Deadlock || ᴠᴍɪɴ

Chapter 13

After finishing breakfast in the infirmary, Jimin gathered what little personal belongings he had.

An extra shirt, a towel, his toothbrush, and a magazine that Micky had brought him – he tossed all of it into a plastic bag, sat on the edge of his bed, and exhaled.

He hadn't slept a wink last night. He had been on his toes ever since he had seen V's burn scar in the shower. He was shocked and disappointed that V had matched all of Corvus' characteristics, but what bothered him more was that V did not appear at all on the FBI's list.

At first, Jimin thought that perhaps the FBI had overlooked him, but they had presumably combed through all the inmates' histories and physical characteristics. Why was V overlooked as a suspect?

As he waited in a glum mood for Spencer to come on his rounds, he heard a commotion over in the examination room. The door flew open to reveal Russell, a nurse.

"Someone's been injured in Block D in the west wing," he said. "Apparently he's not in a state where they can move him. The doctor and I are going to head over there. He'll come around to see you guys later."

The inmates in the room piped up curiously.

"Who got hurt?"

"Was it a fight between the blacks and Chicanos?"

"The hell I know," yelled Russell impatiently. Spencer appeared behind the man.

"I'll let you guys know once we get back. I expect you to be on your best behavior. V'll be here soon."

After Spencer and Russell left, the inmates promptly began to speculate that a war between the Black Soldiers and Locos Hermanos had already started. Not in the mood to join their conversation, Jimin quietly left the room. He sat on the bench in the waiting room, deep in thought.

Once the seed of suspicion was planted, he couldn't help but think every mysterious thing about V was somehow connected to Corvus. Like two sides of a coin, V showed a stony profile one moment, then a gentle smile the next. He didn't care which one was V's real face.

The problem was that, once he acknowledged V's two-sidedness, he found he could no longer believe the man wholeheartedly.

V was different. He wasn't the kind of man to take part in a cowardly act of terrorism. Jimin paced the room, riddled with irritation.

"Damnit...!"

Out of anger, he banged the door of the examination room with his fist, and the force caused the door to burst open. Spencer and Russell had apparently forgot to lock it in their haste.

Jimin had a revelation as he realized the opportunity available to him. He sneaked into the examination room, where a large cabinet sat behind Spencer's desk at the back of the room. Presumably, that was where each inmate's health records were kept. Jimin opened the drawers at random and rifled through the papers inside.

He found them. The files were in order of inmate number.

It didn't take him long to find the folder with V's number. The white plastic folder contained V's medical examination results, including the medical check sheet that had been completed when he was first admitted into prison. The check sheet had information such as height, weight, blood type, past illnesses, and descriptions of any scars or tattoos. Jimin perused the sheet intently, and widened his eyes in disbelief.

The description field under "scars" had been left blank. There was no entry about his burn scar, nor one about the scar on his forehead. The sheet was signed by Spencer. Clearly, something was off. There was no way Spencer would overlook those two prominent scars.