Shadow Bound. Rachel Vincent

that the giant whirlpool tub was built for two. As was the walk-in shower with dual showerheads. I stared, frozen, desperately trying to summon words that wouldn’t come, until his footsteps echoed behind me.

      “You okay?”

      “Yeah.” I turned to see Holt in the doorway, blocking my path whether he meant to or not. “This is the bathroom, obviously.” I brushed past him before he could step back and headed straight for the front room, where the exit called to me with singular purpose. But I stopped at the cabinet beneath the television instead. “And the best part is the minibar, fully stocked with overpriced snacks and alcohol.” I pulled open the door to show off the selection. “I recommend … well, all of it. Help yourself. Take everything you can carry, and call down for more if you get the munchies in the middle of the night. It’s all on Jake.”

      I looked up from the minibar to find Holt watching me, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and confusion, which I wished I could clear up for him. But I couldn’t. I headed for the door and had one hand on the knob before I spoke. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

      The words burned my tongue, and I wanted a drink to put out the flames. Something strong enough to make the next part easier. Bearable. Maybe.

      “No, I think I’m good,” he said, and I blinked, sure I’d heard wrong. He didn’t want …?

      But I wasn’t going to question my good fortune.

      “Okay, then, I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast. Around nine? Or did you want to sleep in?”

      “Nine’s fine,” Holt said, and I dropped the key to his rental car on the small table next to the door.

      “Good night.” I was in the hall before he could respond. The door closed on whatever he was saying, and I took off down the hall, only pausing long enough to step out of my shoes, half convinced that if I didn’t run, he’d change his mind and call me back.

      My heart racing, I jogged past the elevator and into the stairwell, hoping for a shadow deep enough to walk through, but the stairs were lit up like a fucking runway, and I couldn’t reach any of the bulbs to bust them. So I jogged down the first flight, then stopped on the twenty-second floor to use the elevator—no way I was going to walk down twenty-one flights of stairs.

      On the first floor, I crossed the lobby like my bare feet were on fire and only breathed easy when I stepped outside, into the night, and spotted the entrance to an alley at the corner of the building.

      Unlit alleys are the downfall of many an airheaded horror-movie bimbo, but they were my escape. My own personal transportation system, with free, unlimited rides.

      I dashed past the doormen and valet attendants, still holding my sister’s shoes, and ran into the alley, already picturing my room in Kenley’s apartment, kept dark for situations exactly like this. My bare feet pounded from the grass onto the broken pavement, and a rock bruised my foot on my second step. With the third step, my foot landed on carpet, and a step after that, I collided with my own bedroom wall, and the rebound knocked me on my ass.

      Dazed, I dropped the shoes and leaned back against the foot of the bed. A second later, my bedroom door flew open and the overhead light flared to life. “What the hell was that?” Kenley demanded, one hand still clutching the doorknob.

      “Sorry. I forgot how small this room is.”

      “No more running starts, Kori,” she said, letting go of the door to cross her arms over her chest. “You’re gonna break your nose on the wall.”

      I half hoped she was right. A broken nose would make me ugly. And if I was ugly, Jake might pull me off the Holt job in favor of a prettier face.

      Of course, knowing my luck, he’d kill me as punishment for messing it all up, then carry out his threat against Kenley, even though I wasn’t there to see her abused. It would be just like him to try to make my afterlife miserable, too.

      “How’d it go?” Kenley gave me her hand, and I let her pull me up. “Did you have to sleep with him?”

      “No.” Not yet, anyway.

      She turned me by my shoulders and unzipped my dress. Which was really her dress, loose on me now, where it would have been tight two months earlier. I let the material slide to the floor, and she picked it up when I stepped out of it. “Is it just me, or does he look familiar?” Kenley said.

      “It’s you, and half the planet. The whole world saw that news clip.”

      “I kind of feel sorry for him,” Kenley said. “They’ll all be after him now.” They, being the rival syndicates, of course.

      “Don’t.” I grabbed the T-shirt slung over the end of my bed. The one I’d slept in the night before. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for him. He’s the idiot who revealed his Skill on national television. He’s gonna have to sign with someone. It may as well be Jake.” Holt’s imprisonment may as well keep me alive and keep Kenley out of the basement.

      “What’s he like?” she asked.

      “He’s fine. Normal. Kinda funny. He doesn’t deserve this.” What I was doing to him. What I had to do to him, to save myself and my sister.

      “No one deserves this.” Kenley laid the dress across the bed and pulled a hanger from the closet, then stood staring at it, like she’d forgotten what to do with it. “I’m so sorry, Kori,” she said, and I could hear the unshed tears in her voice.

      “No.” I pulled the T-shirt over my head, then lifted her chin, making her look at me. “You have nothing to be sorry for, so don’t start this again. Please.”

      Kenley burst into tears and I pulled her into a hug, holding her until the wrenching sobs fractured into smaller cries, then broke down into teary hiccups I could handle. “This is all my fault,” she said, wiping her cheeks when I let her go. “I’m so sorry for getting you into this.”

      “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have.”

      Six years earlier, at twenty years old, Kenley had still been sheltered and naive, because we’d made her that way. Kris, Gran and I had tried to protect the baby of the family, and instead we’d turned her into a victim, ready-made for a world full of predators. I shouldn’t have been surprised when one found her. And I couldn’t let her serve her time alone. “Besides, I signed on voluntarily. I make my own damn choices.”

      “Not anymore,” she insisted. “And that’s my fault.”

      “It’s not your fault. But I can’t argue with you about this anymore.” I let go of her, and exhaustion washed over me, pulling me toward sleep with a force I couldn’t resist. “Not tonight, okay, Kenni?”

      She nodded and picked the hanger back up. “I’m sorry. You’re not well yet. Two weeks isn’t enough time for anyone to recover from … whatever they did to you. You still look half-starved.”

      “Some women do this to themselves on purpose, you know. Others pay to get this look.” I spread my arms, trying not to see how thin I still looked in the mirror.

      “Those women are crazy.”

      “No argument from me.” I pulled a pair of fuzzy socks from my top drawer and stuffed my feet into them, trying to make up for the abuse they’d endured most of the night.

      Kenley slid the straps of her dress into the notches on top of the hanger. “So, do you know what you’re going to do? How you’re going to snag him?”

      I followed her with the stilettos when she carried the dress into her own bedroom. “I’m going to snare him with my demure manner and natural charm, of course.”

      Kenley laughed.

      “I don’t think Jake realizes how much he’s bitten off with this one, and I’ve tried to tell him I’m not a recruiter, but he won’t listen to reason.”

      “It