𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝑰𝒔 𝑶𝒖𝒓𝒔 ✓

Chapter 17

CHANGBIN raised the phone closer to his ear and sighed.

"Mal, where are you right now?" He asked, concerned. He glanced at the exterior of his friend's gigantic house, and he would've been impressed if it wasn't for the worry rising in his chest every minute.

"I'm at the police station. We just finished meeting the detective and now we're going home," her voice echoed through his ears. He sighed and closed his eyes, eventually nodding.

"Well, I'm waiting for you at the front door. Do you mind hurrying up?"

She lightly smiled at his words. "Of course, Binnie, but I don't want you to stand for too long," she thought for a moment. "Take the spare key from the flower pot and let yourself in."

He eventually nodded, seeing that it was useless to stand on someone's doorstep for so long. He turned around, spotting the flower pot beside the door entrance. He reached for it with an outstretched arm, feeling the damp soil and fumbling for the key until he found it.

Then, he inserted it in the doorknob and soon enough, unlocked the door.

He sighed heavily and put the phone close to his ear. "I'm in."

"Great!" She replied in a soft voice. "Go to the storage room and get yourself a snack. You must be starving."

As soon as she said those words, he heard his own stomach rumbling. A faint echo, enough for both of them to hear. She lightly chuckled and nodded to herself.

"See? I'm right."

"Of course you are," he playfully scoffed, "that's why you know me very well."

She nodded at that, her face erupting into a small smile. "That's true."

A long silence on both sides for a few minutes caused her to cough.

"Anyway," she began, "I'll see you in thirty minutes."

He nodded and muttered a small reply of agreement before eventually hanging up.

❆

Mal scoffed and crossed her arms close to her chest in an attempt to hug herself. She and her brother took turns looking at each other in dismay as they had heard for the third time that the police were working on it and that they have nothing to worry about.

"You don't get it, do you?" Mal snapped with furrowed eyebrows, her voice sharp yet filled with fear. "My husband is getting raped! He's being forced to do this and now more viral videos are coming out, which is making everyone hate him and his group!"

The detective frowned.

"I know that, Mrs. Mohamed. But our hacking team members were trying to find out the IP address that posted those videos and no address could be found," he explained in a steady voice, "which only means one thing."

Her ears perked up in curiosity and she sat up straight.

"Those kidnappers aren't working alone. They have their own hacking team and they're working hard on not getting exposed. That means that we're not dealing with careless, possibly drug-addicted human beings. We're dealing with a sex trafficking syndicate."

Rajwan sat up straight with wide eyes, causing her to look at him in curiosity. "Wait—sex trafficking? That means..."

"That they have the power to remove him from this country and go to another country whose government is less likely to pursue sex trafficking," his sister finished the sentence, dread filling her insides. The detective nodded with a glimpse of sympathy.

"That's correct." The detective replied. "I think you know that, if your husband has been forcefully transferred to one of those countries, there is no hope of bringing him back."

The sentence caused a small tear to pour down her face.

Because the last thing she ever wanted was for her husband's existence to become a memory.

Her heart ached with dread and fear. Thoughts crossed her mind and tears continued to run down her face.

All she ever wanted was to have him back, safe and sound, but all she knew at that moment was that the hope was slowly slipping away from her, into a dark, seemingly endless tunnel.

"Yes." She responded in a shaky voice. "I know that."

"Sorry, I just have to know—" Rajwan interrupted, "countries like what?"

"Russia, maybe," the detective thought for a moment, "some countries in Africa, some countries in Asia. Specifically southern west countries."

"But I don't want-"

Before Mal could finish her sentence, someone came storming into the room with a file attached to their hand. A taller man wearing the police uniform.

"Detective Choi!" The man exclaimed. "There's another one!"

The detective stared at him for a moment, trying to take in his words. He then took a look at the two siblings in front of him.

"Come with us."

Mal got up from her seat, her eyes following the two detectives as they hurried out of the room, while Rajwan soon followed his sister's steps away from the desk in the middle of the room.

"Wait for me."

Mal nodded and stretched her hand out to lace it with her brother's, then followed the detective through the hallway after making sure to close the door behind her.

After a few, long minutes of bumping into people and making their way through different hallways, the two detectives stopped in front of a room. Mal glanced at the golden label that was placed neatly on the door.

Computer & electronics department.

She took a deep breath and squeezed her brother's hand, nervous butterflies filling her insides.

"Come in."

The siblings obeyed and made their way inside the room, to one of the large screens that hung on different sides of the smooth, cream-painted walls.

"So we have another video of Hwang Hyunjin that was posted around an hour ago. We tried to track down the IP address, like usual," a woman explained in a monotone voice, "but we came to a dead end."

The detective nodded. "Play the video."

She pressed the play button in the middle of the screen, and the room was filled with loud screams of pain.

"You see here," the woman began once again, "he starts the video by screaming, and then at the end of the video, he goes silent and eventually faints. Halfway through, he seems dizzy and struggles with basic body control, so my best guess is that they gave him a drug to give them this effect."

"W-What kind of drug does that?" Rajwan asked in a small voice, his eyes fixated on the screen.

Mal continued to silently sob as she met her husband's tearful eyes, his twisted expression that declared shock and pain, and the soft groans that he eventually found were too exhausting.

"J-Jagiya..." His voice came out muffled and inaudible, but she heard him nonetheless. A small word that made her heart break into thousand pieces.

"Oh, I know a few," the woman replied, "but we can't tell which one exactly. After all, it's just a video."

The girl continued to cry while squeezing her brother's hand. Her vision blurred with her tears and she continued letting out silent sobs of heartbreak.

Rajwan returned his sister's desperate squeeze with a firm, protective one, eventually lacing his arm with hers.

Because how would he reassure her when her husband was being tortured like that?