why are you really here?” Her hand hovered at her hip, ready to draw on me like a Wild West outlaw. A tiny, scary, blonde outlaw.

  “Kori, wait…”

  “At least have the balls to admit it. You didn’t come for her help. You came here to kill her,” Kori said, and Kenley stared at us both, pain and confusion warring for control of her expression. “That description you gave Jake—that wasn’t me, it was Kenley. You requested her so you could get close enough to kill her.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Kenley said, hunched over now from the pain in her stomach. “I didn’t bind your brother. I’ve never even heard of him.”

  Kori drew her gun. “Kenni, go to your room.” Tears filled her eyes, but her aim didn’t waver. And I didn’t draw against her. I couldn’t.

  “I’m not going to hurt her.” I held my hands up, palms out, demonstrating how harmless I was. “I gave you my word.”

  “What good is your word, if you’ve been lying the whole time?” Kori demanded, rage flashing behind her eyes, fueled by something even stronger. Something she didn’t want to admit to.