“Eri-nim,” Hong Gildong said. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Of course it concerns us!” my dad said. I flinched, realizing I’d never heard him yell before. He always spoke in the same low, infinitely patient voice. Even Hong Gildong flinched at the sound before frowning and steadying his grip on the pistol.
“For twenty-eight years, I did everything you asked,” my dad said. “I never once asked why. I never asked for more of anything. Not money, not stability, not even answers. I believed in you, in this cause. And now, after all these years, I find out thatyou killed my daughter?”
The room seemed to quake from the force of his rage. He wasn’t a true descendant, so he shouldn’t have had that kind of power. But somehow, the bookshelves trembled, the water in the scrying pool rippled, and the curtains shuddered at his words. His face was red, fists clenched and shaking. Beside him, my mom, dangerously quiet, had narrowed her eyes at Hong Gildong.
I felt halfway out of my own body, sure that I was dreaming. I had never seen my parents get angry, and certainly not at their boss.
“Both of your daughters have put the entire timeline at risk with their carelessness and defiance,” Hong Gildong said, his eyes flaring gold, his claws biting into the gun.
“Fuck your timeline!” my mom said.
It was the first time I’d ever heard her swear at someone. I would have laughed if Hong Gildong didn’t still have a loaded gun, now pointed at my parents.
“You care about her more than all of humanity?” Hong Gildong said, jerking a clawed finger at me. “She could have ended the world!”
At this, the redness faded from my dad’s face, his shoulders drooping. He shook his head slowly. “There is no world without her. Not for me,” he said. “She’smyworld.”
Then he looked back at me and smiled softly, like he knew this might be the last time he could.
I had always known that my parents cared about me. But I also knew that love was not just cooking someone dinner or driving them to school or braiding their hair. It was rage and grief and anger, like what I felt for Hana. It was foolishness and audacity, like when I nearly attacked Hong Gildong for Yejun. I never thought my parents were brave enough to actually love me, to understand what that meant.
But now, as they held hands and refused to move even when Hong Gildong sighed with his pistol pointed at them, I realized far too late that I was wrong.
“Suit yourself,” Hong Gildong said. “I have enough bullets for all of you.”
Then he leveled the gun at my dad.
I stepped forward, but Hong Gildong didn’t even bother holding his hand up to stop me. He squared his shoulders and pulled the trigger.
The sound tore through the room. Crisp and bright, like the world had cracked in half. Someone slammed into me, elbowing my ribs, forcing the air from my lungs. My head slammed against a bookshelf and books rained down around me as the echo of the gunshot faded, the air alight with the scent of gunpowder.
My dad clung to the bookshelf beside me, his face pale and hands shaking. I grabbed his arm, searching for the wound, but couldn’t find even a drop of blood.
With a thump, Yejun fell to the carpet.
He pressed a trembling hand to his stomach, his face drained of color as he gasped down an unsteady breath. I let go of my dad and turned to Yejun, but before I could reach him, blood gushed through his fingers.
A wave of coldness washed through me. Scalding hot blood soaked through my tights as I knelt beside Yejun and reached for his hand, which was already shockingly cold. I pressed him back against Hong Gildong’s desk to get a better look, but all I saw was red red red, the color devouring his white shirt, the pool of it yawning wider across the floor.
“Why would you do that?” I said, my hands trembling. I didn’t care anymore that I had my back to a man with a gun who would probably aim for me next. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else but holding Yejun as his cold, blood-slicked hands gripped my arms. My dad had already shrugged off his jacket and was trying to wedge it against Yejun’s stomach to stop the bleeding. My mom had tackled Hong Gildong against a bookshelf and sunken her claws into his arm, trying to wrestle the gun away from him.
Yejun coughed, sparks of blood flying from his lips. “You have parents who love you,” he said, the words so soft that I must have been the only one who heard them. “I won’t let Hong Gildong take that from you.”
I shook my head, tears blurring my vision. My dad was telling me what to do, but I couldn’t focus on anything but Yejun. His pulse hammered beneath his white skin, his blood scalding hot against my palms.
Hong Gildong shoved my mom back with a frustrated cry. She tripped backward over a potted plant, which shattered beneath her. Then he brushed off his jacket and turned back toward the three of us. “It’s a wasted effort,” he said. “All of you are going to die anyway. The order hardly matters.”
At his words, fire rushed through my veins, all my blood ignited. Every part of me felt so searingly alive, like I could raze the world to ashes.
I rose to my feet, my hands throbbing. Something sharp stung my lower lip and I tasted blood.
“Mina?” my dad said. But I ignored him, taking another step toward Hong Gildong, no longer afraid of the gun leveled at my chest. The room had a strange tint, like it was drenched in sunlight, every surface blazing gold. Sounds echoed as if I’d fallen to the bottom of an abyss.
Hong Gildong narrowed his eyes. “Careful with those,” he said.
But I didn’t know what he was talking about and I didn’t care. “I won’t let you take them from me,” I said. “I won’t let you take anyone else from me.”
