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| ← Ch.053 | Ch.055 → |
There was no way that they would let her go when she was this weakened. The pain that had given her an adrenaline rush would soon pass, and she would surely fall unconscious soon, so running wasn't an option. The best way was simply to get rid of all of them as fast as possible.
She flew at the men and landed among her enemies. The old cross bag she was wearing drooped heavily below her as she flew into the air. The brown eyes beyond the white hair glimmered with menace.
The first to fall was the man who swung an ax at her. Surprised by her sudden movement, he stood in a defenseless position, which made him an easy target for her to plunge her knife into his stomach. A knife stabbed nothing but the air in which SoYoon had been standing. Having achieved nothing, he ended up charging at his fallen comrade.
SoYoon attacked the man who stood horrified by what he had done. Several weapons all charged at once and pushed down against her. Crouched, she was able to use her strength to hold them all back and eventually fling away the cage of weapons around her. Those holding the flailing intertwined weapons soon lost their lives.
She wondered for how long she had been fighting. At one point, her vision blurred. She felt pain in her side, and she instinctively swung her sword. When she stepped back and looked down, she saw a sharp-thorned knuckle lodged inside her.
This is not good, she thought. If she wasn't able to register that a close-range weapon like a knuckle had hit her, it meant that her acute alertness was fading fast. She bit her lip as she continued to fight the never-ending stream of enemies. Even the knuckle lodged in her side didn't send a wave of adrenaline to kick her senses back.
A sword and hand ax came at her from either side. She was able to defend against the hand ax coming from the right pretty easily, but to block the sword from the left at the same time was too much for her. The sword bounced off her knife but swung back around. When she turned to concentrate toward it, the hand ax came at her again from the right.
The hand ax aimed for her arm; the sword aimed for her heart. It was obvious which one was a more imminent threat. She turned to face the man with the knife as she kicked out at the man with the hand ax. At least it would force them to change their direction of attack.
The moment SoYoon attacked, the enemy charged her also. The heaviness of the specific weapon caused pain to shoot up her back. Luckily, it only grazed her, so it didn't hinder her movement. She flipped her knife backward and stabbed the enemy with a backward swinging motion. It penetrated his liver, and he fell.
SoYoon tossed the heavy corpse off her body and looked at her surroundings. Even Cheshire would have a limit to how many men he was willing to risk for this cause. There were not many left now.
"We're going to keep going, right?" she asked him.
To hide her trembling hands, she stabilized them by gripping tightly onto her sword. Cheshire's men looked at each other. When she stepped forward, they slowly started to retreat, then turned their backs to her and ran.
"Ha..."
Was it finally over? she wondered. She sighed in relief, then looked at Cheshire. After getting patched up, he was sitting when their eyes met, and he flinched.
His good-looking face flushed gray. He was preparing himself for the possibility that he might meet his end. But he was Cheshire. He could not die yet. SoYoon ignored him and forced herself to walk.
Away from the place full of abandoned warehouses, she finally came out to the streets lined with buildings. SoYoon dragged her drug-induced body between the buildings to hide. The sleep she had resisted was taking over.
She took out medication and bandages and haphazardly treated the biggest wounds before she practically fainted into a deep sleep.
***
The sun had come up. Upon waking up, she realized that it was past the patch's expiration time. She hurriedly searched her cross bag and swapped out the patch for a new one, then immediately left the place.
The stark white space, the medicinal smell in the air, the cold experimenting table, the gaze of those looking at her like an object of study—if she was to think about them now, she wondered how she had dealt with them all.
It was unlikely that they would be monitoring her signal still. Reassuring herself of this, she hurriedly walked toward Wonderland. She didn't notice any of the surprised looks she was getting from the passersby.
It was then that she heard the familiar sound of her phone ringing. The moment she answered it, she heard Heart's voice.
"It's me. Where are you now?"
"Outhouse. I'm heading over to Wonderland now."
"Your voice doesn't sound good. Are you hurt?"
"Nothing serious. But the request I got was a trap. Cheshire's."
At her answer, there was silence. Heart asked how long it would take to return home. She checked the time and replied, "About an hour."
***
When she arrived at Heart's house, he escorted her to his office as usual. He gasped as he saw SoYoon.
"You said you weren't badly hurt!"
She checked her appearance. She had bandages around her arms and legs, her clothes were ripped in several places, and they were stained with dried blood. He unwrapped a couple of the bandages and clicked his tongue. He commanded his men to bring Alice right away.
"Tell her White Rabbit is badly hurt."
Alice came down quickly and healed SoYoon. Experiencing her powers for the first time, SoYoon found that not only were her outer wounds healed but the treatment seemed to replenish her blood. It was a power that the researchers would go crazy for.
"Thanks, Alice."
"Between us, this is nothing..."
"Alice, I'm sorry, but could you excuse us for a moment?" Heart asked.
Alice wanted to talk more with White Rabbit, whom she had not seen in a while, but when she heard Heart's serious tone, she had no choice but to leave. Sulkily, she persuaded Jeremy to take her to Central and left.
When the door closed, it became silent. Heart got up from his seat and approached her. He sat next to her as he had done previously, and SoYoon couldn't help but drop her gaze to try to hide her nervousness.
He placed his finger over her ear and took off her mask. The piece of fabric that swept past her cheeks and lips felt rougher than usual. He continued to rub her ears as he asked.
"It was a trap?"
As she explained what had happened that night, he moved his fingers over her cheeks. When she moved his hand away, he intertwined his fingers in hers.
"So you ended up like this because of Cheshire? Then what happened to him?"
"I don't remember killing him, so he's probably alive."
His warm hands transferred heat to hers. His other hand ventured under her ripped clothes and touched her skin. It was where she had gotten wounded.
"You left and didn't come back, and I had thought that you would be fine, but you come back to me in this state. When will I ever get to relax my worry about you? Hm? Tell me, Whitey. Or—Do you like putting me on edge?"
She jumped and looked at him as he whispered this into her ear. They made eye contact through her messy bangs, and Heart's lips curved into a smile.
"With your personality, I doubt that is what you intended."
Heart lifted her and seated her on his lap. Their chests were up against each other, and her legs wrapped around his waist.
He raised his hand and swept back her hair. In that moment, her heart beat fast. Both of them felt it. SoYoon closed her mouth shut, and Heart smiled.
"Are you nervous? I've done worse than this. Or did you perhaps hear what I said last time?"
"... What did you say last time?"
His calloused hands, which reflected his life, pushed her hair back behind her ears.
"What was it?" she asked again, resisting her urge to moan in satisfaction.
Last time—it was when Heart had kissed her. As if reading her mind, Heart kissed her lightly.
"I said this was the last time I would let you sleep peacefully, " his lips repeated right next to hers. Just with those words, electricity and heat seemed to spread through her.
His hot tongue pushed its way between her lips. He tickled the inside of her mouth, and he pressed on her cheeks so that her mouth opened wider. His eyes still stared at her as if he could swallow her whole. Lost in his eyes, SoYoon received his kiss without moving.
The sword on her back and each piece of clothing one by one started to fall away. SoYoon grabbed Heart's shoulder as she felt the air on her bare skin. As she did, he stopped his passionate kissing to tell her, "Just don't think of anything."
She thought that he would add that she had too many useless things she worried about. The reason she couldn't fully form the conclusion was that he went back to kissing her, and he wiped all thoughts out of her mind.
| ← Ch. 053 | Ch. 055 → |