step back she toxic
cock back and pop it

The gun fit perfectly into my palm.

Seulgi and I entered the building back-to-back, guns out in front of us. The casino was empty—even the two Lees were gone. I glanced at the blood staining the carpet next to the slot machine and grimaced, knowing it was mine. I had seen Vernon punching the daylights out of Minho, but I had no idea where Hyojong had disappeared to at that time.

"How many did you see?" Seulgi asked over her shoulder, and I clenched my gun tighter as we approached the corridor.

"Just Hyojong and Minho. There were a few men upstairs, but I think I managed them," I answered, pushing down the sick feeling in my stomach as I remembered the way I had beaten them up. Crudely and cruelly, with a baseball bat. I remembered the glee I had felt while 'managing' them, so different from the disgust I felt now. What was wrong with me?

We advanced towards the staircase, not risking the elevators this time around. I stepped slowly when we came to the corridor I had found, the one that led to the lounge which had the glass wall. Well, used to have a glass wall.

"Is this what you used to beat the shit out of these men?" Seulgi asked. I turned around to see her holding up a bloody baseball bat. There was an impressed look on her face, and she smirked when she noticed me looking. "That's hot."

"Not really," I muttered, and we started in the opposite direction. One of the men lying on the floor groaned. I whipped around, gun in the air, but Seulgi had already pulled the trigger to her own. The sound of the gunshot echoed around the hallway, and I winced when the man's blood spattered the earlier spotless white wall. "That wasn't necessary."

"It was fun, though." Seulgi shrugged, flipped her hair away from her shoulder and walking away. I watched her retreating back warily, observing her careless gait, the contrast her raven hair posed against her pale skin, and the drops of blood on her skin. "Walk faster, honey. You don't want your pretty boy to die, do you?"

The fact that I knew she was talking about Vernon without her even mentioning his name made me shiver. I followed her nevertheless, trying not to thin about the dead man behind me, and the dead men that may lie on the path in front of me.

Seulgi shot the two other henchmen we encountered, but we didn't come across any significant killers that she would recognize at a glance. After scouring the upper two floors, we turned and went back to the ground floor, which we hadn't looked through yet. The building had gone eerily silent, and every step I took was as loud as an avalanche in the suspenseful quietude.

"The police should be here soon," Seulgi said as we raked the casino again, finding an injured man whom I shot in the leg, leaving him there to bleed out rather than put a bullet through his skull. At least then there was a chance that someone would find him before he died. "Unless this is a backward area and the blues avoid it like a plague, but I don't know this place very well."

"It's a criminal area all right," I muttered. I didn't know too much about the city either, but I did have a vague idea about which place held what. "You think we should head out?"

She lowered her gun, standing with her back to a hotel room. "I don't think there's anyone here left for us to find."

I let out a frustrated breath, blinking against the sting in my eyes. "Jennie entered this building," I said through gritted teeth, pushing open a door. "So did Jun. There's nowhere else they can be."

"You never know how many hidden doors a suspicious building may have," she said sagely, pushing open the door. "We just have to find the—"

She cut off her sentence as a figure darted out of the room, knocking the gun out of her hand. I spun in her direction just as she kicked out, a knife that I hadn't noticed before gleaming in her hand. The man lashed out with the butt of his gun, and she dodged it, but ended up a few feet away from him without a good long-range weapon. He pointed the gun at her, and I pointed mine at him. My voice was cold when I spoke.

"Drop the gun."

The man didn't glance towards me, a decision to be credited when dealing with Seulgi. His hood fell away from his head as he took a careful step back, revealing a head of bright red hair. "You drop the gun," he said instead, and I was surprised to find the ugly snarl in his voice, unlike the calm attitude most Lee killers donned while, well, killing. "Or I'll put a bullet through her skull."

"And you'll let her go if I listen to you?" I shook my head. "I'll pass."

"Y/N," Seulgi said silently. I glanced at her, stunned at hearing my name from her. When had she last called me by my name? I didn't even remember. "Listen to him. Drop the gun."

But my grip on the revolver tightened as I scowled, looking over her and trying to understand what she was doing. I tried to catch her eye, but she was fully focused on the man, a surprisingly intent and genuine expression on her face that I had never seen before. "What?"

"Drop it," she whispered, searching eyes looking at the redheaded killer, looking for something I didn't even know existed.

I shook my head, taking on a firmer stance. "No."

I saw the shadow appear at the bend in the corridor before I heard it in the form of a gunshot, sudden and effective as a catalyst. The man dropped his gun, hissing as he clutched his arm, and I moved forward just as Vernon and Jennie appeared. Seulgi rushed forward, but gasped before she could reach support, falling just in time for Jennie to catch her.

By the time I reached them, the red-haired man had disappeared down the hallway. Seulgi was holding her ankle, and I pursed my lips, presuming she had twisted it. I held up the gun and did a quick survey of the hallway, checking the doors and making sure there were no other surprises in store. When I was satisfied, I turned, coming face-to-face with Vernon.

Upon seeing his livid expression, I took a quick step back.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" he growled, grabbing my arm in a steel grip. I tried to pull away, but he was too strong, and I was too intimidated to even hold his gaze. The look in his eyes was vicious, feral almost, anger pulling his top lip up into a chilling snarl. "I gave explicit instructions that you were to stay in the car. Who let you leave?"

He glanced at Seulgi, who was being pulled gently to her feet by a very worried-looking Jennie. "Didn't I tell you to make sure she doesn't get within firing range? If you were the one who brought her here, I swear—"

"Vernon, calm down," Jennie said, expression terse as she pulled Seulgi's arm around her shoulders and supported her. "If we don't leave now, that bloody Lee will find us again. Anything you want to say, you can say outside."

He exhaled, a long, deliberate exhale, before relaxing the pressure on my arm—but not enough for me to be able to pull away. "I'll deal with you later," he muttered, not sparing me another glance before pulling me in the direction of the exit, the girls following us close behind.

I was furious beyond expression, but I clamped my mouth shut, burying all the rage and shame and resentment deep inside me. There was no point in trying to argue now, as the priority was getting out of the place before I could do anything else. And despite my anger, I knew that there was no point in trying to fight Vernon. He was too strong for me, and our objectives were currently the same, as sick as it sounded in my head.

The racers were outside when we exited the casino, but there were no clan members in sight. The number of corpses I had seen while in the building was nauseating, but there had been no live killers in sight.

"Everyone outside?" Jungkook called out as soon as we reached, eyes flitting among the gathering as he counted the people present. Jun was there, watching Vernon warily, and so was Chaeyoung—watching me warily. I looked away.

"Don't you dare move," Vernon hissed in my ear, low enough so that the others couldn't hear, sliding his grip from my arm to my wrist and pulling me closer to him in the process. I realized that I was trembling, feeling like there was molten lava inside me, burning through my bones and muscles and turning my insides to pure fire.

I couldn't see his face as it was turned away from me, but I could see the tension in the muscles his jaw, the tightness with which it was clenched, hard enough that I could almost hear his teeth grind. The hard muscles of his side and chest were taut when I bumped into him. He was angry, perhaps angrier than I had ever seen him before, and though it would have been wiser to keep quiet, I couldn't help the bubble of fury that rose in me when his fingers locked around my wrist like restraints.

"Let go," I whispered, a dangerous edge to my voice, tugging at my wrist.

"Not if you're going to run back in again," he said lowly, a half-full glass of wrath. His grip only tightened further. "I'm supposed to look after you, and I can't do that if you keep running away from me."

Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up.

To calm myself down, I glanced away, my eyes finding Seulgi of their own accord. Bad decision. She was still leaning against Jennie heavily, sharp features pulled into a mask of pain. I watched her as she leaned lower, probably to rest better, her hand curling around Jennie's abdomen, finding her hip, fingertips touching the holster at her side—

I realized her intentions too late. By that time, she had already slipped the pistol out of its sheath, sweeping a kick out from behind and tripping Jennie. I started towards them, but Vernon was still holding on to me. She cocked the gun and shrugged, looking down at Jennie with an almost apologetic look.

"Sorry, honey," she said softly, walking backwards, but Jennie didn't get up. "But blood comes before lust for a reason."

And then she was gone.

I stared after her, mouth half-open. Jennie propped herself up on her elbows, trying to get up, but the shock value was too much for her, and she slid back down to the ground.

"I'll go get her," Chaeyoung muttered, pushing past us and moving towards the building. Jun moved like lightning, trying to go after her, but Jungkook pulled him back by the shoulder, and then she was gone. Jun stared back at him, looking distraught, but the manager only shook his head, expression lifeless.

"That's my sister," he said softly, pleadingly, hand over Jungkook's where it rested on his shoulder. When Jungkook didn't respond, his expression turned hysterical, tears gathering in his eyes. "That's my sister, you asshole!" he screamed, pushing him away.

"She's expendable," Jungkook answered calmly, gaze level on Jun's until he turned around. "It's too late. We can't go back in there to get them."

"You knew Seulgi's brother was in there with the Lees," Jennie whispered, looking at Jungkook's retreating back with shining eyes. "You knew she would see him, didn't you?"

"We don't know when the blues might show up, or how much backup the clan has," Jungkook said instead of answering her, pulling open the door. I felt Vernon's grip tighten on my wrist again, and looked up to find him looking at the manager intensely. He seemed even angrier now, scarily, unbelievably. "They're gone, Jennie. We're leaving, and we're leaving now."

The redhead was Seulgi's brother? My mind was whirling again, and I was distinctly aware of the blood on my clothes, Vernon's skin hot against mine as he pulled me to another car. It wasn't hard to believe, not when I had seen the way her face had changed upon seeing the young man.

"Get in," Vernon said, pushing me towards the shotgun seat, and I did, too lightheaded to bother disagreeing. The car was empty except for us, and there was a strange light in his eyes, quelling and burning. It was then that I realized that I had only seen a tiny part of the maze, only scratched the surface of the web of lies and secrets that spun the world. There was so much that I knew, and so much that I did not.

"Where are we going?" I asked quietly, rubbing the red mark on my wrist from his grip. He gunned the engine, not looking at me once, but the look on his face was clear even from the side, and I knew.

We were going deeper into the maze.

──────

heads-up for the next chapter: you're not ready.