tell me, would you kill to save a life ; 12/14
Misaine Bridge has been connecting the Bottoms to Port Ville for several centuries now. Being the oldest bridge out of the three linking the island to the coast, it is bound to display in its architecture some traces of the history of the city. It once was a proof of power and wealth, back when the city was one of the biggest trading ports of the country, which made it the most important monument of the city. Pieces were added to the original bridge regularly, pieces and sculptures that had been ordered to some new well-famous artists, and it didn’t take long for Misaine Bridge to become the most expensive and valued infrastructure in Port Ville. Its history is still very known in the city, whether it’s for the large pillars like towers at each end on which maps of Port Ville were carved every twenty years for a century, or its more sinister participation in the numerous deaths by hunger at the end of the sixteenth century.
In Port Ville’s daily modern life though, it is quite obvious that Misaine bridge has lost its glow. No one stops to glance at the art it is covered with anymore, and people don’t avoid it just because it was once used as a separation between the wealthy and the fishermen, who were not allowed to cross it back to the centre if they didn’t have the required amount of fish. Misaine Bridge is dull now, dirty, covered with graffitis. On the right railing, the one that opens on the sea, names have been scribbled on the metal, only traces of people who jumped into the dark cold waters. No one has ever jumped over the left railing. No one has ever chosen Port Ville’s bay as their last home, and Misaine Bridge now stands in Port Ville’s horizon as the tangible limit between the dying city and the freedom of the sea. The glory is long gone.
I will blow up every effort you’ve ever made to control this city.
We all float down here.
Jongdae’s breath hitches in the back of his throat as he runs along the low wall separating the lanes on the bridge. A few cars have been messily parked in the middle of the bridge, as a makeshift roadblock, and on the other side of it, around a hundred of policemen are walking towards the Bottoms.
“Looks like the cavalry’s there,” Sehun says, running next to Jongdae.
He slows down, to Jongdae’s annoyance. When he turns around to throw him a biting remark, Sehun glares at him over his mask.
“Thorne is dead, Jongdae. Those cops have been inside the PVDD for months, some even years, why would they go crazy now?”
Jongdae synchronizes his strides to Sehun’s. The truth is, he has no idea what to answer, but his knotted stomach and his worried instincts are more than enough for him to be on the lookout.
“I just have a bad feeling,” he mumbles.
Sehun shrugs but doesn’t say anything else, to which Jongdae is grateful. He has shown a cold-hearted detachment since they crawled out of the sewers, dirty and still bruised, and it makes Jongdae jittery. At least Sehun has accepted to come with him, and Jongdae knows - hopes - that if something does happen, the risk of the people living in the Bottoms getting hurt will be enough to bring Sehun back to his senses.
Sehun trots past Jongdae and hops on one of the cars. He sits down on the roof and crosses his legs. Jongdae jumps next to him.
“We’re on Northill Bridge,” Dahye’s voice cracks in his ear. “The group is led by Kim Boah. I think yours will be - ”
“Frank,” Jongdae interrupts.
Now barely a few feet away from the roadblock, the policemen are slowing down, most of them whispering and gasping at Jongdae and Sehun. Leading them, with the same surly look on his face, Frank makes an obvious disappointed face as he looks up at Jongdae. It takes the latter a couple of seconds to remember that Frank is seeing Alpha, and not Dahye’s best friend right now, and that he never really liked Alpha. Not at all.
“Aw man,” Frank sighs, gesturing to his troop to stop. “So you really are back. I was hoping for an unfounded rumour.”
Sehun snorts next to him, and Jongdae slightly shoves him with the tip of his shoe. Sehun moves away and looks up at Jongdae, glaring.
“So did you just stop by to say hi?” Frank continues.
Jongdae shakes his head and jumps off the car.
“Didn’t Insung contact you?” he asks, walking towards Frank who obviously tenses.
There must be about a hundred of men and women behind Frank, and they’re all whispering, moving and breathing. The amount of information Jongdae picks up leaves him a bit overwhelmed, but he tries to keep it at bay by focusing on a few constant things such as his own breathing or Sehun’s beating heart. He does mindlessly check the buzzing coming from Frank’s radio though, thinking that there may have been a problem with their communications. He’s less than five steps away from the police officer when he hears it. A second radio frequency is lurking under the PVPD one.
“Of course he did,” Frank snaps back. “But that’s none of your business. You have nothing to do here.”
Jongdae barely spares him a glance. He looks over his shoulder at Sehun, who’s still sitting on the car, and draws back his attention on Frank. It definitely comes from the latter.
“I was the one who freed his son,” he answers in a distracted voice, thinking hard.
He pushes harder and picks up the same frequency here and there in the crowd. His heart leaps into his throat and he throws another glance at Sehun. The latter slightly frowns this time.
“And we’ll be the ones freeing the whole island,” Frank groans. “Go home before you get yourself hurt.”
Jongdae takes in the man’s face, his grizzling stubble, his tired dimples and his grey eyes. He’s been Dahye’s partner for so long, he practically taught her how to be the amazing detective she is today. He was there for the last gang war, and he solved more cases than anyone else in the PVPD, Do Insung included. And he’s walking around with two radios.
Jongdae’s blood boils in his veins. He jumps forward and grabs Frank’s collar with so much strength the fabric tears. He hears more than he sees every police officers pulling out their guns to aim at him, because he refuses to blink or even look away from Frank.
“Oh, oh!” Sehun intervenes loudly as he jumps off the car.
He’s between Frank and the rest of the PVPD in less than a heartbeat, his hands raised in a calming gesture. He looks over his shoulder at Jongdae.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses.
“Yeah boy, what are you doing?” Frank asks.
His feet barely touch the concrete, but it doesn’t seem to unnerve him because he keeps flashing Jongdae a teasing smirk. Jongdae glares at him and pulls one of his hands away to rummage through Frank’s pocket. He finally finds what he’s looking for in one of his pant pockets, and his heart sinks when he pulls out a green radio. Avoiding Frank’s eyes, he raises it above his head for everyone to see.
“Oh come on,” Sehun groans.
From the corner of his eyes, Jongdae catches a few confused expressions, some shocked ones, others not so innocent, and his senses switch on alert mode. He does pick up the same frequency in the crowd, but he can’t tell who it comes from precisely.
“Didn’t see that coming, did you, wonder boy?” Frank snarls.
“Who gives you your orders?” Jongdae questions.
Frank snorts.
“You really don’t understand, do you? It’s not about order. It’s never been about order.”
Jongdae’s blood turns to ice. He looks over Frank’s shoulder and meets Sehun’s eyes. That is a litany they’ve both heard before, and it came from a man who claimed chaos was the only reasonable option for humanity, the one that made the most sense. A man who blew himself up less than an hour ago.
“Thorne’s dead,” Jongdae says between gritted teeth.
“Is he though?”
Jongdae locks his jaws and tenses his muscles. He raises Frank’s body even higher and tosses him towards the cars. Frank crashed against a wing mirror, and the shock has him sliding on his side, wincing. When he looks up at Jongdae though, he flashes him a blinding smile. Furious, Jongdae takes a first step towards him before freezing when he notices that this side of the car barricade has been tagged. Now spreading over red, black and metallic coloured car bodies is a huge and enthusiastic - judging by the numerous exclamation marks - boom.
Jongdae throws himself on Frank before the latter can even sits up, and he grabs him by the collar again before pressing him harder against the car door. The back of Frank’s head hits the door with a loud thud.
“What was his plan?! What were you supposed to do in the Bottoms?!”
Frank chuckles. “We were never supposed to reach the Bottoms. Order won’t save the world so why do we keep trying?”
Jongdae shoves him against the door a second time before turning back to Sehun. The latter is already watching him. Behind him, one of the closest policemen takes a first step towards Jongdae, his gun raised and still aiming at Jongdae. Sehun raises an eyebrow at him.
“Don’t be dick like your boss,” he sighs before giving a violent push with the palm of his hand on the man’s chest. The latter literally flies away and crashes against the railing, knocked out by the violence of the shock.
“Do what you gotta do,” Sehun tells Jongdae with a short nod. “I’m dealing with the hundred possible scumbags here.”
He eyes a woman near him who nervously lowers her gun when he meets her eyes. Jongdae draws back his attention on Frank. Sehun may want to act as though it’s just a game, the threat is real. The signal emitted by the radio Jongdae’s still holding is reverberating through the whole crowd. There could be dozens of them amongst the cops, dozens of people who wouldn’t hesitate to open fire.
Jongdae looks into Frank’s eyes. The latter’s smile widens.
“Do it,” he says. “Let me show you how great we could be without rules.”
Gritting his teeth, Jongdae presses his palm against Frank’s chest.
It starts with the blurry image of a dark room, and a strong smell of rotten flesh and blood. Jongdae catches a vague shape lying at his feet, and he realizes with horror that it’s a small leg. Obviously a kid’s leg. His stomach tightens and he feels bile burning the back of his throat, but the rush of memories takes him somewhere else before he throws up. There’s a high-pitched laugh in the distance, and a cheery melody that sounds more and more like Snow White’s song, and Jongdae’s heart speed up in his chest. He closes his eyes, pushes harder on his power and breaks through the wall of memories Frank’s brain has been trying to shove into his face. Now he’s too deep to get caught, too small to be found. Synapses open, ending nerves buzz in unison with him and Jongdae digs deeper and deeper until he finds what he’s looking for.
“We’re out!” Sehun’s voice screams, in a reality which feels both close and distant to Jongdae.
A hand closes on Jongdae’s arm, and someone pulls him up violently, thus breaking the contact between Jongdae and Frank. For a short moment, Jongdae has the terrible impression that he’ll never find his body again and that he’ll live forever between two worlds. Reality clicks back together after what feels like an eternity and a terrifying amount of information swoops down on him, from colours and sounds to Sehun pulling him across a car’s bonnet. The whistles of bullets flying past him finally help him put the pieces together.
He pulls away from Sehun who throws him a look of pure betrayal and surprise as he slides behind the car barrier. Flattening himself against the bonnet, Jongdae reaches out, grabs Frank by his bulletproof jacket and hauls him up before crouching down in the safety of the cars too.
“What happened?” he asks Sehun, his heart still thumping wildly against his ribcage.
“One of them opened fire and all hell broke loose,” Sehun shrugs. He glares at Frank. “Your fault.”
Frank’s grin suddenly reminds Jongdae what he caught in the detective’s mind. He sits up with a start and grabs Frank’s belt. He follows it with eager fingers until he finds the little box supposed to contain the handcuffs, but when he unclips it, it opens on a tiny remote, similar to the one Thorne had back in the police station. Jongdae’s heart tightens.
“The bridges! They put bombs under them! They never were any bombs in the city, they’re all here!” he panics. We all float down here, his mind scream.
A car window shatters above him and Jongdae and Sehun shield their heads with their arms while Frank roars with laughter.
“Is that the only detonator?” Sehun asks, gesturing at the remote in Jongdae’s hand.
Jongdae nods. He looks at the device between his fingers then at Sehun’s face, his heart beating wild in his chest. He knows that, just like him, Sehun is painfully aware that a detonator isn’t the only way to set off a bomb. He glances at Frank, who is still chuckling, and activates his earpiece.
“Heize,” he screams over the gunfire. “Get them all away from the bridge! They’ve been booby-trapped! Don’t let anyone go on that bridge!”
She says something back, but another window blows up above their heads, and drowns her words. Panic starts swelling in Jongdae’s chest. He can hear the ruckus going on the other side of the roadblock. The smell of gunpowder is now thick enough to cover up the saltiness of the close sea, and soon enough blood will be added to the mix. Jongdae curses and makes to get back up on his feet, but Sehun grabs him by the arm.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks. “How will you know who’s bad and who’s not?”
Jongdae pulls away.
“Do you expect me to stay here?! You might not give a fuck, but I do!”
Hurt flashes through Sehun’s eyes, but it’s quickly replaced by his usual harsh, cold look. He pushes Jongdae, who loses his balance and falls back against the car door, and shoves the green radio in his hand. Jongdae hadn’t even realized he wasn’t holding it anymore.
“Use your fucking waves and take them all down,” Sehun says between gritted teeth.
This finally stops Frank’s laugh. He eyes the radio in Jongdae’s hand with envy and finally glares at Sehun.
“I know who you are,” he says with a snarl. “You’re that kid who died in that warehouse five years ago. You know Thorne put that serum there on purpose, don’t you? The mayor just wanted you dead so that your boyfriend here would stop being such a pain in the ass. But Thorne thought you had potential for chaos.” He flashes Sehun a grin. “He was so pleased when you proved him right.”
Frank’s face is distorted by madness and hatred, to a point that Jongdae barely recognizes the man he bought sandwiches for for so long. Sehun looks at him with disbelief, surprise and shock painted all over his face. His eyes meet Frank’s, and the latter throws back his head as he bursts in laughter. This snaps Sehun out of his surprise, and his face hardens again, even more harshly than before. He grabs Frank’s head and hits it against the car, instantly knocking the latter out.
Jongdae watches him, completely frozen, icy fingers seizing his heart. Sehun glares at him.
“What are you waiting for?! Do it!”
“Sehun - I,” Jongdae starts. Words drown in the back of his throat.
“I don’t give a shit about what he said,” Sehun hisses. “Use your power Jongdae. Now!”
Jongdae looks down at the radio in his hand, and his brain instinctively focuses on the wave it’s emitting. He’s never done it before, use a communication device to reach people’s brains, but Sehun is right. What else could he do? Jump over the car and knock everyone out, then search them for a green radio? He looks at Sehun, feeling nauseous. Sehun ended up in that warehouse because of him. He thought that Alpha was a good thing for Port Ville. He thought he could save people, he thought he could -
Sehun leans in and closes his fingers around Jongdae’s forearm. His face is so close that Jongdae can see himself in Sehun’s irises.
“I don’t give a shit about what he said,” Sehun repeats, in a much softer voice. “Do it.”
Jongdae looks at Sehun’s fingers, tightly wrapped around his arm, then back at the latter’s face. They stare at each other, and Sehun finally pulls his hand away. Jongdae nods, closes his eyes and lets himself be sucked in by the wave buzzing between his fingers.
Kyungsoo’s heart leaps into his throat at Jongin’s report on Heize and Alpha’s latest exchange. Bombs? Of fucking course, he mentally snorts. You’d think that criminals would be a little more original in Port Ville, with all they can get away with here, but no. Bombs. He should be afraid he realizes. He should be freaking out even, but he thinks that maybe they’re going too fast and he has left his heart somewhere behind them. Drunk on adrenaline, he pulls harder on the level and Jongin gasps next to him. Or, at least, Kyungsoo thinks he does, because the wind is howling in his ears and he can’t hear a thing.
Jongin grips the boat’s dashboard tighter, his other hand still holding his Heize mask so it doesn’t fly away. Kyungsoo did learn something about the Bottoms today, thanks to his new friend. Apparently, tiny boats are surprisingly easy to hijack, and it definitely was for the best. In exchange, he taught Jongin something about himself: his father showed him how to drive a boat during one of their many fishing days.
“Kyungsoo slow down, please!” Jongin screams. “We’re almost there!”
He makes to point at the coast in front of them, but a particularly violent bounce has him clasping Kyungsoo’s arm. Kyungsoo glances at him and Jongin glowers.
“You’re crazy!”
Kyungsoo doesn’t disagree, because he does feel crazy. He starts to understand why his father never quit the PVPD although his love for his work ended up costing him his wife. He understands why he would still go out and risk his life for a city that can’t be saved, and after years of resenting him, Kyungsoo thinks he’s finally getting him. He can’t help but feel thrilled at the idea that he might help save people’s life tonight. He feels in control, and it helps with the throbbing pain left in his body by Thorne’s little games.
“Hey, are they shooting at each other?” Jongin yells in his ears.
Kyungsoo blinks and narrows his eyes at the shore getting closer and closer. There seems to be a huge gathering there, which means that his dad didn’t cross the bridge yet. But it doesn’t necessarily imply his safety, because Jongin is right, it does look like they’re fighting… Kyungsoo catches a few people falling on the ground here and there, and his heart freezes in his chest.
“Fuck,” he groans, his voice drowned by the engine and the clapping sound.
He looks down at the level and pushes the boat in full speed. Jongin startles, still gripping Kyungsoo’s arm, and makes to pull down the level. Kyungsoo snatches his wrist. The boat is going so fast now that its hull hits the water with enough violence to lift the vessel and make it plan. With the lack of concrete holds on the boat, Kyungsoo topples backwards, and Jongin is dragged in his fall.
“Fuck, Kyungsoo!” Jongin moans in Kyungsoo’s ear when the back of his head hits the floor.
Fear is definitely catching up on Kyungsoo now. The boat doesn’t even feel like it’s touching the water but like it’s flying, and they’re going so fast, Kyungsoo is actually starting to feel sick. He’s the one reaching out to grab onto Jongin’s arm. The latter glances at him, and bravery flashes through his eyes. He takes Kyungsoo’s hand and sits up to glance at the front of the boat. Kyungsoo sees his eyes open wide.
Jongin throws himself on top of Kyungsoo, which lets out a confused yell, but before he can vocalize his surprise, the boat lands on something hard and solid that is definitely not water. Kyungsoo shuts his eyes, his stomach leaping into his throat and fear thumping against his temples. His fingers dig into Jongin’s hips as the roar caused by the hull gliding over the concrete fills his ears. They won’t make it. He won’t save anyone. Instead, he would have had both he and Jongin killed.
But after what feels like an eternity, the boat actually slows down. It starts swaying when the speed isn’t high enough to keep it straight, and it finally topples on the side, making Jongin and Kyungsoo roll then crash against the starboard gunwale.
“Oh my god,” Kyungsoo pants. He tries to move from under Jongin’s body in vain. “Jongin, are you okay?”
Jongin whines against Kyungsoo’s shoulder, and the latter allow himself a long, deep sigh of relief. His whole body is shaking like a leaf, and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to stand up. He might have cracked a few bones, or at least made a few of his wounds bleed again, but the feeling that lingers isn’t even pain. It’s fear. Heayy-on-his-tongue and iron-taste fear.
“Mr. Do?!” someone says.
Kyungsoo looks up, and immediately recognizes the round face of Pyo Jihoon, one of the newest recruits of the police department now bending over him and Jongin, looking lost and worried. Kyungsoo’s heart leaps into his throat when he remembers why he tried to kill himself and Jongin in the first place.
“Bombs!” he shrieks. He shoves Jongin away. “There are bombs on the bridge, do not cross it!”
“We know! Heize warned us!” Jihoon says. He looks as high on adrenaline as Kyungsoo feels, and it doesn’t seem to have the safest effect on Jihoon either. “But wait, how do you know?” He frowns at Jongin and at the mask the latter is still wearing. “And who are you?”
There’s a burst of bullets above Jihoon’s head and he crouches down with a start. His look of confusion shifts to one of determination, and he helps Kyungsoo gets back up on his feet with a strong hand.
“Let’s get you the hell away from here,” he says.
He frowns when Kyungsoo sways on his twisted ankle, but doesn’t anything. Instead, he puts Kyungsoo’s arm over his shoulder and looks over at Jongin.
“Can you walk?” he asks.
Kyungsoo looks at Jongin who gives a sharp nod. He has a cut on his temple that seems to bleed a lot. Kyungsoo’s stomach twists with guilt.
“Okay,” Jihoon says. “On the count of three… One… two… three!”
They dash off together, Jongin definitely faster than Jihoon and Kyungsoo, whose ankle did not seem to have liked their little crash. He winces and grits his teeth as he tries to keep the pain at bay. In front of them, Jongin glances over his shoulder and stops when he realizes how far Jihoon and Kyungsoo are. He doesn’t even hesitate before rushing back to them.
He grabs Kyungsoo’s second arm and wraps it around his shoulders. Kyungsoo clenches his fingers on his biceps, only remembering Jongin is also hurt when the latter tenses. He doesn’t say anything though and keeps holding Kyungsoo - who would like to let of Jongin’s wounded arm but who, for some reasons, absolutely can’t. Gunfire is raging on around them, he hears screams, yells, random names shouted, and it scares him so much. He tries to look over his shoulder, hoping to get a glimpse of his healthy and very alive father, but he only sees people killing each other, and that freaks him out. He’s pretty sure his throat has started emitting that whistling sound so specific to panic attacks for him, but with the chaos around them, neither Jihoon nor Jongin seem to hear it.
Kyungsoo closes his eyes and tries to control his breathing, to keep the attack at bay, but it obviously doesn’t work because everything is now muffled, as though Kyungsoo was hearing the scene from under a thick layer of water. It sounds like drowning to him, and it just freaks him out even more.
“Wait,” Jongin’s voice says. It’s close, so close. Kyungsoo tightens his hold on his arm. “Aouch!”
Kyungsoo feels Jihoon pulling away, and it’s the final straw for Kyungsoo. He opens his eyes with a start, ready to beg Jihoon but words die down in the back of his throat when he catches the look of surprise on the latter’s face. Turning his head towards Jongin, and Kyungsoo realizes the latter looks at least as dumbstruck. So Kyungsoo follows their gaze.
The gunfire wasn’t muffled because Kyungsoo was falling deeper into his panic attack. It was muffled because it simply ceased. Kyungsoo stares, mouth agape, at the people lying on the floor with their guns still in their hands, but their eyes shut tight as though they were just sleeping. The men and women still up are looking as disoriented as Kyungsoo, Jihoon and Jongin, and a low whisper starts rising.
“That’s gotta be Alpha,” Jongin says in a blank voice.
Kyungsoo looks at him, and Jongin meets his eyes, in complete disbelief.
“How?” Kyungsoo asks.
Jongin shrugs helplessly. On Kyungsoo’s left, Jihoon gasps.
“Soojung!” he exclaims, rushing forward to a woman, who just fell on her knees a few feet ahead, both her hands pressed against her stomach, blood trickling from between her fingers.
Kyungsoo tenses, but this time, Jongin looks at him.
“Let’s find your dad,” he says. “Hang onto me, I’ll help you.”
Kyungsoo nods, not trusting himself enough to speak. He tightens his hold on Jongin, although leaving a safe distance between his clenching fingers and Jongin’s wound this time. He tries not to look down as he feels still on the edge of a new panic attack - and there has seen more than enough blood and bodies in display for a first time anyway.
It makes him feel slightly better to realize that Jongin probably feels the same, as he bypasses the bulk of the bodies.
Jongdae opens his eyes with a gasp, and once again, he has the scary feeling that he’s now sitting outside his body, like he has been badly synchronized. It was terrifying the first time, but now it’s actually painful, and he lets out a low moan as he curls up on himself. His forehead grazes the concrete, and that enough overwhelms him. He feels the heat the road emits, he smells rubber and gasoline, he feels the irregularities against his skin, and he sees the details crystal clear. It drives into his mind with another shot of pure pain that knocks the air out of him. His eyes fill with burning tears, and he feels something hot dripping from his nose. Glancing down, he catches the first drop of blood splatter on the concrete, and once again, his mind is overwhelmed.
Jongdae closes his eyes. He hears the water lapping. He hears his blood rush through his veins. There’s another sound, one that he’s never heard before, one that makes him uneasy because it’s everywhere. When his mind draws a picture out of that sound, his heart crashes loudly against his ribcage. Cells. He’s hearing cells dividing and dying, and coming back to life. Jongdae lets out a shaky sob as he presses his palms against his ears.
It was too much. It was too hard. But he did it. He followed that wave everywhere it took him, and he took everyone out, but now he feels barely alive. Or too alive, and it scares him. He can literally hear the walls of his lungs expand and open when he breathes. The saliva he gulps down sounds like a waterfall. He lets out a groan, hoping that his voice would cover everything, and it just scares him even more when he picks up the vibrations of his vocal chords and the layers in his intonations.
Jongdae holds his breath. He can feel the blood trickling down his chin, he can taste it on his lips. He tries to tone down the fear rising up in his chest by thinking about all those times he woke up freaking out after a bad dream. This time is a bit more violent, but it’s the same thing, he repeats himself. He needs to think about what he would do if he could slip into his brain. He needs to think about synapses, about electricity and nerve endings. Here, he would cut the connection. There, he would create one. Little by little, he would tear down this feeling, and he would replace it with a softer one, a calmer one.
He takes a deep breath. His heart still hurts, but his senses aren’t as sensitive anymore. Sniffing, Jongdae winces as copper fills his mouth. He wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve and straightens. The first thing he sees is a still unconscious Frank lying next to him. Jongdae lets go of the green radio with a jolt as though it burnt his fingers. He doesn’t hear any gunfire coming from the other side of the roadblock anymore, which is definitely a good sign. He did it. He really did it.
He looks up at Sehun, pride and relief washing over him. It’s a fleeting victory though, because when his eyes fall where Sehun’s face should be and are only met by the right railing of Misaine bridge, the downfall is quick to come.
“Sehun?” Jongdae tries. He looks right and left. His heart speeds up in his chest. “Sehun?”
He grabs the closest car’s door and uses it for support as he gets back on his feet. His head peeks out from behind the roadblock, and police officers immediately point at him. Jongdae looks at the bodies lying at their feet, but none of them is Sehun’s. His legs still a bit unsure, he slides over a bonnet and lands on the other side. He can’t hear Sehun’s heart. He’s not here.
One of the women starts clapping as Jongdae walks unsteadily to them, and the rest of the policemen join her in pleased cheers. Jongdae flashes them a slight smile, most of his attention still focused on finding Sehun.
“Thank you Alpha,” the woman says when he reaches her. “Thank you so much.”
She’s half sobbing, half smiling, and Jongdae’s heart clenches in his chest. He draws all his attention on her, feeling a bit guilty. She’s bleeding from her lip and eyebrow arch, and now that Jongdae is actually paying attention, he can taste blood on the back of his tongue. He looks around him and sees multiple wounds.
“You should call for an ambulance,” he tells the police officers. “And you need to get out of the bridge. Call a bomb-disposal team…” his voice trails off.
His eyes just fell on Port Ville’s horizon line. Broken lines and buildings’s outlines tower over Misaine bridge, lightened up by neon signs and huge advertisement boards. Taller than any other building, the Business Tower watches over the city, its hundreds of glass windows catching the faint glow of the moon and the harshest ones of Port Ville’s nocturnal life. Jongdae watches, petrified, as flashes from Thorne’s video conference with the mayor go through his mind. He distinctively remembers the huge paint hanging behind Yang Hyunsuk’s face, because it’s the one that always takes half of the frame when the mayor gives an important speech on television. It’s the one in his office. In the highest tower.
Jongdae’s breath catches in the back of his throat. He blinks down at the woman, who was apparently still talking to him and he slowly shakes his head.
“I have to go,” he says. He looks around him, already stepping away. “Please take care of you, all of you…”
He whirls around before he’s even done with his sentence and dashes off. He should have felt it coming, he should have known it. Didn’t he say he was getting pretty used to Sehun bailing out on him? Jongdae internally snorts. He hoped again, he let himself believe that everything would finally go back to normal, but how could it? Sehun has never stopped wanting his revenge, and Jongdae just buried his head in the sand. How stupid.
It feels like forever before he reaches the end of the bridge, and he welcomes the sight of the first row of houses with a sigh of relief. Adrenaline, but mostly urgency, are now slowly taking over his body, washing away the heavy pain throbbing in him, so Jongdae manages to speed up. He first jumps on the low wall running along the first house’s front lawn, then on the eaves and finally on the roof. Jumping from one roof to the other instead of using the streets will save a precious amount of time. He has no idea when Sehun left though, and for all he knows, he could already be in the tower. The mayor could already be dead. This thought has Jongdae forcing even more on his muscles. He jumps from another house’s roof and catches the gutter of a small building. He has barely hauled himself on the roof that he’s already running and gaining momentum.
He has to reach the mayor before Sehun. He has to stop Sehun. He can come back from what he did before, he can come back from the jewel thieves and Thorne’s daughter, but if he reaches the end of his quest for revenge, Jongdae can’t help but feel like the bloodlust will never stop. It would change Sehun forever, and there’s no coming back from that.
Jongdae lands harshly on a new roof, the nervousness creeping up on him now so strong that he stumbles and crashes against the concrete. He lets out a shaky moan and gets on all fours before jumping back on his feet. He winces at the peak of pain in his knees and limp towards the edge of the roof. Down below, the six lane street running around Port Ville’s business block throbs with activities. Cars drive by in a flash of headlights, and people gather at the crossings, patiently waiting for the light to turn green. On the other side of it, the Admiral Hostel stands in all its glory, towering over Jongdae. Behind the latter, the Business Tower rises even higher. On the top floor, offering a breath-taking panorama over the city, is the mayor’s office.
Jongdae pulls up his hood, takes a deep breath and steps over the edge of the roof. The ground quickly moves closer and closer, and Jongdae braces himself. He curls up, lands with a roll and immediately dashes off across the street. He hears people gasping in his back, a woman lets out a yelp, and a couple of cars aggressively honk. He can hear the engines, the brakes and tires so clearly, so he uses it instead of focusing on what he sees, and it makes his zigzagging much more precise.
He reaches the separating barrier and jumps over it. People have gathered on the other side of the street, fingers are pointing at him, and pictures are being taken. They part with a gasp when Jongdae rushes to them, and he thanks them internally as he keeps going towards the Admiral Hostel’s revolving doors. The doorman’s eyes open wide when Jongdae slides to a halt before him and his confusion gives Jongdae a chance to walk into the revolving doors. Through the spotless glasses he catches a security guard coming closer, his reflexes obviously sharper than the doorman, and Jongdae sighs. His muscles tense, adrenaline floods his body over again, and Jongdae’s breath settles down. When the revolving door open on the large hall of the hostel and on the security guard, he is ready.
He reaches out and his fingers brush the man’s arm. The latter freezes, and Jongdae immediately sets off towards the row of fancy elevators.
“Hey, is that Alpha?!”
Customers and staff barely have time to turn around that Jongdae is already slipping into an elevator whose doors just opened. The lift man inside gasps at him, and Jongdae flashes a sorry look at the clients waiting outside the elevator.
“Sorry!” he says, before pressing the button that has the doors shutting, then the one for the last floor.
Next to him, the lift man blinks.
“It’s the - the suite floor. Do you have a suite, mister…?” his voice trails on as he looks at Jongdae, and he obviously looks completely unable to wrap his head around what is going on.
Jongdae gives him a slight smile. He shakes his head.
“I’m not staying for the night,” he says politely. “I just need to reach the roof.”
“The roof,” the lift man says in a blank voice. “You might want to take my pass, the door is locked.”
He makes to take out his magnetic card from the string he’s wearing around his neck, but Jongdae stops him, slightly amused.
“I’ll be fine,” he says.
The lift man winces before nodding.
“Of course,” he mumbles. “You’re Alpha.”
Jongdae internally snorts. Yes, he is, and he’s done nothing but fucking up since he created that persona. He eyes the numbers glowing one after the other above the elevator doors. His only chance to stop Sehun in time is if Sehun decided to play a little with Yang Hyunsuk instead of killing him right away, and Jongdae isn’t sure that would be better. Pure fear is now rushing through his body, and he squirms with uneasiness before shifting closer to the doors. He needs to rush out of the elevator as soon as they open. His heart is beating so loudly he barely hears the mechanism that’s taking them to the last floor.
“It’ll be on the right, at the end of the corridor,” the lift man says behind him, and Jongdae slightly nods.
The elevator slows down and another burning shot of adrenaline takes over Jongdae. He slips his fingers in the cracks between the doors and push them open before jumping out of the elevator. He immediately turns right, straight to the white door stamped with a large red Staff only and reaches it in a few seconds. Carried by his speed, he hits the wall violently, thus cracking a few of his ribs, but Jongdae barely even winces. He dismisses the magnetic box next to the door and smashes the latter down. The racket it makes as it falls on the staircase it was hiding probably reverberates through the whole building, but Jongdae will be long gone by the time the security guards get there.
He knocks down the last door leading to the roof at the top of the staircase, and steps out. In front of him, impressing and intimidating, stands the Business Tower. Jongdae looks up at the hundreds of windows, each of them reflecting a different kaleidoscope version of Port Ville, and his breath catches in the back of his throat.
“Okay,” he says in a whisper. “Okay, let’s do this.”
He takes a deep breath and gauges the distance between the hostel and the tower. His heart thumping adrenaline and nervousness through his body, he carefully takes a few steps back for more momentum. He glances at the huge windows reflecting the Admiral Hostel’s roof on the other side, and grits his teeth. His muscles tense, harden, and Jongdae flings himself forward. He’s midway to the edge of the roof when the panoramic windows at the top of the tower shatters as a body flies through them. Jongdae glances up, immediately recognizes the fancy suit and the hoarse voice screaming into the night, and he lets himself fall on the side to slow down and eventually stop. He rolls over a few feet but hastily gets back on his feet before rushing back towards the roof access. He slides to a halt, turns around and dashes off towards the Business Tower a second time. This time though, his eyes are glued to the mayor still falling down.
Jongdae reaches the low wall, hops on it, uses it to propel himself, and he jumps over the emptiness. His body hits the mayor’s, and he grabs he latter just before they crash through a window. Jongdae feels tiny pieces of glass tear his flesh, quickly followed by several harsh surfaces colliding with him and knocking the air out of him. He lets go of the mayor’s arm at some point, still rolling through the room, and is finally stopped by a wall against which the back of his head crack.
Jongdae stays on the floor, gaping at the stainless ceiling above his head. It worked. He didn’t think it would - or he wouldn’t have thought if he had had the time to think about it. He glances at his left arm, and winces upon seeing a large sliver of glass peeking out from his biceps. Groaning, he wraps his fingers around it and pulls it out before sitting up. He can hear the mayor’s heartbeat so the latter also survived Jongdae’s desperate action, hopefully without any pieces of glass piercing his body.
Jongdae hastily gets back on his feet, and hurries towards the heartbeat. The mayor is indeed lying on the floor, half of his face bleeding out, and an expression of pure shock spread over his features. They harden when Jongdae appears in his field of vision though, and he emits a sort of outraged hiccup sound.
“You” he hisses. He sits up and moans before holding his right arm against him. “You have to take me out of here, your friend is completely crazy!”
Jongdae resists the urge to punch the politician with much difficulty because Yang does have a point. Sehun is still in the tower, and he probably saw Jongdae’s stupid rescue, which means that he’s already on his way down here.
Jongdae glances around him, internally wincing at the obvious sign of their chaotic landing. A few computers have been tossed on the floor, and chairs have toppled over. Luckily for him, his body is already healing from the aftermath, and he hardly feels sorry for the mayor who probably has some huge bruises blooming on his skin. Jongdae’s eyes stop on a close desk. He grabs the mayor by his collar and drags him across the floor.
“What are you doing?!” the Yang Hyunsuk hisses. “I am the mayor of this city and you -”
He stops to let out a pained moan as Jongdae drags him over the shattered window on the floor. He pushes him under the desk with more violence than what he aimed for, and the mayor lets out another yelp as his head hits a drawer.
“Zip it,” Jongdae snaps. “If you want to stay alive, you’re going to keep your fucking mouth shut, is it clear? Don’t you think I know what you’ve done?”
Yang Hyunsuk glowers at him, but the effect is ruined by his miserable attempt at making himself smaller. Jongdae snorts and turns around. He draws out two blades from his belt and plants himself between the desk and the hallway, his heart speeding up in his chest. He doesn’t even try to calm down his breathing because Sehun would still be able to hear him anyway, just like Jongdae hears him getting closer and closer. He braces himself as the slow, regular heartbeat amplifies in his ears, but he can’t help a shiver from running down his spine when the stairway door opens and Sehun steps inside the room.
He looks up at Jongdae, his hood pulled down but his mask still hiding his lower face. He looks dishevelled but lethal and determined. His eyes narrow at the desk behind Jongdae.
“Do you really think I can’t hear him?” he says with a snarl. “I can even smell him. He reeks of fear and hypocrisy.”
The mayor whimpers under the desk, and Sehun’s cold eyes turn into pleased slits.
“I’m not gonna let you do that,” Jongdae says. “You can’t decide who has to die. He’ll go to jail and -”
“And what? He’ll stay there? Nobody will ever be hurt because of him anymore? Why can’t you understand? It’s just one life against the dozens innocent ones he would harm.”
Jongdae shakes his head. Sehun looks scary, so angry, and it makes him feel so uneasy. He’s already drifting away. It’s like losing him all over again when he had barely started to get him back.
“We’re not killers,” he says, his voice laced with begging intonations.
Sehun grins. Something dark flashes through his eyes.
“You’re not. But I am.”
He throws one of his blade at Jongdae who dodges it, but he can’t avoid Sehun throwing himself at him, and they both hit the floor with a heavy thud. Sehun administrates the first punch. His knuckles shatter Jongdae’s cheekbone and blood spurts out of Jongdae’s nose. He shields his face from the second blow with one arm and closes his other hand around the hair on the back of Sehun’s head. Sehun groans when Jongdae pulls hard on it, and his inattention gives Jongdae the opportunity to hit him on the chest. Sehun falls on his back, thus allowing Jongdae to get back on his feet, but he immediately rolls on his side and makes to drive a blade through Jongdae’s foot. The latter avoids it in extremis and pushes Sehun further away by kicking him in the stomach. Sehun crashes against the wall.
Jongdae whirls around towards the desk, but he immediately notices the absence of a heartbeat under it. Gasping, he looks up just in time to see the mayor rush into a private office and closing the door behind him. As if it could save him.
Sehun has seen the miserable escape too, so he jumps back on his feet and rushes towards the office. Jongdae immediately dashes off, regularly glancing on his left to check Sehun’s advance. Their eyes meet several times, and Sehun groans, furious. He grabs a stapler on the run and throws it at Jongdae who dodges it again. It shatters another window behind him.
The door of the office being on Sehun’s side, he just has to smash it down to enter the mayor’s new hiding spot, and it’s exactly what he does while Jongdae finds himself overwhelmed by panic. He shields his face and speeds up towards the wall separating him from the office. He runs through it with a loud crash, and stops on the other side, both impressed and surprised. He meets Sehun’s eyes, who was still near the door, and catches sight of Yang Hyunsuk pressed in a corner in the back of the room.
Sehun eyes the hole in the wall before looking back at Jongdae.
“Let justice have him,” he begs. “Please.”
Sehun snorts.
“You’ve been trying to save this city for so long, but it just bleeds on you and you don’t even realize that you’re drowning,” he says.
They stare at each other for a while, tension closing in on them. Jongdae listens to Sehun’s heart, the mayor’s heavy breathing and whimpers getting more and more distant. He listens to the slow and detached rhythm, his eyes taking in Sehun’s face. Liquid rage is lurking under his irises, tension and bloodlust weighing down on his features. He breathes deeply. His heart slightly speeds up and Jongdae’s instincts immediately react.
He dashes off towards Sehun, meaning to stop him as the latter also sets off towards the mayor, but Sehun was obviously prepared. He dodges Jongdae’s body by crouching and sliding on the floor. He grabs Jongdae’s hip while doing so and uses it to quickly get back on his hips. It happens in the blink of an eye, and Jongdae reacts a bit too late. Sehun is already behind him, his hands already on his back, and the push comes, strong and violent. Jongdae flies away and crashes through the floor-to-ceiling window.
The wind howls in his ears, and his heart leaps out of his throat. For a fleeting second, Jongdae thinks he’s going to fall and crash fifteen floors below, but then his hands close on the edge of the window, and his fingers tighten around it, not minding the glass piercing his gloves. The rest of his body hits the window below the office, and it knocks the air out of him. Jongdae feels like his organs have all left his body.
He hears the mayor whimpers back in the office. Forcing himself out of the blurry shock state of mind he can feel himself getting into, Jongdae bites his lower lips and tenses his arm muscles. He hauls himself back into the office, hastily getting away from the shattered window as soon as his knees are back on the solid floor. His body still shaking, he looks up.
Yang Hyunsuk is still in the back of the room, but now he’s on his knees as Sehun stands behind him, two of his blades pressing against the mayor’s Adam’s apple in a lethal scissor. Jongdae slowly gets back on his feet, Sehun’s eyes glued to him.
“Please,” the mayor pleads, his voice breaking. “Please don’t -”
Sehun shifts his blades on his throat, and Yang Hyunsuk whimpers. Jongdae holds out his hand, but he stands still when Sehun’s eyes narrow at him.
“Tell me, Jongdae,” he says in a cold, burning voice. “Would you kill to save a life?”
Jongdae’s eyes go from one of Sehun’s eyes to the other. He takes a deep breath and raises his hand a little higher.
“Sehun, please don’t,” he says. “Please… Let me help you…”
“I don’t need help!” Sehun snaps. “I am not your Sehun, I am not the boy who died five years ago!”
His eyes are spitting fire and tears. Jongdae’s heart cracks and crashes in his ribcage. He can feel his own throat constrict as he watches the man who only kept features from the boy he once was. Sehun grew up so much in the past five years, and he got so taut, so broad. He’s done things the Sehun from before would have never done, both good and bad, but it doesn’t matter in the end. He’s so much more than who he was five years ago. He’s so much more than the memories Jongdae holds so dearly. He’s alive.
Jongdae takes in a shallow breath.
“I know,” he says, his voice breaking. “And that’s okay. That’s okay. I just - I just want you, Sehun.”
Sehun blinks away the tears flooding his eyes. He glances at the mayor, still at his mercy, and seems to hesitate for a bit. Then he looks up at Jongdae and slightly frowns. Tilting his head on the side, he closes his eyes, lets out a low whisper that Jongdae doesn’t catch, and his body finally stills, all tension and uneasiness dying away.
Jongdae takes another step, and Sehun reopens his eyes. He looks straight into Jongdae’s face. His heart slowly goes back to its regular rhythm.
Then he drives his two blades through Yang Hyunsuk’s flesh, slicing his throat open with a graceful flick of his wrists before stepping back and putting back his blades in his thigh holsters, the mayor’s body slouching down in front of him with a gurgling sound.
“No!” Jongdae cries out, knowing perfectly well that it is too late.
Sehun steps back as Jongdae’s heart explodes in his chest, then he turns on his heels. Jongdae rushes to the mayor’s side, begging for a miracle while he chokes on the heavy smell of blood. He lands on his knees in the puddle of thick liquid and bile burns the back of his throat when he meets the mayor’s terrified eyes. He’s chocking on his own blood, on the lack of air and on fear, but pain is probably already long gone judging by the amount of blood spreading around Jongdae’s knees. He presses his hand on Yang Hyunsuk’s throat, his palm catching the throbbing of the mayor’s sliced carotid getting slower and slower, and he lets out a shaky breath. He immediately regrets it when a ferrous taste fills his mouth.
“It’s okay,” he says in a shaky voice. “It’s okay.”
He looks over his shoulder, broken sobs rushing into his throat, but Sehun is long gone. He doesn’t even hear his heart anymore. The sound of Port Ville’s night life seems so distant, so blurry. Everything is so silent.
Jongdae looks down at the mayor.
It’s so silent.
1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9| 10| 11| 12| 13| 14