Page 77 of Bound

“We’ve got three cells left to clear on this side,” August called. “Rowan—”

“Two more down on my end,” she answered, fingers flying at another keyboard terminal. “But the last two over here were empty.”

“And there’s no way to tell which ones are occupied?” I asked.

“No.” August frowned at his laptop, suddenly distracted. “Damn. SWAT teams in the tunnel are nearly to the second sensor we left. Mom—”

“On it,” she murmured, eyes fluttering closed. A female vampire with straight black hair stood mute at her side, mimicking her movements. “I’m sticking with our gas leak narrative. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold their minds once first responders carry them clear of the tunnels, but it should buy us a few minutes.”

“Hopefully we’ll be gone by then,” I said, hurrying into the next cell as the door lock disengaged.

We cleared three more cells in quick succession. I had a row of vampires out in the corridor, sucking hungrily from bags of blood Simon had managed to obtain for us from the hospital when August cursed.

“What?”

Frowning, my brother tapped at the computer terminal. “We’re locked out. We’ve used Galen’s login credentials too many times now and the system is auto-rejecting them. We need a new set of passcodes.” He gestured to the dark-haired vampire held in thrall by Sofia’s power. “Mom, can you—”

She shook her head. “I can only project images. I can’t access stored memories or take anything out.”

A loud bang echoed from somewhere back in the recesses of the tunnels, the walls briefly shuddering.

Without warning, the undead regained consciousness. Gasping, she clawed for the knife I’d taken from her belt. Finding nothing, she threw herself against the wall and shut her eyes.

She was going to dematerialize.

“Mom!” I shouted.

Just as quickly as she’d lost it, Sofia regained control. The vampire’s muscles went slack, the light leaving her eyes. Just as she had before, she walked woodenly to Sofia’s side, harmless as a kitten. August’s eyes flicked to mine, and I knew what he was thinking. If she’d lost her grip on the vampire, even momentarily, she’d probably lost control of the SWAT team, too. Mom was one of the most powerful Tracers on record, but even her magic had limits. Had she ever been forced to take over so many minds at one time and hold them for so long? It was no wonder she was drained.

She lowered her head. “For a second, I swear I felt—"

From the far end of the compound came the unmistakable sound of automatic weapons fire.

We were out of time.

Cursing, I began dragging survivors behind me into the relative cover of an open doorway. “Guess there’s no chance they’ll confuse that for a gas leak.”

Jori rematerialized, another vampire with her. “We have to go.”

“Two more cells. We can’t leave anyone behind.”

“I can’t make any more jumps. Ursula and I can take these four. Rowan and Vlad will get the rest of you out.”

More gunfire.

“Go, Jori,” I urged. And then it was just me, Sofia, August and Rowan, plus the vampire my mother was holding in thrall. I turned to Sofia. “Can you trick her into somehow thinking she needs to input her access codes?”

“I thought of that. I’ve tried it before. So has your uncle. Usually when we bring someone up to that level of consciousness that they could retrieve a password and input it into a computer screen they’re actually seeing, they’re conscious enough to break away from our control. If she dematerializes, that’s it. We have no way of opening the last two cells. We need River.”

The red emergency light overhead shattered in a burst of gunfire. Grabbing Rowan, August dove into the closest open cell. Sofia lowered her head. The gunfire stopped.

“There’s too many of them,” she said through gritted teeth. “And more coming. I can’t hold them off.”

“River, where the hell are you?” I growled into my comm.

“Right here.” The voice came from behind me, and I whirled to find my youngest brother and Vlad making their way down the corridor. They looked like they’d just lost the bar fight from hell. Vlad had a nasty bruise forming below his left eye. River was barely standing and covered in blood. “Sorry. We got tied up.”

“We’re locked out of the last two cells,” August said urgently. “We need another pass code. Rowan and I are trying to find a way around, but nothing’s working.”