Super

48. human chain

Taemin felt like his legs were going to give out.

Irene was still standing in front of him, unmoving. He could see the broken outline of the Angel behind her, but he wasn't seeing him, not really. He knew that Baekhyun stood behind him—as he always did—and he could see the gnarled wingtips of the kid against the stairs, but all he was actually looking at was her.

Of course, the legs-giving-out part had nothing to do with her. Not majorly, anyway. He expected that whatever he was feeling was because of some power-inhibiting thing, and it was probably a normal feeling for most people. Taemin wasn't most people, not with his power. Every second of every day, every molecule in his body, from the core of his chest to the tips of his limbs vibrated with energy, a frequency that was a far cry from a normal human's speed, but he had always taken it for granted. Only the lack of that energy forced him to realize how he had taken it for granted.

He felt drained, in all senses of the word.

"You don't have to do this," he said to Irene, in a tone so quiet that it wouldn't be able to betray everything he was feeling at that moment. It sounded like a stupid statement the moment it left his lips, but he had no idea what else he was supposed to say. Nice to see you again? Good talk? He couldn't say that, especially when he didn't mean either of those things.

"You don't even know what I'm doing," Irene replied. Her tone had turned neutral, a far cry from the false, peppy mannerism she had adopted while speaking to the others. She knew that it would do no good trying to deceive him about who she was—he knew that well. He knew who she was, but more importantly, who she had been. "Won't you ask me?"

Baekhyun had come up to stand next to him, and his eyes flashed to Taemin's nervously. Not everyone would be able to tell what emotions were hidden away beneath the orange-haired male's serene eyes, but Taemin could. Two people he knew so well standing on opposite sides of the line that divided his past and future.

"What are you doing, Irene?" Taemin said quietly, and saw her lips quirk into a smile.

"I'm levelling the playing field." The energy of movement had begun to return to his limbs, slowly but surely, with the sensation of pins and needles. She titled her head to the side, looking at him with an expression that she must have thought would be reassuring. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"You hurt others," he replied, in as level a voice as he dared use. Not too flat so she'd think he didn't care, but that was no guarantee. "You hurt people I care about."

"I didn't hurt them," she replied quietly.

"You did," he pressed, more firmly this time. "You might not have meant to, but this—whatever you're trying to do, it's hurting people. You might think you're helping, but innocent people—good people—are suffering in the process."

"A small price to pay for the salvation of many, don't you think?" she asked, almost sweetly. "I wish I could tell you what I'm doing, but I can't. When it comes out, you'll see. And you'll understand, and the world will thank me."

"Thank you for what?" Baekhyun took a step forward, and electricity crackled along his forearm, a vein lighting up like a bolt of lightning. "For putting innocents in danger?"

"No one's in any danger." Her eyes narrowed. "Not unless they get in my way."

Baekhyun's eyebrow quirked. "You do realize how that sounds, don't you?"

During this exchange, Taemin's shock-numbed brain had begun to work. Mark's message hadn't transmitted to him, but the tension coiled in Baekhyun's shoulders told him that something bad was going to happen, something time-bound which was likely to affect them. Something they could get out of—Baekhyun's body language told him that, the tightly-strung muscles on the insides of his wrists, the impatient set to his jaw, a light frown between his eyebrows.