chapter twenty-three / eeship-sam
Let Go
(023)

"I can explain," Jungkook tries to defend himself, but even if he had a good explanation, the words 'Jungkook is the hacker' are ringing too loud in my head. Would I even be able to hear him? Would it matter if I could?

"You had a lot of time to explain, Jungkook, you choose now to do that when time isn't a luxury we have?" Jin has a familiar look in his eyes. It's like when your parent asks if you did something bad and you lie about it. It's the look where you know they aren't as disappointed about you doing something bad, they're more upset that you lied to them. "We can talk about this later, right now our priority is getting Namjoon back." Jungkook nods his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

"You say that as if I'm going to let you get out of here alive," the boss laughs, planting her feet firmly on the ground, blocking us from any path to find our Namjoon. The action only makes me more angry, it sparks something in my chest and ignites my very being. I have to find him, and anyone or anything that tries to get in my way is in danger.

"Jungkook, you created this thing, how do I beat it?"

"This one feeds off of fear and creates hallucinations based off of your fear and insecurities." That makes sense considering the things it made me see last time we came in contact were things I've struggled with. I just need to remember my resolve. If there's no fear for it to feed off of, then what can it do to me?

I roll my shoulders and take a deep breath. I don't even know if this will work, but the desperation I feel to find Namjoon is strong enough to give me the courage I need to take the first step, and the next, and the next. Before I know it, I'm standing right in front of the boss, our eyes level with each other. A sly smile is painted on her face, which I imagine is meant to frighten me, but I only feel anger.

"You're quite bold to be standing within arms length of me. I imagine your mother never taught you not to play near a serpents den."

"You talk too much. How about saying something useful and tell me where Namjoon is," I demand. I'm almost caught off guard by the stern tone of my voice. I wonder if the sound is even coming from my mouth.

The boss frowns. "Why would I do that? I'm not done playing with you yet." The woman reaches out her hand and strokes my cheek. Her outstretched hand reminds me of a snake; I guess her previous analogy was fitting.

When her skin comes into contact with me, a devious glint appears in her eyes. I can tell she's waiting for me to be thrown into hallucinations once again. I hear the yells and screams emanating from the boys behind me. I know they're afraid they'll see the same results as last time, but I'm not afraid.

A smirk makes its way to my face as the woman before me widens her eyes, realizing that I'm not being impacted by her touch. I quickly grab her wrist and pull it away from my face. I squeeze it tightly and twist it until she starts to scrunch her face in discomfort.

"You feed off of fear, but what happens if I'm no longer afraid of you? Judging from the look on your face, I'd say this has never happened to you before." I lean in closer and lower my voice. "Might I even say, you look afraid of me? Do I make you weak in the knees?" In this moment, I feel dangerous, I feel powerful, but I don't feel like me, and that's because I'm not. A stronger version of me has possessed me, the one that comes when I need help. She came to save me, she came to save Namjoon.

"I almost don't want to destroy you. I want you to stay here, feeling this dread, this horror for the rest of eternity so that you can know what all of your victims felt."

The woman frantically shakes her head, begging for this new feeling to stop. She's always been the one to strike fear into other peoples hearts, not the other way around. To realize she has no power over someone, that she's vulnerable because she can do no damage to me, that's something completely new and it's ripping her world apart.

Her breathing becomes escalated and she falls to the ground as she clutches her chest. "Please don't hurt me," she begs.

"I'll ask you one last time... Where's Namjoon?"

It didn't take long to get information out of her. For someone who strikes fear into the hearts of everyone she meets, she doesn't know how to deal well with the emotion.

When I find out where he is, nothing else occupies my mind besides getting to him. I need to find him. I need him to be okay. Jungkook tries to run by my side, but my fast pace is difficult to keep up with. I can tell he wants to say something, to explain everything that happened in hopes of finding forgiveness, but that can wait, Namjoon can't. For all I know he could be hurt and quickly losing health in his bar. With that thought I pick up my pace even more, my feet thudding against the hard ground, sending jolts up my legs with every step. I ignore the burning in my lungs and the aching in my legs. I have to find him.

Once we reach the area where the boss said he would be, I begin to call out his name frantically. Of course he couldn't be in a big open area, no, the boss had to put him in a place with lots of subway cars. We decide to split up and search for him. Jungkook could usually search for us by our gamer tags, but being underground in this place seems to mess with the locations.

I search high and low, going through as many places as quickly as I can, but careful to check in any possible place in case he's unconscious, or in case he's- I shake my head throwing the thought out of my mind. No, he's alive. He has to be.

"Namjoon!" I call out as I struggle to push one of the doors to the abandoned train open. It lets out a high pitched sound in protest, acting as if the door hasn't been used for generations.

It's difficult to see inside due to the fact that the only light source is coming from outside the train, and that itself is quite dim, most likely about to go out at any moment. I search around, mostly blind, only being able to make out shapes and shadows. I hold my hands out in front of me, trying to make sure I didn't bump into anything. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking about tripping over anything. My foot catches under something, causing me to trip and topple to the ground. As soon as I land, the air is knocked out of my lungs. I was about to groan in pain, but I hear another voice do it before I can.

My heart stops, spooked by the presence that I didn't know was here all this time, but then I recognize the voice it belongs to.

I scramble to the lump I just tripped over. "Namjoon?"

The only response I get is another groan of pain, but that's good enough for me. I practically lunge at him, tears brimming at my eyes.

"Hurts," he barely manages to grit out through clenched teeth. I immediately loosen my grip around him, guilt surging through me for not thinking of the fact that he could be in pain when I nearly squeezed the life out of him.

"Sorry," I blurt out repeatedly. "Are you okay? What happened?" I cup his face in my hands. Despite my best efforts, tears are already filling my eyes and soaking my skin.

He doesn't answer my questions of concern, only a curt, "get Jin." I try not to let him see how hurt I feel by his cold reaction. I guess I was expecting a more pleased reaction when he saw me considering I came to save him.

"Okay," I mutter as I raise to my feet. I sniffle and wipe the tears away as I go to find all of the boys and let them know I found Namjoon. When they excitedly enter the train car, they are quick to be disappointed when Namjoon ignores them all and only directs his attention to the eldest.

We all watch, hands awkwardly by our sides as we try to restrain ourselves from reaching out to him, from helping him. Jin struggles to lift Namjoon up from the ground, but it was at his request that only Jin help him. Seeing him in pain is bad enough, but not being able to help him, that's even worse.

We had already taken the key from the boss here. Once we leave, we would put a barrier around this subway station not allowing anyone to go inside, and not allowing the boss to go out. After coming across us, though, that was fine with the boss.

Since we couldn't transport anywhere outside of this underground area until we got back above ground, we had to make the painful, long journey through these tunnels. Jin and Namjoon stayed in the front so that they could set the pace for the group. The rest of us stayed a little farther back from them, trying not to look at the way Namjoon limped as he walked, or the way he could barely stand. What did she do to him?

"Why won't hyung talk to us?" I turn my attention to Taehyung who had, up until now, been walking silently with his head down. My eyes soften at his question and my chest burns.

"I think he's hurting right now," I say lowly, "and maybe he just doesn't know how to deal with it."

Taehyung nods his head, but the expression on his face still looks hurt and confused. "Then how do we help him?"

I let out a sigh, wishing the breath I just released could take along the pain and stress I'm feeling inside. "Maybe what he needs right now is just space and time. If we give him that, I guess that is helping him."

Taehyung wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. I can't see, but I'm pretty sure it was a tear he was wiping away. "It's hard, Noona." His voice breaks, and so does my heart.

I wrap my arm around his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, but it also comforts me. He snuggles up to my side as much as he can as we walk. It is hard. It's hard because we've been betrayed by Jungkook, someone we care so deeply about, someone we trusted. He lied to us, he put us and so many other people in danger. We lost Namjoon and then found him, but it feels like we only found part of him. It was hard. I didn't know how we'd heal from this or deal with it. I wanted to say it'd be okay, but I honestly didn't know if that was true, so all I could say was, "I know."

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A/N -

They found Nams, but he's sad boy now. Gee poo.