dedicated to bateaux for her beautiful works (anchorage and especially blackout, to name a few!!!) and for being a major writing inspiration these past years. thank you endlessly ♡

✧

09

뛰다 | run

✧

LUKE KNEW SOMETHING was off the moment he stepped into the room.

It was a small office two blocks away from the LBS headquarters, bathed in a white deathly light that gave the furniture a ghost-like glow. A white table stretched like a narrow sheet in the center of the room, flanked by four black chairs. Three of them were full.

Seated were Arjun, Celestia Min, and Min's manager, Dom.

Dom was a big guy. His presence filled the room: he had a broad set of his huge shoulders, a thick neck and thin beard, his thick brows pulled into a perpetual frown. Luke's eyes were sharp, perceptive, and his gaze caught the impatient tapping of Dom's fingers on the table, the tension in Arjun's shoulders--and Celestia, seated beside her manager, glancing away in displeasure.

Luke took a seat beside Arjun easily. "This couldn't wait?"

"Not at all." Dom leaned back comfortably. "You're close to Lee Huang, right?"

Luke tensed. 

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"Don't you visit him--I don't know..." Dom waved his hand impatiently. "Once a month? Twice a month? It's at least every month, isn't it?"

"Every month," agreed Celestia. 

"Right." He jutted his chin at Luke. "Young, you know about his extended jail sentence?"

Dread settled in Luke's stomach. His gaze slid to Arjun, whose eyes were fixed on the table. "What is this?"

Dom snorted. "You're a big boy. Talk to me by yourself. You know about Lee Huang's extended jail sentence, yes or no? You do, right?"

Luke laughed shortly and glanced away, tucking his hands in his pockets. "What about it?"

"Well, you ever thought about bailing him out?"

"Where is this going?"

Dom's lips pulled into a toothy smile, as if he found something funny. Reaching behind him, he drew out a packet of papers and tossed it across the table.

Luke set his jaw.

BAIL PROCEEDING FORM I

BAIL PROCEEDING FORM II

APPLICATION FOR BAIL OUT PROGRAM...

A wave of bitterness rose in his throat. Luke's gaze flickered up to Celestia, who had no doubt helped organized this and was watching him with a sharp numbness in her metallic gaze.

Luke breathed out a laugh and curled his lips into a smile. "Did you just catch on?"

Dom arched a thick brow. "Catch on?"

His voice was laced with sour amusement. "Do you think someone hasn't offered to bail Lee out of jail for a favor before?"

But Dom, hardly fazed, simply scrunched up his nose. "A cheap shot, ain't it?"

"Try harder," said Luke calmly. He rose to his feet and tapped his manager. "We're leaving."

"I'm not finished," said Dom. 

"Too bad, because I am. Arjun?"

But the once jolly man refused to move and simply shook his head. Dom, who had clearly expected this, leaned back comfortably in his seat with a relaxed sigh. "Eris Park didn't volunteer in Elysia because she was interested in film, did she?"

Luke stopped.

A boisterous laugh bubbled up from his throat, as if he'd struck gold. "You didn't even go through all the papers," he said, eyes gleaming with delight. "Being an A-list actor makes you think you know everything, don't it?"

Celestia broke in smoothly. "I reported her to Dom after I caught her sneaking outside my trailer. She's a reporter."

"Which you already know, of course," said Dom, nodding, "with all the time you've been spending with her."

White-hot fury stirred within Luke. "You've been following me?"

Dom scoffed. "Everyone follows you, Young. Don't be so goddamn butthurt about it. See, we all know people use your buddy Lee Huang as an incentive. But they don't think about creating a consequence. You know what I'm sayin?"

Luke's eyes were cold. "Get to the point."

Dom smiled and looked up pleasantly. "Sit down first."

Red smeared angrily across Luke's vision. He sat down slowly.

"See," began Dom with fresh eagerness, folding his hands on the table, "Eris Park is a reporter. She pokes around people's business. She's entertainment's nightmare. Absolute poison. No one wants her around. Now, I got people who would gladly destroy her career in seconds."

Luke didn't miss a beat. "You think she can't destroy yours?"

Dom laughed. "Not if my boss wants her dead. Or her family dead. Imprisonment works, too, if you'd prefer history to repeat itself."

Luke's blood turned cold. Icy fingers gripped his chest. "What do you want?"

"Now we're talking." A grin stretched across Dom's face. "I have a job for you."

✧

At midnight four days later, the Daily Angel offices were empty.

Darkness hung thick over the entire floor as Eris and Brandon stumbled in with armfuls of recording equipment--tripods, booms, camera bags--weaving through the tables with only the scarlet gleam of the city's lights outside to illuminate their path. Their strained footsteps echoed in the sleeping building.

"Finally," Brandon groaned, shoulders heaving as the last of the equipment collapsed onto the table. "I'm sweating and it's two degrees in here."

Eris puffed out a breath and sent a passing glance at the turned-off heater. "It's forty-three degrees in here."

"I was exaggerating."

She unlocked the equipment room. "Let's put this away and debrief."

"Roger that."

Ten minutes later, they'd stuffed all the equipment back into the dark storage room and collapsed on a pair of swivels near the window. A shaft of crimson light illuminated their faces, and outside, wind whispered alongside the slowing traffic on the streets.

"So two things," started Brandon, resting his forearms on his knees. "We have Joey Quon's autopsy report, which confirms the medicine that killed him was prescribed the day before his death. And we traced the gun that killed Wyatt Han all the way back to..." He squinted his eyes, turned, and rummaged around papers. "To...."

"I got it," said Eris, lips curling up as she waved a paper in her hand. "His name is Devin Santiago."

Brandon snapped his fingers. "Right. That's the brother of what's his face? David...Dawson..."

"Dom."

"Yeah. Him. Man..."

Eris laughed quietly, but the good humor soon faded as her gaze settled once more on the words she'd scrawled across her notes. Devin Santiago. Brother of Celestia Min's manager. Murdered Wyatt Han. Employer unknown.

Her heartbeat quickened in fear as she crumpled the paper in her fist, dragging in a breath.

"Let's split up the work," she said, rising to her feet. "Read up on Quon's doctor and set an appointment with him. I'll take care of Santiago."

"What are you gonna do? Stalk him?"

"I'm going to report him."

Brandon winced. "Eris, it's midnight. You said we were in a hurry because you had to go home. How are you even getting to the station?"

Eris peered out the window. "Walking."

"Yeah, well, Fifth is sketchy after midnight."

She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Keep me posted about Quon, alright?"

"Park--"

But she'd already rushed off.

In the late hours, Seraph City was freckled with gold, the complexes rising high into the sky like mosaics of a cream and copper. But as she wove through the alleyways, taking the predetermined path to the station, the shadows thickened around her, stretching its fingers across the uneven concrete until she was swallowed in the dark.

The station itself was situated on a dark street and cut a lonesome figure in a pool of scarlet light. Water dripped from disused pipes in the moldy buildings leaning over it; in the parking lot there waited only two black vans. The wind whispered in her ears.

She touched her fingers to the device in her ear, sucked in a breath, entered the station,

The lobby was empty. Only a single shaft of yellow light sliced across the linoleum floor. Her own breathing echoed in her ears.

The station was deathly still.

Beyond the lobby, narrow halls winded into the dark, no doubt branching off into a set of offices closed for the day. Still, Eris knew there was someone here—someone....

"I told you, Park, this is for your own good...."

The low, stubborn voice bounced off the walls. Eris shrank back into the shadows as two broad-shouldered figures emerged from the copy room and crossed the hall. Her breath caught.

Her brother's badge gleamed from the light of a faraway office—and he was following, with his head lowered....a man in a dark cap.

Fear gripped her heart. Eris's hands curled into fists.

The man and Elias, still speaking in hushed tones, walked away from her and into the office at the end of the hall. She followed and knelt beside the door.

A swivel groaned as the bigger man sat down. She peered through the half-closed door just as he took off the cap and tossed it aside.

Devin Santiago.

In the flesh. He was leaner than Dom, the angles of his face harsher and colder than those of Celestia's manager, but he seemed at ease with himself, as if he was in complete control. She shuddered as his hurried footsteps from the stairway chase echoed in her ears.

So it was him.

And as she registered Elias in the chair across from him, hands curled into tight fists, a sick feeling spread across her stomach and rose like bile in her throat.

"Listen," began Elias lowly. The unsteadiness of his voice startled her. "I'm trying. I am trying to get her off the case. But she's a goddamn reporter, Dev, you know how it is—she won't stop."

Dev barked out an icy laugh. "Doesn't sound like my problem."

"Come on—"

But the man's face was stone. "Do you remember what Nam did for you? Do you need me to remind you?"

"No." Elias's answer was immediate, almost panicked. "No, no, no, I remember it perfectly. And I am doing what I can, if you'd be a little more—"

"Patient?" Dev snorted and rolled his eyes, clenching and unclenching his fingers. "You know, you're one of a kind, Elias..."

"I—"

"...because this isn't just about your sister." His brows arched high as his face darkened. "It's my brother. It's Luke Young and his agency. It's your father. It's Hope Jung. Everyone is on the line. So do your fucking job, or what I've just said?" His lips stretched bitterly. "That becomes a hit list."

Eris sucked in a sharp breath.

Devin froze.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as the two men inside fell quiet. She rose to her feet and turned away from the door...

"Looks like we've got ourselves a spy," came Devin's low voice. It sounded closer now.

Footsteps approached the door.

She crept down the hall and had nearly turned the bend when the door was thrown completely open, drowning her figure in light.

For one terrifying moment, Devin's eyes locked onto hers. Then his mouth twisted.

Run.

✧

He bolted after her.

Elias's shout rang through the air. Adrenaline spiked in her veins as she ran through the station and burst out into the night, feet crossing uneven concrete with as much speed as possible.

Her breaths pierced the air with a panicked rhythm. She veered left into an alley. Devin followed.

The alleys blurred past her. Right. Left. Left. Left. Streetlights flashed before her eyes.

Low laughter rung out in the dark. "You can't run forever."

The wind whistled past her.

No, Eris thought. Not forever.

Because when she swerved right into the final alley, Petra was waiting.

She stood like a wall of scarlet in the dark. Caught off guard, Devin skidded to an abrupt stop. From the shadows a few yards away, Eris watched with screaming lungs as the big man's eyes gleamed.

"I've seen you before," he sneered.

Petra's lips curled.

Devin's hand flew to his coat. A pistol flashed in the light. Before he could aim it, Petra attacked.

She moved like lightning. Her hand shot forward and twisted the gun from his grip. Devin lashed out, but she slipped out of reach like water and dealt a swift kick to his head. He stumbled back with a snarl. Face red, he reached for his belt. Metal scraped against metal.

A knife.

Eris's chest burned like fire. The blade sliced through the air.

Once. Twice.

At last, with one final grunt, Petra spun into the air, knocked the blade from his hand with one foot, and slammed him into the ground with the other.

The knife fell to the ground with a sharp clang and skidded all the way to Eris's feet.

Petra's face was dark with murder as she advanced on Devin. A cold shiver raced down Eris's spine as the girl dealt another vicious kick to the head and pinned him to the ground. Her lip twisted with poison.

"If you want a clean slate," she began smoothly, "tell me about your employer."

Devin's huge face was red, as if he was losing air, but all he did was pull his lips up into one big grin.

"You're delusional," he spat. "You're all looking in the wrong place."

Petra's sharp laughter rang through the air. "Really? I'm looking at Lumens Broadcasting System. Sound like the wrong place?"

The grin vanished from his face. A frown pulling low at her brows, Eris emerged from the shadows with Devin's cold knife hanging from her fingers.

"Did my brother tell you that?" asked Devin, face dark.

Petra tilted her head and smiled. "You did. Standard Pim. You're too slow with a gun and too dumb with a knife." Her face turned to stone. "Who in LBS is paying him now? Hm?"

Pim?

A sharp rattle sounded above. Petra looked up sharply. 

Eris pressed herself against the wall and followed the girl's gaze. Shrouded in darkness, the apartments rose overhead on three sides, doused in the thick muted navy of night. But somewhere, illuminated by the light from a rusted window, a fire escape stairway gleamed--and it was trembling. As if someone had just leapt onto it....

"Get down," said Petra coldly.

Get down--?

"Eris--"

She threw herself to the ground just as a gunshot ripped through the air.

It wrenched the oxygen from her lungs. Her hands flew to her ears. Still, a terrifying gurgle sounded in the muffled distance--the sound of someone were choking on his own blood. Another sharp rattled echoed once more, this time retreating, and Eris shut her eyes in terror. 

For a moment, the world was silent. 

When at last she lowered her hands from her ears, the world swam back to focus, and someone was breathing heavily. Bile rose in her throat as the smell of blood filled her senses. She emerged from the shadows gingerly, barely breathing, and froze.

Devin was dead.

Petra bent over him, searching his face, pale as ice. Eris joined her and sucked in a breath. "What--"

"He was trained by Pim, Seraph's most well known trainer." Petra sent a glance Eris's way. "Pim leads the city's underground fighters and negotiates contracts with business leaders. The leaders are the brains, he's the brawn. Devin's part of that brawn."

A cold shiver crept down her spine. Devin's eyes were open. Vacant.

"What does that mean?" she said.

Petra leaned away and lifted the gun in her hand. "It means this is bigger than either of us think. Whoever's terrorizing LBS with murders is someone who owns something with enough money to fund a guy like Pim. A CEO, or someone in the government."

A CEO.... "It can't be Hope Jung, then."

"Guess not." Petra rose to her feet. "I'm going after the shooter. The alley's clear, so head over to Luke's place. He's in town for the night, so I'll let him know you're coming. I don't want people following you back to yours." She arched a brow. "Especially if your brother's there."

Eris couldn't tear her eyes off the man's body. "And Devin?"

"I'll report it in a bit, but you are getting the hell out of here before you become a murder suspect." She stepped over Devin's body, looking at Eris with startlingly haunted eyes. "Okay?"

Eris swallowed and nodded. "Good luck."

Petra's lip curled. With one last pat on Eris's shoulder, she slipped the gun into her jacket and vanished into the dark.

Something beeped in Devin's suit. With trembling hands, Eris knelt beside the man's lifeless body and reached into his blood-soaked pocket. She swallowed back bile as the liquid slid thick and warm between her fingertips.

Through a sheen of blackish crimson, she made out a small screen. It was a map of the streets around them, and in the center--where she was--a dot blinked vibrant red. Eris narrowed her eyes.

She had a flash suddenly of the man who had bumped into her at the Elysian train station. How his hand had snagged her bag. How she'd felt invisible eyes on her back. The feeling of rapid footsteps approaching that night in Luke's neighborhood.

Her gaze fell on her bag, which hung loosely from her shoulder. It was sleek and black, with clean-cut edges and magnetic clasp. She opened it and felt around the insides...around the magnet...until her fingertips grazed a tiny piece of cool metal.

A tracker.

Eris puffed out a breath. The tiny device blinked faintly in her blood-stained fingers. She should have known. Instead of wondering if the man had taken away something, she should have considered what he'd left behind.

Devin's blood seeped into the crevices of her nails. She could smell it, that sickly, salty tang. The thick stench of death. Of cold-blooded murder.

She reached forward, shut his eyes carefully with her fingers, and rose to her feet, squashing the tracker beneath her feet. She tucked the device into her pocket for Petra later.

A harsh wind bit her skin. God, it was so hard to breathe.

When she broke away and started for Luke's, her eyes were stinging with tears.

✧

She arrived at his door ten minutes later. 

He moved aside to let her in without a word. With shoulders drawn tight, eyes numb, he looked nothing short of exhausted: dressed in dark sweats, sleep-mussed hair hung over heavy-lidded eyes glazed with fatigue. She had seen him tired before--it always seemed as if his job snuffed out the energy from his body--but this time, he moved carelessly, as if something had drained the very life in his bones.

Inside, his apartment--once bathed in copper light weeks ago--now sat in thick darkness with only a shaft of light from the kitchen window gleaming off the edges of furniture. The rooms felt colder, as if the walls themselves had stretched apart.

As he led her upstairs and directed her to a guest room and bathroom, she didn't miss the way his gaze flickered more than once to her blood-stained fingers, half-hidden as they curled into fists within her thick grey sleeves.

It took half an hour before she emerged from the bathroom and into the guest room. It had taken longer than she'd expected to catch her breath--to truly breathe--to even feel the rise of steam clouding the shower walls and allow the hot water to soothe her tense muscles. To even begin washing from her body the blood, the grime, the death.

The memory of Devin's vacant eyes still burned behind her lids.

Now, with some semblance of a calmed heart, she pulled on the old hoodie Luke had lent her, tossed her hair up into a knot with a heavy yawn, and headed downstairs for a glass of water. Petra had sent no updates.

There was nothing to do but wait and hope.

She found Luke seated at the kitchen island in a slice of golden light, a mug in the curl of his arm, a hand grasping his hair absently as he stared at a piece of paper. The fierce tang of herbs filled her senses once more. "Is that medicine?"

Luke didn't look up from his paper. "It's a company roster."

"No, this." Eris peered over and wrinkled her nose at the brownish liquid. "It smells terrible."

His lip quirked. Eyes still on the paper, he slid it over. "Take some," he suggested. "It helps you sleep."

She shuddered and turned away. "You look like you're trying to do anything but sleep," she replied, poking around the kitchen. "Where are your cups?"

Luke released a soft sigh and joined her by the counter, drawing startlingly close until his arm was pressed against hers, the smell of sweet shampoo and fresh clothes filling her senses. She was suddenly aware of the smooth strength in each muscle of his body, of the weight of his body brushing hers as he reached for a cup in the topmost cupboard and filled it with water from the tap.

Though he was still avoiding her eyes, she could feel his shoulders shake from the laugh rising from his chest. "Your hair's dripping water everywhere."

Eris blinked. Sure enough, drops of water freckled the edge of the counter and splattered haphazard patterns across his hoodie.

She puffed out an irritated breath. "Sorry," she said, reaching to tighten the bun atop her head, scrunching up her nose to catch the strands that had fallen loose. Luke's lips twitched, and he startled her by tucking away one strand behind her ear with feather-light fingers, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She froze beneath his touch--but not before catching sight of a blackish stain on his hands.

Scabs, piercing his knuckles as if he had punched glass.

Heart racing, a frown pulled low on Eris's brows. Suddenly, the ghost of his touch was overpowered quickly by a dangerous hunch as she recalled the way he'd rushed out of the ramen shop just days ago. 

"What did Celestia's manager want on Thursday?"

Luke swallowed and returned to the island stool. "What?"

"The night you came back from Riverdale, you had to leave early because Celestia's manager was calling." She straightened and approached him boldly, the inner reporter within her rising to the surface. "His name's Dom, right?" she pressed on, ignoring the sting at the mention of Devin's brother. "What did he want?"

"Work," Luke answered, focusing far too much attention at his paper. "It's nothing."

Eris rounded the island and slid into the stool across from him. "So why haven't you looked me in the eye the entire night?"

Luke's tongue dug into his teeth with painful reluctance. When he met her eyes a moment later, she was startled by how empty they were. "If I tell you, will you tell me why you came at one in the morning with blood all over your hands?"

She looked back in exasperation, heart skipping. "That's just my job," she urged. "I'm a reporter. We do crazy things sometimes."

"I'm an actor," he countered, arching his brows. "So do we."

"Did Dom do something?"

Now Luke's numb face morphed into something entirely guarded. "Why?"

Eris pressed her hands against the cool surface of her glass, realizing belatedly that despite her best efforts, Devin's blood still caked her nails. She swore she could still smell the metallic tang of it, feel the liquid sifting through her skin...

"His brother was shot today," she said.

Luke froze. "What?"

"Petra and I had this plan--"

A harsh breath left his lips. "Eris--"

"No, hear me out," Eris pressed, voice rising with new confidence. "He's the man who chased me up the stairway last week. The one who followed me. He was tracking me with this device, which is upstairs right now--"

"You have the device?"

"--and we had a plan to track him down tonight."

Luke dropped his head with a sigh. "Eris..."

"I went to the station at midnight because Petra knew my brother would be meeting a man named Devin Santiago," she pushed on. "She recognized him from security cameras. Devin saw me and--well, naturally, he came after me, and I led him right to Petra. She found that he was trained and funded by Pim, which changes our list of suspects considerably. But someone shot him before we could get anything else out of him."

"So you were bait."

"It worked."

Luke shook his head. His gaze searched hers in disbelief. "At the cost of what?"

She felt a wave of defensiveness. "I've reported cases like these before," she told him sharply. "I've been on crime scenes. Blood isn't new to me."

"What about murder?"

"Murder, crime scenes, what's the difference?"

"A crime scene is all the horrors of murder watered down," he said. "People don't kill each other before your eyes in a crime scene that's taped off and guarded by police."

Eris opened her mouth to argue. But the words vanished on her tongue. 

Memories flashed through her mind. Memories of a cold stairway devoid of life and color, with only a pair of harsh, panicked footsteps alighting the air, reaching for her like deathly fingers. Of a street swallowed by the dark, ripped apart by the echo of a gunshot and a sea of blood. Of that sheer panic, that white flash of terror...

"Luke," she murmured, shoving the memories away. She dragged in a steadying breath. "Come on, there are prices to pay. You know that."

He shook his head and stood to dump the medicine in the sink. "They're not yours to pay."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

Her chest tightened in surprise.

She paused as Luke turned, bracing his arms on the counter, his broad-shouldered shadow shielding her from the shaft of light in the window. His gaze traced patterns across the smooth black surface. Hesitating.

 "Dom blackmailed Arjun and I," he said finally, straightening. "We're too much of a threat, apparently."

A shiver ran down her spine as she looked up. "What did he want?"

Luke shook his head, but she caught him flexing and unflexing his fingers, as if the mere thought pained him. His whole body was corded tight, as if something gone wild with pain had been locked within him for too long, like some kind of ticking time bomb. 

"Don't come to this area again after you leave tomorrow," he said, a strained smile curling his lips. "Don't come to Elysia. Don't meet Petra in public. Don't call me," he added, swallowing. "They'll be tracking me."

"Luke--"

"Anything my phone receives, they see. They do background checks on people I'm with, so stay away, and don't message anything, either--"

"Luke," she broke in sharply, searching his face. "What did he want?"

He fell silent for a long moment. When his eyes rose to meet hers a moment later, they resembled broken glass. 

"He wants me," he said.