'Golden Mary'

Part 22

Her mind blacked out and she turned to look at him for an explanation. Why was he talking about himself in a third-person point of view? It was strange.

"Why? Are you telling me you're a ghost right now?" Victoria went on sarcastically.

"No, not me," he told, "graduate of the police academy, Lee Donghae. The officer Lee Donghae."

She turned to look at him before it dawned upon her that he had taken on someone else's identity.

"Doesn't anybody else know?" she asked.

Donghae slowly shook his head, "I think something happened between him and his family, so no one else knows. I'm at a loss to why this has happened. It's too coincidental, don't you think?"

"More like absurd," she muttered underneath her breath.

"What?"

"Oh...nothing," Victoria shook her head quickly. "Anyway, what are you doing out here again?"

"Clearing my mind."

"Oh yea, that's right..." Victoria clasped her hands together.

"Are you busy lately?" he wondered. "I was thinking you might leave after you complete your research here, but I remembered you were looking for something else too."

She paused immediately and abruptly turned her head to look at him. What did he just say? Something else she was looking for? Did Donghae know about the 'Golden Mary'? Impossible... How come everyone else seemed to know about it. Hadn't been top secret?

"What?" he asked worried, afraid he'd said something alarm her.

Something creaked behind her and Victoria immediately grabbed his hand and dragged him pass the back of a closed shop, turned the corner, and turned into a narrow alley. Shoving him against the wall she brushed her hand over his lips, the other dirty wall limiting her area of movement as her back pressed into it.

Victoria held her breath and stared out into the street waiting for whoever had been following her to appear. Silence penetrated the air and Victoria suddenly wondered if she was just being paranoid after her day of running with Luhan. She started to relax her hand on Donghae's mouth, but quickly turned to stare into the dark alley behind them when she sensed movement. For a long time nothing happened and Victoria began to doubt herself once more. Pressing her lips together she turned to look at him to find him staring at her with innocent eyes full of admiration. She stared back at him with furrowing eyebrows and a small glare before he suddenly wrapped his arms around her.

Her face quickly brushed against his hair, a kind of silent alarm going off in her head after throwing away the thought that he was attacking her. A painful wrenched shout deafened her left ear before they were suddenly kicked out off the narrow alley. As worse as the situation could become, she found Donghae clumsily tripping over his own feet pulling her toward the ground with him. Victoria silently thanked God for her quick wits when she turned to see a man holding a bloody pocket knife in his hand and grounded her foot into the ground. And however much she hated the position she was in, she had no other choice but to link her arms around Donghae's torso before being able to steady him to his feet. That was when she saw the blood dripping from his arm.

Shutting her eyes annoyed with the interruption when their conversation had just really started, she let go of Donghae ready to attack the man, but Donghae didn't think it. He kept his hold on her hiding her behind his arms.

"Are you ok?" he questioned. "Stay back."

With the irritation slowly building up inside her short tempered mind, Victoria rolled her eyes wondering why she didn't just karate chop him then.