Hoseok was careful with his hands, careful not to push or pull Shae roughly as he led her along with his large fingers cupping around her smaller, more delicate ones. The worn stone paths that they walked had a sunbaked smell and warmth rose up from the ground beneath their feet even as they walked in the shade between buildings.

Hoseok led Shae down one side street, then another, and they weaved their way further and further from the sounds of the crowds and from the shadow cast by the stands.

Hoseok peaked out of an alleyway and looked both ways--in time to see two bodies running down that open lane at rapid fire.

He didn't pause to see who; he curled the side of his body into the wall he and Shae were standing next to, tucking her small frame into his chest with one arm arched around her back--that back that was still covered by his plumb-pink suit jacket.

The sound of heels on cobblestone, of laughter, rushed quickly by the alley where Hoseok hid Shae in his shadow.

"Just some random couple," he muttered, relief in his voice after they had gone. "Alright then. Let's...."

Hoseok saw the flush in Shae's face as she glanced at his arm braced against her back. She glanced nervously up and saw the flush rise in his cheeks to match his red hair.

Shame, fear, and something else passed between them.

His arm slid off of her shoulder, though he still held her palm carefully in his other hand.

"We're almost there," he said, offering a warm and encouraging smile.

His eyes couldn't help but dance quickly over the red marks that were still branching down her legs, or in red lines up her throat. Both to her, and to himself, he added, "Don't worry."

She offered a small smile back, but said nothing.

They walked down a short stone flight of stairs that seemed to descend into the ground itself. There was no door, no hinges, just a stone doorway that opened up into shadow.

Hoseok and Shae stepped down and into that shadow, and all of a sudden small arms were latched in a vice grip around Shae's chest. Lilith had caught her in a tight embrace, just as Hoseok's hand slipped from Shae's.

Lilith's voice was a warm, feminine rush of words that felt like messy music to Shae's ears: "I'm so glad you're ok, please tell me you're ok, here let me look at you, come over here Shae, oh God you're not ok, what happened, tell me everything that happened, do you need anything, do you need me to get you anything, what about an ice pack, I think we have an emergency medi-pen around here somewhere that'll help, I can--"

Shae just reached out and hugged Lilith again, a little tighter this time, and the fierce little woman's words stopped.

Lilith's heart ached protectively. Shae may have been taller that she was, but the fire inside of Lilith gave her the rooted presence of a giant. I'll murder you for this later, Jung Hoseok, she thought quietly to herself.

Hoseok simply stood by, watching the trembling that entered Shae's knees all over again. He told himself that he wasn't aloud to look away. Don't hide your eyes from what you have done. Don't be like your enemies.

Lilith said quietly, "It's going to be alright, Shae. I swear it."

Shae took one unsteady, careful breath. Then another, steadier one. She let Lilith go, and then her eyes took in the dimly lit, stony underground corridor she had just entered. "Where are we?"

Hoseok spoke up, "We're in barracks that weave below the stadium."

"Why?" Shae asked.

Lilith said carefully, "Shae, I know it's a big ask, especially considering everything that you've already been through. But I'm going to need you to change into your combat gear. And I'm going to need you to trust us, ok?"

Shae looked from Hoseok to Lilith with confusion. This in't a rescue mission at all, is it? She took a step backwards, her tone of voice turning sharp. "What is it you want exactly?"

Lilith started to open her mouth to speak, but Hoseok was quicker as he said, "Justice."

Shae saw no laughter nor lightness in Jung Hoseok's eyes anymore.

Shae's tone of voice remained strong and biting, "Who's justice? For what crimes?"

Lilith put her hands on her hips and scowled in Hoseok's direction. "We should just tell her, god dammit, it's not like--"

"NO." Hoseok scowled dangerously back at Lilith, who stood her ground easily beneath his gaze. He went on, "No. If she knows beforehand, that could ruin the whole thing."

____

"Jin, I still can't believe you're not more upset about all of this. I mean shit, your girl has LOCKED you in some storage room while God knows what kinda chaos rages on outside."

"Excuse me, but we know. We have this handy video feed to tell us everything we need to know--and from the comfort of this chair. I mean, getting my hands dirty is really not my thing anyway."

"But you're a doctor. Don't you have to do that all the time?"

"It's a figure of speech. And stitching someone up is much different than tearing them to bits."

"Isn't it just as gory to do the stitching? Or, I don't know, worse?"

Jin sighed. "I have the stomach for fixing broken things. Not for doing the breaking. I never have."

"That still doesn't answer my original point."

He sighed, "Ok, yeah, I'm a little peeved at Lilith, not gonna lie. But say what you will, I still trust her."

"How the hell can you--"

Jin's tone of voice grew an edge to it that Ava had never heard before. This wasn't annoyance or insulted pride rearing it's head. It was something else. "When you've been known by someone, have known them, so fully and completely as Lilith and I have been known by each other, that shit doesn't just happen without bits of you lacing themselves into the other human and embedding there for good. I trust her because she's crawled under my skin and she lives inside of me, and when I look into her eyes I see parts of me in those fragments of amber-and-gold scattering perfect blue reflecting me back."

Ava stared, completely taken by surprise by the sudden fierce earnestness rushing out of Jin.

Jin sighed. "I probably sound mad."

"Yes and no," Ava answered quietly.

He went on with that same boldness in his voice, "Love is a messy thing when you're deep in it. It's not... hot sex and perfect understanding all the time, and no cloudy days ever again. It's like old fashioned surgery. Slow and sometimes painful, but it's saving your life each time you go under the knife again. It's blood transfusions, heart transplants, bones splitting into each other's ribs, and feeling agony every time you see their pain or disappointment written on their face. I know that's how she feels about me. It's how I feel about her."

Ava studied that faraway look on Jin's face and felt a sense of awe at the words and feeling emanating from him. There was something in his words that felt almost...sacred.

Ava asked, her voice careful, "But how do you know?"

He smiled in a quiet way to himself, an expression that made Ava marvel for the delicateness of it on a man who was normally so bombastic. "I just know."

____

When Kim Namjoon had woken up from that drug-fever, that perfect dream, Shae had been nowhere in sight.

He also had no recollection of how he'd ended up passed out on the floor of that storage barn in the first place, but he wondered if it was related to his pounding headache. Or was that just the drug wearing off?

It had been like having his face covered in a black mask that he couldn't see through, while his body moved freely--being drugged. Vague snippets of sound and sensation hummed, blurred, just below the surface of full recognition. He knew the drug he'd inhaled was an offshoot of that same aphrodisiac substance that someone had spiked Shae and his afternoon tea with before. It went by many names, but was most often either called pulleon or leaf. Except this version was stronger than what'd been snuck in their teas, and he'd inhaled it directly.

Fear and foreboding rested in the pit of his stomach at what it was he might have done that was just out of reach of recognition. And over the awful fact that in the midst of it all, Shae had disappeared.

For the millionth time as he sat up in that box suite with Petra, he was swearing to himself for his own idiocy. Why had he taken off her bracelet? He could have tracked her! But no, her bracelet was in his pocket, and Shae could be anywhere.

She could be gone from Era forever, and a part of Joon hoped that she was. Then she'd be safe.

But a part of him desperately hoped that she wasn't.

"Joonie, if you don't find Shae soon, I may have to punish you. Which I would enjoy, but you certainly would not," Petra said with fiendish condescension as she sat in his lap, her hand stroking through the back of his head.

He missed Shae's kind and gentle fingers there instead.

The feeling of Petra's touch was repulsive and possessive. It was magnified by the fact that there were eight other men in the box suite with them, including a very bored looking Dee-Oh of Essem Fortress, but Petra acted like no one else was there except Kim Namjoon.

Nausea swam in the pit of his stomach. Kim Namjoon gave a gentle shove and Petra was forced to her feet. Then Joon got to his. "Perhaps I should go and look for her."

Petra looked Joon up and down suspiciously.

The announcer's voice rang across the stadium, and the next pairing of combat fighters were announced for all to hear.

"Did he just say...?" Joon walked forward and put his hands on the railing of the box suit, leaning out and squinting down at the figures in the sand. Their forms were projected for everyone to see clearly above the stadium itself onto massive transparent screens, and there was no mistaking them. "No."

"Oh, this should be exceptionally entertaining," Petra said with a delighted laugh.