Let's Kill Her (Book #1)

(ﾒ￣▽￣)︻┳═一(39)

My chest tighten at the mention of Uncle Jin and tears sting my eyes. "I'll kill you!" I blurt out.

"Right. Right. That would be an excellent idea," Yoo says, and he has the same amused expression he wore when he thought he was catching me in a lie. "Now that you've said your piece, let's get back to the question at hand."

I've never wanted to hurt someone so much in my life. My skin is practically crawling with the need to punch him. But Yoo isn't the only one who can read people. The more pain he thinks he's causing me, the happier he gets. So losing myself to anger is going to get me exactly nowhere. If there is one thing I've learned here, it's that you can't think your way out of a situation when you're overrun by emotion. I take a calming breath. He doesn't know where Appa is, I reassure myself. He doesn't know about Jeongseon.

"Silence? Is that you choice?" he asks.

I'm too far from the fireplace to burn these zip ties off. And even if I could somehow get over there, I would seriously burn myself before I could melt the ties.

Yoo strokes his chin and paces in front of me, seemingly relaxed. "I knew when I offered you those two chairs during our first assessment that you didn't like having your back to the door - you don't like being vulnerable to the unknown. You prefer details, information. You gauge your surroundings and exists, like you're doing here right now," he says. "But you also didn't want the chair that I was standing behind - you don't like being pushed by other people or dominated in my any way. So you made your own seat."

I swallow. It reminds me of what Appa told me about thinking differently. He knew I would go up against other Strategia eventually - and the only real advantage he could give me was to not think like them, not fight like them.

I want you to think of unusual and creative solutions. And I want you to see the world in your own unique way. If you learn to hit a certain way in boxing or to jump a certain way in wushu, your brain will immediately default to them as an answer. I don't want you to rely on the same answers every other person does. I want you to make up your own. If you learn how to approach a fight from an unexpected angle, you will become the weapon you opponent can't predict.

"Again I will give you two choices," Yoo says, and watches me. "Only this time you will not have the simple luxury of choosing your own seat."

"You know, it's weird," I say, stalling for time. "You tell me I'm a weak opponent, and yet you've failed three times to kill me. And yes, I figured out you were behind all of those attacks before you got me in this chair. So if I'm bad, you must really suck."

Yoo's lip curls and he slaps me across the face. My head whips to the side and my ears ring, but I manage not to make a sound or show him that he's hurting me. My mouth fills with blood and I spit it toward him.

"We have lots of time, Suzy," Yoo says with a flash of annoyance. "How painful you make this entirely up to you."

Yoo steps behind his desk and presses on a panel. Just like Rose said, a door behind him swings open. He watches me as Jimin limps into the room, dragging Sehun.

My hands grip the chair arms so hard my fingernails gouge the wood.

Sehun's hands are tied behind his back and his ankles are bound. He's bloodied and covered with scrapes and bruises, but he's breathing. Jimin dumps him on the stone floor about ten feet away from me.

Yoo chuckles and the hair on my neck stands up. "It seems Sehun betrayed us both. But judging by the concern on your face, I'm a lot less forgiving of his betrayals than you are."

Sehun told me we need to leave the trees. He told me he had a plan to fix things. But I wouldn't listen. I insisted an arguing with him there. My stubbornness gave Jimin the opportunity he needed to ambush him, and now ...