If I Should Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

Georgia said, patting her coat pocket.
    â€œYeah, but Ambrose was supposed to let me know if anything happened.” My chest constricted with anxiety. Today was not the day to be out of contact.
    â€œCall him,” Georgia offered, holding her phone out to me.
    â€œNo, that’s okay. We’re here,” I said, pointing ahead to Le Corbeau’s darkened storefront.
    Georgia peered dubiously at the old wooden sign with the store’s namesake raven creakily flapping back and forth in the staccato gusts of winter wind. “Are you sure this place was actually ever open? It looks medieval,” she said, pulling her coat tighter to her.
    I rapped on the door window, but it was obvious that no one was in.
    â€œIs that a giant tooth?” Georgia asked, leaning toward the window display.
    â€œIt’s called a relic. It’s probably a dead saint’s finger bone or something,” I replied, pressing down hard on the door handle. I watched astonished as the door swung smoothly open. “It wasn’t even locked!” I exclaimed, and stepped over the threshold.
    â€œWhy would they lock it?” Georgia said, following me in. “Who would steal . . . ‘an eighteenth-century rosary featuring a sliver of the true cross trapped inside Bohemian crystal’?” she read off a tag, and dropped the beads carelessly back onto their stand. “That’s just weird. Man, they could really use a cleaner here. The dust is enough to give you asthma.”
    We moved deeper into the darkened room, shuffling through the tight space between ancient waist-high statues of saints with knives through their heads and display cases holding contemporary glow-in-the-dark pope memorabilia. My foot creaked on the parquet, and immediately there came a thump from under the floor. “Ssh!” I whispered to Georgia. “Did you hear that?”
    â€œOh my God,” she murmured, her eyes widening in alarm. “They’ve got a dungeon.”
    The thumping started again: three evenly spaced knocks from beneath our feet. It sounded like someone was tapping a Mayday code on the ceiling of whatever room was below. Like someone needed help. It could be only one person.
    â€œQuickly!” I ran toward the door that led to the back stairway. Instead of going up to the apartment where I had met Gwenhaël, we headed down toward a rusty door that opened with a grinding creak as I shoved it with my hip.
    I burst into a low-ceilinged storage cellar, and was blasted by the sharp stench of dank, mildewed air. In one corner was a gated area, penned in from ceiling to floor with chain-link fencing and protected by a padlocked door. Behind it were stacks of boxes—most likely valuables being stored in the shop’s most secure place. And next to the boxes, gagged and tied to a chair, sat Bran.

FIVE
    â€œARE YOU OKAY?” I YELLED, SPRINTING TO THE cage door.
    Bran shook his head, His stick-figure body trembled beneath its bonds, and fresh bruises distorted his face, one eye so swollen that it was only a slit. His face was wet with tears and sweat, and since his mouth was taped shut, he snuffled loudly through his nose in order to breathe.
    â€œOh, Bran!” I said, covering my mouth in horror.
    He had somehow managed to pick up a broom handle, which he had banged against the ceiling when he heard Georgia and me walking above. Now he let go of it, and its hollow clatter against the stone floor broke the muffled silence.
    â€œDo you know where the key is?” I asked, yanking on the padlock.
    He shook his head once again.
    â€œOkay, we’ll find something to break it off with. Georgia?” My sister stood motionless, staring wide-eyed at Bran. “Help me find something heavy.” She leapt into action, rushing to an enormous bronze candelabra propped against the wall. “Perfect!” I said, and helped her pull it across the floor to the cage.
    â€œTuck it