C51 - Soul-ed Mate

I expect to find a man being pushed to the edge of his limits. And I do find that. But not the way I thought.

There’s a row of abandoned houses, each one stately and tall, each one crumbling beneath nature and neglect. Some of them have signs in the front, converted into businesses at one time. A lawyer’s office. A boutique.

The sign at this house is too faded to read as I streak past it. The door hangs open, not locked. No one’s worried about intruders. No one enters a place with this level of danger, of dread voluntarily.

Instead of Kim Yongdae, looking sinister in a neat tuxedo, wielding some kind of instrument of torture, I find Min Yoongi with his shirtsleeves rolled up, the white linen fabric stained dark with sweat and soot and blood, holding an iron poker, the end red from heat.

A pile of coals sits in the centre of a large fireplace, the kind once used to heat large homes. Half of a desk stands sideways in the corner, signaling some kind of office setting.

It’s a modern archaeological dig, layer upon layer of history, the remnants of life lived and lost. I don’t have time to document every artifact, to study every reference, but I can sense the despair in the musty darkness.

And instead of the man I love at the mercy of a killer, hurting, suffering, I see Kim Yongdae tied to the ceiling, his mouth dripping with blood and saliva, his naked torso a maze of scars and open wounds.

Yoongi’s eyes meet mine, and for one horrifying moment I can see everything he’s seeing. I can feel everything he’s feeling—the anger and the pain, the determination and sinking mercy. He’s a man who’s done violence before, one who will do it again.

And I’m the only person who can reach him.

“What are you doing here?” he says, and even his voice sounds different.

Cracked.

“Looking for you,” I whisper. “How long have you been here?”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The sound coursing through the night air had narrowed my vision. I didn’t know what kind of building we’d come to, but now that I look around, I see the remnants of some kind of clinic—that old rubbery floor strewn with dust, missing ceiling tiles, the smell of mildew sharp in the air. A home, an office.

“Is this…a hospital?”

Kim Yongdae begins to laugh, a horrifying sound. Blood-tinged spittle flies onto the floor. “Does someone look sick to you, little bird?”

A sudden chill overtakes me. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him speak before now. A sense of dreamlike familiarity washes over me, moving my lips. It’s someone else who answers him, his voice tight. “You’re not looking very well at the moment.”

Dark eyes meet mine, the same ones I saw across the ballroom in my mother’s house. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen this man, but I recognize the venom in his eyes. The soulless intent. “I’ve never been well, not really. Neither have you.”

Yoongi takes a step between us. “Don’t speak to him. You don’t fcuking speak to him.”

The poker still burns faintly pink. That’s how hot it is. I can see the marks on Kim Yongdae’s body, the places where Yoongi has already applied the heat. Burns that will never really heal on skin that was never truly fine.

“Yoongi,” I whisper. “What happened to him? Look at all the open wounds, the burns, the blood. Did you do all of this?”

Though his face looks completely normal, his body is covered in old wounds. Ropes of scars on top of scars. I’m not sure I can even see a strip of untouched skin across his chest or his arms.

“Some of it,” Yoongi says, his expression flat. “And don’t look so horrified. He doesn’t deserve your pity.”

“It doesn’t matter what he’s done, no one deserves that.”

And I’m not sure anyone can survive administering that kind of torture day after day, the way Yoongi did.

“If you had a full accounting,” Kim Taehyung says, strolling from the shadows, “I think you would disagree. However, the stories aren’t fit for polite company.”

Jungkook takes a step back, as if he’s more afraid of the man with a quick smile than the one practically feral tied up with a rope.

Taehyung pauses only infinitesimally, enough to show he notices, not enough to show he cares. “Forty years ago they thought they could cure what was wrong with his brain.” He waves a hand around, as if showing off some banal art museum instead of torture devices. “That enough heat or electricity or water could shock the crazy out of his feral wolf.”

My eyes widen. “That’s barbaric.”

“And ineffective,” Yoongi says, his voice harsh.

“Then why are you doing it?”

He tosses the poker down with a horrible clatter. “I’m not trying to cure him.”

“You’re torturing him,” I say, my voice rising in panic. “It’s one thing to kill someone in self-defense. Even revenge. Another to hurt someone like this, to destroy them, to mutilate their body.”

A small laugh. “Have I shocked you again, Virgin lily?”

Tears spring to my eyes. “Yes.”

Jungkook touches the back of my hand. “He’s trying to save you.”

I glance back. “How?”

“Yes, how?” Kim Yongdae swings in his ropes smiling like a fcuking clown, blood dripping from his mouth, and I see where Taehyung gets his grotesque humor. He looks almost playful. “Tell him how mighty Min Yoongi bought him and fcuked him and keeps him locked away from the world, all in a desperate bid to save his pretty cunt.”

“Get them out of here,” Yoongi mutters to Taehyung.

When Taehyung makes a move toward us, I back away. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Yoongi sighs. “You really shouldn’t see this.”

“It shouldn’t be happening! You’ve caught him. You have him. You can turn him over to the cops.”

Taehyung’s eyes close. “The chief of police is dear old Dad’s drinking buddy. They liked to torture omegas in their wolf form together while they watched the game on Sundays.”

My gasp is drowned by the maniacal laugh from the man hanging from the ceiling.

“Did I say wolves?” Taehyung says, glancing back with an impassive expression. “Sometimes dogs. Sometimes humans. Anyone who would scream.”

“Sometimes you,” I whisper.

His dark eyes meet mine. “He doesn’t deserve your compassion.”

“Maybe not, but what about Yoongi? What do you think this is doing to him?”

Taehyung doesn’t look back at his friend. “You can’t save him, Virgin lily.”

My eyes narrow. Maybe Yoongi can call me that, but not anyone else. “You should get Jungkook out of here. He’s been through enough.”

Taehyung must figure I’m telling the truth, because he takes a step toward Jungkook. Jungkook backs up, but he doesn’t stop. His hand grabs his wrist. “Come,” he mutters, dragging the boy behind him.

His rough handling of Jungkook makes me wince, but it’s better that he’s gone from here. I’m not convinced that there isn’t a net hiding under the leaves, ready to trap us when we take the wrong step.

Kim Yongdae sighs with what sounds like pleasure. “I thought they would never leave. I really prefer threesomes to an orgy, don’t you? Much more intimate.”

Yoongi takes a step forward. “I’ll use a gag on you, you sick fcuk.”

“Kinky, but I won’t pretend not to like it.”

“Wait.” I put my hand on Yoongi’s arm. He looks down, half-surprised, half-frustrated.

“Taehyung was right, you know. He doesn’t deserve your mercy.” Yoongi growls.

“Tell me why you’re doing this. I’m already here, damn it. Let me in.”

“God.” He stalks away before turning back. “He put a price on your head. And he’s the only one who can call it off. If I kill him now, there’s someone out there. Maybe multiple someones.”

“How will they get their money if he’s dead?”

He shrugs. “A surrogate might be holding the money. That’s my bet, but even if that weren’t the case, no one would believe he had died.”

I blink. “An assassin wouldn’t believe he could die?”

“I have a reputation,” Kim Yongdae says in a droll tone. As if it bores him. “It’s somewhat magical. Is that what you’d call it? Almost divine.”

“You’re no god,” I tell him.

“Not even for someone who reads about Zeus and Apollo? Why can’t I be one of them?”

“They were men. Ordinary men built up by stories.”

“You’re probably right. I wouldn’t have used the word ‘god,’ myself. I’m more like the bogeyman. The monster...under your bed.”

The words send shards of pain through my skull, blinding light and screeching sound colliding. I stumble to the side, stunned and hurting.

“No,” I whisper.

I can hear Yoongi calling me, but he’s far away. “Jimin!” He sounds worried, but I can’t reassure him. It comes to me with startling clarity, the way nightmares should never be. The way that can only happen if they’re real. The monster under my bed. He’s Kim Yongdae. Not a god. Not a shadow. A real man.

My stomach clenches hard, and I fall on my hands and knees. The world tilts around me, a spinning vortex. The only thing I can see clearly is my bedroom, with its pastel blue ruffles and white wood furniture. The only thing I can hear is Kim Yongdae’s voice.

“Don’t tell me you forgot me. It would hurt my feelings. Monsters have feelings too, you know.”

Spasms wrench my body, the past and present colliding, a history unlocked. I would have kept it hidden forever—even from myself. And he forced the memories to the surface.

“Oh God,” I gasp. “Please stop. Please.”

“What are you doing to him?” Yoongi’s voice. “Stop it right fcuking now.”

“I’m not touching him,” Yongdae says, and I can hear the smirk in his voice. That’s the truth. He’s never touched me. All those nights and he never once touched me.

Yoongi wraps his arms around me, and only then do I realize I’d been flailing. I must look insane to him, and maybe it’s the truth. That’s why Kim Yongdae brought me to this place. Not a hospital. It’s an insane asylum.

“Stop,” I whisper.

“Tell me how to help you,” Yoongi says, gently begging. “What is he doing to you?”

The avalanche can’t be stopped now that it’s started. A small crack in the ice and the entire mountain is coming down. There’s no way for me to avoid the awful knowledge, to hide from the terrible truth of what I am—what Kim Yongdae made me.

The only thing I can possibly do is get Yoongi out of the wreckage. I can condemn him to surviving once again. It’s a cruel thing to do, but I do it with love.

Is this the choice that my mother faced? To leave me in a world too dark to keep the both of us?

Yoongi’s golden eyes look luminescent through my tears.

“A doctor,” I lie, because what I really need is time. “I need Dr. Joon. He’ll know what to do.”

“I’ll carry you there,” Yoongi says urgently.

I hold out my hand, sure I’ll vomit if he touches me. “Please. No. I can’t.”

“I can’t leave you here with him.”

“It’s the only way.”

Yoongi stares at me for a long moment, before finally ducking out of the building.

Then I’m alone with the man who starred in my nightmares, who infiltrated my dreams.

The very real monster under my bed—Kim Yongdae, in the flesh.

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