The sound left her completely without permission.
Not a performed sound. The genuine, stripped, full-body-responding sound of a woman who had been caught absolutely and completely off-guard — the involuntary, hall-filling quality of it, the old stone receiving it and returning it, larger.
Frau Müller spun.
The sharp, instinctive pivot of her whole body toward the sound — her hands rising immediately in the specific, searching, wide-pattern movement of a blind woman locating the source of an alarm by moving through the space toward it.
"Veronica?!" Her voice — sharp with alarm. "Are you alright? What happened?"
Her hand moved forward. Searching. Finding air, then fabric, then—
What had happened was a hand.
