Super

58. fraternizing with the enemy

For the first time in a long time, Baekhyun was fully, purely angry.

He had set out inside the mansion-slash-asylum feeling more purposeful and hopeful than he had through the duration of the entire mission—which was kind of ironic, seeing as they were literally on the brink of burning out. No situation the group had been in up till now had ever seemed so impossible to get out of, but when he walked into what had once been the foyer for a mental asylum, Baekhyun had felt like he knew what to do.

That hadn't lasted long, naturally.

To begin with, the first in the list of Things That Had Gone Wrong Almost Immediately was that the communication system barely worked, and even when it did, all he got was bits of words and static. It wasn't that surprising, honestly, since it never worked. The Four obviously had some kind of disabling system set up that worked wherever they went—maybe one of them had powers relating to sound or frequency, like the screamer girl Taeyong had told him about. Baekhyun didn't know why they even bothered with comms at this point. It was just extra weight.

The next was the fire, which had only gotten worse. It was spreading fast, and part of him had expected to walk into the ground floor while it was on fire, but apparently Ten's promise had come through. The fire was getting worse, yes, sections of the floor falling through, apparently, but whatever Ten did had managed to curb its spreading. That didn't mean it was going to work for long.

The third, unfortunately, was Shao.

"I'm going to have to ask you to step aside," Baekhyun said frostily, staring down the girl who had appeared in the middle of the hallway like a specter. She looked exactly how he remembered her—the scar shining on her shadowed face as if someone had outlined it in glow-in-the-dark paint, but her expression was different. More closed off, more morose, reminding him of the time he had first found her in the room of the Cirque Hotel.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," she replied, not quite as frostily. She sounded numb, like she had been injected with morphine or a powerful suppressive drug, but her eyes were alive with emotion. Her eyes were a kaleidoscope of feelings, the pattern changing every time they flicked, from sadness to doubt to apology to nothing.

Baekhyun's jaw clenched. He had cared about her once, considered her a person and a friend, but there was nothing there now instead of anger and pain. This was the person who had broken up his team, his family, without a second thought. Had led them on to believe that they were doing something good for once. He recalled how she'd told him she couldn't stay out of the fight because there were people getting hurt whom she cared about—he now knew she meant the Four.

"I won't hesitate to hurt you," he said calmly, but his temper was flaring. Baekhyun raised his arms slightly and let his eyes flash silvery-gray, turning his veins to the color of metal. Distantly, he heard the sound of thunder booming.

"I know you won't," she murmured, and he knew he hadn't imagined the anguish in his eyes. Her hand rested on the knob at the end of a staircase, where he presumed she had come from. "But you can't use your powers without bringing down everyone inside this building. It's very old, and it won't last the lightning. You can't hurt everyone inside."

"No," he agreed, and the tips of his fingers crackled audibly with electricity, "but I never said I needed to bring down lightning from the sky."

Then she raised her hand, and closed it into a fist. Instantly, the crackle in his veins died down, the silver clearing from his eyes and veins. Baekhyun gritted his teeth, trying to bring his powers back from whatever void they had disappeared too, but deep down he knew it wouldn't work. This had happened to him before, in the office building.