“Jin, I’m at the hospital. I collapsed in my classroom. Where are you?” she asks, sounding so sad and upset it’s like a dagger in my heart. “Nobody’s been able to get hold of you, and I’m worried. You said you’d be here for emergencies. Please call me back! I love you.”
The beep cuts her off, and I lower the phone from my ear, staring down at the cracked screen and my bloody fingerprints that have smeared across it.
A second voice message sent shortly after updates me that they’re sending her home.
But the fact remains that Monroe was so unwell today she collapsed at school, and I was nowhere to be found. Instead, I was off on a wild goose chase, hunting down an enemy that laid a trap for me. I can’t wait for Min-gyu or any of my men.
I need to see her now. I need to hold her in my arms and know she and the baby are safe and well.
But first, I have to deal with the glass stuck in my abdomen.
It most likely isn’t a good idea to remove it myself. Every medical professional out there would probably advise against it, especially if you are not medically trained yourself. It’s common knowledge that dislodging an embedded object risks worse bleeding and potential organ damage. It can even send you into shock.
The smart thing would be to wait for help and let someone with medical training handle it. I have associates like Dr. Baek Young-dae who are on my payroll and could easily patch me up.
Yet I’m so disheveled and frantic, so damn desperate, I don’t have time to be careful.
I need to see Monroe.
My fingers wrap around the large shard, accidentally causing it to sink in a little bit deeper.
Little fiery shocks of pain radiate up my side, and I grunt in response, my breathing turning ragged. I firm up my grip on the shard and bite down on my jaw, preparing myself for what I’m about to do.
Then… I wrench it out all at once—or what I can of it.
The pain is indescribable. It’s blinding and nauseating and enough to make the scenery waver before my eyes.
“ARGHHH!” I scream only for the sound to echo in the abandoned warehouse.
As the large hunk of glass slides out of me, a white-hot supernova of burning pain consumes me. For seconds to come, I’m sputtering for air, chest heaving and lungs aching, face twisted in agony.
I feel like spewing up my insides and passing out all at once.
I’ve been stabbed a dozen times. I’ve been shot three times. It wasn’t so long ago that, when battling Kang Seung-min to the death, I got shards of glass stuck in my eyes and almost went blind.
Yet however much pain I’ve experienced in the past, pales—at least in this moment—to this. Perhaps because I’m doing it to myself; it’s pain I’ve inflicted on myself by wrenching out the glass and allowing the gaping hole to bleed more and become even more damaged.
My hand shakes as I press it against the wound, applying pressure with what little strength I have left.
The world’s still spinning around me. Unconsciousness looms, as if about to drag me back under.
I grind my teeth together and fight my way through it, reminding myself pain might be physical, but it’s also largely mental.
If you can block out the pain—if you can learn to beimmune to it—then you can get through anything. In the most desperate situations, you can amputate your own limb and stay sound of mind. You can make it if it means survival.
In this case, it means getting back to the love of my life and our unborn baby.
The two people I would not only walk on glass for but sever myself with it too.
It takes several seconds more of effort to rise to my feet. My whole body is fragile enough that if someone were to push me in the shoulder, I’d tumble to the ground.
One foot after the other is how I start moving. One step at a time as I drag myself through the grungy and desolate warehouse and toward the doors.
The street outside the warehouse is like a deserted wasteland, nothing but litter and abandoned cars for the next block.
I need a taxi. I need to get to Namcheon-dong.
After some hobbling, I’m able to make it a street over, where I stick a bloodied hand into the air and flag down a cab.
