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prologue: in the dark

PROLOGUE | IN THE DARK

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It was almost like a game. The cat and the mouse were after the same slice of cheese, but there was only one that could get it. Out of the two predators, the one's teeth were a lot less sharp than the other's, but her attitude didn't show it. It was somewhere between impressive and foolish, how the mouse carried herself as if she was a dragon, but she was still too naïve to notice the pair of eyes that was watching her from a distance.

He couldn't blame her really, this was still one of the first times that she paid a visit to the dark side. She had yet to grow accustomed to how brutal it could be, but at the rate that she was going, she was bound to get a rude awakening very soon. It always happened to people like her, that poked their noses where they shouldn't and didn't even think about the backlash. She didn't seem to realise that she was in danger. That one wrong step could make it impossible for her to escape back in to the light again and erase her way of return forever.

The detective had to admire her persistence and wit. He had no idea how she did it, but somehow she managed to carve a path to the same target as him and it had to be completely different from the one that he found. He couldn't deny to himself that he was the tiniest bit curious about how she managed to do it and amused by her detective skills. But those feelings were quickly fading away as he watched her stand up and stalk after their common target.

Scratch that, she's definitely not as smart as he thought that she was.

Something drove her to try to find out the truth, like a moth was drawn to the light of a flame, but she was about to fly too close to it and get herself killed. Should he help her?

Anything to evade the unnecessary extra paperwork.

And dead bodies of women like her always brought a lot of paperwork.

Buzzing lights were illuminating the cheap dumplings place and detective Byun Baekhyun, could feel the owner watching him when he stood up and followed the woman who left just a little before him. He was hoping that it was because he saw him toss his food in the garbage instead of eating it, but he knew that the owner didn't care enough to hate him for something like that.

Crap, now he was definitely on their radar too.

Did he even remember to bring his gun with him tonight?

He tapped one of the pockets of his jacket and smirked in newfound confidence.

Wait, no, that's just the sandwich that he forgot to eat at work.

Crap, maybe that girl would succeed at getting not only herself, but both of them killed.

They were following the trail of a child predator, who was responsible for the disappearance of three different girls from a nearby private school. Just the thought of what most likely happened to the two twelve year olds and one eleven year old, was enough to make Baekhyun sick to his stomach. The man's latest prey was thirteen and after spending some time sitting in the same dumplings place as him, it became obvious that he used his young age and fairly good looks to pose as their boyfriend and convince them to meet him on their own. He even purposely targeted girls who were known to get bullied, have abusive parents or some other type of problems that would make them easy targets. Individuals who were suffering like that, were quick to get swayed by fake attention and love. They didn't even think that it possibly couldn't be real.

Baekhyun was hoping that the predator would lead him to one of the numerous child trafficking rings of Manyong, but to his disappointment, the man turned out to be nothing but a sick serial killer. He saw way too many of those at work every day. In the narrow back alleyways of that shitty neighbourhood, he was about to kill not just his latest prey, but also the blonde woman that followed them from the dumplings place where he purposely got the young girl drunk and made her unable to fight back.