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It was the wind that woke me up.
The breeze was too strong to be called just a breeze, a cold that was more than just chilly. I got up, groggy and sleep-deprived—I'd only been asleep for a few hours—and sat up on the edge of my bed. The bed next to me was empty, though Taeyong had been bone-tired when he'd given in to sleep after having stayed up for more than a day in fear of nightmares.
"Taeyong?" I called out, irrational worry gnawing at the inside of my stomach. Maybe he was downstairs; but the house was almost empty, and he should have heard me anyway. Jungkook and the rest of the racers—with the exception of three—had left the previous night. I went towards the open door, and called out again, louder this time. "Taeyong!"
Dead silence.
That was the first indication of danger.
Later I would realize that. Even if Taeyong hadn't heard me calling, someone else would have. Lucas was in the room just opposite mine, and he didn't take kindly to be disturbed during his rest hours.
My sleepiness faded abruptly, awareness taking its place.
It was still dark out, I noticed, the sky an ink blue that edged on the break of dawn. It was just before sunrise. That was the second sign.
I could see the sky, through the windows. The windows, which had been shut before I went to sleep.
The fear that seized me next came out of nowhere. I didn't stop to think that maybe Taeyong had opened them, or that someone else might have. My mind jumped to the nearest possibility, which was the fact that that something was wrong. There was no doubt in my mind about that, more a result of paranoia than logical thought.
Windows.
The memory occurred to me suddenly. That was what Ken, the informant, had told us when we had left his house, but I had assumed he meant the windows of the car that had been stolen. It was only then that I wondered if we had even let the windows of the car down in the first place.
Don't leave any windows open.
I stepped backwards slowly. The two circumstances couldn't be connected, could they? But from my experiences, I knew that everything should be taken into consideration. There was no one you could trust, not even yourself.
No, I hadn't left the windows open. Neither would have Taeyong, because of the wind and our wary minds. It could have been someone else, but that was very unlikely. I would have heard them, anyway.
I leaned against the cupboard, trying to think. Maybe I was just being paranoid, which was a more plausible option that what my brain had been cooking up, but I couldn't afford to make mistakes. A single wrong step could be fatal.
