Betrayal of Wisteria ✓

6

"Little Zhen, I can't leave you."

"Please. If they take you, what will I do? I will just die!"

"Then... pretend what they said is true," Yi Zhao instructed. "They will probably think we're working together, so... pretend I kidnapped you."

"No!"

"Just do it! I'm already wanted! It doesn't matter what you tell them, just lie. As long as it saves you, I don't care what you say. My life can't get any worse — unless I lose you." He said. Zhen Jie nodded slowly before he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a kiss. He pulled the bracelets from her wrist and rolled them over his, and then he reached into the backpack and took out the pictures they'd taken the day before.

Tears bubbled in Yi Zhao's ice like a poisonous mixture in a witch's cauldron. He blinked them away as he brought the lighter to them and set them on fire, watching as his face beside Zhen Jie's browned and ashed away. The ashes fell onto the damp concrete beneath his knees.

The sound of footsteps got closer and Yi Zhao turned around to make sure they hadn't been found yet. He kissed Zhen Jie one more time and felt his heart break at the tears that fell on his lips. Zhen Jie was crying, "I-I have to hurt you." He muttered after pulling away.

He ripped her cardigan and pushed her to the ground, hovering over her. He pulled one of the hair clips from her hair and tossed it across the alley while she cried, not wanting him to leave. What if he never came back? What if she was arrested and never saw him again? What if he was caught running away and arrested?

He was supposed to protect her, and she was supposed to keep him out of trouble. That's what the books she read and movies she watched said. She was failing at the only task she'd ever cared to be given.

"I'm so sorry!" Yi Zhao apologized with tears in his eyes as he pulled the blade from his pocket and pressed it on her cheek, watching the thick blood spill to her ear and into her hair. When Yi Zhao heard footsteps coming their way, he yelled, "Shut the fuck up and do what I say!"

The officers got closer and he looked into Officer Gong's eyes. His eyes widened, acting as if he didn't know he was there, and stood up. When Officer Gong's partners went to chase him, he ran off with them following.

Officer Gong ran to Zhen Jie who was sobbing on the ground with her hands covering her face. He lifted her into his arms and wiped the red liquid from her face, his heart clenching at the sight of her. He too swore to protect her, and just like Yi Zhao, he failed. He fixed her cardigan before lifting her and carrying her to his patrol car, "It's okay, Little Zhen. It's okay."

Unbeknownst to him, she wasn't crying because of what Yi Zhao did. She was crying because she was scared she'd lose him forever.

And she didn't want to lose him ever.

Officer Gong kissed the girl's forehead and cradled her in the backseat, trying his best to console her. Of all the years he'd worked at the police station, this case was the hardest and it was because he'd grown attached to the girl.

She was so innocent. She didn't deserve to be thrown into the world like that. She knew nothing about the world and one day, she was randomly pulled from her youthful reverie. She was violently yanked from her imaginations of a world with clouds that rained glitter — and shoved into the dark, gooey, sludge of reality.

Her life was never easy, but it was better. Though she'd lost her mom and her dad wasn't around, she wasn't caught in the middle of an investigation and being hurt because of it.

Officer Gong knew she had to grow up someday... but that wasn't how she or anyone else was supposed to.

It was too soon. Way too soon.