21
"Worried?"
As soon as the word slipped off his lips, Paige shuddered.
The Ghost wasn't a large aircraft but it was large enough to host a dozen people. Majority of its interior was black or white, giving it an elegant appearance with its leather sofas and spruce tables. A large sofa sat in the centre of the jet, semi-circling the table where a chessboard sat.
A bit ahead, was a mini bar which Lily and Nicholas found themselves all too comfortable with. Opposite the bar were a couple of tables with two chairs facing each other.
Woojin sat at one, fingers typing away on his keyboard calmly as he sipped on a mug of coffee he had treated himself with. Paige sat quietly at the other table, eyes trained on the view of the sea below. Her own cup of tea had long gone cold and she found herself subconsciously scratching her nail against the chip around the rim.
Donghyun watched the way she bit against her lip until she drew blood before finally approaching her and uttering the single word.
Paige's eyes slowly met his.
"You're not?"
His nonchalant expression as he shrugged got her eyebrows furrowing in disbelief.
He allowed himself to collapse onto the seat opposite her, releasing a loud sigh. Paige did not miss how that action caught both Woojin and Minho's attention.
She gulped.
"You should be," she muttered, placing her cup down.
"And why's that?" he challenged, raising an eyebrow to compliment his coy smirk. "You trust me, don't you? That's why you asked me to help you, right?"
"What use is my trust in this? If ever any of these people find a proven flaw in you, you know I can't save you, right?"
Donghyun's confidence was always something Paige admired. From his relaxed aura to his lack of concerns, all of it amused her. It was almost as if nothing could ever bother him, as if nothing could ever sink below the surface. And yet for a moment, she watched as all of that crashed. His eyes darkened into a look she had only seen once before... An expression scarred so deep in her brain it still haunted her at times. It was the last expression she had ever seen on Janey's face: a combination of guilt and desperation.
It made her sick.
"I know," his smirk returned and just as quickly as it had appeared, the expression faded.
But Paige saw it. She swore she did.
He shifted in his seat, gaze turning to her mug before he cleared his throat to speak again.
"You think that I don't notice, don't you? That I don't see the way they glare at me and speak about me?" he released a sigh, tucking his hands into the pockets of his grey sweatpants. His gaze met hers again and Paige found herself questioning how he could approach such an urgent matter with a playful smirk. "I know. And it's my fault. How could an assassin join the Society if not to benefit them in one way or another? Out of everyone here, I'm obviously the most likely to betray you all. Because at the end of the day, I'm just an assassin and assassins only do things for the money, right?"
The bitterness laced to his words was blatant. He wasn't willing to hide anything. And Paige finally realised how fake the smirk he wore was, how fragile it truly was. Staring into his dark, mysterious eyes, she found herself noticing that his smirk wasn't a trademark, it was a defence mechanism to hide how he truly felt about the situation, to hide how he knew he probably won't return from this trip alive.
"You know me better than that," she glared at him. "If that was how I truly felt, do you really think I would have asked you to help me? We both know each other better than that."
"That's why you are the only one I trust here. You and I, Paige, we are in the same boat... The same sinking boat. And only one of us will make it."
She opened her mouth argue but found herself immediately shutting it. Being the Head of the Society, it was her job to make everyone feel like there was hope even when there was none. But she couldn't bring herself to do the same for Donghyun. He didn't deserve to have hope when death was staring directly at him and he knew that. They both knew that.
"What do you want from me?" she emitted the question that had been sitting on hee tongue since the day he agreed to work with her.
Her offer wasn't grand enough for Donghyun to offer his whole life for. There was more to this alliance than even she knew.
He combed a hand through his hair, gaze firm on her as he uttered, "I've lived my whole life having to hide the truth from everyone, having to be on my own. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need at least one person to know everything."
"Know everything?" she raised an eyebrow. "That's risky, Donghyun, even if it's me."
He shrugged, his white tee suddenly seeming too large for him. The evident fear in his eyes made her shudder and she wished with everything inside her that no one else could see the vulnerability on him she was currently face to face with.
"I don't want much," he sighed, a lopsided smile cast on his face. "I just don't want to die a liar."
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