Sanctuary

Chapter 21 - Jimin (early summer, 2024)

Looking at the clock on my office wall yet again, I sighed loudly. Not even two minutes had passed since the last time I looked.

"Hey, you need to chill, dude," Eun-Woo chuckled as he sorted through some papers. My partner was the perfect counterpart to me sometimes; he could sometimes be the impatient and impulsive one who wanted to go in guns blazing, while I tended to be more cool, calm and collected. I liked knowing everything about a case before I made a move, which made me the perfect person to go undercover on reconnaissance missions. "Jiminie, you, out of anyone, should know that time passes quicker if you're doing something productive. So, how about you come help me wade through these files on the shelters running throughout New Kanoa before I just go and start knocking on doors."

Since meeting with Taehyung and receiving his statement, Eun-Woo and I had been working around the clock on trying to locate and identify the shelter that the alpaca hybrid was in. Without knowing the name, who ran it or even where in the country it was, the two of us were looking into each and every hybrid shelter in the whole country. It was hard work, but that was what I needed to distract me from the meeting I had on my schedule in just under three hours.

My partner and I settled into our semi-comfortable swivel chairs, a stack of papers in front of each of us, along with an extremely large takeaway cup of iced coffee for me and triple shot vanilla frappe for the gorilla hybrid. Working in silence, all that could be heard was papers shuffling, pens scribbling, the occasional sips through straws and many, many frustrated groans.

Sometimes one of us would start to get excited, until we saw the shelter didn't fit our parameters. Taehyung had told us that he lived in a different part of the shelter for a few years as a cria until his owner realised he was good looking and would be a prime candidate for the breeding farm, which was located on the same property. Apparently, the shelter and the breeding farm were separated by an outdoor play area. Taehyung said that while in the play area – where he got to roll around in the dirt for an hour a day – he could see some dense forests in the distance behind the buildings, and he couldn't hear any outside noise.

So, armed with the knowledge that we were looking for dwellings with two or more buildings, a fenced area where hybrids could play, was surrounded by forests, and was far enough away from other houses or towns to be in a quiet area, Eun-Woo and I could eliminate anything that didn't fit those specifications. We were thankful that with each shelter's dossier, an overhead satellite photograph was also included.

Two hours later, I was left with five possible hits: two up in the mountains in the north of the country, one just south of Samta along the Cobron river, one outside of Devlin, and one on the river that bordered the Republic of Amon, Tamesis, and Talman. Just as I was putting pins in the map on the wall, Eun-Woo came over and gave me the locations of four more places he'd found that matched the specifications.