The Cardinal Bird (1 of Cardinal Series)

Chapter 23

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"Sang, what is it?" Marc asked from beside me.

There was shifting as if others in the stairwell had heard his question and were also looking my way. No one spoke, thankfully.

I didn't answer Marc's question. I couldn't. Not really. It was hard to even breathe, let alone speak. For some reason, the noise on the other side of the door was raising chills all up and down my arms. These were instincts that I'd honed out of necessity, and they had saved me too many times to count.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up on end, and, whatever it was that my body recognized that my brain didn't, I at least realized that it was bad. Very bad.

My heart was in my throat. With everything in me, I didn't want to, but I took a step forward. I leaned up against the cold, black door, putting my ear against it.

Thump...thump......thump thump.......thump.............thump

The closer my ear came to the door, the better I was able to hear it. It was definitely coming from the other side of it. I concentrated, able to focus now that the stairwell was silent. It sounded like something soft hitting something hard. Maybe a fist?

But it wasn't someone beating on the door. It sounded too far away. In fact...it sounded like it was getting farther away.

"Sang...what's wrong," Marc asked again, but his voice was more urgent this time as he gave me a small shake.

"Shh!" North said. His head was cocked to the side as well as he seemed to concentrate. "I hear it too."

"What is it?" Karl asked.

There was another hush among the guys that gave me some clarification to the mystery sound, and suddenly my eyes widened. The sound wasn't getting farther away, it was just getting softer...weaker. The rush of knowledge was terrifying, taking my breath away as my mind finally connected the dots that my body already had. I knew that sound!

It was the sound of someone beating futilely against something hard.

It was the sound of someone losing the fight of dying.

I leapt away from the door like it was trying to light me on fire. I looked at the handle. There was no way to lock it or barricade it from here.

"We have to go," I said, feeling disconnected with my body. My emotions were all over the place. Any fever, aches, pains...they evaporated, my mind moving at a rapid pace, clearer than it had been in a very long time. Adrenaline was surging through my veins, and yet I was calm as I spoke. "They found us."

Marc grabbed my arm, yanking me backwards up the stairs. My feet didn't even touch the ground, which was probably a good thing since my eyes hadn't left the now ominous black door.

Just on the other side of that were Nikolai's men, if not Nikolai himself. At this moment, they were choking someone, probably for information or maybe even for the fun of it. If they tracked us here, they had to have known what floor we were on.

You are a killer, Sang.

Some innocent person was out there dying just because I stayed where they work. I remembered the voice of the young guy last night that had been so timid he couldn't even say whether or not the hostel served waffles for fear of incurring Raven's "wrath."