“Look, I know you got your orders, and I know I fucked this up. But how ’bout, instead of killing me, you take him a message from me instead?”
Cam and I shared a look of mild surprise. The killer had messed up? “And what would that message be?” I called through the door.
“Tell him that if he kills me, he’s just going to have to hire someone else to clean things up. Or he can let me fix my own mistake—at no additional charge, of course.”
The man had balls—I had to give him that. But if I were under orders to kill him—and I was—going back to beg for mercy on his behalf wouldn’t even be a possibility. I’d be physically incapable of leaving until I’d done my best to kill him. Did Hunter really not know that, or was he speaking from desperation?
Cam looked as puzzled as I was.
“Why the hell should I put my ass on the line for you?” I asked.
“Because it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do the recon,” Hunter insisted. “Your guy did that. How was I supposed to know she wasn’t going to be there?”
She?
With that, my mental fog lifted, revealing the truth in stark, devastating clarity. Hunter wasn’t after Shen. He was after Annika. He thought Tower wanted him dead because he’d missed his target. Which might well be the case—was that why the syndicate seemed content to let us go after Hunter? Because we were saving them the trouble?
“You should have known exactly who was in the house before you went in,” I said, the facts and implications still tumbling around in my head.
“Fuck you, I did my job,” Hunter snapped. “I’m not gonna pay for someone else’s mistake. You come in here, and you won’t go back out.”
I tossed my head toward the door. Cam stood and kicked it.
Wood splintered—as usual, the door frame was weaker than the lock—and Cam lurched out of the line of fire as the door swung open. A bullet split the air between us and I dropped into a squat, peeking carefully around the door frame. A suitcase lay open on the bed, already too full to close. Hunter was going to run.
So why was he still there?
“Okay,” I said, scanning what I could see of the bedroom for any sign of movement. “You have a valid point. Why should you be held responsible for someone else’s screwup?”
I waited out the quiet that followed; I couldn’t pinpoint his location until he moved or spoke. And finally, he gave in to the urge to fill the silence—most people can’t stand a vacuum.
“Especially when I’m offering to repair the damage for free,” he said, and my gaze found the narrow space between the bed and the dresser, just a few feet away from the window and the fire escape he could have climbed down—if the window weren’t obviously painted shut, a fire-code violation he was probably kicking himself for now.
Except that a Traveler shouldn’t be bothered by a window that won’t open.
The sun was down and Hunter’s bedroom faced an alley. Very little light shone through his window, and the room was lit only by a single dim bulb overhead. There were small shadows everywhere, and the floor beneath his bed should have been an endless, gaping void for a Traveler. He should have been able to roll into the darkness and roll out of another shadow somewhere else. Anywhere else he wanted to be, depending on how strong his Skill was.
So why the hell was Hunter cowering on the floor with nothing but a couple of mattresses between him and the barrel of my gun?
I was missing something. I had to be.
Careful not to compromise my aim, I slid one hand into my pocket. I took a silent breath, touching the stiff bandage in my pocket, and concentrated on the pull of Hunter’s blood. Every single drop of it called to me, drawing me like a magnet as long as I touched the sample in my pocket. The closer I got to him, the stronger the attraction.
And suddenly I realized what was wrong. I wasn’t the one missing something; he was. Hunter’s blood—the part still flowing in his veins—had no power at all. Somehow, incredibly, he was completely without Skill, though he’d been a Traveler only hours before. The blood sample in my pocket proved that, as did the one Anne had brought.
“So what’s the plan, Eric?” I let go of the bandage and aimed with both hands again, still squatting. “You were just going to…what? Get on a bus?”
Cam raised one eyebrow at me in question, but I couldn’t explain about Hunter’s mysteriously disappearing Skill. Not even if I wanted to—it made no sense.
“That was the plan.”
“So which is it going to be? Run, or fix what you messed up?”
“Does that mean you’ll deliver my message?”
I pretended to think about that for a moment. “Fortunately for you, I like your idea. And I really like the part where I get to be the bearer of good news. So why don’t you come out and tell me who really screwed the pooch. That way you can go work on damage control and I can go make a very powerful man smile.”
A second or two of silence passed while he thought about my offer, and I held my breath, waiting. Surely he wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that—my karma wasn’t that good.
“Aren’t you under orders to kill me?” he asked at last, and I was almost relieved. If he’d given in that easily, I’d have assumed it was a trick. “That means you don’t have any choice, right?”
“Smart man,” I said, hoping he was unfamiliar with verbal irony. “But actually, I was ordered to kill the one responsible for the fuckup. If that turns out not to be you, then killing you would put me in breach of my contract, wouldn’t it?”
Another moment of silence, and I measured his ignorance with each second that passed. With each mistake I could tick off on mental fingers. He’d left viable blood in the trash can. He’d gone to a civilian hospital. He’d put his real middle name on government documents. He’d trapped himself in his bedroom rather than escaping into the shadows. These were not the actions of a man who understood my world.
“Yeah, I guess it would. But I’m gonna need some kind of reassurance. A guarantee.”
“Such as…?” I shot Cam a questioning glance, but he looked even more confused than I felt—he didn’t know about the powerless pull of Hunter’s blood yet.
“Your word. If you promise you won’t kill me, you’ll be bound to that, right?”
Was that a trap? Was he using something he knew to be false to test my honesty? Or was he really that ignorant? The blood in the trash can suggested the latter, but I flavored my lie with a little truth, just in case.
“That’s not the only way to bind someone.” And unless the person swearing was a Binder it was about as reliable as crossing your fingers and making a wish. “But yes, a verbal oath is certainly one kind of binding.”
“Swear, then,” he said, too quickly to be anything but eager impulse. Which meant he believed it, right? “Swear you’re not going to kill me, and I’ll come out.”
I glanced at Cam for an opinion. He shrugged, leaving it up to me, but looked far from convinced. But the standoff couldn’t last forever. My thighs were on fire from squatting, and my arms were already aching, which would soon compromise my aim. Did Hunter know that? Was he counting on it? Or was he just trying to get out of this alive?
Cover me? I mouthed to Cam, and he nodded, a silent vow of ironclad support. “Okay, I swear,” I called into the bedroom. “You can come out now.”
“Be more specific,” Hunter insisted, and I had to admit he wasn’t a total moron. “Swear you’re not going to shoot me. Or kill me in any other way,” he amended.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I swear I will in no way harm you. Now grow some balls and stand the hell up. If I have to track someone else down tonight, I’d like to get going.”
That last bit did it—that touch of authentic weariness and impatience convinced him I had no more time to waste on him. Hunter stood slowly, and I stood with him, each of us still aiming at the other.
“Put the gun down, Eric,” I said. Cam waited on the opposite side of tht="0%" wid, gun pointed at the ground, a fr
action of a second from taking the kill shot. But he wouldn’t do it while Hunter still had me in his sights.
“You first.” Hunter had a wide stance and a steady, two-handed grip on a Beretta 9mm, and I couldn’t tell whether or not the safety was engaged. But I was betting it wasn’t. He may not know how to destroy blood or walk through shadows, but he knew his way around a gun.
“I can’t shoot,” I insisted. “I just swore I wouldn’t.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind putting the gun down.”
Too late it occurred to me that I should have made him swear the same oath. If he believed it would work on me, he’d believe it would work on him, too, right? Had I just been played?
Shit. If I didn’t lower my gun, he’d know I wasn’t bound, and he’d shoot me. But if I lowered my gun, he’d shoot me anyway.
Sometimes having no good choices brings things into crisp, clear focus.
I lurched to one side and squeezed the trigger. The gun thwupped loudly and the recoil threw my arms up, because I was already in motion. I stumbled. Blood sprayed from Hunter’s right shoulder. His gun flashed in the dim room. Something slammed into my left arm, throwing me off balance again. My knees crashed into the ground.
Cam’s silencer thwupped from behind me. Hunter fell against the wall at his back, then slid to sit on the floor, gurgling with each breath. A thick trail of blood led up the wall behind him.
Cam stepped over me and fired twice more. Hunter’s gurgling stopped.
“Damn it!” I twisted to sit on the floor, but the impact ache in my knees was still vicious as I glared up at Cam. “You couldn’t let him make a dying confession? I had more questions for him!”
Cam thumbed the safety, then dropped the gun, silencer and all, into his custom holster. “I just saved your ass. You’re welcome.”
“Thanks.” I flicked the safety on my own pistol, then tried to unscrew the silencer, but stopped at the sudden sharp, hot pain in my left arm. “But he wasn’t after Shen, he was after Anne, and we need to know why.” I tried to push myself to my feet, but my left arm was reluctant to move. In fact, my fingers were oddly numb. But the rest of me felt fine. Better than ever in fact. With Hunter dead, the geas from Anne was gone, and I was once more free from compulsion.
“Well, we’re not going to find out from him. But on the upside, you’re still breathing.” Cam knelt next to me and gently peeled my fingers from the gun, then set it to the side.
“If Tower—or whoever—sent one man after her, he’ll send another,” I insisted. We’d have to hide her somewhere. Would Cam even be able to help me protect her, or would that mean breaching his contract to Tower? Should I let him help me, even if he could? If he knew where she was, he could be forced to tell Tower. Why the hell would Jake Tower want Anne dead, anyway?
“I know. And as soon as we get you taken care of, we’ll call and warn her. But right now, I need you to stand up and try not to mve your arm.”
I frowned, irritated by his lack of concern. “Cam, your boss is trying to kill one of my best friends.” Or former best friends. Or whatever. “Couldn’t you act like that bothers you, just a little bit?”
Cam blinked at me, blatant surprise brightening his eyes. “Of course it bothers me. But right now, I’m a little more worried about this.” He lifted my left arm by my bent elbow, and pain shot through my bicep. When I looked down, I was surprised to see blood staining my shirt and welling through a hole in the material. “You’ve been shot, Liv.”
Oh. How the hell had I missed that?
Twelve
“Well, the good news is that the bullet went in one side and out the other,” I said, dropping the bloody hand towel onto the table with the bandages I’d found beneath the bathroom sink, all of which were now soaked in Liv’s blood.
“How is that good news?” She flinched when I pressed a folded paper towel against the front of the bullet hole. Between his own previous injury and Liv’s gunshot wound, Hunter’s first-aid supplies had been thoroughly exhausted.
I set the paper-towel roll on the table and tried not to think about the fact that Liv had to be shot to let me touch her for more than a couple of seconds at a time. “Through ’n’ through means I won’t have to dig the slug out of your arm.” I placed her right hand over the makeshift bandage. “Press and hold.”
The dinette chair had no arms, so she rested her elbow on the tabletop, watching while I folded another makeshift bandage. “What’s the bad news?”
“I’m going to have to find the slug and destroy every drop of blood you lost. Quickly.” All three of the guns used had silencers, so the noise wouldn’t have echoed beyond Hunter’s apartment. That would cut down on the chances that someone called the police—as would the fact that we were on Tower’s side of town, in a building he owned. But someone had probably called in somebody, and hanging out at the scene of a crime you’ve just committed is never a good idea. “Unfortunately, Mr. Hunter isn’t very well equipped for triage.”
“Or basic housekeeping,” Liv added, as I pressed the second wad of paper towels to the back of her arm and reached for the duct tape with my free hand. We’d used Hunter’s entire supply of bleach that afternoon, and so far, we’d found nothing else capable of destroying blood, other than a box of matches in one of the kitchen drawers.
“I have emergency supplies in my trunk.” Using my teeth, I tore off a length of gray tape and dropped the roll on the table, then wound the tape around her upper arm, careful not to let the bandages slide out of place. It didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to keep her from dripping blood until I could get her back to my apartment.
Duct tape and paper towels. No one who has any idea what can be done with a viable od sample would ever keep an apartment so empty of supplies. And if Liv were right about the fading power in his blood, something really strange was going on.
“Okay.” I stood while she examined the makeshift bandage. “I’m gonna grab the stuff from my trunk. Could you gather up everything you bled on and throw it in the tub?”
“Sure,” she said, and when I started to leave, she grabbed my arm. “Thanks, Cam.” She looked as if she wanted to say more, but when nothing else came out, I shrugged.
“You got lucky. It’s barely gonna scar.”
I jogged down the stairs and into the parking lot, where I grabbed the plastic tub of emergency supplies from my trunk. On the way through Hunter’s hallway again, I listened for any unusual noises—or any unusual silences—from the other apartments, but everything sounded pretty normal. People watching TV. The soft buzz of conversations I couldn’t quite make out. The occasional shout from a fighting couple.
It was kind of disturbing to realize we could commit murder without even bothering the neighbors who shared the victim’s walls.
In the apartment, I pushed Hunter’s broken front door shut and shoved an end table in front of it to keep it closed. “Liv?”
“In here,” she called from the bedroom. I glanced into the bathroom on the way and saw that she’d thrown the used bandages and discarded tissues into the tub, along with her own bloodied shirt.
I stopped in the doorway to find her kneeling next to the body, only her head and bare shoulders visible over the bed between us, and for a moment, my breath froze in my throat. I hadn’t seen anything more intimate than her forearm in six years, and now she’d taken her shirt off in front of me twice in twenty-four hours.
With my next breath—a conscious effort—I set down the supply box and pulled my T-shirt over my head. It would be huge on her, but that was better than nothing, at least in public. “Here.” I held the shirt out and she stood, and I tried not to stare.
Her eyes widened, and she stared, and I couldn’t resist a grin, in spite of the circumstances. “What?” I knew what she was looking at, but I wanted to hear her say it.
“You’ve…um…changed.” She took the shirt, but flinched when she tried to lift her arm over her head. “You got…bigger.”
I took my
shirt back and gathered the material, then slid the sleeve over her injured arm, acutely aware that very little stood between us now. “As it turns out, tracking is kind of a worthless skill, if you can’t bring down the target.”
“So you trained.” She slid her other arm through the second sleeve, and watched me for a moment over the material sagging between us. “Like a soldier.”
“Yeah.” Only I didn’t believe in the war.
I tugged the shirt over her head carefully, then let my fingers trail slowly over her ribs and the hollows of her waist along with the material, waiting—fully expecting—for her to yell at me, or step out of reach.
Instead, she closed er eyes and exhaled slowly, and only met my gaze again when my hands rested on her hips. Her mouth was open, as if she wanted to say something, and I wanted to kiss her to show her that sometimes you don’t need words. Sometimes they only get in the way, and you end up talking yourself out of things you need. People you want.
She inhaled, and her warm hand found my chest and trailed toward my stomach, and I almost forgot we were supposed to be fleeing the scene of a crime.
Then she blinked and snatched her hand away, and though I knew it was for the best—this wasn’t the time—I missed both the warmth of her hand and the heat in her gaze.
Liv turned around, and the moment was over, and I knew that if I called her on it, she’d deny that moment ever existed. But she’d be lying. She’d been lying for six years, and that’s why I hadn’t given up on her. Why I couldn’t give up on her, even when she was with someone else, and I was with someone else. I couldn’t give up because I could still feel her.
All I had to do was think of her name—her real, full name, which no one else in the world knew—and I could feel her, all the way across the city. Hell, I could feel her all the way across the state. I couldn’t tell what she was doing—tracking didn’t work like that—and with anyone else, someone I didn’t know as well as I knew Liv, I wouldn’t have gotten anything more from the pull of her name than a direction.
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