Page 72 of Unbound

“And put on a hat,” Antonio says.

“She’s disguising herself,” I say, stating the obvious.

Leo flips through more footage from nearby businesses. My coffee is cold by the time he finds another useful angle. A camera across the street catches Claire walking quickly down the sidewalk.

She looks agitated. At one point, she spins around and starts yelling at someone. Except there’s no one there. My stomach twists. Then she reaches the corner directly beneath another camera. She looks up. Straight toward the lens. The footage glitches.

“What the hell?” Leo whispers.

The image distorts for several seconds. By the time it clears, Claire is gone.

“What’s the timestamp?” Antonio asks.

Leo checks.

“An hour and a half ago.”

My stomach knots painfully. We are so fucking close. She could literally be down the street. We could find her. Get her somewhere safe. And maybe, finally, this could all be over. My phone rings again.

Ryder.

This time I send it straight to voicemail. “I know you guys aren’t going to like this idea,” I begin. Antonio shoots me a look. Apparently the warning alone is enough for him to know he’s going to hate whatever comes next. “I brought Claire’s blood.” His expression darkens. “I could do a locator spell.”

“I thought we collectively agreed that was a terrible idea,” Antonio reminds me.

“It was a terrible idea when I was hundreds of miles away in North Carolina.” I lean forward. “But she could be less than a mile from us right now.” I spread my hands. “I could do this. We could find her and go home.”

“Oversimplifying things like that is almost worse than jinxing them,” Antonio says flatly.

“I know it’s not that simple.” I exhale.

“And I’d have to find somewhere private because I obviously can’t start casting spells in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh.” I look back toward Leo’s screen. “But she’s so close.”

Leo is still jumping through CCTV feeds. “It’s like she just disappears,” he mutters. I bite my lip and watch him click through different windows. He leans back. “I’m breaking into another system. Give it a minute.” Then he pulls his phone from his pocket.

His expression changes. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“I have like ten missed calls from Ryder.”

“Shit.”

I pull out my own phone. “He called me a few times too.”

Leo opens one of Ryder’s voicemails and puts it on speaker. “One of you needs to seriously answer your fucking phone,” Ryder’s voice comes through.

We all go still. “I don’t know what the hell is happening with the Order, but they just sent out an alert.” A pause. “Florence Malus is in Pittsburgh.”

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

“Ithink I should cast the locator spell now,” I say, feeling like we have nothing left to lose. “They already know we’re here.”

I resist the urge to look around as paranoia creeps down my spine. Were we naive to underestimate how well-connected the Order still is? Even though we avoided the main security checkpoints at the airport, we still passed through a highly populated, heavily monitored area.

“Keep your cool,” Antonio tells me, picking up his iced coffee and taking a drink. Unlike me, he’s doing a decent job pretending not to scan the room. Order members are trained to blend seamlessly into their surroundings. We’ve been so hyper-focused on Claire that I haven’t been paying attention the way I normally would.