Legend [YEONBIN] ✓

sixty-nine ; soobin

I frowned as an automated message told me the voice mail was full. I’d been calling Sunghoon all day, and the shaman hadn’t answered.

I shoved my phone into my pocket and glanced out the windows that lined the walkway back to the patient rooms. The sky was cloudy, but I saw, beyond the haze, the full moon.

I clutched the two banana milks tighter so mu fingers made small indents in the plastic. Sunghoon would call back. I knew how important this was. I didn’t want to dwell on the trust I was placing in the shaman again.

It’s too late, there’s no other choice, I told herself.

I stopped abruptly. Pain sliced through me, cold and sharp.

My heart stuttered, and one of the containers fell from my fingers to splatter on my shoes.

I raced to Yeonjun’s room, past startled nurses and patients. The rumpled bed was empty. Sheets tangled at the foot like they’d been kicked away. I dropped the second banana milk when I spun to grab the nearest nurse. The woman looked harried, her arms loaded with gauze.

“Where did the patient in room 1696 go?” My voice lifted in panic.

“I don’t know. Maybe they took him for a scan.” The nurse extracted herself from my grip and hurried away, sending curious glances over my shoulder.

“No,” I said to no one in particular, pressing my hand against my speeding heart. No matter what I did, I couldn’t slow it down. “Something isn’t right.”

Lights flashed across my vision and I blinked, worried I would lose consciousness if I didn’t calm down. But they wove in and out, stretched across my line of sight.

Beomgyu walked up, eyeing me suspiciously. “Where’s Yeonjun?” he asked, staring at the empty bed.

“I don’t know.” I squeezed my eyes shut. When I blinked them open, the lights began to bleed together. I realized they were pulsing. A beat like a heart. And it called to me. I knew then that it wasn’t just my imagination or the delirium of my weakening state. It was the bead calling to me. The bead leading me. To Yeonjun. I let it embrace me, let it surround me. A glow starting in my chest and growing outward. When I opened my eyes, the lights were now a steady line of glittering crimson. I followed it.

The automatic door opened to let me outside, but Taehyun blocked her path. “Soobin.”

I tried to move around him but he stopped me.
“What?” I asked, exasperated.

“It’s Ara.”

Dread settled in my belly. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

I narrowed my eyes at his careful wording. “You mean you didn’t stop her.”

Taehyun spread his hands out. “I don’t get involved in situations that can get me killed.”

“You should have stopped her.”

“She paid me well not to. And she paid me to keep you here.”

“Just try it.” I rocked onto the balls of my feet, ready to fight.

“If she finds out I let you go so easily, she might come after me.”

“Then you better run.”

Taehyun sighed, like he’d expected that answer. His hand clamped around my wrist. “I can’t let you leave this hospital. And you’re in no state to fight me.”

I twisted to free myself, but Taehyun was right. He still had his superhuman strength, and I was as weak as a child. Still, I had my wits and my desperation. Still cuffed by Taehyun’s hand, I bit the fleshy part of his palm.