Sasha, Not Aleks

twelve - decoy

"It might be motion alarmed," he responds, bringing up a point I didn't think about, "or lock alarmed."

"No, this is a very standard door lock," I tap the handle, "we have these at the garage."

"Okay, so what are you going to do? Just pull on it?"

I almost want to laugh at him in his white t-shirt and blue jeans, completely unprepared to crawl around a warehouse. I brought what I needed, ratty t-shirt, cargo pants full of shit to break in places, basically a whole toolbelt without the toolbelt.

"You're fucking useless, Starikov," I laugh quietly.

"What? No, I came up with the plan."

"You came up with the plan and you're standing there dressed like you're going to a backyard barbeque not breaking and entering. Did you even bring a pocket knife?"

He puffs out his cheeks and that's enough to tell me that he definitely did not.

"That's what I thought," I shake my head and pull out my multitool, handing him the penlight, "shine it on the lock."

He does as he's told, probably a little embarrassed he's not prepared for this in the slightest.

I do what I've taught myself to do with a bobby pin except this time with the tools on the pocket knife, splint the lock to keep it turning so that when I push down a pin to the right level it'll slide over it only a little to keep it down so that when I individually push down all the pins it'll twist open.

He watches me do it, quickly pushing in the pins and then twisting the lock. It's a lock and door handle combination so I stand up and push down the handle, twisting at the same time with the knife to drop the deadbolt and open the door.

Sasha steps back, allowing the door to swing wide. He hands me the pen light with a slightly startled expression.

"What?" I poke his arm.

"Um, nothing, you're good, that was cool."

"Thanks," I grab his elbow and push him through the door while he's still stunned. When he stumbles to a stop one step inside, I wait to hear anything.

"What was that for?"

"Checking to see if it's alarmed," I respond, "or plastered in security cameras."

Sasha looks up and around, clearly out of his element, "no security cameras that I can see."

"Really?" I step inside, looking with him, "damn, Avery is hedging his bets on nobody bothering this place, huh?"

"Apparently," Sasha mumbles, looking over at the panel on the side of the door that controls the locks. I decide to go the easy way and stick a rock I found in the parking lot between the door and it's frame.

"We need to find the first available circuit board," I say, walking toward a door that's labeled electrical on the far side of the open room we're in. "then we can shut the whole building off and hope for the best that it gets the cameras too. This is a smaller warehouse so I wouldn't be surprised if it only had one or two boards, and since you're being useless and didn't bring any tools, you're going to have to follow me."

Ignoring the fact that he's not at all prepared for a breaking and entering situation and looks rather worried when I open up the circuit breakers without a second thought, he's not actually horrible to have along like I thought he would be. He's sort of useful. Like a little.

"So, Sasha, tell me about yourself." I shine a flashlight down one of the aisles, trying to keep track of where we are so I don't get lost.

"What else is there for you to know? I was a motorcycle racer, I cook now, my dad's a mobster, that's all information you know."