Jungkook steps into the cavernous warehouse, the coppery tang of blood immediately filling his nostrils. Not a comforting scent, exactly, but a familiar one. The way dishsoap and laundry detergent is familiar to other people. Normal ones with day jobs and grocery lists and dogs who serve as housepets and not as guards who have been trained to rip someone’s testicles off. He wonders what the average citizen’s reaction would be if they ever came across a sight like the one Jungkook is currently walking up to. Projectile vomiting would just be the start.
Jungkook stops just at the edge of the pool of blood staining the concrete floor, chunks of gore and brain matter leaking from what used to be a man’s head but what now resembles a smashed melon. He looks down at the mess with his hands shoved in his pockets, as if he’s observing an ugly, faded carpet or a floor that needs repairing.
“Well,” he says to Yoongi, standing on the other side of the blood pool. “Did he talk?”
“Not much,” Yoongi says casually, wiping his hands on a rag. “Didn’t tell me anything that we don’t already know. ‘He’s fled the country, no one knows where he is.’ Shit like that.”
Jungkook studies the body, limbs twisted at odd angles, one blank dead eye staring up at him; the other one has been gouged out. He looks up at Yoongi. “Were you…thorough?”
Yoongi’s jaw tightens, still concentrating on cleaning his hands with the rag. “Do you have any reason to think I wouldn’t be?”
“That’s not an answer.”
Yoongi sighs, tossing the rag down, finally lifting his head to meet Jungkook’s gaze. “I started with the hammer,” he says, “breaking every bone in his hands and then his feet, asking him if he knew anything. He wasn’t providing me with any useful information so I started in on his arms and his legs. He continued to deny any knowledge of his whereabouts, even when I scooped out his eyeball and extracted his teeth. At that point, he was pretty useless, so I put him out of his misery.” His face is a careful mask of indifference as he stares across the body at Jungkook. “Does that sound thorough enough to you, boss?”
“It does but it seems we’ve hit yet another dead end. It makes me wonder about your commitment to finding him.”
“Are you questioning my loyalty?” The unspoken word hovers in the air between them.
Again?
“I need to be thorough in my own way, Yoongi,” Jungkook says. “You know that.”
“Understood,” Yoongi says stiffly. “We’ll keep looking. We’ll find him.”
“Hmm.” Jungkook jerks his head at the body. “Get a cleanup crew in here to take care of this mess.”
He starts to walk away but then his phone buzzes, exactly at the same time that Yoongi’s does and he takes it out of his pocket, checking the screen.
>dove @ the BirdCage tonight<
He rolls his eyes, going to slip his phone back in his pocket when it buzzes again, displaying a message that only contains a single letter.
>M<
