Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,70

one hole.

In the shocked silence that followed, no one moved for at least a second. Sera gaped at me. Then at Kori. Then at the dead guy. Then she started breathing really, really fast.

“Sera? You okay?”

“Fuck her!” Kori holstered her gun and dropped to the ground at Ian’s side, where blood dribbled between the fingers of the hand he held to his own shoulder. “I need something to— Give me your shirt!”

But that was easier said than done. I handed Sera my gun, and she held it like it might explode and kill us all. I shrugged out of my jacket, ripped off my holster and pulled my T-shirt over my head, then tossed it to Kori.

While she wadded it up and pressed it to Ian’s wound, I stepped into the hall, glanced in either direction, then squatted next to the downed man and checked his neck for a pulse.

“Dead,” I announced, stepping back into the observation room.

“Of course he’s dead,” Kori snapped, still pressing my shirt against the hole in Ian’s shoulder. “Are there any more?”

“Not yet. He’s security. If the entire building’s empty, he may be the only one here, guarding the cemetery, so to speak. Or so he thought.”

Kori brushed hair from Ian’s forehead, and even in the dim light, I could see that his dark complexion looked strangely washed out. “I have to get him out of here, but I don’t have enough bleach to clean this up.”

“Go,” Sera said. Her eyes were still wide, but her focus was steady. She was still with me. “We’ll take care of it. They have to have a supply closet, or something.”

“You sure?” Kori flinched when Ian grimaced.

“Go!” I shrugged into my holster, which felt weird against my bare skin, and took my gun back from Sera. “The longer you stay, the more blood there is to destroy.”

Kori stood and fired her silenced pistol into the ceiling twice. Glass shattered, obliterating both sets of lights, and I pulled Sera close, tucking her head against my shoulder to shield it. When the glass settled, I glanced up to see Kori doing the same thing for Ian. He still looked pale. He was losing a lot of blood.

Kori helped him to his feet while he held my bloody shirt to his wound with his opposite hand. Then she pulled him through the darkest corner of the room.

The moment they were gone, I headed into the hallway, with another glance in both directions, just in case.

“Will he be okay?” Sera asked as I tried doorknob after doorknob. Most were unlocked, and all of the rooms were empty, which seemed to verify the fact that the building had been completely deserted.

“Ian?” I said, and she nodded, moving to the next door on her side of the hall. “Probably. Shoulder wound. Through-and-through, from the looks of the blood on the wall behind him. Gran will get him all patched up. But if we don’t destroy his blood, Julia will be able to use it against him, and Ian will wish he were dead.”

I threw open another door and found a break room with three card tables set up on the left, opposite a wall-length counter on the right, complete with two microwaves and a full-size fridge.

I headed straight for a package of napkins abandoned on the counter, and Sera started to follow me, probably to search the cabinets. But then she noticed an open door beyond the first table, which hadn’t been visible from the hall. It was a bathroom.

She veered into the restroom and knelt to open the cabinet beneath the sink as I started opening cabinets in the kitchenette.

“Don’t move.”

I froze, the package of napkins tucked under one arm. My pulse raced, and I hoped he was talking to me, not Sera.

“Turn around slowly and put your hands on the back of your head. You even look like you’re gonna go for your gun, and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Bittersweet relief took the edge from the stress of knowing a gun was aimed at my back. He had to be talking to me. Sera was unarmed.

I turned slowly and considered letting the napkins fall, so I could go for my gun at the first opportunity. But if the shooter was jumpy, he’d open a hole in my chest before they even hit the ground.

A man in a security guard’s uniform—matching the dead man’s—stood in the middle of the break room, aiming his silenced pistol at me with his back to the