19. Monroe
I’m pulled from my nap by the abrupt blare of the fire alarm. I snap upright on the futon couch where I’d nodded off reading an Ernest Hemingway book, figuring even as my eyes drifted shut that Jin would probably be home by the time I woke up.
Instead, the alarm rings over other sounds like sharp cracking and popping. The air hazes with smoke that darkens by the second.
Any drowsiness vanishes. My eyes widen, gaze landing across the apartment. From under the front door I can see the orange glow of flames.
The building is on fire!
This thought screams from inside my head, even louder than the alarm and cracking noises.
It’s like I went to sleep in Jin’s apartment and woke up in the burning pits of hell.
Suddenly, the air I’m breathing runs on terrifyingly short supply. My throat aches as I sputter trying to draw another breath. I scramble from the couch coughing and then almost stumble over my own two feet and the chain strewn across the floor— the metal cuff .
My stomach drops as true horror washes over me.
No. No. No. NO!
The cuff is locked around my ankle.
My mind flashes back to earlier today, when Jin wore an almost apologetic expression as he snapped it on and promised he would return soon. I was disappointed that he was still cuffing me, though I assumed it would be fine. He would come back in an hour or two. Then we could spend the day together.
I never imagined… this.
He removed anything in the apartment that I could possibly use to free myself. No bobby pins, paperclips, needles, or anything else thin enough to fit into the lock.
I drag myself from the couch toward the front door anyway, hoping like hell it’ll magically slip off.
The metal bites into the soft flesh and lets me know that’s not happening.
I tug at it uselessly, trying to angle my foot at the right position to slide it out, but there’s no way it’ll work. The cuff is on snugly.
There’s no wiggling free from it.
I’m trapped like this.
A deep, hoarse cough attacks me. The air’s thickened with more smoke even in the last sixty seconds since I woke up. I lower myself to the floor, half-crouching, and then scan the room for anything.
Anything at all that I can use to smash the cuff open.
I scurry over to the bookshelf and grab the decades-old Korean encyclopedia Jin owns and slam it against the cuff, battering my own ankle in the process. Pain ripples through me as I grunt and cough and choke on the smoke.
Then I do it again. And again, trying to batter the cuff open.
“No,” I cry, eyes watering. “No… please… just…”
The smoke rushes inside the apartment until it’s overtaking the kitchenette. The crackle and hiss from the flames on the other side of the apartment door grow louder, more aggressive as they lick away, soon to burn through.
This building will probably collapse in on itself any second.
I peer out the balcony glass and notice the assortment of firetrucks and police cars five stories below. Emergency responders are on the scene, but even as the firemen prepare their big hose to spray the flames, they’ll be too late.
There’s no way they’ll make it to me in time.
I grab the chain, wrapping it around my hand, and start yanking at it with all my strength. Trying to force it loose form where it’s tethered to the radiator bar. My muscles burn from how hard I rip at the chain, pulling and pulling as hard as I’ve ever pulled anything in my life.
“Please!” I sob, my hands sweaty and my grip slipping.
It’s become so hot in the apartment, sweat pours down my back and soaks through my clothes.
I tug at the chain until I can no longer even hold on. The palm of my hand is slashed open and they’re so sweaty that it slides right out of my grasp.
Another coughing fit hits me, making me double over until I’m on all fours on the ground. The smoke has spread, a giant wall of dark gray that floats toward me.
This is how I’m going to die.
I’m going to burn up in this apartment, chained to the radiator. I’ll never breathe fresh air again. I’ll never get a proper goodbye to Mom.
Jin will return to find everything burned to the ground.
Exhaustion starts to set in. I’m gasping to breathe, fighting to keep my eyes open, and crawl toward the bedroom, where the smoke hasn’t spread as far yet.
But I can’t even move anymore. I feel like I weigh a thousand pounds as I cough and the smoke starts to swallow me up.
And then glass shatters all around me.
I flinch, heart lurching. It takes another second before I register what’s happening as crushed pieces of glass rain down around me. Delirious and dripping sweat, I lift my head to find the balcony door has been smashed in.
Jin leaps through, moving as fast and agilely as I’ve come to expect. His face is streaked black with soot, his sharp eyes wild and determined as he scans the smoke-filled area for me.
He rushes straight toward me, quickly grabbing at my ankle to unlock the cuff and then looping an arm around my waist to pull me up.
“We’re out of time. We have to move fast,” he says over the spitting flames and blaring alarm.
I stumble beside him toward the balcony, already half out of it. Part of me wonders if I’m dreaming. If I’ve already lost consciousness and I’m imagining Jin rescuing me.
“Where…” I choke. The rush of fresh air somehow makes my lungs burn more.
“The only way off this balcony is this cable connected to the building next door,” he explains, dropping to a knee before me. He works efficiently, like he’s already plotted out our escape in meticulous detail in his head.
He starts winding nylon rope around my torso then looping it beneath my arms. It’s rough and frayed, probably used by him and his crew dozens of times to tie down bodies or something equally as violent in the Baekho Pa.
Now it seems to be our lifeline as he cinches it tight across my ribs. I’m securely tied in some kind of makeshift chest harness.
I open my mouth to ask what he’s doing, but then I see him withdraw a carabiner. He clips it through the front of the rope loop, then secures it to the thick cable stretched across his building and the building next door.
He’s rigging me to fly .
“Wait…” I gasp. “Jin… I can’t…”
“You have to.”
The rope around my chest will be the only thing keeping me suspended as I’m supposed to zip-line across that void between the buildings. As I hover five stories above the ground, escaping flames blazing higher and higher.
I shake my head as intense fear paralyzes me in place.
“I… I can’t.”
His hands cup my face and he draws my gaze to his. His boring into mine. “You have to, Tokki-ya. Right now. You go first. Cross the cable, then climb onto the balcony next door. I’ll follow.”
It distantly occurs to me that he wants me to go first because of the urgency of the situation.
He’s worried if I go second the building will collapse before I can, or I’ll freeze up and never force myself to do it.
My insides quake as he grabs my hand and then helps me climb over the balcony railing. I think I might vomit as I look down and see the ground several stories below.
“Don’t look down,” he snaps. “Just straight ahead. I’ll give you a push to get you going.”
“Jin…” I whine.
“GO! NOW!”
His hands shove hard at my back, giving me as much momentum as possible. My feet leave the balcony ledge and I start gliding across the wire. It happens so suddenly that I can’t even scream. I’m more concerned with making it to the other side.
It only takes a few seconds. But they’re the longest four or five seconds of my life.
My arms desperately grab at the railing of the balcony next door, and I clumsily hoist myself over onto the other side.
Jin’s already strapped himself into a makeshift harness. He’s climbed over his balcony and stands on the ledge.
The flames and smoke have grown so bad that thick plumes of it billow out the shattered balcony door. His apartment has been completely engulfed. He only has a matter of seconds.
“JIN!” I cry, practically hyperventilating. “HURRY!”
He launches himself off the balcony, speeding toward me. I step back in hopes of giving him more room, and then I hear it.
A sharp, deafening snap .
The cable connecting his building with this one has thinned out due to the heat. It couldn’t withstand the hellish rise in temperature and has snipped the cable just as he’s zipping across.
“JIN!”
The cable whips downward.
He drops with it, just enough that my heart leaps into my throat and a new level of deep, horrifying fear is unlocked.
But then he stretches out and clamps his hand on the balcony railing. He catches it before the rest of the cable falls away and takes him with it.
I scramble toward the edge to grab his arm. I’m pulling with as much strength as I have left. He’s dragging himself up as I do, teeth gritted and sweat gleaming on his pale skin.
When he rolls over the ledge, he wipes me out with him, collapsing on top. I’d be fine passing out like this. I’m so damn exhausted that my arms are jelly. My lungs ache and burn. I feel lightheaded and like I can’t function.
But our escape isn’t over yet.
Jin’s springing to his feet, pulling me up with him.
“C’mon,” he pants. “We have to make it out of this building. There’s a stairwell we can use. The fire’s spreading. Which means this place is next.”
I can’t even answer, letting him drag me through the shattered door of this other apartment. He must’ve broken it on his way to rescue me when he first zip-lined across.
It doesn’t even matter. I’m just relieved to be alive.
I’m sitting on the edge of a narrow bed as I breathe through an oxygen mask and Dr. Baek cleans the gash on my palm.
The iodine stings like hell, but I’m so exhausted I don’t even flinch.
I’ve reached a point where the pain has melded together—burning lungs, aching limbs, stinging scrapes, and throbbing bruises.
Smoke lingers in my throat no matter how much clean air I breathe.