Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,99
locked. “You two go left, we’ll go right. Stay together. If it gets dangerous, go home. Immediately.”
Ian could make his own shadows for them to travel through, but I’d have to destroy the infrared lighting grid for a chance to travel. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” I reminded her.
“Well, it is hers.” Kori shot a pointed glance at Sera.
“What, the last mostly deserted building doesn’t count?” Sera demanded softly. “If I hadn’t seen that guard in time, Ian would have been hit in the chest, instead of the shoulder.”
My sister scowled. “And if you’d known how to disarm him, Ian wouldn’t have been hit at all.”
“If I haven’t already thanked you...thank you,” Ian said.
Kori turned toward the door on her end of the hall and he followed her with a reassuring smile at Sera.
“Is your sister always so bossy?” Sera whispered as we headed toward our locked door.
“Yeah. We let her think she’s in charge, because it’s easier than arguing with her. But if her way isn’t the best way, I do things my way.” I shrugged and leaned closer to whisper near her ear, hyperaware that Vanessa’s strawberry-scented shampoo made Sera smell like she might actually be edible. And I wanted a taste. “Sometimes I do things my way anyway, just to watch her head explode. Though I usually save that for when the cable goes out and everyone’s bored.”
At the end of the hall, I tried the doorknob one more time, to make sure nothing had changed. It was still locked. I glanced back just in time to see Ian pull a deep column of darkness out of nowhere for them to step through, then I holstered my gun and took a longer look at the door and lock.
It was an interior commercial door. Aluminum and hollow, with a standard doorknob lock. Easier to kick open than to shoot.
“Stand back,” I said, and Sera backed up to give me some space. Two heel kicks to the left of the knob, and the door swung open with minimal noise and no real mess.
I stepped into the dark interior office beyond and did a quick security check, then motioned for Sera to follow me inside. Though the only visible light came from an open supply closet, I could feel the infrared grid blazing above me, rendering every shadow shallow and useless.
The office held two metal desks, each with the drawers open and emptied. A laptop power cord trailed across the surface of each desk, but the computers themselves were gone, along with whatever information they’d contained.
The wall opposite the door I’d kicked in held a long glass panel overlooking the warehouse itself, a good six feet lower than the rest of the building. A quick glance inside showed that it was empty, too, except for a couple of abandoned medical gurneys and several scraps of tubing, IV bags, and other medical supplies on the concrete floor.
“They left in a hurry.” I crossed the room, toward the entrance to the warehouse. “Maybe that means they’re still setting up the new place.”
“Or that they already had it ready, just in case.” Sera followed me down the steel grid stairs into the body of the warehouse. There was a set of bathrooms on the far side of the huge room, both doors standing wide open, but other than that, I saw nowhere for anyone to hide.
“So, what?” She ran one hand down the length an abandoned gurney, and I wanted to tell her to stop—that there was no telling what she could catch. Then I remembered that Tower’s victims weren’t sick. They were kept unconscious for ease of handling. “They strap these poor people to the bed and drain them?” Sera looked horrified all over again now that she could see a little of what Jake Tower had started and his sister was continuing. “A little at a time, or all at once?”
“Kori didn’t mention straps, and these gurneys aren’t equipped with them. She says they keep the donors sedated via IV drip and they never take enough blood to kill. Tower was very interested in the renewable aspect of his...resources.”
“The bad guys are going green?”
“Only if the color refers to cash. They’re trying to milk every dollar they can out of each body before it finally gives out. The Towers are motivated by two things—money and power. The only things they like better than money and power are more money and more power. I think it’s some kind of chromosomal abnormality. They