The Cardinal Bird (1 of Cardinal Series)

Chapter 40

A/N:  Here it is! My weekly update.  Unfortunately, my Wattpad is still glitchy, so I can't respond as fast to messages or comments.  I'm also not messing with the bonus content or sneak peeks until it's fixed.  Too much of a hassle.  Same with the music.  Hope you enjoy anyway!

Before I could question him on why he thought I was trouble, he finished up by brushing my hair out with a comb he pulled from a duffel. He grumbled a bit about the bathroom not having a hairdryer or even an outlet to plug in his "emergency" one that he pulled from that duffel of his.

I eyed the bag dubiously. Um, excuse me Mr. Hermione Granger, but did it have an extension charm on it? What all, exactly, did he have in there?

I went to peak over the opening but he ushered me out into the main room to find an outlet there. He dried it out, fluffing it with the comb until it layed in smooth, shiny waves over my shoulders. Even after he was finished, he seemed distracted, running his hands through it a few times as he stared at it.

I didn't mind. It felt as good as it had when he'd washed it.

A fist on the door shook us both out of it. He put a bundle of clothes in my hand and pushed me into the bathroom.

I donned the outfit, mortifyingly accurate underthings--not thinking about it--a loose pink-ish tunic that draped down over white leggings and finished up with some white flats. It was surprisingly comfy and effortlessly gorgeous. Paired with my hair, my face all healed, I couldn't recognize the girl staring back at me.

I stepped out into the room. Gabriel was shouting out the crack in the door, presumably at Agent Grinley if he was the impatient fudging penguin-poser, while he asked if anyone had a knife. One was placed in his hand, and he turned back to the room, pausing when noticed me.

He breathed out something too soft for me to hear as he looked me up and down. He grabbed me by the shoulders, spinning me in a 360 before stopping me. "Fuck me, but you're trouble. Mark my words."

He let me go, taking the knife back into his full grip and using it to fiddle with a thin, tan belt in his hands. He stabbed a hole in it, and then cut about 4 inches of the length off the end. He put the knife in my hand. "Hold this."

I looked down at it, feeling the engraving on the otherwise smooth handle. It was written in Russian. "Медведь-убийца. Для моего брата. (The Bear Killer. For my brother.)," I said out loud.

Gabriel had been fixing the belt around me, just under my breasts to give the loose tunic a more fitted dress-like quality, but he stopped adjusting it at my words. "What language was that?" he sounded suspicious as his eyes followed my gaze to the knife in my hands. "You speak Russian?"

"Is this Raven's?" I asked, turning the weapon over and over in my grasp.

Neither one of us had to respond to each other's questions, because we already knew the answers.

"Fuck," Gabriel said. "Raven is a crazy, horny bastard. You stay away from him. You hear?"

"Well," I said carefully. "I am getting ready to go with the CIA to be interrogated for information on an international mafia-head power. They'll put me away somewhere unknown for a very long time, or they'll try to use me to draw this man out. Either way, I don't think you'll have to worry about Raven."

"What? What are you talking about? No one told me--"

The door opened. It was Nathan. "Sorry, but I don't think that we can hold him back much--whoa, Peanut. Looking good!"

"Peanut? What the fuck kind of nickname is--"

"It's because he thinks I'm tiny like a peanut," I said, noting the eerily familiar conversation.