the extinguished fire
is burning up again

The moment I stepped out of the car, pain shot up my ankle as if someone had jammed a hot rod into my heel.

I gasped, involuntarily leaning against the closest thing on which I could find purchase, which unfortunately turned out to be Vernon. He caught me as I fell, steadying me as I leaned on my other leg. As his fingers came into contact with the bare skin of my arms, I cringed away from him, shakily balancing myself against the side of the car.

"I'm fine," I hissed through clenched teeth, and he cast his eyes towards the sky.

I wasn't fine, though. Disregarding the emotional damage the past hour had brought me, I had been injured physically as well. As soon as I felt the pain in my leg, I remembered the painful angle at which it had twisted when I had fallen onto the asphalt when pushed from the crowd.

Yeeun slipped her arm under mind and hefted me up, slipping my arm around her shoulders so I could lean on her and walk. I didn't know how she had sensed the tension between me and Vernon, but I guessed it was because she was part of the gang, and anyway, I was grateful to her for saving me both from the injury and the possibly tense situation that could have developed.

With much difficulty, I dragged myself into the house. It looked the same as it always had—well, as it had for the last three years, at least—but I could notice little details that were out of place. The flowerpot by the door had moved by about a foot, and the door was slightly ajar—I frowned, unable to help being irritated by the disturbance. On more than one level.

"Is everyone here?" I asked her as she helped me into the living room. The place smelled a little different, too, giving off a serious, contained vibe as if it had turned into a containment unit. No one was to leave.

"Define 'everyone'," she answered. I pursed my lips as I knocked against the wall while turning, to keep from swearing. "Most of the racers are here, and you probably know them from your time in Seoul. There might be some...other faces, too."

I stayed quiet after that, even as we reached the living room. To my immense relief, it was mostly empty of criminals, occupied only by my father, who was sitting at the other end of the table, and Jimin. Vernon stepped out from behind us, moving towards him, and whispered something in his ear. My father caught my eye from across the table, and we shared a long look. It wasn't really surprising that he had eased into the situation so quickly. We shared the same blood, after all, and he had a history with this kind of thing.

"Long time, no see," a singsong voice spoke up. I looked up in surprised recognition as Seulgi waved from the couch, where she had been sitting camouflaged in the shadows. You wouldn't notice her unless you were really looking, I realized with grudging respect, but I wasn't sure why she had chosen it. Unless, of course, she just wanted to mess with me. Not that surprising, really.

Vernon set down a gun on the table a few centimeters from me, and my eyes rested on it longingly. It wasn't that far, really, and if I wanted to, I could reach it easily. But then, Yeeun was still standing right next to me, and judging from the skillful why she had used the gun in the car, I did not want to find out what she could do to me if I made a grab for it.

"Not long enough," I said instead, not looking at Seulgi.

She laughed, a sound like chimes in the winds before a storm—soft and deceptive, giving no indication of what was to come. If I didn't know her, I would have been enraptured, but now, I only narrowed my eyes.

"Just as spirited as I remember." She grinned. "How's the runaway life treating you?"

I ignored her.

Just then, a new voice spoke up. "Vernon, the back is clear," it said, and my heart constricted even before I looked at the person who had just spoken. A boy emerged from the stairs, a jacket thrown messily over his shoulders. "I don't think they've sent anyone to the house yet, they must know we're here—"

Before he could finish speaking, I was on my feet, the gun in my hand pointing straight towards his chest. Seulgi sighed, but she was smiling; Yeeun offered little to no reaction, and the new arrival only put up his hands in a surprised gesture of surrender.

"Well," Lucas said, eyebrows raised. "Nice to see you, too."

Vernon reached out to me, but I leaned away from him, keeping my eyes and the gun trained on their target. A look of hurt flashed in his eyes, and despite my anger, I felt a twinge of guilt.

"He's not going to hurt you," Jimin said, and I spasmed, almost pulling the trigger at the sound of his voice. Something about how concerned he sounded made me jerk back into my senses. Everything hit me at once. The flare of pain in my ankle, the sweat sticking my t-shirt to my back, the look in Lucas's eyes as he met my gaze.

"He's a biker," I countered, but my voice was small.

"Not under Hyojong," Yeeun spoke. I strained to look at the expression on her face in my peripheral vision, though I already knew it was going to be blank. "Lay made a deal with some of them, and Lucas is not the last biker you'll see. Thought I'd put that out there, so you don't go around shooting our allies."

My hand dipped, and I collapsed into the chair. There was no reason not to believe her—she seemed like the most trustworthy person in the room, simply because she looked like she meant business. No pretence, no care or concern, just cold, hard, facts. That was something I could live with.

The gun was still in my grasp, fingers clenched tightly around it despite the reassurance. After all, not even an hour ago, one of my friends had tried to carve figures into my skin.

"We needed as many people as possible to help out, so we allied ourselves with some of the bikers," Jimin said, and when his eyes slewed to mine, there was barely veiled distress in them. A small, irrational part of me was angered that someone apart from me was worried, but I tried to ignore it and listen. "Yeeun here is a contract killer, and we have another gang upstairs you might not have met before. Lucas here you already know."

"And—" Seulgi started, and for the first time since I'd met her, I saw her hesitate. "There might be some others here that you know..."

"Park Junhee." Vernon spoke before she could continue, and I felt something cold in my stomach, like the sensation of fear just before the drop in a roller coaster. I realized he hadn't spoken a word since the car, and it felt strange to hear him speak now—calm, almost cold, something flat yet eager in his voice. "Park Chaeyoung. Lisa Manoban."

I stared at him, lips parted slightly, but he wasn't looking at me. He was facing away, jaw clenched, looking at the wall as if it held all the secrets of the world.

Should I have believed him? I don't know. All I knew was that I did, the moment he spoke. Despite how repelled I was by his previous lies, his bloody past for my sake, I trusted him. I trusted him with all I had, even if it meant the loss of my trust in someone else. 

I looked away, eyes prickling. No one else spoke or moved. I set down the gun, clenching and unclenching my fists. The pressure made my nails dig into my palms, and I hoped the pain would be enough to get clear my head. It wasn't. 

Anger shimmered underneath all the hurt I felt at that instant, acidic and burning, and my thoughts were a petulant jumble. He had known what effect his words would have had on me, yet he had still spoken them—why? Did he feel the need to hurt me just as badly as I had hurt me? But that was hardly fair, was it, considering how much his actions had cut my heart in the past? Why had he spoken? Why had he told me the truth?

"You should rest for now." It was Yeeun who had spoken, unsurprisingly. Maybe she knew that I wasn't going to lash out at her, or maybe she just didn't care if I did. "We'll let you know everything when you're in a better state. I think we all can agree that you're in no mental or even physical shape to hear all of the truth."

She was right, frustratingly so. Her tone had been so bland that I felt a twinge of annoyance at her words, unable to help being irritated by how uncaring she sounded. I glanced at her—her expression was still the same as it had been since I had first seen her in the car, calm and blank, her eyes so cold and analytical that I fought back a rising shiver and the sudden need to cover myself.

And then it hit me.

Baekhyun.

My breath caught in my throat as I looked at her again, really looked at her. Baekhyun, the one person I still had unquestionable faith in, even in his death. The pale blonde hair, the voice of reason, even the gaze that made me feel as if I was being cut open and studied—it was all Baekhyun.

It was possible that that was the reason I had felt so drawn to her in the first place. Now that I saw her in a certain way, it was impossible to go back. The out-of-the-blue appearance of someone so close, someone I had thought I had lost forever, was like a fresh breath of air—yet, at the same time, it was like a puncture in my lungs.

"I'm not going to go to sleep while the rest of you talk about me," I said hoarsely, not sure why I had spoken. Moments ago, I had been ready to comply, but it felt like the wrong reaction now. Probably because if Yeeun had really been Baekhyun, I would have disagreed despite knowing what the truth was. "I want to know. This time without you leaving anything out."

"You will know," Yeeun spoke. If it had been someone else who had spoken, the tone would have been gentler, like the one you assumed while calming an animal, but she didn't bother with modulation. "But not now. You wouldn't want to know now, either."

I focused on her again. She reminded me so much of Baekhyun that I felt a lump in my throat, a dryness in my mouth. How could I face her, knowing that every time I looked at her, I would see a dead man walking?

"Jimin will deal with your injuries for now," she continued, and I blinked, breaking out of my conflict momentarily to concentrate on what she was saying. "And we will send out a lookout. There aren't many chances the Lees will send someone immediately, but you won't be taking a single step out of the house. Not with that sprained ankle of yours."

I didn't know if my injury was a sprain or a break, but I figured she was probably correct in her assumption. There were a lot of things I wanted to know, but I tried to think practically. "How long will it take to heal?" 

"It's nothing major, so anything from five days to two weeks," Jimin said. 

Great. It could be two weeks before they even let me walk. "And sit around waiting for some killer to come put a knife in my back?"

"It's all right." To my surprise, and everyone else's, it was my father who had spoken. When I turned to him, his face was twisted into a rictus grin. "You're the one who will be doing the killing."