Hold The Door, Please | ONC 2022

8. Floor: 70.1

Will

I quickly turn the flashlight on my phone on. I keep it pointed towards the ceiling to illuminate the elevator and avoid blinding us. Even in the dim, washed out lighting, I can tell how red her face has gotten.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you," she mumbles. "It's been a rough morning."

"We can talk about that later," I say, giving her a sympathetic smile. "First, let's figure out how we're going to get out of here."

She presses the emergency call button on the panel. Nothing happens. It doesn't light up, nor do the speakers make any sound. She frantically presses it again a couple more times, but to no avail.

"What the hell is the point of an emergency button if it doesn't work in emergencies?!" she groans.

I check my phone and my stomach sinks when I see zero bars. "Hey, um," I begin awkwardly, "remember that signal booster I mentioned earlier?"

She warily nods. "Yeah."

"We have them on every couple of floors," I hesitate for a moment, "but only up to the fifty fifth floor. It's not strong enough to reach us here."

The number of people who actually come up this high in the building is tiny. Kayla decided that installing additional distributed antenna systems up here would be a frivolous purchase.

She stares at me in disbelief. "You're saying we have no service? We have no way of communicating with anyone outside?!"

I wince and nod. "Unfortunately, yes."

The universe must hate me. When I said I wanted to get the chance to speak to her, this is not what I meant.

Haylie silently steps backwards until her back hits the wall. She slowly slides down along the wall and sits on the floor.

"This is not how I pictured my death," she murmurs, pulling her legs tightly against her chest.

I quickly crouch down next to her and gently grasp her arm. "Hey, we'll be alright," I try to reassure her – while also trying to keep myself calm. Her stress already feels contagious, and at least one of us needs to stay level headed. "Someone's bound to notice that one of the elevators isn't working and they'll call maintenance."

At the same time, it's just as likely that no one will notice and continue using the other operating elevator. Our only hope is for the other elevator to have broken down as well, but Haylie doesn't need to know that right now.

I place my phone on the floor and sit down next to her. Thankfully, she slightly loosens up and straightens out her legs. I decide to make my best attempt at distracting her from the situation. "So, as I was saying earlier, it's nice to meet you, Miss Finn." I smile and extend my hand to shake hers.

I notice her blushing again as she weakly shakes my hand. Her hand is icy and I can still feel her trembling. "Just Haylie is fine." She pauses and looks at me curiously. "I didn't realize who you were... people were calling you Will."

I give her a wry grin. "That's my name after all."

"The COO's name is William, your name is-'' I see the gears turning in her head before she quickly shuts her mouth. She sighs and drags her hand down her face. "You go by Will... short for William," she mumbles into her palm.

"Bingo."

She furrows her brows and studies me for a moment. "You look nothing like you do in your pictures online."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I chuckle and rub the back of my neck.

I learned the hard way that people tend to not take me seriously based on my appearance. I was ranked first in some magazine's stupid annual attractive men list a couple years ago. People I met after the magazine was published seemed to assume I was a self absorbed idiot, obsessed with my looks. Definitely not the image I was going for as a business professional trying to grow my company.