The car brakes as it approaches. As it gets closer and the driver gets a better look at me, he seems to decide against picking me up. My bloodied and disheveled appearance clearly alarms him as he shakes his head and says in Hangugeo, “Sorry, not accepting customers.”
Then he speeds off as though he never stopped in the first place.
My glare darkens as I look down the street and wave my arm in the air in hopes I’ll stop another.
It takes five more minutes for me to successfully hail a second one. It rounds the corner and pulls up like the first one had. I can tell even from the glance of this taxi driver that he’s hesitant to give me a ride.
I must look like death walking. Blood-soaked shirt, pale skin sheened with sweat, swaying on my feet like a drunk. The kind of passenger no sane driver wants in their vehicle.
Still, he reluctantly nods his head and signals for me to get in, giving me a chance.
I wrench open the back door and collapse onto the backseat.
“Sir,” the driver says, twisting around to look at me. His eyes go wide as he takes in the blood soaking through my shirt and how I’m clutching my side. “Sir, you need a hospital. You’re bleeding very badly?—”
I reach into my wallet with trembling fingers and pull out a wad of won.
Millions of won, which would be thousands in dollars. More money than this man probably makes in a week. I toss it onto the center console up front.
“Namcheon-dong,” I choke out breathlessly. “Drive.”
He eyes the money then glances back at me a second time. He must recognize the determination etched on my face, even as I wince and grit my teeth in pain, because he nods and then shifts gears into drive.
Jangnim-dong’s coastal industrialism blurs past in the car window as I slump even further against the seat and close my eyes.
The bleeding has slowed but not stopped. Its warmth seeps from the wound, slicking my fingers and reminding me I’ve probably fucked up.
I’ve likely worsened my injury. I’ve already lost so much blood.
But when my mind goes back to Monroe, I know I still don’t regret a damn thing. It’s a necessary sacrifice if it means making it to her and ensuring she’s okay.
The pain is temporary; it can be endured.
What I can’t endure is the thought of losing her or the baby.
As we leave Jangnim-dong behind, my thoughts turn towhat happened at the warehouse. I faced off against the mysterious Black Shell only to come out defeated.
It’s the first time in years that I was outmatched in combat. That someone not only held their own against me but came out of the situation victorious.
Black Shell was waiting for me at that warehouse. He knew I was coming. Which means either Dok-su intentionally set me up, or he was used as a pawn to lure me there. Either way, I walked right into the trap like a fucking amateur.
Worse yet, I lost my composure.
Such rage had consumed me seeing not only my parents’ photo but the candids he’d taken of Monroe. It took over and I readily gave into it and let my anger guide my fists rather than logic. I became emotional and irrational—two of the worst things a fighter can be.
Black Shell obviously anticipated that I would. Heexploitedit, baiting me onto that skylight and letting gravity do the rest.
You fight like your father. The same techniques. The same tells.
Has he been studying me, learning my patterns, waiting for the perfect moment to strike? He murdered my family thirty years ago, and now he’s suddenly come back to finish what he started.
It’s another thirty minutes before we’re closing in on the familiar streets of Namcheon-dong. Some of the tension that’s corded through me relents.
Almost there. Almost home.
I glance at my phone to check the time, scrolling through a few more of the chaotic notifications from earlier. It’s as I reach the bottom of the pile that I notice it—athirdvoicemail from Monroe, timestamped after the second one I had listened to, where she told me she was being sent home.
In my panic to get to her, I must’ve missed it.
