The Escape

by Teyla Branton

  “Hunters?” Keene asked in a low voice.

  “That’s my bet. But the bodyguard on the right is probably also working for our other favorite group. Definitely Unbounded, and he’s not one of ours.”

  “Great.”

  “Do you know any of them?” There weren’t that many Hunters in the world. At least I hoped not.

  He shook his head. “I’ve mainly worked with groups on the West Coast, though the guy with the hat does look familiar. I’ve at least seen his picture before.”

  The Unbounded bodyguard’s presence was definitely something we’d have to look into further. Hunters had kept records of Unbounded genealogy since their mortal ancestors had been abandoned by the Emporium during their early phases of genetic experimentation. If this guy was working for the Emporium, we couldn’t risk him infiltrating far enough to get the records that might also contain information about our descendants. Like it or not, we were often linked by blood to the Emporium.

  “Copy that,” Cort said in my earbud. “Describe them, and we’ll start Stella researching their identities.”

  I did, beginning with the purple dress and the cowboy hat that would likely be mentioned by gossip bloggers covering tonight’s event. “Maybe one of us should follow them.”

  “No,” Ritter said. “Stay together. Keep your mind on the mission.” It was difficult to believe he’d be willing to risk losing this lead. Maybe he planned to track down the bodyguard after we cleared the party and question him personally. That would be just like Ritter. He didn’t kill Hunters except in self-defense, but his mercy wouldn’t extend to an Emporium agent who had helped murder Renegades.

  Anger radiated from Keene at Ritter’s order. “Easy,” I murmured.

  Keene frowned, his frustration quickly vanishing as his mental shield strengthened. Now his barrier was tight, but his lapse worried me. I hadn’t spotted an Emporium sensing Unbounded nearby, but that didn’t mean much because anyone with the sensing ability could mask life forces completely.

  As if feeling our stares, the middle Hunter paused at the door and turned in our direction, scanning the room. I caught a glimpse of light red hair peeking from under the cowboy hat before I casually allowed my gaze to slide past them, pretending I was simply enjoying the crowd and the commotion. At the same time, I reached out mentally to the man. His shield was poorly erected, filled with gaps as though he didn’t quite believe anyone could delve into his private thoughts, and despite the space between us, it crushed easily beneath my onslaught. There was no sign of suspicion. He’d stopped only because his Unbounded bodyguard had paused.

  My thoughts shifted to the bodyguard, who was searching the crowd. He was several decades younger than his employer, a handsome blond who looked smart in his tux. Not your typical uneducated Hunter. He has to be an Emporium agent, I thought. Yet his shield was as poorly constructed as his boss’s, and I swept it aside to find that he was simply searching for a fifth member of their party—a young lady, if I had it right—to make sure she was safe. Even as I found the answer, a red-haired girl detached herself from a young man and made her way over to the woman in the purple dress.

  The others turned to enter the next room, but the bodyguard’s attention drifted to the reception room exit, pausing on the Unbounded in the black tux. A signal to a cohort? I started to check the bodyguard’s thoughts, only to find him now staring at me. My heartbeat increased, the pumping loud in my ears. If he recognized me or Keene from his Emporium briefings, he might choose to point me out to the Hunter, which would endanger our mission. Before I could decide what his scrutiny meant, he smiled and I received a strong impression of eagerness and curiosity. Nothing more. With a nod in my direction, he turned on his heel and followed his companions.

  Keene gave a little chuckle. “Look who has an admirer. Do you think you could lure him into a dark room for me?”

  “No!” The bark in my ear came from Ritter and caused me to wince.

  That made Keene’s grin stretch wider. He put his hand up to the side of my face, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, and said, “Emporium agent or no, I don’t blame that bodyguard one little bit. For the record, I’d go into any dark room with you.” His hand left me as he stepped forward with the suddenly moving line. “Hey, we’re almost there.”

  “Stop it with the feedback,” Cort crackled in my ear. “Remember, you have to keep the earring and the ring apart or all we hear is static.”

  Keene gave me a wink. I glanced back at the bodyguard, who passed through the double doors, disappearing from sight, his thoughts fading. My range still wasn’t as far as I’d like, though it had improved drastically since Mexico. If I pushed, I could follow him a bit longer, but I needed my full attention for the task at hand.

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize me,” I said. “But the way he was staring could have been a signal of some sort to the guy near the door.”

  Keene’s eyes went past me. “Uh, speaking of the guy at the door, where’d he go?”

  Sure enough, the Unbounded in the black suit was missing. Keene turned his body slowly, casually searching the room.

  Ahead of us, the woman with the pointed nose uttered a soft exclamation and lifted a hand to wave at someone behind the backdrop. I stepped forward to see who she was looking at, and finally a balding Vice President Mann came into view. He was smiling widely for the camera, his arm around one of the guests like a best friend. His wife stood on his other side, her gaze leaving the woman who’d waved and going back to the camera just in time for the bright flash. Tonight, apparently, the pictures were a two-for-one deal: the Vice President and Mrs. Mann.

  Next to me Keene’s body radiated readiness, but I shook my head. Whoever the vice president might serve, the man himself wasn’t Unbounded. Neither was Mrs. Mann with her pale, regal face, wide-set eyes, and chestnut hair. Both of their life forces also gleamed brightly, without any sort of barriers, so it was likely they’d never heard of mental shields. Of course, that didn’t mean the vice president was innocent of all connection with the Emporium. I pushed my thoughts toward the couple.

  He was thinking about his speech and wondering why his son had been acting so strangely the past year—and if there was any way to fix whatever had gone wrong between them. She was wondering what the daughter of the woman in front of me was up to these days, and if she still had a habit of chasing older men for their money. While the vice president exuded strength, weariness leaked from Mrs. Mann like water from cupped hands. She wasn’t going to last the whole night, not without the help of drugs. Maybe her doctor was here somewhere behind the half dozen Secret Service agents.

  “Keene?” I asked, wanting to know if he’d spotted the Unbounded in the black tux.

  “No sign of him.”

  I nodded, trusting Keene to keep watch while I did my job. I tried to delve deeper into the vice president’s mind, but the cacophony of voices and thoughts around me made it difficult to distinguish his thoughts from the others that pushed in around me. “I need to get closer.”

  “The line should move soon,” Keene said.

  I joined him for a moment in scanning the room but refocused on the vice president as a small group of friends finished their individual pictures and left together, leaving a large gap in the line. We stepped forward.

  I pushed harder, and a throbbing began at the base of my skull, something I hadn’t felt in weeks. It only meant my brain was tiring from all the scanning, but I was nowhere near ready to give up. I began absorbing from the air, regaining my strength. A posh hotel right before dinner was a great place for absorbing, all those molecules with expensive, organic nutrients floating about begging to be taken in through my pores. In seconds, the throbbing eased.

  Focusing more tightly, I watched the vice president shake hands with another couple and smile for the camera. More worry seeped from him. Something wasn’t right. The fact that he worried so much about his adult son, who was supposedly holding his own in politics, seemed t
o underscore our intel.

  “Erin!”

  Keene’s voice, but the warning came too late. Hard fingers bit painfully into the flesh of my shoulder.

  STIFLING AN URGE TO REACH for my knives, I turned to stare into the face of the Unbounded who had been at the door. He had dark brown hair and was tall enough that I had to look up to meet his gaze. A pleasant, average sort of face, but his mouth was tight and his pale blue eyes hard. The hand that wasn’t causing me discomfort was in the pocket of his pants, probably holding a weapon. At his side were two Secret Service agents, who appeared ready to draw their guns.

  “Hello,” he said in a curiously flat voice. “I thought I recognized you.”

  Unlike the shields of the Hunters, this Unbounded’s barrier resembled a thick black wall, strong and unyielding. Practiced. Definitely Emporium. I rammed my thoughts against it, seeing a momentary white flash that sent a trail of electric shocks through my temple. Ignoring the pain, I pushed with more force. If I made it inside, I could use my ability against him. I’d also be able to use his talent—whatever it was. So far I’d channeled Ritter’s combat ability, as well as my younger brother Jace’s. Channeling other gifts in our group, I’d also managed to teleport, or shift as we called it, and I’d had one lesson in technopathy. I was far from adept at any of these talents, but all of them were more instinctive than anything else, so the key was a good mental connection with the possessor of the ability. The drawback, of course, was that the Unbounded whose ability I was borrowing needed to remain in sensing range, and some abilities were more complicated than others.

  “Oh?” I said to the man with a calm smile that belied the hammering of my heart. I didn’t shake off his fingers because contact only heightened my attack on his mind, and I hadn’t yet managed to force my way inside his shield. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

  “No, but I know of you.” His attention went briefly to Keene. “And him.”

  Keene shook his head, his voice calm despite the dangerous glint in his eyes. “You must be mistaken. We’ve never met. Who are you?” That told me Keene didn’t know him because Keene never, ever lied, except by omission. Some might argue that was every bit as bad, but given the world of intrigue that surrounds the Unbounded, it was something I admired.

  Unlike Keene, I recognized the man now that we were so close from the pictures Stella had shown me, though he appeared significantly different in real life. Plainer somehow, despite his overpriced tux and flashy scarlet tie. Dread came with the recognition. No way should this man be Unbounded.

  Keene dropped his eyes to the hand on my shoulder, his nostrils flaring slightly. I knew his tight control was the only reason he hadn’t started throwing punches. This was why Ava had sent him with me instead of Jace. Though my brother’s combat ability made him a better fighter, his rashness and inexperience might not have allowed him Keene’s restraint.

  “Oh, look,” squealed the woman with the pointed nose, motioning to her companions. “It’s Patrick Mann.” She took a few steps toward us. “Do you remember me? I’m Sophie Brinker, Finley’s mother. You and she were so close in college.”

  Patrick’s hand dropped from my shoulder, but I had already used his touch to help pound a tiny hole in his barrier and wriggle inside. If he wasn’t a sensing Unbounded, he wouldn’t know I was there as long as I didn’t insert any thoughts or try to communicate mentally. I wouldn’t be able to sift through his memories as I could if he were unconscious, but I should be able to get a sense of what his purpose was in confronting us.

  “Mann?” Keene mouthed at me.

  Patrick Mann, the vice president’s son to be exact, and given his Unbounded condition, his father had every right to worry about him. I knew from the data that he was thirty-six, which put him at Keene’s age, but he looked at least five years younger—and aging at only two years for every hundred, like most Unbounded, he’d still look the same at his parents’ funerals. If he continued on in politics like his father, and became the president of the United States, he wouldn’t be the first Unbounded to do so, as Kennedy had also been one of us, but Patrick’s possible connection with the Emporium might mean that a mortal would never again hold the position.

  Now that I was inside his mind, I could see Patrick was lying. He hadn’t recognized us. Someone had pointed us out to him, a man who’d seen us arrive, a sensing Unbounded posted to watch for Renegades. Whoever it was had used his ability to mask his presence because I hadn’t sighted him.

  “Finley. Of course,” Patrick murmured. Mentally, he dismissed the woman and her comment. His concern was us; she didn’t matter at all.

  This was worse than our intel had hinted. We’d thought maybe Vice President Mann had been offered a deal in exchange for advanced medical care by an Emporium healer after his son’s near fatal skydiving episode a few months earlier. We hadn’t considered the possibility of the son being an Emporium agent himself. That fact only spelled trouble for the entire nation, and eventually the world.

  Yet Keene didn’t recognize him from his years at the Emporium, so what did that mean? Perhaps not much. Keene’s father was a member of the Emporium Triad, their ruling body, but even while he’d served them, Keene’s mortality would have prevented him from being privy to their most important secrets.

  “Oh, yes, I recognize you now from your pictures.” I extended my hand to Patrick Mann. “Nice to meet you in person.” I waited several heartbeats before adding with a glance at the reddened finger marks now quickly fading from the skin of my shoulder, “I think.”

  Jumbled thoughts came from the sand stream of his mind. Surprise and wariness. Worry that he’d made a mistake in challenging us without Emporium backup, especially given our known prowess in combat. While he could expect the aid of the Secret Service agents, we might not choose to go with him peacefully. Two agents plus the half dozen others close to the camera weren’t nearly enough to subdue us unless they opened fire, and that would start a stampede of guests and negative publicity they didn’t need.

  These images were followed by more scrambled emotions I couldn’t separate. Then finally a clear thought: They don’t seem to know about me or the plan so they aren’t here to eliminate dear old Dad. I’ll let the others deal with them. The thought disappeared before it ran to its conclusion, the jumbled sand stream taking over again. Multiple images careened past me, but none of them seemed related or worth examining.

  I needed to know more. What was it Patrick thought we didn’t know? That he was Unbounded? But how would that relate to a possible assassination attempt on his mortal father? Unless the vice president was also working for the Emporium. While that was exactly what I’d come here to determine, I could tell from Patrick’s thoughts that he didn’t know I could sense, so he wasn’t worried about me discovering whether or not his father was an agent. No, he thought we’d come to kill his father because of intel we already possessed before our arrival—and now he’d decided we didn’t have it after all. Interesting.

  Only a second had passed since my remark, though it seemed much longer to me from the viewpoint of our joined minds. Patrick took my proffered hand in a firm grip. “I believe I mistook you for someone else,” he said with an easy laugh that was echoed by the two couples in front of us, who were avidly watching the scene unfold. “Someone who’s created a tad of difficulty for my father in the past.” He let my hand go, leaving behind a touch of nervous moistness.

  “Couldn’t be them,” said the man in glasses, stepping closer to his sharp-nosed wife. “They’re from out west with—what did you say your firm’s name was?” This last to Keene, who relaxed marginally with the question.

  I let the chitchat slide over me as I pushed farther into Patrick’s mind, not touching the sand stream of thoughts but examining them closer. I clearly saw images of known Emporium agents, so his allegiance was clear, but there were no more mental references to his father or any type of plan—only the determination to play out this game so we wouldn’t suspect. Or at l
east not until it was too late.

  Too late for what?

  Something in his mind caught my attention. A shiny, black, snakelike cord stretching the entire length of his visible thought stream, but unlike the other thoughts and images, it didn’t slide forward and disappear with the rest, only moved up and down inside the sand, mostly buried and out of sight. Chill spread through me as I recognized the black cord. I’d created a similar substance in a corner of my own mind, a box where I’d locked up my fear of heights. While I wasn’t completely cured, I could function when it mattered. This black cord, however, was far more elegant, undulating with a hypnotic call. I moved closer.

  Was he a sensing Unbounded after all? Had he created this to hide important thoughts? No. I hadn’t been quiet or careful getting past his barriers, and he would have noticed me. Besides, this black cord wasn’t quite the same thing as my box. The signature was different—and I recognized it.

  With a shudder, I pulled away. I’d felt this mark in my ex-boyfriend before his death, and I’d suspected then that something had been done to his mind. Now I was sure. It belonged to Delia Vesey, a member of the Emporium Triad and also a sensing Unbounded who had the ability to control people using mere thoughts.

  I could feel the cord pulsating, seeming to beckon me to take it into my hands, to caress its length and steal its secrets. Except not only would disrupting the stream alert the Unbounded to my mental presence, but everything in my mind screamed out that Delia wouldn’t go to such effort unless she was sure no average sensing Unbounded would be able to extract the hidden information safely.

  No average Unbounded. What about me?

  I backed off, staying in his mind but keeping clear of the thought stream. We didn’t know much about how the sensing gift worked, but I’d learned that mental damage sometimes didn’t heal like our physical bodies did, and for all I knew the cord could contain some sort of a mental bomb.

  “I do apologize for the interruption,” Patrick said.