Unbound

The nightwalker blinked a couple times before his gaze focused on me. His whole body was trembling, and tears had begun to streak down his cut, bloody face. Some distant part of me could understand his fears. Most nightwalkers burned so easily, like dry kindling, and the moment Knox had caught fire he was sure that he was dead. And maybe he would have been if I hadn’t been here to control the fire.

“You’re going to be okay,” I murmured, relaxing my hold on his shoulders. My stomach twisted at the feeling of him shaking violently in my hands. Knox nodded his head slowly and looked down at the palms of his hands. They were blistered and burned from where he had tried to beat the fire out. “It could be worse,” I announced, drawing his gaze up to my face. “The fire could have started at your crotch.”

“You’re sick,” he snapped. He scowled at me, which was better than the terror that had gripped him earlier. “What happened?”

“A bomb.”

“No kidding. I mean, what set it off?”

That was the real question. I wagged my eyebrows at him once before pushing to my feet.

“Where’s Heather?” I asked as I helped Knox rise as well. We found her lying dead a few feet away from where Knox had landed. A brick from the house had crushed the back of her skull, splattering her brains. There was no recovering from such a wound in our world. She was gone so quickly, and only because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This was not going to go over well with Justin. First, a member of his family is murdered by some unknown killer. Then a second member is killed while kindly helping me in the investigation. If I had any sense, I would have sent her away, but as a member of the Ravana family, she had a right to be there as well.

The cry of a fire engine off in the distance seeped into my thoughts. It was getting closer. We needed to get out of here before too large of a crowd gathered—we’d have to alter the memories of a handful of humans as it was. Picking up Heather, I tossed her into the fire that was growing in the remains of the house. She would be incinerated along with the rest of the evidence of Bryce’s existence and any evidence related to his killer.

With Knox hobbling along beside me, I increased the fire eating away at the remains of the house once we were in the street. If I wasn’t going to be able to get into the house then no one would. By the time the fire department got this fire out, there would be nothing left but hot ash.

We were speeding back to the city when Knox started speaking again. However, his brain wasn’t totally functioning yet. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “Why destroy the evidence after the police had gone through the place during the day?”

“That wasn’t the purpose of the explosion.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think it was a coincidence that the place blew up when we just happened to be there?” I laughed.

“You think someone was trying to kill us?” Knox twisted in his seat, sending his blond hair flying in wild disarray in the wind.

I was beginning to think that someone was trying to kill me. First the Coven flunky’s arrival, and now the explosion just as I was entering the house. The timing was too perfect.

“There was a camera on the front porch,” I explained, keeping my theory to myself for now. No reason to upset Knox just yet. “The same person that killed Bryce knew someone would be by to investigate. I think this person was waiting for someone that didn’t look like a cop.” And for the murderer, I fit the bill. I didn’t look like a police officer in my blue jeans and black button-up shirt. But then, there was enough otherness in my lavender eyes and ultra pale skin to make some people wonder if I was even human.

“But I didn’t sense anyone…I mean, I scanned the area and no one wanted us dead.”

“It could have been done by remote, allowing the person to be miles away.”

“And now he knows you’re associated with Bryce. If he knew Bryce was a nightwalker, he’s going to assume you’re…”

“Yeah, I’ve got a brand-new problem,” I grumbled. It had now become even more imperative that I find Bryce’s murderer. This person had seen my face. If the murderer knew Bryce was a nightwalker, I now fell under that same classification. As a result, anyone I associated with would now come under scrutiny. I slowed the car to a stop at a red light. We were just outside of town, driving along the Savannah River headed toward the riverfront district. “I think a member of the Daylight Coalition killed Bryce and tried to kill us tonight.”

“Because of how he was killed?”

“As well as the timing and the call to the police. Regardless of the reasons for killing Bryce, no nightwalker would risk a human discovering the corpse. Someone knew he was a nightwalker and wanted proof to get out to the rest of the world. This murder was done during the daylight hours when Bryce wouldn’t have been able to fight back.”