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The sound of the elevator attracted the attention of the girl at the front desk. Surprise and anticipation filled her eyes before relief washed over them when she saw who was coming out. To act bored, she began drumming her fingers on the desk. It was surprisingly a slow night.
"Angie, girl why you looking so bored?" asked the girl in uniform who had just appeared from the elevator. The one called Angie just shrugged and sighed. "Come on! There has got to be a reason! You seemed excited this morning."
"Well, Heather," Angie reluctantly began to drawl out, "I heard that there was suppose to be some big music group staying here tonight. So far nothing except that politician guy up there has shown any kind of stardom. Everyone else seems to be just another rich person with no fame."
Heather had been holding in her excitement until her friend was done speaking. She had always been polite like that. "A big music group?! And you did not tell me about this before? What's wrong with you, girl?! Oh my god, oh my god!! Who do you suppose it is?"
"I have no clue. I was sort of hoping it was Limp Bizkit..."
"Are you kidding?! I want Creed to be here!" exclaimed Heather. Their choices were kind of pointless though, being that neither band was on tour at the moment, and wouldn't just be "stopping on by". Both of them knew it, too. Silence fell between them. Heather was thinking about who else the group could be. Angie was wishing she had enough free time to pop on her headphones and listen to a Limp song or two. No matter how boring and slow the business was going, she wouldn't be allowed to listen to music while on duty at the front desk. Her boss would kill her.
"OH! I remembered something!" shouted Heather, jumping up and down as if in shock. She never remembered what the meanings of her errands were. She did this time, though. "Angie, I passed by that politician's room earlier and knocked on it to give him the extra towels he had requested. He didn't answer. I knocked several times and still no answer. James even said he tried calling the guy's room, but no answer on the phone either. I thought that maybe you should give it a try. I left the towels on the elevator floor."
Angie sighed annoyedly for a moment, thinking. It wasn't the errand that bothered her, though, but the towels on the elevator. A look of understanding crossed Heather's face.
"Oops! I forgot! You don't go on elevators. I'm sorry, Angie, it's just so different that I always forget! I will go get them. Maybe when I walk in there to get them, James will already be in there." Heather said, winking at her last remark. Angie only sighed a smirk back at her friend. "Mmmmm hmmm! Give me a piece of that boy!"
"He doesn't like you that way, Heather! You should know that by now," Angie returned, rolling her eyes. "Oh well, you will never learn. Please just get me the towels so I can be on my way up to Mr. 'I Don't Have To Respect The Hotel Service'." That last comment got a giggle out of Heather as she made her way back to the elevator. As soon as Heather was far enough away, Angie started scrambling for her discman. Being the goodie-goodie that Heather was when it came to her work, she would never let Angie listen to her CD on the job.
"Where is it.....?" she whispered to herself as she shoved important papers to the side. While rummaging for the CD player, she also found her granola wrapper, the key that goes to all the hotel rooms, and a picture of her brother with a heart drawn around it by a fat red marker. Shoving the discman and the keys in her cargo pants' pocket on the right, she tossed the wrapper to the side and walked toward Heather holding the picture up to her face.
"What's this, Heather?" Angie taunted, drawing out her name and waving the picture back and forth. "You shouldn't be leaving things like this lying around the desk..."
"Hey! You shouldn't be snooping through my stuff!"
"You mean the papers about all our guests?" Angie suggested.
Heather smiled, defeated, and gave an exaggerated shrug. She handed the towels over to Angie, snatching the picture away from her at the same moment. Heather cradled the small piece of paper in her hands, staring and smiling intently at the image on it. "You are lucky James is your brother. He is so hot."
"Wouldn't that make you lucky that James is my brother? It's not like I, his sister, would want to do anything like you are wanting to do. You are just his sister's friend, though," Angie replied.
"True, true." Heather sighed.
"Then again," Angie started, smiling wickedly now, "he doesn't even like you that way to begin with, so I guess you aren't lucky!"
"Why you bitch!" Heather shouted, laughing and trying to slap Angie on the head at the same time. The two backed away from each other, trying to keep their hair in place, and just broke into laughter over nothing. It was times like these that they knew how deep their friendship was. They could talk through any problem, do anything together, or in this case, laugh over nothing. It was really quite coincidence how they had met up. Both of them went to college in California, and thought it would be fun to work in Las Vegas during the summer, only Angie also had a brother with the same idea. They met up their first day of work, and had stayed the best of friends since.
Their laughter subsiding, Angie remembered she had a job to do. Swallowing, wiping the water from her eyes, and straightening her red polo shirt that was required when working, she nodded a goodbye to Heather, and jogged toward the stairwell. She was sure to open the door carefully, as to not hit anyone on the other side, and sure to close it softly. As soon as she heard the click of the lock, she rushed to put on her headphones. When she had the phones in place, her fingers hurried to get to the right track, and then pressed play. The music started blasting, and Angie smiled wide, trotting up the stairs to the beat.
"...It's just one of those days, where ya don't wanna wake up! Everything is--" she cut herself off short when she realized she was practically screaming the lyrics. She may be on the stairs, but she was almost certain the walls weren't that thick. Making sure not to sing anymore, she continued up to the fifth floor. Opening the door into the hallway, she peeked around, and slipped her headphones back into her pocket, on pause.
"...521...523...525..." she was counting the door numbers out loud, more to keep the silence away than to find the right room. Silence bothered Angie more than anything in the world did. "...539! Here it is."
Sucking in a gulp of air, she knocked a few times on the door and called out, "Excuse me, sir. I have the towels you requested here with me. We have been trying to get them to you. May I please drop them off now?" She knew it wasn't the most polite way to speak to a guest, but the man was being a jerk. She had planned on walking in on him anyway, using the key she had found, but now she didn't feel like taking the extra time on this idiot. About ready to leave, Angie heard a sound from inside the room. It sort of sounded like an "uh huh", but she couldn't be sure. Then the door unlocked.
She wasn't sure why, but the thought of walking into that room now scared the hell out of her. What had she to be afraid of? The guy wouldn't hurt her just because his towels were late or because she wasn't being the most courteous person in the world, would he? Of course not. Or so that's what she kept telling herself. Gulping, she slowly opened the door. She half expected it to creak.
With the door wide open, she saw nothing. The room appeared to be clean and organized and no one was in sight. She walked a few steps in. That's when she screamed.
The picture before her was horrid. The bloody remains of a body that had been shot too many times in the head and the chest lay sprawled out across the bed. His suitcases were still sitting upright next to the bed, untouched. Other men with badges and earplugs were piled in the closet by the bathroom. Red soaked the carpet and walls next to them. The moment her scream left her mouth, a hand came from behind her, trying to stop it.
"Shut up!" came the harsh whisper. Then she felt a gun pressed against her temple. So shocked, Angie nodded and did as he said, not sure of what else she could do. Standing rigid, her eyes wandered around the room for other men with guns. There was no way one man could have caused all the death she saw here. She wondered how it had been done in the first place without anyone hearing it.
When her captor was certain she could do no harm, he let her go and spun her around to face him. That's when she saw the four others. "So..." he glanced at her name tag, "...Angelique. That's a pretty name. Why don't you live up to it and be a good little angel and listen to me." Angie nodded fiercely, making sure he didn't think she was going to disobey him. He gave her a nasty, arrogant smirk. "Now. You are going to leave these towels here, go back down to your post or whatever you do, and not speak a word of this to anyone. Otherwise..." he tore off her nametag and shot a hole right through it. It made virtually no sound. Then Angie saw the silencer on the gun. "Otherwise you are no more good than your name tag!"
Her eyes got so large the man thought they would pop out. He seemed pleased with this, though, because his cackle rang through the room. Even after he was done, it seemed to hover over them in the air. Terrified by his laugh and evil smile as much as she was by his gun, Angie was ready to bolt from the room when he pushed her toward the door. Once she had turned the corner, she darted down the hallway toward the elevator. She didn't care how much elevators horrified her, she was getting away from that room as fast as she could!
Angie almost ran over a middle-aged couple on her way through the elevator doors. Forcing a smile and trying not to look so scared, she managed a few words, "Hello, sir, ma'am. I'm sorry about this, and I hope you enjoy your stay at the MGM Grand!" Unable to think of anything else to say to them, she scooted passed them and slammed into the back wall of the elevator, pressing the "first floor" button so many times her thumb began to hurt. She wasn't satisfied, however, that she had hit it enough until the doors were completely closed. As soon as the opening to the hallway was gone, she slid down the wall to the floor, devastated about what she had just witnessed. When she hit the floor, she started weeping hysterically and rolled to her right side. At that moment, the play button on her discman in her pocket was clicked. Even without the phones on, she could hear the words clearly...
"It's just one of those days!"
Unlikely Allies