Switchblade - 21
Masterlist | Notes | Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
"What the hell? He's bonded now?" Jonghyun leans heavily against the side of the van, watching Taeil lick at Taemin's broken skin.
"For a few hours now," IU answers in place of the busy Taeil. Her voice is impressively calm, but not impressive enough that Jonghyun can't hear the nerves. She's driving now, but if he could see her face, he's sure fear would be all over it.
"And who the hell are you?" Jonghyun stares at Taeil.
Taeil doesn't even look up at Jonghyun. He steadily keeps his mouth going at Taemin's skin, which is slowly starting to come together. Taemin at least appears to be conscious - his eyes are slitted open, but he's still and not making a sound.
"He's Taeil," IU answers after a moment, "He's the reason you're alive, I would suspect."
Jonghyun takes a long look at Taeil, then at Taemin, and finally at Minho. Minho seems to still be recovering, staring blankly forward, appearing exhausted as he leans against the van across from Jonghyun. A few minutes ago, they were definitely going to die. Weren't they?
Jonghyun's brows furrow together. You'd think he'd be happy to be alive, but he can't help but feel pissed off at the unlikeliness of it all. "This is fucking insane shit," he points accusingly at Taemin, "We're saved because of him. Because he's into witchcraft or something."
"Witchcraft?" IU sounds genuinely curious. Taeil finally looks at Jonghyun, interested as well. Minho, on the other hand, can't help but smile, amused.
"Yeah, witchcraft," Jonghyun explains, "He just happens to get a bond with some random nobody vampire out of nowhere a few hours before we're almost killed, and then nobody vampire turns out to be a hero. He should have been dead years ago, no one's that lucky. He's doing some kind of voodoo witchcraft bullshit."
"Is that possible?" IU asks, "Is witchcraft real?"
"Yeah," Jonghyun crosses his arms, "Maybe. Probably. Not likely. I don't know, but something's messed up with him."
"I knew him when I was a human, didn't I?" Minho glances towards Taemin.
Jonghyun turns to Minho, appearing concerned. "You don't remember anything, do you?"
"No," Minho says, and sounds a bit sorry about it, "I don't."
Taeil's soft voice intrudes upon their conversation, asking, "Is it possible to remember?"
Jonghyun looks at Taemin. His eyes have drooped closed, but he's steadily breathing and his stomach is scratchless. "Not really," Jonghyun looks to Taeil, "So you talk now?"
"I've always talked," Taeil replies calmly, looking back at Taemin. "I was preoccupied."
"Why did you bond with him?" It's Minho who asks. He keeps taking quick glances at Taemin, as if he wants to stare, but doesn't want the headache that's sure to come with any start of a memory.
"It was just an accident," is Taeil's answer.
"Accident, huh?" Jonghyun frowns, sounding fully bitter when he asks, "What kind of idiot are you?"
"I would have killed him if he didn't bite me. I didn't know anything about bonds."
"Taeil is a newborn vampire," IU adds helpfully. Her voice isn't as strong as it was just a minute ago - maybe she's thought more about the consequences of going against The Council.
Jonghyun asks, "You're alone, huh?"
Taeil is staring at Taemin, appearing to be concentrating very hard. "Not any more," he says.
Jonghyun rolls his eyes, "Whatever."
"Um.. by the way," Minho straightens somewhat, looking towards IU, "Where are we going?"
"It's the only place I can think of where we'll all be remotely safe," she sighs and mumbles to herself, "It's not like I exactly wanted to end up making a stand against The Council... come to think of it, though, I might want to call ahead.."
"Yeah, whatever, so where is it?"
Taemin opens his eyes, looking confused around the room he's in. He's definitely still alive. He locates Taeil sitting on the edge of the bed he's in, and immediately announces, "This is the most comfortable bed I've ever been in."
Taeil looks at him, half-smiling. "Glad you're up."
"I'm glad I'm up too," Taemin lifts the covers. He's wearing all of his same clothes but his shoes. His shirt is blood stained, but when he lifts it up, there's not a scratch. "You completely healed me..."
Taemin notices that Taeil's sucking on something when he gives the slightest big-toothed grin. "Do you have candy?"
Taeil's grin disappears. He looks cautiously at Taemin, "Yes. I have candy."
Taemin raises a brow. For a moment he's confused by Taeil's change in attitude, but the reason hits him after just a moment. He laughs a bit, assuring him, "I won't ask for any. Where did you get candy though? Um.. where are we?"
"Sayu brought us here," Taeil says, "It's some kind of anti-council group base or something. It just seems like a really big house, if you ask me."
Taemin sits up, looking interested. "Minho. Minho is here?"
"Those two vampires.. one of them is Minho, right? They're both here."
Taemin takes a moment to look back at his recent memory, lingering in his mind on a vision of Jonghyun clinging onto Minho inside of that cage. "Oh," he says blankly, "Both of them, huh?"
"I tried to ask them why you were so interested in saving them, but they wouldn't exactly say," Taeil looks a little annoyed now, "You could try to explain what's going on."
"Sure," Taemin straightens up, "My neighbor was kind of my best friend and he got bonded to a vampire named Noodle, and one day I was out at night and I saw noodle and so I said hey, but these two other vampires were with him and at that time they were working for The Council so one of them, Jonghyun, came after me. The other one, Key, tortured me but then I got free and I was at the hospital but Noodle came to the hospital too and we got out together and then when we got home my neighbor best friend was gone so Noodle and me had to look for him and we found out that he was in Seoul with The Council so we were going to save him from The Council but I got arrested, but then Noodle saved me, and then we both went to The Council and saved my friend - Noodle even dressed as a girl to do it - and then we had to go into hiding. We all had fun while we were hiding, but soon someone came and took my friend so me and Noodle had to go after him again. When we did, Jonghyun and Key were there and first they killed a girl and then they took Noodle off, and when they did that this guy came and took me to The Council.."
"You don't have to talk so fast," Taeil says, looking bewildered. "This Council thing, what is that all about anyway?"
Taemin sighs, looking closely at Taeil. "I have a lot to teach you..."
His attention is drawn away from Taeil, though, when the door is pushed open. Taemin recognizes the voice before he recognizes the face - it's smooth and menacing even in it's perfectly polite tone as it says, "Ahh, Taemin. It's nice to see you awake."
Although different hair and different clothes almost make Jiyong look like an entirely different person, Taemin would never forget him. He immediately reaches into his pockets and then all around him - he doesn't have any vampire blood around him except for what's in bodies, and worse than that - he doesn't have his switchblade.
-------------------------------------------------
NOTE!! I just feel I should say that you might see 'Next' on the bottom of entries before the next chapter is actually up sometimes. That's because I occasionally make placeholder entries while I work on the story - I apologize if it's misleading. ♥
Also, sometimes I read paragraphs back to myself out loud to make sure the wording is decent. I.. failed at doing that with Taemin's... synopsis of Open Window there. lolll
Next