Alligator Eyes

Chapter 12

Jinyoung, Jaebum and Mark have managed to sneak outside the tents and over to where Namjoon's horses are tied. Exactly as Jackson said, Ahern is among them, and he whinnies softly as Mark approaches him, seemingly not as concerned about the glowing eyes as everyone else is.

"I thought horses were easily spooked" Jinyoung says, looking on in amazement as Mark unties the horse.

"Not Ahern" Mark leads him to the edge of the trees, pulling out the reins from his bag and hooking them on. Mark moves the amulets from the old bag into his bag and passes the bag to Jinyoung, who puts some rocks in it and ties it to his side. "Good luck"

"Hey Mark if this doesn't work—"

"Its going to work"

"I know, I just wanted to say thank you, for not abandoning us, even though we deserved it."

"You deserve a lot more than that" Mark doesn't want to get all mushy right now, and he doesn't want to accept such a pathetic apology, if that's even what it was. So he runs into the tree line to continue Jackson's plan, circling back to the tent to give Jackson the signal. He counts to 60 and then mimics the call of a day bird, blending back in with the trees as Jackson starts shouting and everyone else joins in.

Marks favorite part in this plan, involves Jackson, Youngjae, Yugyeom and BamBam cursing Jinyoung's name as he supposedly leaves them behind. Jaebum had to go with him because no one who knew Jinyoung even a little bit would believe he would ride off without his brother. And Namjoon happens to know Jinyoung very well, even if he thinks very little of him.

Mark listens as the men come bursting into the tent, finding the twins gone and then all hell breaks loose as they discover one of the horses and the amulets gone as well. Namjoon orders three of his men to go after them. Leaving one to guard the tent directly and two to patrol the camp in case Jinyoung tries any crazy rescue missions. All of this was a good idea, no doubt, what was not a good idea, was having one man guard the perimeter and the other be looping in between the tents.

Mark takes out the man on the perimeter quickly, dragging his body into the trees where it wont be seen. The next is a bit tougher, he has to wait until hes out of the line of sight of the guard by the tent, and not by Namjoon's tent, where he could hear him. It takes a minute of stalking, but finally he finds his opening and drags him into the trees as well. He makes the same bird call and watches as Jackson initiates stage three, cutting himself loose with a knife Mark gave him and using it to dispose of the third guard.

They can only hope now that Jinyoung and Jaebum are taking care of the other three guys as Mark approaches Namjoon's tent from the tree line, ready to slip under it as the other four advance on the front, taking the guns they got off the guards and bursting into the tent at the same time Mark slides under it, avoiding Namjoon's notice.

"Shit..." Is all Namjoon says, rising slowly out of his chair.

"Might want to sit back down." Jackson says.

"Jinyoung took your gold, no use threatening me for it. Go after him."

"That would all be very nice, except that you sent most of the horses away. We'd never catch him" Jackson is very good at playing this part. Either he's had to pretend that Jinyoung has betrayed him before, or Jinyoung actually has. "So any other ideas?"

"You could not kill me?"

"And I don't want to. But here's the thing, if you hadn't rounded us up and locked us here, we'd still have the gold and be halfway home with it. This is your fault, and I want compensation."

"We have no gold with us, you know that, its too heavy for the trip here, we would have no space for the trip back."

"Tell me how you guys got past the gate with the horses"