Security(25)

The Killer hears the alarm. He gets up from the bed, leaves Room 717, follows the hallway, and stands at the main elevator’s doors. He looks at the buttons above the doors, sees the button for the fourteenth floor is illuminated. The Killer enters the stairwell.

“You never think about yourself,” Tessa says. “You never have.”

Brian reaches for the elevator buttons, but Tessa bats his hand.

“That’s all I’m saying. You loved school. You were on the honor roll every semester. Look at me, Brian.”

Brian acquiesces, because he can’t not. Tessa’s face is inches from his. Muscles in his neck clench. His fists dig and dig in his jacket pockets.

“I never made it a secret how I felt about you on those things.” Tessa sounds angry. Or, she would, to someone who doesn’t know what she sounds like when really angry.

“Motorcycles,” Brian corrects. “You can say the word, Tess. They’re called motorcycles.”

“Now, Mitch?” Tessa says, like she didn’t hear. “Mitch I shut up about. He was going to do what he was going to do. He always did. It drove me crazy, and it drove you crazy. Remember?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You tried to talk him out of it. You tried to talk him out of riding back when you were both too short to reach the clutch pedal, but he taped hockey pucks to his boots. Remember that?” Tessa foils Brian’s attempt to look at the floor by grabbing his chin. “And when you saw that, you taped hockey pucks to your boots so he wouldn’t be ripping over the hills all by himself. And when he started trying tricks, you did them, too, and you were better at them than he was, and so you said, ‘Let’s do tricks together,’ and you did that so you could make him take it slow, cycle up through the less dangerous stuff first—”

“I liked stunts. I liked doing them.”

“But you never loved doing them. Not like Mitch did.” Tessa is still holding his chin. She puts her thumb in the middle and strokes an indent there. “You did this the day you tried your first jump with him. I was watching. Have you forgotten I was there? Mitch botched his landing. You nailed yours, but you turned to see if he hit his, and you spun out. Mitch sprained his wrist, but you landed on your chin and skidded through the dirt. I held your head while Mitch ran for the house. You came to and you told me—remember?”

He reaches up and holds her hand holding his chin. “Yeah, Tess. I remember.”

“You said, ‘Mitch needs to quit this before it kills me.’ You laughed, but I was crying so hard, I almost threw up. So you sat up. And you hugged me. You told me you were fine, everything was okay. And you bled so much, you needed a transfusion at the ER.” Brian tries to hug her now. Tessa wriggles free and puts a distance between them. “You never thought about yourself, not once. Not until he died and you decided to stay on the circuit when I really needed you.”

“Tess,” Brian says.

“What?”

Brian points at the segment of the fourteenth floor that is visible to him. “Who’s that?”

Where the main elevator has stopped, Tessa and Brian are about two--thirds on the fifteenth floor and one--third on the fourteenth floor. This means, when Brian asks, “Who’s that?” he’s referring to the Killer’s black boots. When Brian asks, “Who’s that?” the Killer’s black boots move, calmly walking to the left.

Tessa says, “A member of the security team, doing a check.” She twists a hank of her hair into a knot. “Probably.”

Brian flattens his belly to the elevator’s floor. “Where’s—there, hey! He’s wearing a mask.”

“A what?” Tessa also lowers to the floor. “Bri, if you’re making this up . . .”

The Killer has paused at the door to the stairs. He and Brian are four feet and two glass panes apart. Tessa appears next to Brian, and the Killer looks at her.

Tessa shouts, “Franklin! You’re so incredibly fired!”

A second passes. Then the Killer shakes his head at Tessa. Slowly.

“It’s—that’s Franklin,” Tessa says. “Gotta be. Or—security’s running a scenario.”

The Killer taps his wrist, where a watch would be. He then opens the door to the stairs and lets it fall closed behind him.

“What scenario?” Brian says.

Tessa stands and hits the “Emergency Stop” button. The elevator rises. Tessa gasps. The Killer is on the fifteenth floor. Brian stands and gets in front of her as the Killer’s neck sinks backward, watching them rise. Tessa’s and Brian’s necks sink forward, watching him recede.

“They ran a scenario last week,” Tessa says, “where there was a bomb in the lecture hall. They cleared us all out. No one told any employees about it. Charles didn’t even know about it. We thought it was the real thing.” She watches the sixteenth floor’s empty halls. Then the seventeenth floor’s empty halls. “They’re making sure we take the proper steps, that’s all.”

“And what are the proper steps?” Brian asks.

“Form a large group in an open space and wait for the notification that the scenario has been run to its conclusion,” Tessa recites verbatim. Love blooms through me like a bright red flower. This is intolerable.