The Unders (BTS fanfic)

Chapter 14: Taehyung

"What d'you mean he wants to turn himself in?!" I overheard Hoseok hiss into the radio at Jimin. I frowned and he gestured for me to leave him to deal with it. We were still in blackout lockdown, and we had just survived the first wave of Higher gunmen, all of theirs dead, and a few handfuls of ours too.

Then Hoseok scoffed and grinned. He put down the device and twisted to face me. "We've just secured ourselves a bargaining chip," He sounded satisfied with himself.

"Who?" I asked.

"A lab worker called Seokjin, who creates and delivers almost every dose of Vitarum," Hoseok answered.

"Are you sure that's enough? Won't they already have loads of information on the drug after all this time?" I was seriously doubting the effectiveness of this plan, considering the cruelty we knew Jacheol was capable of. I mean, I only had to look at what my brother could do, and Yoongi wasn't even a third as heartless as the ex-leader of Higher.

"You've gotta be kidding me Tae, trust me, yeah?" He said, taking no nonsense. I wouldn't blame him from asserting his authority, from the way he got shoved up to leadership.

"Yep, sorry hyung," I murmured. Hoseok held his finger to his lips as we heard footsteps and the clacking of equipment knocking together.

We lowered our night vision goggles and there were less than I expected. I knew straight away that they were trying to draw us out of Under and into their territory. I prayed that Hoseok wouldn't fall for it.

Hoseok fired the first shot right through a Higher's head cleanly. They began firing blindly back at us, and we began to pick them off one by one.

"I have something to ask you," Hoseok shouted over the gunfire.

"What?"

"You and Chaeyoung--"

"Really!? You want to talk about that now?!?" I yelled, throwing a knife at the guy approaching on my right.

"Did you hurt my sister or have an argument or something? Cause you gave her up pretty easily the other day," He said, raising his voice.

"I promised you I'd never hurt her," I told him through gritted teeth.

"Then what?!" He continued yelling at me, and I was so fed up with it.

"She's the one who hurt me!" I screamed, chucking my last knife at a guy standing right behind Hoseok. He looked behind and then at me, shocked. The gunfire ceased; all the Highers here had been eliminated for now. "She left with Yoongi because she wanted to, she likes him more than me, and that's the fucking truth. Oh, and by the way Hoseok, the truth fucking hurts," I shouted some more, not that it made me feel all that much better.

"Look, Tae," He began.

"Don't even... Let's just keep calm, cool and relaxed, yeah?" I shrugged.

"Fine. We'll advance out into the square," He glared at me bitterly. "They're not giving us any other options really,"

He and I both knew that this was not the right call, but he made it anyway. I pulled my knives out of the Higher's dead bodies and others reloaded. A fairly large group of us exited Under, and as soon as we got out, I realised what Hoseok intended to do.

Jimin was there with Seokjin. Of course we were going to use him, to swap for someone important, probably either Jacheol or Namjoon. We just had to hope that they were valued at the same price, which didn't seem too likely.

Seokjin smiled at Hoseok, who did not give one in return. "Seokjin, I..." Hoseok began, but trailed off when he saw the man drop to his knees in front of him.

"Please, I can't live in Higher anymore, I just can't," Seokjin kept repeating himself, going around in circles in his mind. I glanced over to Hoseok, wondering what he would do. Jimin gulped and left, probably returning to his post in Purgatory.

"Come on, stand up at least," Hoseok sighed, "You know I can't let you into Under with the click of my fingers,"

The funny thing was that he probably could.

"Fine then, send me to Purgatory, kill me, I don't care," Seokjin looked so desperate, and I was curious whether Yoongi had looked the same way when he pleaded Namjoon to let him join Higher.

Hoseok suddenly turned to me and murmured, "Just grab him. There's nothing I can say that'll make the situation any better,"

So I did as instructed, taking Seokjin by the arm. I think he assumed that this was a good sign, but it was most definitely not. I felt sorry for him, the grin he had on his oblivious face, the future he had in store. I was half-minded to loosen my grip and tell him to run, but I didn't.

They were waiting for us at the square. All their guns pointed at us, and all of ours at them. Jacheol made his way through the crowd, holding a handgun at Heera's head. Hoseok took Seokjin off of me and held him in the same position tightly. I had a gun in my right hand and a knife in my left, both aimed at Jacheol. I was expecting the signal at any moment.

I spotted Chaeyoung too. I shook my head at her. I knew that she couldn't get herself involved in this, no matter how badly she wanted to.