raise me up,
take me up

"So this is the one you chose," Jaejoong said disinterestedly, nudging Vernon's shoulder with the butt of the now-folded whip. Thankfully, he had stopped with the whippings after one of his men had opened the door and thrown Vernon in, a bloody mess, at his feet. Not that it made much of a difference. The pain had been an overload on my nerves, and all feeling had stopped on my back entirely. "Interesting."

My body sagged against the restraints, red hazing my vision and my skin. Vernon looked exhausted, and didn't make a move to defend himself as he was drawn upright into a kneeling position, facing me. His eyes were rimmed with red, looking angrier than I had ever seen him, but he stayed put.

"Did you figure out why I didn't kill you?" the heir asked, drawing what little was left of my attention to him. Most of my mind had shut down, unable to handle the agony that still weighed down my body. They had removed the vest when I'd been knocked unconscious, so there had been nothing more than thin fabric protecting my skin from the lashes. If I thought I'd known pain before, I knew better now.

"You...want me on your team," I whispered. The lashes hadn't been many, but they'd been effective. I remembered the raised scars on Taeyong's back, outline the massive butterfly tattoo that had been splayed across his shoulder blades, and felt like I finally understood why he had been so scared of his own brother.

Now I was, too.

"If that was it, I wouldn't have had to use the whip, would I?" Jaejoong asked. He looked unruffled, almost the same as earlier, the only differences in his appearance the loose strands of hair that framed his face as a sign of his previous physical exertion. "You're a smart girl, you must have guessed. Try, and maybe I'll let lover boy keep his limbs."

I scoffed, but it came out as more of a cough. Blood spattered my lips, and Vernon's mouth curled into a barely-controlled snarl.

"You're right, I probably won't," the heir said, as if he understood what I had been trying to say. I felt a sudden surge of something cold in my gut, remembering what he had said about us being similar. What if we were? What if I had actually become someone like him?

You can't think about that, the more rational part of my mind hissed. Compartmentalize.

"You killed my father," I said, and my hands trembled in their bonds—whether from anger or the physical strain of holding my body up, I didn't know. "How could you ever think I'd...join you?"

"If you're still hung up on that, you haven't learned your lesson." Jaejoong sounded almost sorry. "My own father died when I was a child, killed by my younger brother. You'd think I'd be happy for that, after the years or abuse, but honestly, I didn't feel anything." He shrugged. "Maybe I just didn't have time to, with all the covering for my brother and trying to hold the strings of the family together. That kind of thing really takes up your time." He cocked his head to the side, then looked at me thoughtfully. "I think I stopped feeling for so long, I forgot what it was like."

I didn't want to, but I understood. It wasn't an excuse, but I had a feeling he didn't mean it to be one, either. Not even an explanation. As much as I didn't want to believe it, I felt that he just wanted to—to speak. To say. To be able to say.

I didn't forgive, but I understood that.

"I don't care about you joining me willingly or unwillingly," he continued. "I want to make you bow to me. Submit yourself when you see what I can do to you—how easily I can take everything away from you." He gestured to Vernon, who was still kneeling—he looked like he had been hit by a car, with the way he stooped and the fresh bruises and angry red patches of skin peeking out from underneath his collar and the ribbons of his shirt. "I know what it's like to have something to protect, even though you wouldn't believe me. The only thing that separates us is that I know that the best way to protect someone is to have them surrender to you completely."

That's not protection, I wanted to say, but I barely had the strength to breathe. It felt like all my responsibilities and pain had been a baggage being added to a weak table, and now one of the legs had broken. It was choking me, almost literally, crushing me and grinding my bones to fine dust. All I wanted was for it to stop. To sleep.

"You're better off being in complete control, and they have to know that. You have to make them know that," Jaejoong said forcefully. "That's why I did all of this—don't you see? This is the only way I could protect my brother from all the monsters he would meet."

"By becoming one of them?" I managed.

He shook his head at this, and I knew that nothing I said—or, for that matter, anyone said—wouldn't change his mind. He was too far gone. "The butterfly is our clan symbol," he said, and unconsciously tugged aside his unbuttoned shirt to expose his own tattoo, a monarch with unfurled wings across his abdomen. "In legends, butterflies represent the souls of those in purgatory, before they get to heaven." He dropped his hand and looked at me, dead serious for the first time. "All humans are sinners. We just make sure they pay for their sins on earth so they won't have to after they die." His smile was almost rueful. "We send people to heaven at the cost of burning in hell ourselves."

"So you're just muh-making me pay for my sins." I grinned, a slow, lazy grin, which dropped almost immediately. Slowly, I ran the tip of my tongue across my teeth, and tasted bitter-penny blood. "Or do you want something from me?"

"It's either you who gives me what I want, or your brother." I seized up at that, feeling a pang of panic. I'd almost forgotten about Hyunjin. "I know where he is. And I know you won't make me go to him, you're smarter than that. Just tell me what I need—because I'll find out eventually, anyway. It's up to you how that happens. Now, or over your dead body."

"So you will kill me."

"Not if you answer me."

"And suh-say what?" I was gasping now, the words coming out in puffs of air. Unsurprising, considering how much I'd bled—the blood loss from the bullet wound, and the lashes on top of that. I had the distinct feeling that I was going to die, but I didn't feel anything. Only a surety of death that was far more reassuring than the unsurety of life.

Jaejoong raised an eyebrow. There were other people physically present in the room—Vernon, Minho, even Taemin and the other Lees. But it still felt like they were somewhere far away—on another plane of existence, perhaps, far separated from the two of us. All I could see was Jaejoong and his butterfly.

"My mother," I whispered. No emotion came with the words, no shock, no pain, not even relief. "Yeji is seventeen, so my mother couldn't have been dead when I was three." I waited for the tears to come, but they didn't. Nothing came, except for an all-encompassing emptiness. "She...she didn't die, did she?"

"Bravo," the heir said, but there was no feeling in his voice. For a moment, I imagined myself in his shoes, and the image didn't seem as unbelievable as I'd have thought. The same emptiness, the same almost-insanity, the threshold of which he had crossed long ago and was now beckoning me to follow him past.

"I didn't even know she was alive," I rasped. "How could I know where she is?"

"Your brother does, though, doesn't he?" Jaejoong asked. "After all, your mother raised him. Convince him to answer me, and both of you will be safe." Then he twisted his face. "As for you mother, I can't say the same. But I don't think that would matter much to you. She did abandon you."

She abandoned you, a tinny voice repeated, and my vision sharpened for a split second before plunging me back into the same haze. Acid ate at my heart, fueled by hate—not against Jungkook, not against Jaejoong, who had ruined my entire life, but my own mother.

"She ruined my life, too," he said, sounding close to sympathetic. "Killed the head, turned my father into a drunken, vengeful bastard who took it out on his family instead. She's who made me me. Even if she didn't do it directly—" he spread his arms— "all of this destruction, all this chaos, this is all a result of her selfish decisions."

I blacked out for a moment, and when I came back, I realized I had momentarily passed out. How long ago that had been, I couldn't guess, but the heir stood directly in front of me now, all playfulness gone. "Tell me where she is," he asked hungrily, "and I'll protect you."

By controlling me. I almost missed the brief period of unconsciousness. "You're too late," I said dryly. "She's already dead."

A beat of silence. "What?"

"Hyunjin told me his foster mother was murdered when he was freed," I whispered, lips curling at the painful irony of it all. "Your goons, they killed her when Baekhyun found him. They didn't know who she was."

"You're lying." There was a slight tremor in his voice, and his eyes shone with barely-suppressed anger. "Just tell me where she is, or I'll kill everyone. I'll make you surrender. I'll kill your brother, your friends, the one you chose—"

That was the last straw for me. I laughed, dazedly, almost drunkenly, shoulders shaking from how loosely I let it out. Jaejoong cut off in the middle of his sentence, and stared at me, his face growing white. No one spoke or moved, the room falling into a dead silence, which only made me laugh harder.

They never expect three.

"What?" Jaejoong asked, aghast. He appeared genuinely shaken, completely and utterly confused. "Why are you laughing?"

"Because," I whispered, between bursts of broken giggles, "you keep saying I chose."

The door flew open, and everyone except me tensed. My laugh faded into an exhausted but triumphant smile, and when Vernon's eyes caught mine, his were gleaming.

Taeyong stood at the door, holding a Mossberg shotgun in his hands. He was relatively unharmed, cool and collected when he faced his brother if not for the sadness in his eyes.

"Hello, brother dear," he said.

In an instant, there was chaos. Vernon leaped towards me the moment Taeyong started firing. Vernon started untying my bonds, whispering hurried words of reassurance that I didn't hear. All I heard was the sickening sound of bullets as they buried themselves in concrete, flesh, and bone.

The room was small, with no cover to dive under, and being experienced killers, the Lees went for Taeyong. At least, some of them did. I saw the orange-haired man fall, and the harsh screams echoed in my ears. The smallest movements Vernon made to untie my wrists hurt me, and I blacked out several times in the process before he was done and I could get to my feet.

"Kill her!" Jaejoong yelled, and I guessed he was talking about me—there wasn't any other 'her' in the room. The shotgun had shelled out, and Taeyong dropped it, ducking out of Minho's sloppy grasp and ran towards me, taking my other arm.

I hissed in pain as they made contact with the raw skin of my back, the whip marks like angry red lines I could see whenever I closed my eyes. If it had been any other day, they might have taken it as a sign to handle me more carefully, but there was no time. Vernon had somehow snagged a gun and was shooting without breaks, half-dragging me out of the door.

I might even have gotten past the door if I hadn't seen Jaejoong get to Taeyong first, if I hadn't seen the dull light sparking off the blade of the knife as he'd lashed out at his own brother. Taeyong got away with a shallow cut, owing mostly to Vernon jerking him away, but I didn't see it happen. I didn't see anything, in fact, not even their alarmed faces as I broke free and picked up the knife, knocking the man to the floor.

Jaejoong's face was astonished, surprised even in a gentle way when I hovered over him, lifting his knife over his heart. "What are you doing?" he asked, and I felt my anger flicker, the flare diminishing into a candle flame as everything he'd ever said to me sank in.

We're more similar than you think, he'd told me.

A weapon is a promise.

If that's true, I whispered back, not saying the word aloud, but feeling them, communicating them through the softening of my eyes and the turning of my lips, then this is what you need.

"Setting you free," I whispered, before plunging the blade into his heart.

I saw his pupils dilate for a split second as the world slowed to a stop. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out—then he coughed up blood, and I pulled the knife out, feeling nothing. Not even empathy. Nothing at all.

Then everything came back with full force, and I was plunged once more into chaos as I was dragged back and out of the room, up the stairs that clanged under the heavy pace of my feet. Taemin caught up to me first, his eyes glittering, not empathizing any more.

"I thought you didn't want to kill me," I said, before his forearm jammed against my throat, pushing me against the wall.

He cocked his gun. "You died a long time ago," he said, while I choked on my own faulty breaths in front of him. "I'm just killing your body."

And then he was off of me too, wrenched away and thrown over the railing, and there was a callused hand in mine, jerking me up the stairs. I let my mind fall asleep, body going on autopilot as the pain—physical and emotional—crashed over me, breaking like waves, and suddenly I wasn't breathing but going one, two, three, four—

"I've got you," Vernon gasped in my ear, his lips brushing momentarily against the junction of my neck and jaw before he hoisted me up to a platform and kicked shut the door, throwing himself against it. Taeyong pulled me into his arms, and I leaned into him for support, my legs not working, a bloody mess. He was against the door, too, and I saw a grill on the other end of the small storage shed, beyond it the sky.

We were on the roof.

I felt my heart give way to the thunderous heartbeat that came upon the realization, the vibrations resounding through my body like a roomful of applause. Taeyong and Vernon were breathing hard, muffled yells sounding from the other side of the door. The day was young, the slivers of skylight I saw from between the rusted bars of the metal grill a softer grayish violet. Dawn was coming.

"I killed him," I whispered, and felt the first incredible tear slide down through the path of dried blood on my cheek. "I killed your brother."

"Hush, now." Taeyong's voice was soft despite its lowness, his thumb caressing my cheek gently. He pressed his lips to my temple, but his hands were trembling, and not just from the people breaking down the door. "You did what you had to."

"I'm going to die," I said, closing my eyes.

"Don't say that," Vernon said, almost viciously, and I opened my eyes once again to find him looking at me with such fierce adoration in his eyes it was almost a loving glare. "We'll get you out of here. Reinforcements will be here any time soon—"

"I'm bleeding from a hundred cuts," I said, cutting him off. I was still pressed between the two of them, sandwiched in for support. "The fatigue will get me, or the blood loss, or they will. I'm not making it out. You heard him. I'm going to be a butterfly now."

"You've already paid for your sins," Taeyong said sadly. Even though he hadn't heard the conversation in the room, he knew what it meant to be a butterfly. A soul in purgatory.

Vernon nodded gravely. "A thousand times over."

I crumpled suddenly, giving in to the weight in my chest and collapsing against the two of them. Their arms came up with unpracticed simultaneousness, folding me into a half-support, half-hug, and I felt mouths brushing my temple and jaw, the corners of my lips. "My boys," I whispered, whimpering, and held on to them as tightly as I could.

My boys. Never had just two words given me so much to feel—exasperation, anger, love, regret.

"I love you," I said, wetting my chapped lips and looking up at Taeyong. He had his temple pressed against the door, and despite the chaos around us, I felt like I was at the eye of a storm. "All your volatility, all your sensitivity, all the thorns to your fragile rose petals. You know that, right?"

His hand brushed my jaw, his eyes sad, and he nodded.

"And you." I turned to Vernon, my breath and voice catching at the sight of his face, so beautiful even while bloody. "Beautiful liar. I love you, Vernon, and I trust you. I trust you'll hang on no matter what and look after everyone, never leaving someone behind."

The pad of his thumb traced the line of my lower lip, and I leaned in to kiss him. His mouth was hot and blood-filled, but the kiss was sweet and lingering, nipping teeth and smiling in between. I pulled away first, and then it was Taeyong, his hand tightening around my waist, kissing me hard and fast and deep.

"I love you," I whispered, finally leaning away and staggering backwards as they held the door. "Both of you." I reached the grill, and pressed myself against it, letting it hold me up. They didn't move, looking at me with an unwavering gaze, so similar, and yet so different. The two people I loved most in the world. "I feel like I didn't say it enough," I said, wiping the back of my hand against my mouth.

It came away bloody.

"I regret that," I whispered. "Not saying it enough. I should've—" I jerked back the grill, and their eyes widened in unison as they realized what I was doing, but I was already out of the grill, pushing it back in place. It took them a few seconds to lock the door firmly before they could come up to it, and by then I was already done.

Rage and grief and adrenaline gave me strength, and despite my broken-down state, I pushed in the padlock and locked the grill—and both of them inside. Surprisingly, Vernon was the one who yelled, gripping the metal bars and shaking it, knuckles white from the force, and for a moment I was afraid he would rip it apart with his bare hands. His fingers grasped mine weakly, scratched and bloody. "I'll get you out of here," he rasped, but there was desperation in his tone, a tremble in his hands as they held on to mine. "I promise."

But already I could feel myself slipping away.

"I should've said it more," I whispered, taking a few steps back and dropping the guns I'd taken from their holsters on the floor. "I'm sorry."

"No," Taeyong whispered, softer.

"That's one sin I haven't paid for. Not saying it enough." I sniffled, trying for a smile. "I'll be back as a butterfly."

Turning away was the hardest thing I had ever done. Harder then hearing my father die, than killing someone for the first time, than watching a lover cry. It felt like I was doing it all at the same time, but I felt as light as air as I made my way to the edge of the roof and looked down. The narrow alley was empty of people, the fire escape stairs crisscrossed like mazes.

Then I turned my back to the edge and looked up.

The sun was rising.

I sighed, not taking my eyes away from the sight. It wasn't like people said; I could still feel my injuries, every one of them, and knew I would keep the marks for the rest of my life.

But I had done it. I had done everything I'd never thought I'd be able to do—face the past. And I'd made it out.

Not a bad way to go, after all.

I smiled, closing my eyes. I'll be back as a butterfly.

And I fell.