The Cardinal Bird (1 of Cardinal Series)

Chapter 8

"Under Willow" by Pelageya accompanied quartet

The room was saturated with shouting.  I couldn't focus.  In fact, I thought for sure I must have been hearing wrong because I thought that I heard someone shout, "Robotics," while someone familiar responded with, "Pizza!"

Then there was loud crack of a gunshot followed by violent and furious cursing from more than one area in the room.  Some of the voices I could pick out, others were from the intruders.  My heart rate went into overdrive.

We were shooting?   They were hostile?

We needed to do something, but Brandon was a still statue in front of me, not moving an ounce.  That was okay.  I was tense enough for the both of us.

"Raven, what the fuck?" an angry voice yelled.

"We used the codewords, brother," another unfamiliar voice said.  Two newcomers.  "Why are you shooting at us?"

My body was confused and just flat freaking out.  It didn't know what to do or process first.  A second ago there was shouting, cursing, and gunfire. Now there was still shouting and anger, but there was also an underlying camaraderie. My brain didn't know how to respond to the casual, familiar tone the new people were taking with someone on our side.

I peeked around Brandon's body in time to see Raven shrug one of his broad shoulders.  "I had to get my favorite shirt dirty because of you."

My eyes went to him.  He was dressed like everyone else with a distinctive combat look to him from the cargo pants and military boots.  Unlike the others, he didn't have one of the utility jackets on which offered me an unhindered view at the shirt he had to be referring to.

Other than the way it sinfully hugged his bulky, defined muscles and dipped into the deep v-shape along the length of his back, it didn't seem very special.  It was a plain black thing from what I could tell, but maybe it had something special on the front that I had missed.

There was more swearing.

Brandon finally seemed to relax as he got to his feet.  I went to follow, but noticed that I had started shaking horribly.  This always happens after a fight.  Sometimes I wondered why my body was so weird.  Why did it wait until after the danger to get chock-full of adrenaline?

I braced my hand against the wall.  "Brandon," I said, finally able to think of something to do.  "Do you know them?"

He turned around, his eyes running up and down my body, a frown growing on his face.  "Yes.  They're the rest of our team.  Marc and Axel.  My brother, Corey, must still be out in the van that pulled up.  We didn't know they were coming, so we were being cautious." He paused for a moment, debating something. "Are you okay?"

I nodded.  "Adrenaline.  I think." I used the wall to get to my feet.  "Or shock.  I don't know.  It usually happens after a fight or something."

"I don't think that's what my brother is talking about, malen'kaya ptitsa (little bird)."

I glanced up at Raven.  His gun was gone again, vanished magically into the ether.

My mind went to the fact once more that he wasn't wearing a jacket like the others. Was it his jacket that I was wearing? My eyes traveled over his torso. And where exactly was he hiding the gun? I ran my eyes down, trying to find it and then remembered what he had said to one of the newcomers about his shirt.  I had a front view of it now.

Just like the backside, it was molded to his front as if painted on.  I could make out details that were probably not appropriate in mixed company.  My eyes lingered on the way the sleeves were stretched out taught over his melon-biceps.