press it on, faster without the sick feeling of crashing
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I took an unconscious step back, but Taemin didn't move. His head was slightly tilted forward, blond hair falling into his eyes that looked like strings of sunlight in the sunshine. Vividly I remembered the day Jungkook had asked me to describe him, the words I had used to answer the question, the look in Vernon's eyes as he had called him the emphatic killer. And he looked emphatic, all right. There was a distinctive mournfulness in his expression too unnerving to be consoling, his fingers tipping the hilt of the knife at his belt almost reluctantly.
"Stay back," I said, summoning the calmest tone I could, and brandished the gun at him with an unwavering hand.
"Oh, please," he said, voice like a sigh. He didn't seem mocking, but there was an imperious knowledge in his tone that rubbed me the wrong way. "Put that thing down. I know you. I know you're a knife user. That piece of metal doesn't belong in your hands."
"It's a weapon, not a paintbrush," I murmured, much against my will. I knew better than to talk back to him. Despite his languid posture, I knew it would take him less than a few seconds to throw a knife. I had never seen him in action before, but I had heard things, most of them accidentally, about what kind of killer he was. Lee Taemin was not a killer for hire, he was a cold-blooded murderer who operated within the growing roots of the Lee clan. Family business.
"You could paint a pattern of blood onto the wall with it," he replied simply, and began to move. It was almost elegant, like a dancer's controlled movements, the way he started walking. Every muscle was in full submission, nothing moved without him wanting it to. "Different weapons paint different patterns. It matters which one you use."
"Oh, yeah?" Raising a challenging eyebrow, and the gun along with it, I stepped sideways, like we were wrestlers circling each other in a ring, trying to get to the door without him noticing. "Are you a poet or a murderer?"
He ignored the question. "Your manner of killing is your sign," he said, copying my movements. "If someone mistakes your kill for someone else's, you get no credit for it. And that can lead to...complications." He seemed to savor the word. "Unseen consequences."
"No one needs to recognize my sign."
"Well, you don't exactly need to leave your signature anywhere. There's no body." His eyebrow quirked just as he sidestepped into the line of the window, looking like a dark silhouette against the light. "Or are seriously attempting to kill me?"
His tone was mild enough, but the question made it seem like he was laughing. I gripped the gun tighter, pulse quickening. Someone come through that door right now or so help me god. "Even if you move fast, you can't defend yourself. All I need to do is press that trigger, and your brains will paint the wall."
Brief amusement flashed in his eyes. "I'm a professional," he said, almost regretfully, like he was pulling a superiority card though he didn't want to. "I know thirteen ways to incapacitate you from this position, in varying degrees of pain. And you know as well as I do that you will not press that trigger." My shoulders tightened. "I'm not killing you just yet. I'm simply delivering a message." A smile quirked his mouth. "Don't shoot the messenger."
