tell me, would you kill to save a life ; 6/14
ii. no man's land
Faster. Faster.
Sehun's breath is coming out in short erratic puffs that tear the silence apart. His heart is swelling in his chest, pressing against his ribcage until it feels like his bones are cracking under the pressure. Under the fear.
Faster. Faster.
Sehun lets out a helpless groan as he glances over his shoulders, his body twisting with desperate spasms. A low curse slips out of his mouth as he catches the thick rope digging through the flesh of his wrists. He tries, again and again, to loosen the knot by wriggling his hands. The curse turns into a broken sob and Sehun looks up to scan the warehouse. It's so silent, so dark and odourless. Stinging pain shoots through his wrists as the rough material of the rope burns deeper into his skin, and Sehun's eyes fill with salty tears. He gasps, swallows his sobs and repeatedly blinks at the darkness around him. What would Jongdae smell? he forces himself to think, what would he hear? Sehun sniffs, pretends like blood is not trickling down his palms, and focuses on Jongdae, on the softness of his eyes, on the depth glistening in his irises when he focuses on his senses. Jongdae would probably smell essence or other boat related things, left lingering in the air by the day of activity on the docks. He would also smell the gasoline, stronger, toxic, splattered all over the warehouse. And he'd probably see moonlight dust seeping through the rotten planks of the warehouse. Jongdae would have hints of saltiness curling on the corners of his lips. Sehun mindlessly licks his, but the saltiness he tastes has nothing to do with the ocean. He closes his eyes, grits his teeth and pulls harder as he focuses on Jongdae. What would he hear, what would he hear?
The swell. Jongdae would hear the swell. Sehun's broken sobs break through the barrier of his sealed lips. Oh, how he wishes he could hear the swell, and not that ticking bomb at his feet, or his own sobs. He wishes he could hear waves and lapping instead of the silence around him. He wishes Jongdae would be here, breaking it with the sound of the door opening and the thuds of his soles against the concrete as he'd run to Sehun and take him far from that place.
He wishes he didn't hear Thorne's voice, his singing tone, the laugh in his intonation. Oops, did I tell him thirty minutes? Do you think he'll be mad if I changed it to twenty? I like twenty. My birthday's on the twentieth, you see.
Sehun's scream explodes in the darkness, and blood fills his mouth as he bites down on his tongue, desperately trying to wriggle his hands out of the knot. His wrists are burning, but he can't think about stopping. The alternative is too surreal, impossible. He can't even check the countdown on the device lying at his feet, can't even look at it. He braces himself, closes his eyes, and forces harder and harder, until, finally, he feels the tension of the rope loosens.
He freezes, and gasps as he manages to slip a hand out of the knot. His heart speeds up in his chest. He's going to make it. He's going to get out of that warehouse before it blows up, and then he'll take care of Thorne with Jongdae and Dahye. Everything will be alright, his mind is chanting, everything will be alright. He doesn't notice he's whispering it until he struggles with shaking fingers to untie the rope around his ankles. He lets out another curse. The blood all over his hands is making them slippery, and it takes him longer than it should to unbound his feet. But he finally makes it. He's free.
Sehun hops back on his feet. Relief washes over him, more powerful than any lungful of oxygen he could have breathed in, and he allows himself a shaking gasp as more tears fill his eyes when the pain left all over his body by the beating he took wakes up. It wouldn't slow down Jongdae, he thinks, because Jongdae would heal, and it gives him enough strength to dash off towards the door a few steps ahead. It's close, so close. He's running faster than he has ever run before.
He crashes against the metallic surface, against a handle that won't turn, against a locked door.
“No,” Sehun breathes out. He throws a punch against the door, and more pain seizes him.
He presses his palms flat against the door and pushes as hard as he can, but nothing happens. He kicks it, knees it, throws all his momentum against it, but the door won't move. Sehun's legs eventually give in, and he collapses, sobbing.
He wishes he could hear the swell, but he wishes he would hear Jongdae breaking through that door even more. He wishes Dahye's voice was in his ear, whispering soothing words of comfort. He wishes the bomb would stop ticking his life away, he wishes - Sehun freezes, his sobs immediately fading out. He looks up, his heart beating wild in his chest, and his gaze falls on the boxes filling the warehouse. They were right about Thorne using the warehouse as a stash. So what if they were right about the rest? What if?
Sehun jumps back to his feet, his balance weak and shaky. He rushes to the bomb anyway, hope shooting fire in him. He avoids the red numbers, but throws himself at one of the boxes and rips it open. He barely allows himself to breath in when his eyes fall upon carefully aligned test tubes. The dark blue liquid filling them stares back at him, and Sehun allows himself a fleeting thought about the irony of the colour, his own mask suddenly heavy on his face. How is he even supposed to put that thing in his blood? Will it even work? Will it give him a chance to survive the blast? Will he recover from that?
The question, the need for an answer has Sehun's curiosity beating him, and he glances at the bomb behind him. Nine minutes. He would have had nine minutes if Thorne had set it on thirty, just like he told Jongdae. Nine minutes instead of that single red one mocking Sehun. It's fleeting though, because it soon disappears, replaced by a threatening zero.
Sehun grabs a tube and pops it open. It slips through his shaky bloody fingers and splatters on the ground at its feet. Sehun whimpers, but takes another one as fast as he can and pours its content all over his wounds, hoping they are deep enough, large enough. Once again, irony crosses his mind, and he lets out a chuckle that sounds mad and desperate to his own ears. He takes another tube, opens it and drinks the liquid, choking on its chemical, burning taste. He pours another one on his open wounds, crying, chuckling, shaking.
He glances at the bomb again. Jongdae is late, too late. But it's okay. And maybe it was supposed to be that way anyway. Maybe Sehun was meant to find out about Jongdae, maybe he was meant to fall in love with him. Maybe their first kisses were meant to be this good, just so that Jongdae would have the strength to kill someone. Sehun thinks about irony, one last time, when he considers how many months it took him to gather the courage to confess. He's going to die the day after he finally did.
He chuckles, again. Damn, it's so silent here.
Sehun opens his eyes to city sounds, cars roaring, people chatting, and voices whispering in his ears. Through Port Ville's daily ruckus, and the memory of the sound of his bones snapping and breaking, he hears it, distant but strong and persistent. The swell.
Jongdae stares at his fingers hovering over the door knob, details filling his eyes. He can see the sewing stitches of the sleeve covering half of his hand, the thin lines mapping his knuckles and joints, the numerous colours spread over his skin. A bit of red here, a hint of blue veins right there, and ghostly white for his bitten nails. Everything is so vivid, from the blinding light he can almost feel heating through his hood, to the smells around him. They're strong, poisonous. Jongdae has never liked hospital, mostly because of how noisy they are and how strong they smell, but today is even worse than usual. Something is reaching out inside him, desperately palpating the world around him on the lookout for the slightest flaw, the tiniest crack. Anything that will tell him that the last couple of hours were nothing more than a dream, a pure hallucination. Jongdae glances at the window at the end of the corridor, and his eyes fly past it, straight to the lighter shade of black on the horizon. The first rays of sunshine are staring back at him, smirking. The sun is rising, and Jongdae doesn't wake up. This wasn't a dream.
He closes his eyes when his palm curls around the door knob. If only he could stop his senses from ruffling around him, if only he could shut it all down... The rush of colours and feelings makes him want to throw up, and his body feels heavy like lead. He'd give anything to be sleeping right now, but there are more important things to do.
He adjusts his hood, breathes in and finally turns the handle. Blinding white swoops down on him, and Jongdae has to stop at the door for a few seconds before the room finally appears. He closes the door behind him and turns around under two pairs of very serious eyes. He meets Dahye's first, and he can tell from how she is sitting on a bland chair, stiff and straight, that she isn't feeling any better than he is. She's fixed her hair in a messy bun, and the bruise blooming on her temple is now on full display, weighing down on her right eye like a stormy sky. Chanyeol, who is sitting in the hospital bed, watches him with wide eyes, red hair clashing with the white gauze wrapped around his head.
“Is he okay?” Jongdae asks Dahye with a short nod towards Chanyeol, whose eyes bulge out even more. Uneasy, Jongdae internally prays that the mask on his face and his hoodie are enough to counter the reporter's insistent gaze.
“Yep,” Dahye answers. “They want to keep him for the day though, just in case. He was hit pretty badly.”
“I got stitches,” Chanyeol blurts out almost proudly before freezing and shooting an embarrassed glance at Dahye. “I'm sorry. It's just... I wasn't expecting him to check up on me.”
The grim look on Dahye's face cracks over an amused one for a fleeting second, but it fades away as soon as she draws her focus back to Jongdae. He can hear her heart speeding up, as though she was itching to tell something but couldn't. He hopes she can read in his own eyes how much he'd want to be alone with her right now. It feels like an earthquake inside him, and he's splitting up, opening on the most painful tug-of-war he's ever dealt with. He wishes he could take Dahye's hand and get the hell out of this hospital without looking back, but at the same time, he can feel the urge to question Park Chanyeol and solve this whole mess. A faint part of him also keeps zooming on the window as it tries to push him to fly through it and wander in the city to try and pick up Sehun's scent.
Jongdae swallows and blinks away the blinding glare of sunlight on the window to look at Dahye.
“Are you okay?” he asks. He didn't mean to emphasize that much on the word, but now that he did and that she's watching him with large deep eyes, he realizes how needed it was. She's his best friend, his better half, and they're in this chaos together. He's not only asking about the bump on her head, he's asking about the kind of support she needs from him.
“Yeah,” she answers. “It's just a lump.”
Jongdae mimics her nod. He keeps silent as his senses crash like waves all around him again, and he takes in the whole hospital, the smell of death and diseases, the moans, the breathless pleading, the nurses talking, the machines shrieking in the operating room, and mostly, Dahye's partner, Frank, getting in the police car parked next to the emergency room. He hears him sighing as he buckles up.
“Well, isn't that fucked up,” Lee Jinki says as he turns on the engine. “I can't believe Thorne's out again.”
Jongdae's conscience flies out of the car before getting sucked into his body again. A thrumming migraine lashes out against his temples, but he pushes it away as he draws back his focus on Chanyeol. He waited for the cops to question him and Dahye, so now, it's his turn.
“I want you to tell me everything,” he demands.
Chanyeol glances at Dahye, as though waiting for her approval. She faintly nods and the reporter relaxes.
“I'm afraid I don't have much to tell though... He dropped on me while I was taking pictures of - uh.” He pauses and throws a nervous look at Dahye. “Uh - I mean - while I was taking a stroll. He hit me and I passed out. I woke up to you on the floor and Officer Jang here trying to wake you.”
Jongdae’s eyes travel to Dahye's face. She shrugs helplessly.
“I tracked down your earpiece, but I think he was waiting for me. He got me when I got out of my car. I tried to shoot at him, but he hit me.” She gestures at her lump, frustration glistening in her eyes. “I didn't pass out though, but I can't give you many details. He just dragged me into the building, and he waited for you to wake up next to Thorne and Chanyeol.”
She pauses, but Jongdae knows she's not done. She bites her lower lip and finally lets the words spill out.
“He was so strong,” she whispers. “I couldn't do anything...”
Her eyes are requesting answers that Jongdae doesn't have, and his own frustration echoes in her irises. They exchange another look, Dahye's eyes confused, and Jongdae's probably as helpless as he feels. For every obvious thing that screamed at them that it was really Sehun talking to them, there was at least two things that would have never been in the same sentence than Sehun's name five years ago. His super strength, just like his new ability to heal, are probably at the top at the list, but it's so long in Jongdae's head that he has stopped counting. It keeps replaying in his mind though, the anger, the icy stare, the stillness and the disgust...
Chanyeol's eyes go from Dahye to Jongdae, and he freezes.
“Wait, so you do know that guy?” He turns to Dahye with a suspicious look. “And you know him too, because he said your name...” he trails on as he takes in Jongdae and Dahye, his brows deeply furrowed. “And you two also seem to know each other so - oh.”
Realization smooths Chanyeol's features, and his mouth open in a perfect o as he stares at Dahye with wide eyes.
“Of course we know each other,” she groans. “I'm a cop, Park, remember? We've been working together for quite some time already.”
Dahye doesn't waver as she throws her unashamed lie at Chanyeol. She was so quick to react, so efficient with her performance that anyone would have swallowed what she said as the ultimate truth. Jongdae remembers her incessant whining about Park Chanyeol, the reporter who always found the thing the PVPD didn't want the press to know though, and he can tell from how intense Chanyeol's eyes are on his best friend that he definitely isn't anyone. Deeming safer to draw his mind on something else, Jongdae clears his throat. Chanyeol immediately looks at him, and the imposing man he was barely a second ago leaves room for an almost timid looking young man.
“Did he ask you anything about yourself?”
Chanyeol shakes his head. “No, sir - I mean Alpha. Uh. Alpha sir.”
Jongdae pretends he doesn't see the faint pinkness blooming on Chanyeol's cheekbones. (In fact, he sees his pores, his sees his lashes, the slightly lighter splinters of brown circling his pupils. He sees everything.)
“But what he told us in that room, it was all true?”
Chanyeol nods as he presses his lips together.
Jongdae closes his eyes, and flashes from Sehun's big speech splatter his eyelids. He knew many details about Chanyeol, details that he couldn't have learned at the last minute. He knew who he wanted to be on that chair, next to Thorne. The Bottoms, the fight for the truth... Sehun searched for someone like Chanyeol. His speech was written before he even got to say it, because despite the anger that was flooding him and the several loss of self-control, Sehun didn't lose sight of what he wanted to do. Everything was carefully thought through.
“It was all planned,” Dahye whispers.
Jongdae keeps colours, light and details at bay by focusing on the darkness of his closed eyelids. Sehun knew Jongdae wouldn't be able to stay away. He knew exactly how to lure him to the asylum. That other night on the street, he also knew that endangering civilians would allow him to shake Jongdae off. He knew how to act, to fight, what to do and not do. He knew it, because he's Sehun, and because he's known Jongdae since he was sixteen. He knew it because Jongdae trained him, because they spent so many nights jumping over roofs and dark alleys together, and because he used to be the person Jongdae would whisper his secrets to in the dead of night. Jongdae, on the other hand, has no idea what to do. He would have never thought possible for the hole in his chest to be even bigger. It's a black hole now, and it's swallowing absolutely everything.
“Whether it was or not, I'm pretty sure Thorne escaping wasn't on his list though,” Chanyeol points out.
Jongdae opens his eyes.
“That was on Thorne's though. He knew what was coming, and he was prepared.”
Thorne's chuckling voice pops up in his mind, like it did so often these past five years, except this time, these are new words, new implied meanings. You got very fast, didn't you, my boy? Who should you thank for that, uh? Then it's Sehun, Sehun whispering and answering to a voice that didn't talk out loud. The migraine lashes out harder against Jongdae's temples, and he lets out a small sigh.
“Thank you for your help,” he tells Chanyeol with a tired voice. “Now you should rest.”
Chanyeol's eyes open wide - a thing they seem to do a lot - but Jongdae has no interest in staying and watching the reporter protesting. He turns on his heels and walks to the door as Chanyeol's lungs fill with air behind him. He hears him open his mouth and straightens in his bed.
“What? I've been abducted and you're not gonna give me anything? Who was that guy?”
Dahye's stool cracks when she stands up and her voice stabs Jongdae's eardrums.
“Listen Park, this is very serious, okay? Don't write about what happened. It's an on-going investigation. Am I being clear?”
The migraine lashing out against Jongdae's temples now feels like burning needles piercing his skin and brain. He takes off his mask, his back turned on Chanyeol's room, and the light brush of the material against his cheeks roars in his ears. Even the feeling of the doorknob against his palm is overwhelming, and the sound the door makes when he opens it is painful. Jongdae shoves the mask in his hoodie's pocket, mind set on leaving that place as soon as possible, but the hospital swoops down on him with a mix of colours and sounds so intense that it stops him dead in his tracks. Jongdae pauses in the middle of the hallway, his head hanging low and his eyes fixed on the yellowish linoleum. He doesn't realize he's crying before the first tear falls off and crashes loudly on the ground, near his shoes. He keeps seeing the warehouse when he blinks, the inferno, the fire devouring it, but now it's worse because he knows Sehun is somewhere, dying, changing, breaking. He needs to know what happened.
“Jongdae...?”
Dahye's soft voice is easily drowned by the ruckus going on around them, but it howls in Jongdae's ears. He jolts and turns to look at her. She gives him a long look before she reaches out to wipe his tears away, but she doesn't say anything.
“You really think Thorne knew what Sehun had planned?”
Jongdae shrugs.
“He had his men waiting, hadn't he? Maybe he didn't know it was Sehun specifically, but he was prepared. It could have been a set up to catch the man who killed his daughter.”
Jongdae's insides squirm with uneasiness when Thorne's sudden seriousness after the mention of his daughter comes back to him. He would have never depicted him as a fatherly figure, the kind of man who could love anything else than chaos and death, but those cold eyes didn't lie about his intentions.
Dahye lets out a sigh. Her face looks hollow and she is so pale that the bruise on her temple appears almost black. Jongdae reaches out and takes her hand, slowly but firmly. He can feel her skin and all the little bumps, the lines and veins under his fingers, and his senses go in overdrive once again. It doesn't stop him from intertwining their fingers though. She glances at him, weariness heavy in her irises.
“That can only mean he's up to no good.”
Jongdae nods. Her heart is beating so loudly it's painful, and he hears her swallow and breathe. There's a soft thud regularly hitting his eardrums that he finally identifies as the sound of her blood rushing through arteries, and a low whistling that comes from her lungs. He hates how his senses make her look and sound like an intricate bundle of flesh and bones, because she's so much more than a miracle of biology, and right now, he needs her to be more, just like she needs him to be whole.
“What do we do now?” she whispers.
He hears every intonation, every drop in her voice so loudly that he slightly winces. As he takes her in, he realizes there really is only one answer to her question and to what they both are feeling.
“Do they expect you to show up at work tomorrow?”
She shakes her head. “They gave me a couple of days off.” She pauses and looks into Jongdae, suddenly suspicious. Realization about what he's actually asking her finally blooms over her features, and the creases between her eyebrows smooth out, much to Jongdae's relief. “Who's our priority? Sehun or Thorne?” she asks.
“Sehun,” Jongdae says with no hesitation.
She nods in a heartbeat too. It wasn't much of a question anyway.
“Okay, let's go to my place then. I'll suit up and we'll set off. Thorne's probably after him already.”
Jongdae opens his mouth even though he has no idea what to say - maybe something along the lines of I'm pretty sure Sehun can defend himself now - but something blows up in his mind before he gets to say anything. He wavers and moans as he presses the heel of his hand against his temple. Dahye holds him, but Jongdae's vision goes blurry before he can read her worried features. Waves are crashing against his thoughts in loud raging tides, and the electricity, the buzzing, it's all too much. He's tired, and still in shock. The weak control he's usually able to gather over his powers is laughing at him now. Everything is so intense.
Not as intense as the icy cold fear which seizes him when the crackling of statics dies out to turn into a mad cackling. Dahye freezes, both her arms still holding Jongdae, and they exchange a heavy look. Behind them, the noisiness of the hospital has faded away, now replaced by whisperings and gasps, and still that same cackling. Jongdae spins on his heels and joins the larger hall in a few strides feeling like his heart is falling in his stomach. That fear, that sound... the TV programs hijacked... It hasn't happened once in five years, but now that the monster is out of the box again...
Jongdae stops a few feet away from the reception desk, a few feet away from the TV set screwed above their heads, and he watches, powerless, as Thorne's face fills the screen.
“Hello, people of Port Ville!” Thorne pauses, his features scrunching up in an overplayed expression of wondering. “You know I never knew how to call y'all? Is it Port Villers? Port Villois?” he says with a heavy French accent. “French people gave this name to our city back in the days, so who could answer this better than a pure-bred French monsieur?”
The camera shakes, and the sound cracks as Thorne moves it. Jongdae catches blank walls, large windows and wood, lots of wood. His brain narrows down the possibilities to the docks, and ninety percent of the Bottoms. He inches closer without realizing, hoping to catch another detail, and knocks into the nurse before him. She doesn't even react, her eyes set on the screen, and her hand barely muffling a gasp as another face shows up.
“Well, bonjour,” Thorne's voice says off-screen.
He's rewarded by Arnaud Beaulieu's green eyes glaring at him. The leader of the French mob of Port Ville is standing tall, so tall actually that Thorne has to lift the camera to keep Beaulieu's face in the frame. His suit is ruffled, torn in several spots and covered in dust, but his hair is still neatly parted, and the flower he always wears on his jacket's pocket glows with a radiant red. Despite the beating he's obviously taken and the numerous guns probably aiming at him right now, Beaulieu doesn't waver when Thorne presses the camera against his face. It leaves a sweat mark on the lens.
“Are you really one hundred percent French, friend? Or is it just a … how do you say that? Ah, yeah, a mascarade?”
Thorne chuckles. Beaulieu gives him a patronizing look.
“Your French accent is terrible,” he deadpans.
Thorne's laugh reaches higher notes that whistles through the TV screen, and Jongdae grits his teeth. Dahye is pressing against his side, but just like everyone else, her eyes are glued to the screen. The camera moves again in a blur of greyish colours that Jongdae hardly makes out.
“You know what isn't a mascarade though, dear neighbours? My nickname. Surely you remember don't you?” Thorne snickers as his face fills the foreground again. “Maxwell Thorne, the Mad Bomber, you used to call me. How sweet of you.”
Thorne steps away from the camera, the latter in someone's hands now, and he presses a hand on his heart. His eyes turn icy and calculating, and the next smirk he flashes the camera looks feral, animal.
“This is a public announcement. My men have hidden bombs everywhere in your beloved city. How many, you'd ask? Who knows, I've never been good at mathematics. I was more of a science nerd.” His jokes don't sound the same when he is not snickering them, and Jongdae can't help a shiver from running down his spine. “You can run around like the little ants that you are and try to find them all while hoping there isn't one hidden in your house, or you can just obey and no one will blow up your grandma. The Bottoms belong to me from now on. That stinky island is mine, and mine only. My men are currently taking over the bridges, and no traffic is allowed any more. Dear PVDP, you have thirty minutes to get the hell out of my island.”
Thorne stops, and his smile widens. His eyes get even more intense, and for a disturbing second, Jongdae actually feels them through the screen and the miles between Thorne and him. He can't help but think like there's a hidden message in that last sentence, and it hits him like a freight train. He told you you had thirty minutes to save me, but he set the bomb on twenty minutes. What a sick idea of an inside joke.
“After that, I catch one of you here? I push the button. You try to reach my island? I push the button. You breathe a little too loud? I push the goddamn...” Thorne turns around. “How do you say button in French?” he throws at Beaulieu, who is still standing behind him.
The latter groans something and Thorne cackles. He turns back at the camera.
“I push the goddamn connard.” He pauses and frowns. “Are you sure about that Beaulieu? Doesn't sound like button at all. But who cares, uh? The French have long given up on our city, but fear no more, people of Port Ville, the king is back.”
He spreads his arms in a welcoming home gesture, but his fingers clench in the air, sharp nails scraping the darkness around him.
“For the boldest, I have another type of button. Commissioner Do, my dear sweet friend, did you miss me? I've heard you've been quite busy those past five years. How do I know, do you ask? Well, I've been doing some quality catching up with your boy, your Kyungsoo. He isn't very chatty, to be honest, so I have to hit a bit harder than on Mrs. Mayor wife, but well. We've been having lots of fun, don't you worry. You've got a friend in me, you've got a friend in me,” he singsongs.
His eyelids slightly drop over his blue eyes, and his smile fades out. For a fleeting second, Jongdae thinks the stream has died, and he expects some journalists from the news channel to take over and start blabbering barely comforting words, but Thorne suddenly starts moving again. He pulls out a gun from his belt, and turns around. His finger hits the trigger, and the detonation echoes loudly in the hall, barely covered by the gasps and surprised exclamations. Beaulieu's body falls to the ground and Thorne eyes the camera with a dark, serious look.
“Now, this is what happens when people try to take my territory.” He blows on his canon, cowboy style, and his face suddenly breaks into a wild grin. He curls his hands around the gun and uses it as a microphone. “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. Weeeeeeeeeee oooh, wim-o-weh.”
His voice breaks and he coughs, half chuckling. His eyes fall on the camera again, and he winks.
“I wanted to sing that Ratatouille French song, you know? But honestly, he was right, my French pronunciation is pretty bad.” He adjusts his hold on the gun. “Anyway, people of Port Ville, you have been warned. Have a good day.”
He aims at the camera and shoots. The TV screens turns black, then white as statics buzz. Jongdae's throat feels like it's made of sandpaper. He turns to look at Dahye in the middle of medical staff and sick people sobbing, frantically talking or panicking, and he meets her dark wide eyes.
“Jongdae,” she whispers.
“You need to call Frank.” Even his voice sounds dry, like it's more dust than intonations. “Then we'll go to Lexie's.”
“Take me with you,” a low voice suddenly says.
Jongdae tenses as he picks out the huskiness of Chanyeol's voice. He immediately feels the heavy absence of the hood on his head, or the mask on his face. Chanyeol is close, just behind him, and he can feel the heat radiating from his body. Dahye immediately reacts though, and she steps behind Jongdae and Chanyeol, hiding as much as she can of Jongdae's back with her small figure.
“Yeah, sure,” she mocks him. “Go back to your room, Park, and follow your doctor's orders. This is no time to hunt for a big scoop. People are going to die,” she snaps.
“Oh come on,” Chanyeol protests.
Jongdae feels the vibrations against his soles, he feels Chanyeol trying to walk around Dahye, but small or not, she's never let anyone step on her feet, and she's not about to do it now. Her hand close around Chanyeol's arm, and the fabric ruffles under her tight hold.
“You're aware that I do know your name, aren't you?” Chanyeol says in an angry voice, and Jongdae winces. He had hoped Chanyeol would have missed that part of Sehun's speech, in vain obviously. He is a reporter after all, and a pretty good one.
“Oh no you are not using that threat Park Chanyeol, or I swear to God I will dig into what you were doing earlier tonight, and I'll throw you in jail, do you hear me?”
Chanyeol gulps, loud and clear in Jongdae's ear. Next second, Dahye is grabbing him by the arm and pushing him towards the exit while making sure Chanyeol can only catch Jongdae's back.
“Now's not the time for being reckless,” she hisses.
Jongdae doesn't bother answering. He lowers his head and lets her guide him to the front door. The skin on his neck prickles with uneasiness, and he doesn't need to look over his shoulders to know that Chanyeol is following him with his round, intense eyes. He didn't use the name excuse earlier though, and Jongdae chooses to think it's because he had no intention to reveal it anyway. Even if he did, there are more than two millions of people in Port Ville, and there's probably more than one Jongdae living here. If Chanyeol really wants to run after the one behind the Alpha mask, it'll take him some time. Right now, Jongdae has bigger fish to fry.
He tries not to think about Sehun watching Thorne's video, Sehun's eyes going icy cold as they fall on the face of the man that killed him. Sehun gearing up and going after Thorne as though crossing a whole island probably full of mercenaries wasn't a big risk. Jongdae hates to realize how much of him still wants to find him, even if it's just to beg him to stay put. He's still Sehun. For him, he'll always be.
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