Oups ! Cette image n'est pas conforme à nos directives de contenu. Afin de continuer la publication, veuillez la retirer ou mettre en ligne une autre image.
Moonbyul doesn't know for sure that it's her until that moment. There is a dull bloom of warmth in her spine, her vision blurs, and then she knows that Ahn Hyejin is the one she's been looking for. She realizes that she's been drugged but it is too late. She fumbles for her gun, but her hands are like lead, and she can only lift it awkwardly from her belt clip and hold it out as if it were a gift to Hyejin.
Hyejin takes it and smiles, kissing Moonbyul gently on the temple. Then she reaches into Moonbyul's blazer and takes the phone, turning it off and slipping it into her purse. Moonbyul is almost paralysed now, slumped in the olive leather chair in the home office.
But her mind is a prison of clarity. Ahn Hyejin kneels down next to her, the way someone might with a child, and puts her lips so close to Moonbyul's that they are almost kissing. Moonbyul's pulse throbs in her throat and she can't swallow. Hyejin smells like vanilla.
"It's time to go sweetheart," Hyejin whispers. Hyejin stands then, and Moonbyul is lifted from behind, elbows under her arms. A man in front of her takes her legs, and she is carried into the garage and laid into the back of a maroon Escalade – the car Moonbyul and her task force have spent months looking for – and then Hyejin crawls on top of her. Moonbyul realizes then that there's someone else in the car, that Hyejin wasn't the one behind her.
But she doesn't have time to process that because Hyejin is now straddling her abdomen, a knee pressing on either side of her waist. She can't move her eyes anymore, so Hyejin narrates for her benefit.
"I'm rolling your right sleeve up, and I'm tying off a vein." Then she holds up a hypodermic in Moonbyul's sight line. Medical training, Moonbyul thinks. Eighteen percent of female serial killers are nurses. She is staring at the ceiling of the car. Plain metal. Stay awake, she thinks. Remember everything, every detail. It will be important. Really important. She thinks: if I live. ~ ~ ~ The scar on her left breast was pale and raised, the tissue no wider than a piece of string. It carved a naked path through her pale skin, it arced and then it arced again back down to it's original point. It was shaped like a perfect love heart. If it had been a different colour or not on her, Moonbyul would have thought it looked like a tattoo. But it's wasn't a tattoo, well it was her tattoo in some fucked up way, her own personal brand.
Moonbyul was always aware of it, the raised skin against the material of her shirt. She had a lot of scars, battle wounds she liked to call them, it sounded better, but this was the only one that still seemed to hurt. A phantom pain, Moonbyul knew. Like a broken rib that had never quite healed right, aching underneath. A scar wouldn't hurt though. Not after all this time.
Her phone rang and Moonbyul turned her head towards the coffee table knowing what it meant: another day, another victim, no relevant clues and that's why they needed her. The caller ID on the screen showing James's name confirmed her suspicions.
