Con wanted to rush over to Taemin. He wanted to tear his hoodie off and make sure Taemin wasn't bleeding to death. He really wanted to. But his knees seemed to have other plans.

His legs folded beneath him and he slid down to the floor, hiding his face with shaky hands. It surprised him when he found tears welling in his eyes.

"Con." Taemin's soft voice carried across the space between them.

He shook his head, holding his breath so he wouldn't gasp or sob. The smell of copper and rainwater filled his nose, the metallic scent making nausea surge. It hadn't been raining the night of the car wreck that had killed Jenna, but it was astonishing how much his hands smelled like hot, broken metal.

"Constantine." Taemin's voice was still quiet, but held a note of steel. "I need your help taking off my hoodie. Can you do that, or do I need to call Ella?" 

Taemin's voice and his calm steadied Con, and he could breathe again. Part of him cried to take Taemin up on his offer, knowing Ella would shield him from this. That she would take care of her brother and  make sure Con didn't lose what was left of his mind.

But the rest of him refused to allow Ella to experience the feeling of her brother's blood on her hands.

After another long breath, Con pushed himself to his feet and stumbled across the room. Taemin caught him with a hand on his hip, steadying him as Con lifted shaking hands to Taemin's shoulders.

"C-Can you lift this arm?" Con whispered, tapping Taemin's unbloodied shoulder. "If... We should..." He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to jostle his thoughts into coherence. 

"Hold the sleeve."

Con did as he was told, holding the rain-soaked sleeve of Taemin's hoodie as he extracted his arm. Then, Con grabbed the hem of both the hoodie and t-shirt, pulling them over his head as gently as possible. A hiss of breath came from between Taemin's teeth when Con peeled the wet material away from his shoulder.

Blood seeped from four deep...

"Taemin...these..." Con leaned forward, studying the wound. He looked up to meet Taemin's eyes. "They look like..." Again he hesitated.

Lifting his uninjured arm, Taemin probed at the cuts. More blood spilled down his shoulder, trickling over his collarbone. "Claw marks," he said when it became clear Con wouldn't. He frowned, still poking at his shoulder. He didn't seem particularly troubled by this, which troubled Con immensely. 

Con grabbed his hand to keep him from doing any more damage accidentally. "Stop touching," he muttered, closing his eyes against the sight. "Those are deep. We need to—"

"No."

He flashed his eyes at Taemin, who only shook his head, trying to extract his hand from Con's. "No hospitals."

Con scowled, but couldn't exactly argue. The very last thing he wanted to do was spend any more time in a hospital. Even the thought of it—of the antiseptic smell, the fluorescent lights, the murmur of nurses and patients—made his muscles tighten and his skin feel like it would peel off.

But...that didn't change the fact that Taemin was bleeding. He looked at Taemin's shoulder, fingers hovering over the first of the four claw marks.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Con looked up.

When he found Taemin smiling faintly at him, Con fell still. He blinked once, then stood and stalked into the bathroom, swearing under his breath. He snapped a towel off the rack and came back into the main room. Resting one knee on the bed, Con folded the towel and pressed it to Taemin's shoulder.

Taemin closed his eyes, blowing out a steady breath through pursed lips. Con swallowed hard, daring to look beneath the towel. The claw marks looked even worse now that some of the blood had been soaked up.

"These need stitches," he muttered, wiping at the blood that had spilled down Taemin's arm before he pressed the towel back over the wounds.

Water droplets flecked Con's arm when Taemin shook his head. "No, I just need..." He trailed into silence, his body tensing.

Before Con could ask, the door flew open, startling them both.

Ella charged into the room, phone held up like a trophy. Then, she skidded to a halt, looked at the two of them on the edge of the bed, and did an about-face. Con opened his mouth, but she had already flown back out the door, slamming it closed behind her.

The two men exchanged a confused glance just as the door opened again and she came storming back in.

"Is that blood?" Ella demanded, eyes big as dinner plates. 

Con shifted in front of Taemin's shoulder, but knew it was already too late. Ella had seen. He heard her swift, angry steps as she closed the distance. Then her hand was fisted in the back of his shirt, jerking him away with surprising strength. Con stumbled back a few steps, unsteady on his feet to begin with as his adrenaline began to wear off.

Her hands replaced his on the towel and she bent over her brother, peeking beneath the cloth at the lacerated skin. Con rubbed his fingers together, but immediately stopped and held his hands stiff. The slick coating of blood made him queasy.

Breathing in through his nose and slowly out through his mouth, Con finally managed to tune in to what she was saying.

"—careful. You said you weren't going to—"

"I say a lot of things," Taemin cut her off, brows pulled together. His eyes flicked over Ella's shoulder to meet Con's. Several dozen thoughts raced behind his dark eyes before he lowered his voice and began speaking in Korean.

Con glared at him, which only garnered an apologetic half-shrug. He went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Then, he immediately felt like a fifteen-year-old for doing so.

They had known each other for less than a week, unbelievable as that felt. Of course they had things they didn't want to share yet. 

He turned on the sink faucet and began scrubbing his hands clean. As blood and water rushed down the drain, Con's mind turned to the forest and what had happened there. His chest and back still ached. When he lifted his wet shirt, he found a bruise beginning to purple just over his sternum.

It was about as big as a fist, but...

Con went back out into the bedroom, shirt still lifted. "Ella, look at this for a second."

She whipped toward him. "Are you hurt?"

Taemin looked over her head, eyes zeroing in on the bruise. He placed his hand over Ella's where she held the towel to his shoulder. "Is anything broken?" he asked, far more worried than he'd been over his own injury. "You hit that tree so hard."

A wince tightened Taemin's shoulders, like he was remembering the sound of Con being hit.

Con shook his head as Ella approached. "No, I don't think so. It's just..." Taking the hem of his shirt between his teeth, Con grabbed Ella's clean hand and folded the fingers into a fist. Carefully, he lined her knuckles up with the darkest parts of the bruise.

Her fist was only slightly smaller than the mark on his chest.

"Oh!" The soft exclamation came from Ella as she stared at the bruise. When Con released her hand, she spread her fingers on his chest, tracing the red edges. "It's...a hand. It can make a fist."

"It's too fast to be human," Taemin said, once more lifting the towel to check the bleeding.

Ella framed the bruise with her hands, palms pressed flat to Con's chest. "Too small for dokkaebi."

"Dokkaebi don't eat people."

"Yes, but there have been two, possibly three suicides. They can bring illness, including illness of the mind."

"The woman I found was eaten, El."

"Okay!" Ella sighed and turned back to her brother. "What about an oni then? They eat people."

Taemin opened his mouth, then closed it and frowned. He gave a thoughtful little head tilt. "Maybe. But I haven't seen any Japanese people running around."

"So...then what?"

Taemin shook his head, one of his eyebrows twitching up. "Something American, I imagine."

With a sigh, Ella slumped back into Con, who wrapped an arm around her waist as much for himself as it was for her. His head was spinning after that ping-pong match of a conversation. He cleared his throat, then swallowed.

"What do you mean something American?"

Taemin looked up at him, his face growing somehow paler, like he was just remembering that Con was still here in the room with them. He licked his lips, gaze flicking down to his sister, who had gone curiously still in Con's arms.

Slowly, Taemin peeled the blood-stained towel away from his shoulder. The bleeding had slowed substantially, but the wound was still nasty enough to make Con look away.

"You know something was out there, Con. You heard it. Felt it. We were both attacked by it."

"Probably because you ran after it by yourself, like an idiot," Con muttered, still unable to look at Taemin's bared shoulder.

"You did what?" Ella's voice shot up an octave, making both men flinch.

"Shut up, Con. That's not the point."

"Right, the point is you're still fucking bleeding and no one's talking about how you need stitches. Instead, you two are having a conversation that doesn't make any damn sense, arguing about what attacked us." He stepped back from Ella, running a hand through his damp hair. "If it wasn't human, then it was an animal. Animals sometimes eat people. We'll get you to the hospital, then I'll go see Sheriff Jones and tell him we were attacked by the same thing that killed the woman you found."

Realizing he hadn't taken a breath through that whole tirade, he inhaled deeply. Ella and Taemin were staring at him, their expressions identical masks of concern.

"Don't...look at me like that," he hissed. "For once, I'm not being the crazy one."

Taemin's expression turned immediately to one of hurt.

"We don't think you're crazy, Con," Ella said, her voice holding a note of pain. "We never have. We just don't know how to tell you—"

"Ella, no."

She whirled to her brother. "I'm not going to sit here letting him think he's insane. He's not insane."

"But..." Taemin looked down, but not before Con saw an expression of pure panic darken his face. Ella—seeing his distress—went over and wrapped her arms around him, combing her fingers through his wet hair.

She murmured something in Korean, petting his hair one last time. Taemin swallowed hard, peeking at Con around his sister's side. Con offered a strained smile, wanting desperately to know what had made Taemin suddenly so afraid.

What had frightened him when not even the claw marks on his shoulder had managed that?

Ella ran her hand over her brother's hair one last time, then turned to Con. "We came here for a reason."

"He should sit down," Taemin murmured. He looked up, then down, staring a hole in the carpet between his feet. "You should sit down."

Con blinked once, then shuffled toward the armchair near the window. However, a flutter of eyelashes from Taemin had him changing direction. He sat beside the other man on the bed, twisting so he could apply pressure to Taemin's shoulder.

Taemin kept his head down, his good shoulder hunched up and defensive.

Swallowing a rising sense of dread, Con tilted his head to meet Ella's eyes. Like her brother her posture was defensive, arms crossed tightly across her chest, head canted down.

"Okay," Con began slowly. "You came here for a reason. I'm assuming it's something other than the hot springs." 

Ella graced that with a tight smile. She sniffed, then licked her lips. "The reason is..." Her voice trailed off into nothing. Her arms dropped to her sides, her face going blank.

Again, Con and Taemin exchanged a glance. Then, Ella jerked her phone from her pocket, holding it up triumphantly. "I found something!"

We don't really have time for this. Con bit down on his tongue to hold back that thought. Instead, he adjusted the towel on Taemin's shoulder, swiping at the blood beginning to dry on his arm.

"I went to the local library this morning—that's where I had to go." Ella met Con's eye, blushed and looked back down at her phone.

It took him a moment to understand that reaction. She had told him last night—after they'd had sex—that she couldn't stay with him because she had an early morning today. Con shifted, looking anywhere but at Taemin.

Ella cleared her throat a little too loudly and began scrolling aggressively through her phone. After a moment, she held it out to Taemin. He leaned forward, reading. Ella used her thumb to flick to the next page.

"Every ninety years?" he blurted, head jerking up.

"Like clockwork." Ella nodded, then held out the phone to Con.

He took it with his free hand and focused on the screen. It was a picture of an old newspaper. Con squinted at the tiny print, using his thumb and pointer finger to enlarge the image. Nine Dead in Tragic Accident. The paper was dated 1930.

"Go to the next page."

Con did as instructed, finding another newspaper clipping, this one dated to 1840. Nine Dead at Sanatorium. Bringing the phone closer to his face, Con re-read that. Then he looked up at Ella.

"I thought this place was always a hotel?" A chill skittered down his spine, making him shudder as he thought of all the pictures of sick-looking people.

Not sick-looking. Actually sick.

Ella shook her head, taking back her phone. "So, technically there aren't any more mass deaths like that, since this place was built in 1837. But there are plenty of scattered deaths throughout Haven's history."

Leaning forward, Taemin cradled his chin in his palm, elbow resting on his knee. "The last time was in 1930?" She nodded. Taemin closed his eyes for a second. "This is the ninetieth year from the last mass death."

"And four people are already dead."

"Which leaves five to go," Con whispered. Taemin jerked, giving a grunt of pain, and Con realized he'd clamped his hand down on Taemin's shoulder. Then, he shook his head, remembering how this conversation had even started. "Does...this explain why you came here?"

Ella's hand shook as she locked her phone and returned it to her pocket. She took a deep breath before sitting on Con's other side. "Kind of," she whispered. "Apparently, something had the same idea as we did."

Again, Taemin tensed beside him, like he was getting ready to leap away from Con.

"Please just spit it out," Con said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible. "Seriously, the suspense is just... I can't handle it, okay? My stupid brain is about to kick into an overdrive of anxiety and possibly some high-level hallucinations."

Shoulders slumped, Ella said, "This place is isolated with a small police force. It's a fairly popular vacation spot despite the rural area. It's almost always booked full. And obviously you can get away with murder here, though we didn't know that prior to...all this." She sucked in a breath. "It's a pretty great hunting ground."

Con sat quietly for a moment, waiting for her words to make some kind of sense. When they didn't, he looked up at the ceiling with a grimace. "Hunting ground. Hunting ground for what?"

He didn't really know what answer he was expecting, but Taemin's answer hadn't even been in the realm of possibility.

"Monsters."

Everything became very slow. Even his heartbeat seemed sluggish, filling his ears with a stilted rushing sound.

"Monsters," he repeated, aware of how very still the siblings were on either side of him. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Then, very slowly, he said, "Monsters aren't real. Monsters are the things my mind makes up to torment me. But they don't...kill people."

Gingerly, Ella slid her hand into his. "Monsters are...real, Con."

He couldn't stop the huff that escaped him. He clamped his lips together, glancing at first one, then the other Park out of the corner of his eye. Maybe they didn't think he was crazy because they were crazy too.

They aren't and you know it, a voice in his mind chastised. Don't be an asshole just because you're uncomfortable.

"They aren't real," he said again.

"Yes—"

"Prove it," Con cut Ella off, jerking his hand out of hers and standing abruptly. He turned to face them. Ella stared up at him, dark eyes wide and fearful. Taemin's head was down, silver hair hiding his face. "How do you know monsters are real?"

There was a beat of silence. A deep, deep silence.

Taemin raised his head, eyes closed. When he opened them, Con found himself pinned by a reddish-gold stare.

"Because we are monsters, Con."