Elise's POV
Lunch was burning.
The scent of sautéed garlic curled like memory through the penthouse, thick and warm, coating the air with something almost comforting—almost human. It crept under doors, between cracks, into the lungs of the half-dead scattered across couches and floors. One by one, they began to stir. Groggy. Bruised. Alive.
I was in the kitchen, bare feet on cold tile, my hoodie hanging off one shoulder like it had lost the will to stay up. I reached for the last tray—roasted potatoes, golden and cracked open at the seams—but my fingers trembled so badly the edge of the pan clanged against the stove.
I flinched.
The sound was too loud. Too sharp. It echoed in my skull, pulling fragments of memory to the surface like bones rising in floodwater.
The rescue.
The firewalls.
The screaming.
The cold, metallic taste of fear.
Everything echoed.
I moved like a sleepwalker, spooning rice onto plates like it mattered. Like food would fix what we'd broken. I couldn't feel my legs. Couldn't remember the last time I slept. My body had become a vessel, running on reflex and duty. Grief lived beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat.
And then—
He was there.
Carson.
Silent, as if the shadows had sculpted him. He stepped behind me without a word. No sudden movement. Just presence. Steady. Real.
He reached for plates. His fingers brushed mine. Cold. Grounding.
I stopped.
My eyes flicked up to his face. His hair was a mess—more than usual. His jaw was set in that quiet, concerned way he didn't know how to hide. He didn't look at me directly. Just started helping. Setting the table like it was the only thing he could offer in a world that had stopped making sense.
"You did good," he murmured. His voice was low. Soft. Sincerely,
My throat clenched.
I blinked at him, the words catching behind my teeth. Thank you wasn't enough. Nothing I said would be.
So I nodded. And swallowed everything else.
Before either of us could say more, Alex exploded into the room like a thunderclap. His lab coat flared behind him, stained red. His shirt was half-wrung with someone else's blood, eyes wild with urgency. He didn't slow down. Didn't pause.
"All of you," he barked. "After we eat? You're coming to university."
It hit like a brick to the chest.
"No," I muttered.
"Hell no," Ryder groaned, yanking the IV from his arm, blood trailing down like a thread of rebellion.
"You're joking," Carson said flatly, standing straighter, jaw tight.
Leona cracked. She dropped to her knees, sobbing in short, broken gasps. "You don't love me! You don't care!"
Alex didn't even flinch. He just grabbed a plate. "Eat."
And we did. Because even monsters need carbs.
Afterward, we moved like ghosts. Alex patched up Damian in the corner with surgeon's hands and the sighs of a man unraveling. Ryder put on mismatched shoes. Leona sharpened her eyeliner with a literal dagger. I pulled on jeans that clung too tight, like denim made of iron. My limbs were jelly. My skin too loud. My mind too far.
Carson brushed his hair and gave up halfway. It stuck out in every direction, like he'd fought with lightning and lost.
Still, he came to me.
"Come on," he said, holding the car door open.
I climbed in. The seatbelt caught. The silence wrapped around us like fog.
We pulled onto the freeway, the city blurred behind glass. Rain tapped gently on the windshield. I kept my eyes forward. But my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Then I broke.
"I saw things," I whispered. "Inside the system. Things I shouldn't have seen."
Carson glanced at me, slow and deliberate, his knuckles tightening on the steering wheel.
"What things?"
I hesitated. My mouth was dry. "Surveillance footage. Hidden firewalls. Programs that didn't exist until they did. My father's voice layered into code like… like he wanted me to hear him."
His brows knit. "He left you messages?"
I shook my head. "Worse. Commands. Triggers. Like he was building a kill switch inside my brain."
Carson reached for me without looking. Found my hand. His fingers threaded through mine, grounding me with a squeeze that was firm but gentle.
"I haven't slept in four days," I whispered. "Not really. I close my eyes, and I see numbers. I smell fire. I thought I'd lose,"
He didn't speak at first. His grip on my hand grew tighter, protective. He pulled us to the side of the road, tires crunching over gravel. The car idled. Rain beaded on the windshield.
Then he turned to me.
"Chaton."
His voice was lower now. Rough. Honest.
"You didn't lose. I'm here and you're next to me."
My lip trembled. "But what if I lose me?"
He leaned closer, resting his forehead to mine. His breath was warm against my skin. Rain drummed like a heartbeat around us.
"Then I'll find you," he said.
A beat. Then, softer:
"Even if I have to go through hell to do it."
I let go. Of the fear. The tension. The weight. I leaned into him, curling into the shape of someone who didn't have to carry it alone.
My head rested against the window, the glass cool. His hand stayed in mine, unmoving.
I didn't remember closing my eyes.
But I did.
And for the first time in what felt like forever…
I slept.
And this time—
I knew he wouldn't let go.
Kim Yoon-suk's POV
The room was a cathedral of silence.
And Kim Yoon-suk was the god at its altar.
Four men knelt before him, heads bowed. Not in reverence—never that. This was fear. Primal. Animals. The kind that leaked into bones and turned blood cold.
They were shaking. Bleeding. One of them—young, maybe twenty—had pissed himself. The stench curled into the corners of the polished marble room, where no sound dared linger.
Kim stood still, back turned to them, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling window of his penthouse. Seoul stretched beneath him like a neon kingdom—so vibrant, so fragile. He could crush it in his palm.
He lifted a crystal glass to his lips. Whisky. Aged twenty-nine years. The same age his wife had been when she died. He sipped, savoring the bite. Behind him, a man coughed blood onto the floor.
"You failed," Kim said, quietly.
Not angry. Just disappointed.
The way a father speaks to a child who lets the door swing open at midnight.
They begged. Of course they did. Pleas. Apologies. Promises.
Kim turned.
His suit was black silk. Tailored so sharply it could've cut glass. Not a wrinkle. Not a stain. Not a speck of their failure on him.
He looked at the first man. "You were supposed to intercept the girl's signal. But she got in anyway."
"I—I didn't know—she rerouted the—"
Kim struck.
One fist. No windup. Just velocity and bone.
The man collapsed, jaw shattered, teeth spraying across the floor like scattered dice.
The others flinched. Kim smiled.
"Do you know what I admire about Elise Maurice?" he asked, walking slowly now—measured steps like a dance.
"She understands code like some men understand prayer. She breathes in data and exhales destruction. She's not a hacker. She's an artist."
He knelt beside the second man. Brushed the blood from his cheek like a lover.
"But you let her leave a footprint. You let her touch my system."
He drove his thumb into the man's eye. Slow. Controlled. A scream tore the air in half. He didn't stop until he felt the pop.
The third tried to run. He didn't make it three steps before Kim tackled him. Fists rained like thunder. Skull. Spine. Ribs.
Each hit was precise. Ritualistic. A surgeon performing death.
When the last body fell still, Kim stood and rolled his sleeves back up, blood spattered across his collar like red ink on scripture.
He walked to the sink. Washed his hands. Dried them with a fresh silk napkin. Tossed it onto the heap of corpses like a finishing bow.
Then: "Get the cleaners," he told his assistant, who stood pale and obedient in the corner. "And schedule a meeting."
"With who, sir?" the assistant asked, voice shaking.
Kim stared into the mirror above the sink, smoothing his hair back into place. His eyes gleamed.
"Theodore Henderson."
A pause.
"It's time he remembers who owns the silence between heartbeats."
He stepped back into his office. A massive screen lit the far wall. Lines of code flickered. One, in particular, pulsed.
A trace. Fragile. Elegant. Glowing in Elise's signature.
She was still there. Somewhere in his system. She thought she'd erased it. She hadn't.
Kim touched the screen, trailing a finger over her name.
"Elise," he whispered.
Then the smile returned.
Slow.
Dark.
Like the devil remembering an old hymn.
"Let's play."
Carson's POV
School was a cage made of fluorescent bones. The lights buzzed overhead like insects chewing on electricity. The air reeked of disinfectant and cheap cologne. Laughter echoed like screams in a padded cell.
And two rows ahead, Elise sat like a statue carved from insomnia. Still. Hollow. Beautiful in that way ruins are beautiful—fragile and untouched only because no one dares to approach.
Her eyes didn't blink. Red-rimmed. Wide open. Locked on nothing.
She looked like she was trapped in her own mind, replaying a tragedy only she could see.
Her fingers twitched across her notebook—fragmented loops, broken symbols, stray lines of code bleeding out like cracked scripture.
My throat tightened.
She hadn't come back from that server room. Not really. Her body had returned. But her soul was still behind those firewalls, tangled in ghosts and electricity.
My chaton.
She looked like a fever dream. Hoodie two sizes too big, sleeves swallowed past her hands. That same hoodie she wore on the car ride here—the one she bled in, the one she refused to take off. Like armor. Like a promise to no one but herself.
I wanted to grab her hand. Pull her back.
Tell her it was okay to fall apart with me.
But I didn't.
Because I was falling too.
The static of the lecture blurred behind my eyes. I blinked—and my mother's face snapped into focus. Hollow. Drugged. A porcelain doll cracked under my father's thumb.
My teacher knew. Left me a message—scratched under the podium in broken Morse.
24 hours. Or she dies.
Tick.
Tock.
The noose tightened with every second. I could feel it. In my teeth. In my skull. Behind the cameras that turned just a little too slow. I was being watched. Hunted. The weight in the room wasn't gravity—it was surveillance.
When the bell rang, it sounded like a funeral toll.
Elise didn't move.
I walked into the locker room and ripped off my shirt like it was trying to choke me. The court outside burned under the sun like the edge of some ancient battlefield. Ryder was already out there, dodging between teammates, his laughter too loud, too perfect. Masking sickness with motion. The only way he knew how.
I joined the game like a weapon sliding into its holster.
Sweat. Grit. Muscle.
For ten minutes, I forgot I had blood on my hands. Forgot that I might have to kill again tonight. The bounce of the ball was a heartbeat I could control.
We won.
Of course we did.
But winning felt like kissing a corpse.
I looked up.
Elise was on the bleachers.
Watching me.
Not hiding behind Leona. Not curled up. Just… watching. Like I was something she needed to memorize. Her eyes moved with mine. Every dribble. Every breath. Like she was afraid I'd vanish if she looked away.
Chaton…
Leona was beside her, passed out mid-sentence, mouth open, sun on her face. And beside her: someone new. Girl. Pale. Dark hair. Cheerleader build, but not the type that played nice.
She kept saying my name. Laughing. Like I was hers.
I didn't even hear her.
I only saw Elise.
Then—
A shadow moved.
Pierce.
Like a goddamn nightmare with a heartbeat. He materialized beside Elise, leaned in, whispering something. I couldn't hear it. But her shoulders went stiff like she'd been tasered.
Ryder saw it, too.
He straightened mid-stretch, eyes narrowing. Ripped his headband off like it insulted his mother.
"Don't," I said.
But it was already too late.
Ryder moved like a fuse had been lit.
I followed, cutting across the court, heat rising in my throat.
Pierce turned just in time.
Ryder grabbed him by the collar. No punch yet—just pressure. Just a promise.
"You wake Leo up," he snarled, "I'll rearrange your fucking teeth."
Pierce smiled.
Like he liked that idea.
I stepped between them, chest brushing my twin's shoulder.
"You want something, Pierce?" I said.
His eyes slid to Elise.
"Just a conversation."
"With someone half-dead and not yours to touch?" Ryder snapped.
Pierce raised his hands in mock surrender, smirking like he already knew how this all ended.
"You can't keep her from the truth forever."
And like that, he was gone.
Fog and menace.
I turned to Elise. Her hands were gripping the bleacher edge like it was the only thing holding her to the world. Still pale. Still shaking. But she found her voice, soft and crumbling:
"This is Makoto." She nodded to the cheerleader. "She's… just a barista. But she makes good coffee."
Makoto flashed a two-finger salute. "Twisted darkness, at your service."
Whatever that meant.
We left like ghosts fleeing a crime scene. Four broken souls pretending this was normal.
Beach.
Waves. Wind. Sunlight bleeding into the ocean like the world was finally tired of pretending it wasn't bleeding.
Leona ran screaming into the water. Ryder chased after her, yelling about sharks and sea spirits.
Elise stayed beside me. Quiet.
We didn't talk much. But her hand brushed mine. Once. Twice. Then stayed.
We sat on the dunes.
I told her a stupid joke. She didn't laugh. But her eyes softened.
That was enough.
Later, she finally slept.
God, she needed it.
I kissed her forehead. Tucked her in. Watched her breathe.
Then I left.
Back to school. The silence inside cracked like dry bones under my feet.
The janitor's closet. Scratched code behind the wall. I followed the trail like a bloodhound.
This wasn't about a mission anymore.
This was personal.
Seoul.
Theodore Henderson walked into Kim Yoon-suk's penthouse like a man revisiting a grave he forgot to spit on.
The walls were glass. The floors, obsidian. And the air—frigid. Like the room itself had decided to stop believing in mercy.
Kim stood by the window, hands behind his back, watching the city blink beneath him.
He didn't turn. Didn't greet.
Just said, "Your son has started a war."
Theodore didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Lit a cigarette instead.
"I need him alive," Kim continued. "But not whole."
Theodore exhaled like a dragon, smoke curling through his words. "You'll get what you need."
Kim turned then. Slowly.
Eyes like razors. Smile like a scalpel.
"They call them the Seven Bloodhounds now," he said. "Your son leads the pack."
Theodore didn't reply.
The silence said everything.
"And what do you want from me?"
Kim stepped closer. Face inches from the devil who sired Carson.
"I want you to help me bleed them. Slowly. Like music."
A beat.
Then:
On a monitor in the back room, a number glowed red.
$10,000,000.
The price for Carson Henderson's head.
And the hunt began.