To Catch a Thief (Brilliant Shadows Trilogy #1)
Prologue
It wouldn't stop…
A buzzing drowned out her footsteps as she approached yet another identical, featureless door. Her fingers reflexively wrapped around the tarnished knob and turned, easing the door open a crack to reveal a glimpse of a dimly lit space, and refused to go further.
She lowered her shoulder to the cracked paint and pushed, or tried to. A snarl ripped free when her feet skidded in the dirt and debris littering the floor, but inch by inch, the door retreated into the room, and then, without warning, flung wide open.
She stumbled, nearly sprawling into dust coating the wide plank floor in a layer thick enough to be snow. The buzzing was magnified in the small space, so much that when the door hit the wall, the impact vibrated through her bones but didn't quite reach her ears.
Before she could react, the door swung back the other way.
It collided with her shoulder, shoving her a step further in before closing her inside.
Pain shot down her arm, but she forced it away as she scrambled for the knob, but no amount of twisting or pulling would make it open.
She pivoted and pressed her back against the door with a whimper, clutching her shoulder.
Across the room, the buzzing concentrated in the deep shadows a spear of light from the lone uncovered window couldn’t quite reach. She blinked hard, forcing her eyes to adjust to the gloom, a stark contrast to the brightly lit hallway, and took a hesitant step, and then another into the room.
Small specks drifted through the light like dust motes, becoming more and more agitated the closer she got, the buzzing increasing in volume with each step.
She froze, her hammering heart making it difficult to get a deep breath.
The specks swarmed together, twisting and turning in a cloud that circled the perimeter of the light, gaining in speed and volume until, as one, the specks all turned and flew straight at her.
She staggered back from the swarm, clapping her hands to her ears as the buzzing rose to a crescendo.
Small bodies bounced off her arms and tangled in her hair.
She swatted them away as she retreated until her back collided with the door, turning then to scrabble once again for the handle, twisting and pulling as more little bodies landed on her.
With one last desperate yank, the door gave way. A cry of relief rose up her throat as she dashed for the hallway and pulled the door shut behind her, trapping most of what she now recognized as bees inside while trying to keep a single, angry one from alighting on her nose.
Dull thuds sounded as little bodies collided with the door like bullets from an automatic weapon.
The buzzing continued to grow louder though only a fraction of the bees had escaped.
She beat frantically as they swarmed around her, landing in her hair, on her bare shoulders with a stinging force like standing outside in a hailstorm.
They crept along her skin, their tiny legs leaving a trail of ice in their wake that sank in deep as they moved to encircle her neck forming a macabre necklace.
Her breaths came in gasping sobs as their combined weight pressed in like a hand squeezing around her throat.
As one, the bees sank their stingers into her flesh and with her last remaining breath, she screamed.