When an opening came, I had to snap the ropes and throw a punch. I tried to calm my racing heart as I glared at the man standing before me.

Jaeyeon breathed hard, his face flushed with excitement. The blade he held out flicked against my throat.

"... Losing your memory really has made you stupid, hasn't it?"

I could feel his hand trembling faintly with excitement. I felt a shallow cut open, then blood trickling from it.

"Though seeing you so rattled does make a refreshing change."

"What's your problem?"

My vision had steadied a little. I gauged the tension in the ropes binding my arms.

"As you can see, I don't remember anything. What the hell did I do?"

"This is fucking bullshit."

Jaeyeon spat the words and slapped me across the face. A searing pain flared as my head snapped to the left.

"Explain yourself," I said, slowly turning my head back. "Unless you're just beating people up on a whim."

THUD

A punch. The right side again. Picking the same spot to hit every time was so like Jaeyeon. The taste of blood filled my mouth. I frowned and spat out the blood rapidly pooling inside it.

Turning my head back, I considered ways to make him angrier. If I got under his skin, I might get a chance to break free and fight back, while keeping his attention off Yehyeon.

"Jaeyeon. Tell me what you want like a civilized person."

"Why are you being so cold? I'm trying to help you."

His attitude changed in an instant. He looked down at me with a wounded expression, and I stared up at him in disbelief.

Right. Now that I thought about it, he'd always had these pathological mood swings.

Still looking down at me with his brows drooping, Jaeyeon bowed his head and rested it against mine. A quiet sigh brushed my ear.

"Ah... You don't believe me."

"Tell me, and I'll believe you," I answered gently. "How exactly are you going to help me?"

I didn't mention Yehyeon at all. I acted as though the man sprawled on the floor wasn't there. Demanding to know why he'd beaten Yehyeon to a bloody pulp would only send him into a frenzy and make him beat the unconscious man even more.

Jaeyeon grinned. He raised his head and brought his face before mine. A drop of blood, probably Yehyeon's, ran down the bridge of his nose and fell onto my face. I felt his other hand stroking my hair.

Still toying with me, he said softly, "You said you forgot everything. I have to help you remember."

"Then you need to tell me," I replied gently.

I could feel the knife he was playing with leaving shallow cuts on my neck, but ignored them.

"What did I do to you?"

"You betrayed your own kind."

I arched my brows in disbelief.

"Why would that make you angry?"

"If you were going to bestow this cursed eternal life on us, you should have joined your kind and won the war. Or betrayed them without giving us eternal life..."

For the first time, he spoke at length, his voice steeped in anger. His face twisted with rage. Something that looked like a blazing fire shone in his eyes.

The knife gleaming at my throat rose into the air.

"Now I can't even hope he'll die of old age!"

SHUNK

He stabbed my shoulder. The well-honed knife sank deep into it, and I let out a short scream at the sharp pain lancing from my right shoulder.

It had been a long time since I'd been stabbed like this.

I'd have to punch with my left hand when I got the chance. I opened and closed my good hand behind my back, looking up at Jaeyeon as he frowned and seethed.

"Are you talking about Colton?"

Judging by the rage filling his eyes, I'd guessed right.

"It's not my fault that bastard won't die, is it?"

He kicked me in the stomach. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Only after several choked coughs could I breathe freely again.

"Not your fault?"

Jaeyeon looked truly out of his mind as he echoed the words.

"It's not your fault? Before you lot came, humans died of old age. They got Botox, had their skin pulled tight with threads, swallowed anti-aging pills, built the Great Wall, and they still died of old age. Their wounds festered and killed them. Burn them, and they died, reduced to ashes. Bury them under rubble, and they were crushed to death!"

"We die too," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "So can you. So can Colton."

He kicked me. The chair toppled backward, and my body slammed into the floor. Before Jaeyeon could come at me in a rage, I tore through the ropes binding my wrists.

As he pulled the knife out of my shoulder, I swung my left fist.

THUD

I caught him squarely on the right cheek. His body flew to the right and struck the wall with a thud.

I needed to get the knife out of his hand. I snapped the ropes around my ankles, sprang to my feet, and rushed him.

Even while recovering his balance, Jaeyeon landed a precise kick. I bent sharply at the waist and reached for the knife despite the blow. Unable to reach the handle, I grabbed the end of the long blade with my right hand.

"You brain-dead fuck...!" he shouted, throwing a punch with his free hand. "So you do remember how to use a knife?"

We grappled for a while. His strength was tremendous. The knife we were fighting over snapped. I slashed with the broken blade in my hand, and he slashed with what remained of his. We cut into each other's flesh, sending blood flying.

Damn it. My right shoulder wouldn't move the way I wanted.

CRASH!

A numbing impact struck the back of my head. Taking advantage of my right arm's hesitation, Jaeyeon had slammed me into a corner. He spat blood and approached.

The wounds on his body were closing.

All of a sudden, this felt unfair. They said we'd given them enhanced bodies, so why was our healing so lousy while theirs was so good?

Jaeyeon planted his right foot on me as I tried to get up.

"I have to do the job he gave me."

Muttering as if to himself, he slipped a hand into his pocket.

"I'm so diligent, aren't I?"

What he brought out was a syringe.

The moment I saw it, I remembered what Colton had said at the meeting. That he would help me. That he would try.

Was that what he'd meant? It had to be. There was no doubt about it.

But I had no intention of meekly letting myself be injected with some unknown liquid.

I kicked Jaeyeon's left foot. "Fuck," he swore as he staggered. Even as he fell, he grabbed my right shoulder and bore down on it.

"That fucking lunatic!" I swore, pushing away the needle approaching my neck. "Is this any way to treat an old friend you've just been reunited with?!"

"That's why you should have come straight to us when you got back."

My God.

With that one sentence, I understood everything. Why Colton had briefly loosened the reins, allowing Jaeyeon to abduct Yehyeon and me together as soon as the meeting ended.

Colton didn't like that I'd become one of Yehyeon's people.

He probably wasn't angry enough to take my life, but I'd offended him. That was the kind of man he was. The world had to lie at his feet.

["I'd burn it all down before letting it pass to someone else."]

In what context had he said that?

The fragment of memory diverted my attention, and Jaeyeon seized the opening.

The sharp needle pierced a vein in my neck.

SHUNK

"Ah."

"Good boy."

Jaeyeon gave a long laugh as I reflexively grabbed his arm.

"Don't struggle."

The needle, which had felt as though it were piercing muscle, slid out. A stabbing pain followed. My body growing light. Jaeyeon retreating, laughing.

My senses opened up.

"Hah!"

What was this?

"Dizzy..."

I couldn't even finish speaking. Information poured in. I clamped a hand over my mouth and tried to take in the flood of sensations.

All five senses had opened up far too intensely for me to bear. It was different from being high. Everything felt unbearably vivid.

The pain in my shoulder. Jaeyeon's shrill laughter. The texture of the wall against my back. The smells of blood and blades stabbed at my nose, and my vision sharpened further. There was so much information pouring in that I didn't know what to process first.

And layered atop those overwhelming sensations was another sense.

A continuous current of sensation traveling through the moving parts of my body.

I had never managed to make Colton understand this.

"Looks like it's opened up?"

I heard laughter in Jaeyeon's voice.

"How does it feel?"

Drenched in cold sweat, I barely managed to lift my head. Gasping for breath, I looked at the man before me. He flung the empty syringe onto the floor and grinned like a monster, the ruined knife in his hand.

If he lunged now, I'd die without being able to do a thing.

But he wouldn't kill me. Colton wouldn't have permitted it. Of course, he wouldn't let me go peacefully either. All that remained was for Jaeyeon to unleash his rage in a torrent of violence.

There would be openings even amid that onslaught. I had to aim for one...

The instant Jaeyeon lifted his shoe to step forward, the wall of the cramped room exploded.

CRASH!

Yun's shoe struck Jaeyeon squarely in the side. His body flew into the opposite wall. Clutching my right shoulder, I watched my training officer stride toward him, coat billowing.

"Yun."

Sprawled on the floor, Jaeyeon laughed through spluttering mouthfuls of blood.

"It's been a while."

He got no further.

Without a change of expression, Yun grabbed Jaeyeon by his black hair and slammed the back of his head into the floor, again and again.

BANG, BANG, BANG!

The blows were powerful enough to crack the floor. Jaeyeon thrashed with terrifying ferocity and struck at Yun, but my training officer kept moving his arm without budging an inch.

I was afraid he might actually kill him. Jaeyeon didn't die, but at last he lost consciousness, bleeding.

Silence fell instantly. My training officer released his hair and slowly straightened.

"Yun."

At my hoarse call, he answered in a dry voice.

"Are you about to die?"

I looked at my senior, whose fury was unmistakable despite his complete lack of expression, and slowly shook my head.

"I'll live. Please check on Yehyeon."

Yun looked at me for a moment, then turned away. He stepped over the unconscious Jaeyeon and went to his battered superior. I followed him with my eyes.

Seeing our motionless superior again, I belatedly grew afraid.

What condition was he in?

He'd clearly lost far too much blood. Yun went down on one knee before Yehyeon and gently rolled him over from where he lay facedown. His hair fell aside, revealing his unconscious face.

Pale as wax.

Fortunately, there were no wounds on it.

"Better than usual," my training officer muttered. "So even he has trouble giving two people a thorough beating at once."

Was that any way to talk about a man with nails driven through his wrists and ankles?

But I knew Yun had been through this often, and that it was why he'd been so on edge throughout the gathering. I had the sense to keep my mouth shut. Without a change of expression, he checked Yehyeon's pulse and wounds, took a syringe of blood from his inside pocket, injected him, and rose.

He came toward me.

"You'll need to be hospitalized too."

"What about an ambulance?"

"It should be on its way. I sent the aide our location."

"Those nails won't be the extent of it. He'll have severe internal injuries. Please keep an eye on him."

"His organs are probably all ruptured. But he heals exceptionally well, and you don't."

Having answered matter-of-factly, Yun knelt in front of me and took a first-aid kit from his coat. I quietly watched him use the small kit to stop the bleeding from my arm.

My training officer's face showed no emotion. I knew it was because he was barely holding down the rage threatening to erupt. One wrong move and he might explode and kill Jaeyeon where he lay. So he maintained that icy exterior, exercising patience that seethed beneath it.

He couldn't kill Jaeyeon.

Colton's agent. His one exception.

Kill something belonging to the man at the pinnacle, and catastrophe would follow. A catastrophe neither ignorable nor avoidable. With extraordinary luck, they might bring Colton down, but the losses would be immense. My training officer and my superior weren't foolish enough to fail to weigh that cost.

That must have been why they'd lived like this all this time.

Even before I'd fallen out of the portal...

"Hildebert."

Finished stemming the bleeding, Yun met my eyes. I looked at him without a word, and my training officer slowly broke the silence.

His voice was parched and rough.

"Good work."

It was the highest praise Yun had ever given me.