take a fist or stone or a gunshot
we’ve gotten stronger

Four days.

It had been four days since I'd been completely pulled into this mess, but it felt like forever had passed in those four days.

One, with the so-called initiation that had been nothing more than a plot devised by the racers to lure my past in, using me as bait. Two, with the club and the kiss and a prospect I was either too scared to think of or too weighed down to dissect. Three, walking into a meeting and finally being told a tiny part of the complicated plan they had hatched, and the information that I was to be monitored at all times.

Four, I'd been handed a gun and told to use it without hesitation.

As the last lecture of the day dragged on and on, my hand drifted to my side, where the fully loaded weapon had been strapped. In a way, it was a small freedom that I had been granted—there was nothing stopping me from drawing it and blowing my captor's brains out but my conscience.

It was my fault, in a way. I had grown too attached to them, in a sick, twisted way, and I was too afraid to deal with the consequences. I had enough blood on my hands.

And of course, there was my father.

The professor droned on at the head of the room, providing me with a weak distraction that could be used to get rid of the dark thoughts that were clouding my head. I couldn't run away a second time, I knew better now that it had backfired, and anyway, I had a feeling that it would be better to stay with the racers. At least they could physically protect me from the bikers, but emotionally, they were the ones slicing my sanity into bits.

Being too drained to even show my impatience in the form of tapping fingers, I switched open my phone again, checking the time. Ten more minutes.

The reason I was so impatient was that the few minutes spent in the walk from college to the bar were the only ones I had to myself in the entire day.

The sky outside had darkened to a light violet and blue, indicating that the sun had almost set. By the time I was out, it was going to be dark already, which was a little frightening since there was a chance I could be attacked, but my eagerness was at an all-time high.

It felt like hours before the class was dismissed, and I shot out of my seat. Baekhyun hadn't shown up to college today, and no one else shared this class with me, so there was no chance I'd have someone else to look over me since it was the last class of the day.

I shouldered my bag and let my hand ghost over the gun at my side as I walked down the street. Since Baekhyun was busy somewhere else, executing some duties I had no idea about, who was next in line to watch over me? Was there even another person assigned the job, or had they forgotten? No, they wouldn't forget their most important bait.

Being too absorbed in my thoughts, I didn't notice when I took a turn that led me into an empty street. As I was still a little unfamiliar with the way from Gyeongju-seon to the Dragon's Tail, I didn't think too much of it—at least until I heard a footstep.

I almost stopped in my tracks, but realizing that it would be a dead giveaway, I kept walking at the same pace. My hand slid down the bag strap, a move that looked natural but actually brought it closer to the revolver.

There was no way this was some sort of coincidence. It couldn't be one of the racers, because they would reveal themselves, and if it was just another person, they wouldn't be trying so hard to conceal the fact that they were behind me. No, it could only be one of the bikers, and it would be very dangerous to assume otherwise.

My heart was pounding, and the rush of adrenaline it sent to my brain made me feel light-headed. In a way, I was grateful, because finally I had a chance to act on my own without someone standing by my side and telling me what to do. I needed that reminder, that I was independent, and that I was very, very capable of handling sharp objects.

The streetlights were far apart, leaving enough space between them to let the sidewalk be bathed in darkness at intervals. And there must be alleyways, which meant I could escape—but if it was a dead end and there was more than one person following me, it could mean I was fucked.

Well, it wasn't like I had much choice anyway.

I took in a deep breath, feeling the extra oxygen it brought me work its way into my lungs and blood. The fear mixed with excitement filled me with energy, like a keyed in bomb that was waiting to explode.

As my feet brought me closer to the darker space between the lights, I let my hand drifted closer to the gun. There was an alley there, concealed by the gaping darkness, and I could sense the person getting closer to me as if all my senses had been awoken. This was the life I had always lived, and all of it was bubbling to the surface now, like a strong acid.

Move, I told myself.

In a split second, I had slipped into the alleyway, the gun drawn from its holster and gripped in my sweaty hands as I pointed it towards the road, in the direction of my pursuer. It was a smart one, too, because by the time I had turned, they were already looking at me.

My heart was about ready to leap out of my chest and into my throat, but when I spoke, my voice was steady, which surprised even myself.

“Who sent you?” I called out, grasping the revolver tighter as he—I could tell by the outline of his body against the dim moonlight—slowly raised a hand towards his thigh. “Don't move!”

I couldn't see his face due to the murk, but the way the slight tilt to his head and the spread of his feet in a specific stance was familiar to me told me that I already knew him. No new recruits. This was definitely a biker.

There was a separation of barely three or four feet between us. He didn't say anything, his lips unmoving behind his black mask, but he raised his hand despite my warning, pointing an index finger towards me.

I stared at him, wondering what the hell he was trying to do when he whipped out a Glock.

Eyes wide, I was alert again, but this time at a loss. The confrontation had arrived at a standstill, and there was no way I was going to look away from him. Internally, I cursed myself for getting distracted by such a stupid thing, but as I raised my gun higher, he shook his head.

What?

I didn't think too much about it, taking it to be another of his distractions. Then he shook his head again, making my forehead crease.

“What the hell are you trying to do?” I muttered, more to myself than him. As I observed him, standing stock still, I heard a sound, the crunch of wheels on a road.

It was a clean sound, perfectly audible in the still silence of the dark street, but there was no way to recognize whether it was a car or a bike. But the heaviness of it, and the way the biker's shoulders tightened as we heard it told me that help had arrived.

Fuck it.

I closed the space between us, lunging forward and tackling him to the ground. He must have been shocked, because he didn't offer any resistance, letting us both roll to the ground, scuffling in the dirt. I came up in top of him, managing to kick away his gun and pinned his chest with my knees, his shoulders with my hands.

Unfortunately, I had dropped my gun somewhere in the dark, so as soon as I looked away in order to find it, he somehow rolled over and pushed me off.

My hands clawed at the dirt, heart beating wildly, sure that I was going to die. Help couldn't be on time. For a second, I knew I would bleed to my death, right here in this alley, my blood mixing with the soil where it belonged.

There was a squeak of a tires on the road as I got to my feet, an intense brightness from the car's headlights glaring into my eyes as soon as I did. The biker had somehow picked up a gun—I wasn't sure which—and pointed it at me as a car door whipped open.

I stared at the biker's face, now lit up by the headlights of the car, but still unrecognizable because of the face mask that covered his features. My hands stung as the person—the one who had been driving the car, my delirious mind noted—grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back.

The first shot fired wrong, glancing off the hood of the car at a precarious angle as I struggled to enter the car, Taeyong gripping my waist in a death grip as he tried to haul me inside. I turned half-awake from the biker, a deafening roar of blood in my head, the red Corvette gleaming in the bare moonlight, the redhead's eyes bright as they stared into mine.

The second shot found my shoulder.

For a split second, I was in shock, only knowing that the bullet had hit me because of the wetness in my sleeve and the look on Taeyong's face. Then the pain hit—it felt like someone had let a firecracker blow up in my shoulder, a small, concentrated pain that was raw and sudden.

Somehow, he pulled me inside the car, shutting the door with a thud that I barely registered. He revved the Stingray, face set with concentration, a sheet of sweat on his skin—he looked to me like a dream and a nightmare, a blurry and mystifying picture.

I could almost feel my blood pressure rising, my breaths becoming shallower with every millisecond, every beat of my heart sending fresh blood through my wound. The world around me blackened as I went into shock, the hand that was clutching my shoulder slowly losing its grip.

The only thing I could think of was that I'd lost the gun, and how Baekhyun was going to kill me if the masked biker didn't first—but the biker's hand dropped the gun, his eyes gleaming in the taillights, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as he raised his hand to his face.

The pain was agony. It was like someone had set my blood and skin on fire and was waiting for it to charge black, with me wishing that I would pass out just so I wouldn't have to feel the ache it brought to my body. As I stared at the biker through the clear windshield, half-awake, half with eyes glazed over with the sparks of impulses the bullet sent to my brain, he slowly pulled down the mask.

The last thing I saw before I fainted was the face of the boy I'd once loved.