Abuela pushed herself up from the waiting desk.
Something outside wasn't right. There was a noise out there she didn't recognize—a rising, layered sound that didn't belong to engines or voices or the ordinary friction of the street—and she had known every sound this place made since the day she became its keeper. The building had a voice. This wasn't part of it.
She came out of the reception room slowly, one hand on the wall for balance, fingers trailing the cool plaster. The noise grew as she moved toward the front, swelling into something that pressed against the walls.
"What is going on out there?" She said it to herself, looking down the corridor. The light at the far end was ordinary. The air wasn't.
