Got my claws in you

Chapter 26- frazzled nerves

JOON POV:

"Have you dispatched eyes to replace the ones Officers Park both picked up in their surveillance duty last week?" I ask, barely looking up from scanning the new sheet of narrowed down suspects, making sure that none of the more rarer hybrid species have been automatically crossed out.

The hybrids we were looking for were not only the ones (Y/N) had mentioned Min-Jun had had a visceral reaction too but potential accomplishes. Humans and hybrids alike were mingled and tangled up in this filthy business of trafficking, and that meant we couldn't overlook anyone. No hybrid singled out because of their biology.

And frown when I see that none of their registered scents match the vile, sour scent that had clung to Min-Jun's clothes, had been analysed and collected from the first of the takeout cups that (Y/N) had set down, carefully bagged and with a look of nausea on her face.

It felt like we were running in circles, chasing our own tails and led on a chase that had no bone, no nugget of information that was being procured from it. The eyes we'd taken from the seedier streets of Seoul were the ones who had the rundown of the ins and outs of all the dirty business that ran the backstreets, that were at hidden corners and alleyways.

And yet...even they hadn't spilled information about trafficker info, no info about recent circles growing with demand. No whisper on the black market about children being plucked away, of vanishing into the dead of the night.

And that alone had my instincts restless. There was no way that any trafficking ring would stop their business for the sake of procuring back one escaped child, that the large filthy network would come to a stop because we happened to find Min-Jun, beaten and bruised but having escaped, having collapsed near the suburbs and spotted on a patrol.

So it felt like this silence, this period of no news was bad, was foreboding. Was the calm before a vicious storm. And my instincts were restless, pacing and growling with that knowledge that something was happening but we didn't know what.

"We have. We switched out one of the chameleon hybrids with a trained officer as well as putting in a few prey hybrid officers too." The head in charge of surveillance reports, voice professional and clinical, ungiving to whether he was affected at all, or whether this was just yet another job, another menial task to complete in the endless strive to make even the slightest of changes.

"Good. Any information that comes through surveillance, I want it coming directly to me." I say, lifting my head to dip my head in thanks to the tall, slender senior. Face aged and worn with how much he had seen, face wan and thin, weight of duty having born him down from his prime to this. To an officer behind the desk rather than out on the field.

His face is stoic as he nods, turning on his heels to leave, the sharp clacking of polished shoes on the floor.

And as my hand reaches for the station phone, it's to dial in to the forensic lab, to see if they'd had the results of the scent come back.

Whether they'd been able to successfully break down the combined scents to identify strands. If they had, it would give us more of a lead to narrow down options, narrow down our search.

If they didn't, then we'd have to push through to find more clues.

And maybe that meant it was time to head back to the basics, to start again at the scene where Min-Jun had been found and retrace our steps.

But as my hands lift the phone off the handset, my own phone buzzes, lighting up on the table surface. Lift it up to glance at it, the notification sound specifically for Jimin. So whatever the time, whatever the circumstance, I could always respond to my mate.