The Cure Read Online Free PDF Page B

the new steel-reinforced doors. There was no yard to speak of, only dirt packed under a load of gravel Ava had ordered to prevent our vehicles from sinking into the mud during the wet season. A single pathetic street lamp illuminated the area with a weak, grungy light. The exterior clapboards had been patched, and were currently three different colors of green. A sagging porch ran across the front length of the house, but at some point part of it had been walled in to make a small office, which we used now for storing anything we didn’t currently need. Most of Ritter’s belongings were there, stacked in boxes up to the ceiling. The rest was in the room we’d saved for him, and I’d made sure the room was the draftiest one at the far end of the hotel. The only welcoming thing about the palace was the front door, which my niece had insisted on painting a bright yellow.
    “Yep. Home, sweet home. Looks even better inside.”
    Mari laughed, a short staccato burst, and then bit her lip guiltily. She’d get over it.
    As we started across the gravel to the door, a man with deeply bronzed skin ran out from behind the metal storage container to our right. “Geeve me your purses!” he demanded in heavily accented English. He waved a pistol. A small one. Not nearly as big as my nine mil.
    For half a second, I thought he was another piece-of-garbage Hunter, who must have followed us, though I’d been careful to double back several times during our drive from the park. But a Hunter wouldn’t care about our purses, unless he wanted to verify ID, and this man certainly wasn’t an Emporium agent. His dark hair was lank and shaggy, his swarthy face unshaven. The jeans sticking out from under his ripped down jacket looked as if they hadn’t been washed in a year.
    My fear vanished. One common mortal thief was no match for any trained Unbounded—or even a partially trained one like me.
    I arched a brow. “Uh, we don’t have purses.” Mari must have left hers in her car, and I didn’t carry one.
    “Your wallets then.”
    I shook my head. “Sorry.” I couldn’t help sounding amused. If he wanted my wallet, he’d have to take it from my coat pocket.
    Mari clutched my arm, her body shaking. Her fear screamed in my mind. Apparently, she hadn’t understood my brief explanation about our near immortality in the park. I wanted to remind her it was okay, that if he shot us, we wouldn’t die. You even grew somewhat used to the pain. But she might not believe me until she experienced it for herself. Maybe that should be a requirement for all new Unbounded—to be shot through the heart so they realized what they had become.
    “Geeve me the rings. Both rings.” The man jabbed the gun in the direction of Mari’s hand where it clamped my arm. The cheap wedding band wouldn’t be missed, I suspected, but the other ring was the family heirloom that had belonged to Stella’s little sister, who had died at least a hundred and forty years ago.
    Pulling away from me, Mari began fumbling at the rings.
    “Stop,” I told her. No way was I going to let this jerk take them. Mari hesitated, her hands retightening on my arm like a vise.
    The man waved the gun, his other hand going to the side of his head, as if to hold it steady so he could aim. “I’ll shoot. I swear!”
    With Hunters and possibly the Emporium on our tails, and whatever was going on in Mexico, we didn’t have time for this, but I wasn’t close enough to lunge at him without some kind of distraction, even if I could disentangle myself from Mari. Too bad my Sig was out of convenient reach in my holster. The knife in my boot could be a good option, if I pretended to reach for some money hidden there, but truthfully, I wasn’t that good at knife-throwing, and I might kill the man.
    The only thing left was my ability. As a sensing Unbounded, I should theoretically be able to influence the actions of a single man. In fact, I’d done it before—just barely and with great