Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,15

floor, and I’d probably need all my ammo.

To the right, the stairs lead to the foyer, my sister said in my memory.

I turned right and jogged down the stairs while the alarm repeatedly skewered my brain, and I took out two more guards on my way down. I’d aimed to disable, not kill, but I had no time to check my accuracy. By the time I hit the floor, doors were flying open. People were pouring into the two-story foyer.

My heart thumping in my ears, and on the lookout for more guards, I scanned the shocked, growing crowd, but didn’t find the face I was looking for. Julia’s.

“Everyone over there!” I shouted over the alarm, directing Tower’s confused employees away from the front door, toward the atrium at the center of the house, its entrance nestled between the two mirror-image staircases.

Startled men and women in suits followed my directions, but most of them didn’t look truly scared. They saw guns on a daily basis, and once the rest of the security team arrived, I would be both outnumbered and outgunned.

“Where’s Julia Tower?” I demanded. No one answered, but several people glanced at a frosted-glass door to my left. The only one that hadn’t opened when the alarm went off.

I backed toward the closed door, adrenaline pumping through my veins, still aiming at the small crowd, but before I could reach for the knob, the door swung open on its own.

Inside, three women stared out at me in various stages of shock, fear and anger. I recognized Lynn Tower immediately, her hand still on the doorknob, and I dismissed her almost as quickly. She wasn’t a threat, nor would she have the information I needed.

Julia stood behind the desk, telephone in hand, halfway to her ear.

I aimed at her, and she froze.

“Where’s my sister?” I shouted, still competing with the alarm, but Julia only smiled. She knew I couldn’t kill her until I had the information I’d come for.

Then the third woman turned in front of the desk to look at me, blocking my aim at Julia. Her eyes were wide and green, her features delicate. She held her hands out at her sides, showing me she was unarmed.

“What’s the problem?” She rounded the chair slowly to stand in front of me and the yellow scarf draped loosely over her shoulders caught my gaze and refused to let go. “Who are you looking for?”

I could hardly hear her over the alarm, and my brain didn’t process a single thing she’d said, because in my mind, I heard another voice, speaking to me from my own past.

Take the woman in the yellow scarf.

Someone, somewhere pressed a button, and the alarm died, though it still echoed deep inside my head.

“Why don’t you put the gun down, and we can work this out,” the woman in the scarf said, slowly walking toward me. She looked scared, but calm. Determined.

“Sera...” Lynn Tower backed away as the woman in the scarf approached.

Sera. The woman in the yellow scarf.

“It’s okay,” Sera said, and I backed away from her in shock, one step for each of hers, my gun aimed right at her. But I wouldn’t shoot her. I couldn’t. I needed her, though I wasn’t sure why. Was she supposed to help me get Kenley back? Was she a hostage? An informant? A lieutenant in the Tower army?

Was that even possible for someone so young?

“Freeze!” someone shouted, and I looked up to find three of Tower’s guards aiming large guns at me from the center of the foyer.

My guts twisted into knots while I waited for gunfire, and there was nothing for me to do but hold my aim. This was a fool’s errand from the beginning, but I wasn’t fool enough to let go of my gun.

“Stop!” Sera yelled, and the men hesitated, confused. “He’s looking for someone. There’s no reason for this to get any bloodier.”

I recognized her tone. Gentle and patronizing. That was the voice you’d use to talk a man down from a ledge. A crazy man.

“Shoot him!” Julia yelled from inside her office, heedless of the fact that I was still aiming at Sera, and the men raised their weapons.

“No!” Sera turned on Julia. “Tell them to drop their weapons. Please!”

Julia scowled, and her anger was like black clouds rolling over the sun—I felt like I should duck before I got struck by lightning. Julia Tower didn’t take orders—she gave them.

But then she spoke, clearly enough for everyone to hear. “Put down