Cardinal

Chapter 29

My feet carry me back to the mansion on autopilot, dread crawling down my spine and pooling at the bottom of my gut.  

I was strong. I could do this.

Suddenly, a loud ringing alarm cuts through the mansion. I rush up the stairs, fear crawling through my spine. 

Steel and Will were the first ones out of the house. Relief pours through their faces as they see Julie and I on the steps of the house. 

"What's going on?" I ask, covering my ears from the blaring alarm. 

"Fuck. Thank god, you're back." Steel runs to embrace me tightly, still breathing hard from panic. 

"I'm okay, I'm okay," I tried to stay strong for him, rubbing his back in circles and keeping my trembling hands from his notice. Keenan comes barreling through the threshold of the front door, relief mirroring Steels' and Wills' on his expression as he sees us both. 

"It's our secondary alarm for the academy. It never rings unless several of the trigger points are breached. We've got to go," Keenan says, pulling me towards him by my wrist and back into the mansion.  

"But we just got back from the academy..." I whisper, my voice shaking. Damian comes barreling down the stairs, his eyes wide in panic. 

I looked at him with similar panic-filled wide eyes, the alarms heightening my anxiety. He exhales sharply as he sees my face, which was the only evidence of emotion on his face. Otherwise, he was as stoic as ever. 

"Let's go," Keenan says as we pile out to the other side of the house into a room that I've never been in. 

There was an armory in here- a large one at that. It was filled with weapons, knives, everything you could think of. With steady hands, all of the guys begin to put their gear on, checking each of the weapons that they were going to holster prudently and gingerly with expert-like speed.  

"Oh my god, I've never fought before. What am I supposed to do?" Julie sputters out in panic, her breaths coming out like pants. 

"Me either, but I won't let anything happen to you, Jules, I promise," I held her hand in mine. Though, her panic doesn't subside with my words. If anything, it escalates as she grips my hands. 

"If you fucking try to take a bullet for me or something, I'm not talking to you ever again, got that?" Julie warns me, her voice stern. 

"Okay, okay! Geez, Jules," I pull my hands out of her painful grasp, looking in her panic-filled eyes. 

The guys were all suited up and putting weapons in the duffel bag. 

"Both of you wear this," Will tosses us two very heavy Kevlar vests to put on.

Like in merc training yesterday, I strapped mine on and help Julie with hers. Thank god she wasn't wearing one of her high heels today or this would have been a disaster. 

"I think they should stay here," Damian says suddenly out of the blue. My panic turns into anger. Stay here? Like sitting ducks? Fuck that. Plus with Priscilla's revelation, I didn't want to be away at all. No, I'm staying with them. 

"I'm not staying here, Damian. We're all going together," I say with finality and sternness in my voice as I go the shelves to my left to pick a Glock and a loaded magazine.  

"We're not letting her out of her sight when some shit could really be going down," Keenan's voice was sharp and resolute. No way to argue with the man. He was the default leader of this unit out in the field. 

"They're going to be open targets on the field with us, Keenan! Think about this carefully! Stop letting your link talk for you!" Damian's expression was that of anger, his nostrils were flared. His eyes were wide but deep down, I knew that he was just scared. For a moment, it was bleeding through the link between us but like every time, he clamps it down so I don't feel anything.