Almost V

스물

That can't be true. I mean, not really. There's always a way out of a place this big, right?

"Remember that day when I had to reinstall all the locks on the doors?" Taehyung asks.

I do.

"And you know I had to do that because we lost live off-site monitoring of our security system, and that instead of switching to one of a hundred other companies, management just decided to buy this cheap system you see before you now?"

"Uh-huh?" I say, but I'm not totally following, and he's getting really angry. Steam is practically pouring out of his nostrils.

He takes a deep breath and calms down. "What this means is that Yoongi vaped too much weed again, left his manual keys at home, took mine, punched in a code that locks all the doors for eight hours, and drove off."

I stare at Taehyung.

He stares back.

"But you can deactivate this code, right?"

He shakes his head. "Yoongi is the lead security officer. I don't have clearance for a lockdown code." Oh, the irony. "He lives fifteen minutes from here. So we will have to wait until he gets home, and then - and this is where it gets really funny - we will try to call him.

"Why is that funny?"

"He usually turns his home phone off at night. He doesn't like to be woken up. 'Bad news can wait until morning' is his motto. And if we can't get him on the phone . . . well, I'm not really sure what to do. I guess we could try to call one of the other guards at home, but it's 10:30 on a Saturday night. And not only will they be pissed, but Yoongi could get fired for this. And pretty much everyone is looking for a reason for that to happen. In case you haven't noticed, he's kind of a mess."

That makes my heart twist.

"Mr. Lopez? One of the shift managers?" I suggest and immediately realize the fault in that plan. Yoongi could get fired, and maybe Taehyung, too, for letting him go home early.

We both shake our heads.

I sniffle and scratch my nose with the side of my hand. "So basically what you're telling me is that unless we can get Yoongi on the phone, we're stuck here?"

"Let's take one thing at a time," Taehyung says, but I can tell by his grin expression that he doesn't have much hope. He leads me back to the security room, and I'm so panicked, I barely have time to register that I'm finally inside the inner sanctum: "Heaven." It's weird to be back here. Dozens of tiny black-and-white monitors cross two walls, all numbered, and an L-shaped desk with four computers, two of which appear to be a decade or more old.

We plop down at the desk in two rolling chairs. A swing-arm lamp casts a light over an old phone, where Taehyung proceeds to speed dial Yoongi's home number a zillion times. Of course the old man doesn't have a cell. Or he used to, Taehyung says, but he never charged it, and it sat in the glove department of his car for several years; it may still be there.

"Taehyung?"

"Yeah," he says, completely miserable, head in his hands.

"Is Yoongi sick?"

He doesn't answer right away. "You've heard rumors?"

"Yeah."

"He had colon cancer two years ago. He's in remission. But he went to the doctor last week, and he won't tell me what happened, and that worries me. He's always bragging about his appointment, because he's got a crush on his doctor. So I'm kind of thinking maybe it's back and he's going to have to go through chemo or something. I don't know."