The smell of blood filled Remington's nose, throat, chest, being. She could taste metal on her tongue. Red stained her hands and her clothes. Was it in her hair? Was it in her mouth? It was on her arms, and her face, and it was pouring out of her leg.
She dropped the knife with a clatter. She'd lost the gun somewhere, couldn't remember where. A fool's mistake. A beginner's mistake. Something she had done when she was young and stupid. A mockingbird, hidden in the darkness, mimicked the sound.
The pain in her leg was surprisingly faint, but she knew the wound was bad. She was going to bleed out, probably. The warehouse was cold, and the dead eyes staring at her made her feel even colder. She stumbled to her purse, though she wasn't sure why. Her hands trembled as she opened it, the teeth of the zipper like padlocks that she had to undo one at a time. Her hands dug through the bag, yanking out useless detritus that collects over lifetimes. Her phone, car keys, wallet, money, lipstick, a syringe -- damn it, damn it -- and her hands landed on the only thing in there worth looking at again. It was smooth and cool to the touch. Slowly, she pulled out the bottle of perfume. It had been so long ago that Namjoon had given it to her. He had probably forgotten all about it. But to her, it was a relic worth more than any piece of the crucifixion cross or strand of Mary Magdalene's hair that churches could cherish. She held it close to her chest and tried to imagine that somehow his fingerprints, his DNA, were still on the glass, preserved by some divine intervention despite the passage of time.
She winced as she hit the wall, and she let her legs give out from under her.
"Ouch," she said, and looked at her leg. Oh, right. The switchblade was still embedded in her flesh. She grabbed the hilt and yanked the blade out, throwing it onto the ground. The blood went from being a gentle dripping to a raging torrent.
She couldn't tell what she wanted more: for the end to come quickly, or for one more hit of Amnesia to make everything go away until she bled out. If she had some, what would she do there, knowing it was the last time? She should have been more careful tracking how much she had. She should have used the last few drops to create a perfect, fake utopia with the perfect, fake versions of the people she loved.
Voices brought her out of her reverie. They were outside the warehouse, but close by. She'd missed someone. But then another sound joined the voices-- a car coming, fast. The hidden mockingbird let out a shrill call of warning.
"Shit," she muttered. Maybe she wasn't getting the quiet death she had been hoping for. Because of course it couldn't be that easy.
The voices turned to yelling, and something a little like anxiety twisted her throat, and--
The crash sounded like a bomb, and it made Remington jump to her feet, despite the stab wound. More distant yelling now.
"Remy!" an all-too-familiar voice yelled, and for a second, Remington thought maybe she had slipped some Amnesia, because how the hell could he be here?
"Kookie?!" she yelled back, bewildered.
"Yeah, I'm--" But he didn't get to finish whatever he was saying, because there was another foreign, unknown shout, and then a gunshot.
Remington knees cracked as they hit the ground and she screamed, a horrible, strangled noise, the kind that an animal makes when it knows it's about to die. She saw it in awful detail, could picture the blood and the pieces of gore that had once made up a person now turned into some grotesque sight, and he was dead, he was dead, and it was all her fault.
"Remy, where are you?"
Remington blinked, once, twice. Because that was Jeongguk, even though she'd just heard a gunshot.
"Uh?" she said, not able to say anything else.
He ran into the warehouse, and Remington knew she was dreaming because that was Jeongguk. He was shiny with sweat and panting, but in one piece and somehow, alive. "Shit!" he yelled. "You're hurt!"
"I-- what?"
"Your leg is hurt!" he said, running to her. He was wearing all black.
"Yeah, I got that. Are you okay?"
Jeongguk's hands were shaking. It took Remington a moment to realize that he was holding a gun in one of them. They looked at it at the same time. "Yeah," he said slowly. "You missed a couple. Don't worry, I got them for you." His eyes rolled to the side for a second. "Give me a minute." He turned, walked to the corner, and violently threw up.
Remington wasn't entirely sure she was breathing, or that her heart was working.
When he had finished vomiting, he wiped his mouth and stood up straight.
"We need to get you to a hospital," he said, kneeling next to her.
"No," she said.
He frowned. "You're hurt."
"No," she said. "I'm not going to the hospital."
"Okay," he allowed, seeming to realize also that going to the hospital would be a dumb idea. "But we need to get out of here, now."
"No," she said again. "Go home."
His frown deepened. "No. You're stuck with me from now on."
The perfume bottle lowered just a bit as she looked up at him. Unlike Seokjin, he had hardly changed since they'd met. Sure, his hair was a bit longer, and he had a few more tattoos, but he didn't look like he had aged. Like her, there had always been a touch of darkness in him, so darkness didn't hurt him as much.
"You need to go home," she said, begged. "Go back to them. Please."
He shook his head. "I can't go back. I don't belong there anymore. So wherever you're going, you're going to have to take me with you."
"Why?" she asked, her voice cracking. "I can't -- I can't take you with me."
"Because it had to mean something!" he yelled, and they both flinched. "All of it, the training, the years of living together, the songs, the money, the deaths and the blood, it has to mean something!" He stood, pacing. "It was all a lie. All of it. None of it was real. It's all such a fucking mess. All of it, and none of it meant anything."
"It did," she whispered, stopping his tirade. "It meant-- I mean, it still means something to me. I bet it still means something to all of them." She held up a hand.
He stared at her outstretched hand for just a moment before he took it, intertwining their fingers. She pulled him closer before kissing each of his fingers, kissed the ink in his skin, the secret messages there that the world wouldn't understand.
"It's a lie, though."
"That doesn't mean it's not real."
Blood fell from Remington's leg onto the concrete floor.
"You saved me once," he said. "I have to repay that debt, even if you don't want me to."
"You already have," she quietly protested.
"Please," he said. "We can leave. We can go somewhere where no one will ever find us, and we can start over."
She leaned back and clamped her eyes shut.
"It's not too late," he said. "There's somewhere we can go, I know you know somewhere."
The house. That physical representation of her spark of hope that refused to die. She wanted to believe that she hardly thought about it, that she had forgotten about its white walls and numerous beds and the clothes that she'd bought with the understanding that they'd probably never be worn and would just collect dust. But in truth, she thought about it every day.
This wasn't what she had hoped for. But it was a tiny piece of it. She opened her eyes. "My bag, front pocket," she said.
He scrambled for the bag and ripped the zipper off in his haste to open the front pocket before he pulled out a piece of paper there. He stared at it, then glanced at it, then looked at it again. Probably reading and re-reading the address there. He pulled the bag around his shoulders. "I have to find something to wrap your leg with. I'll be right back," he said, and before she could argue, he ran off into the darkness. An agonizingly long minute later, he reappeared with a few towels. Remington could tell from his dark eyes that he had seen the bodies, but all he did was tie a towel tightly around her wound. It darkened with blood almost immediately. Remington noticed how his hands shook. Above them, a mockingbird flitted from one of the rafters to another. She wished it would fly down to her, but she couldn't remember the call.
"We have to go," Jeongguk said.
"I'm--" Remington said, but didn't know what else to say, so she said nothing. Was this really the scared boy she had meant in that truck years ago? Was she really the scared girl in that truck with him? Seokjin had thought so.
Jeongguk placed one arm below her knees and one behind her back. The movement when he lifted her jolted her and her leg enough that a pained scream tore her throat. He jumped and pulled her into his chest. "I'm sorry!" he said, his voice cracking. "I'm so, so sorry," he said, quieter this time, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
The wind burned Remington's face the second they left the warehouse. In the darkness, Remington could make out a car smashed into the side of the warehouse, with an unmoving shadow that looked oddly like the top half of a human bent over the front. On the ground, a man's body lay. He had a gun in his hand, and part of his head was blown away.
"Jesus, Kook," she whispered. He said nothing.
Realization dawned on Remington a little too slowly. He wasn't just finishing her mission when he had killed those two. He had also been guaranteeing that he could never go back home. He had known when he drove his car into the man's body that whatever happened next to Remington happened to them both. Like her, he had given up his life and soul willingly for the sun to massacre and the crows to pick at. Like her, he was running into the dark toward some nameless, endless horror.
Jeongguk placed her in the passenger seat of her car before running to the driver's seat. When he turned the key in the ignition, the headlights showed the whole gory scene in spectacular detail. The blood on the gravel, the twisted body, its bones jutting out in unnatural places-- Jeongguk shifted the car from neutral to fifth gear impossibly fast, and they left the warehouse behind.
The engine roared as he made the car go faster, faster. Exhaustion hit Remington like a wave and she couldn't lift her head anymore. Saliva pooled in her throat, and she realized she couldn't breathe. She gasped hoarsely, trying to take in any oxygen the world could give. An awful, strangled noise was all that she was blessed with. So this was how she was going to die-- choking on nothing.
"Remy!" Jeongguk yelled somewhere to the left of her. "Stay with me!"
I'm not leaving you alone, she wanted to say, but couldn't breathe. She gasped again, coughing and choking and gasping and coughing until suddenly tiny sips of air entered her lungs, and she fell back, her muscles turned to nothingness.
"Remington, open your eyes!"
She obeyed because she had to do anything that panicked voice asked, and could swear for a second that she saw Hoseok reflected in the windshield of the car. Her eyes turned to see Jeongguk gripping the steering wheel and looking at her with teary eyes.
"Does Hobi still hate me?" she croaked out.
"What?!" he shouted.
"Hobi," she said, and brought her fingertips to the scar on her cheek left by Hoseok's ring.
He softened just a little. "No, baby, he doesn't hate you. He never hated you, I think. I think..." he bit his lip. "I think he was angry with himself, and he blamed it on you."
"That's fair."
"No, it isn't. It's fucked up."
"It was my idea to take the Amnesia from the bunker."
"Fine, then he should hate both of us, because it was my idea for us to use it. But he doesn't hate me, and so he doesn't hate you." He took one hand off the steering wheel to rub her arm. She shivered at the touch. "He loves you, Remy. We all do. We love you, and we missed you so much."
Colors swarmed Remington's vision. She closed her eyes, but the fireworks only got worse. She tried to remember something. She tried to remember the way back home to her parents' house. She tried to remember her mother's name. But nothing came to mind. All she could remember was feelings, the touch of something on her skin. With nothing else, she dove into the memories. She remembered the smoothness of Alicia's skin. She remembered the feverish heat of Taehyung's hand in hers. She remembered the softness of Jimin's lips on her forehead. She remembered her heart racing when Winchester destroyed the car. She remembered the weight of the jacket Namjoon had given her. She remembered the ache in her cheek and the metal in her mouth after Hoseok had punched her. She remembered how her fingers ran along the edges of Seokjin's ribs as she touched his chest. She remembered how her mother's cheeks had been salty with tears when she kissed her goodbye. She remembered how her throat had ached for three days after she and Yoongi had argued. She remembered her father brushing her hair when she was little. She remembered her grandmother's-- damn the old woman, damn her -- warm embrace. She remembered how the cold wind had hit her cheeks in the forest the day she left for California so long ago. She remembered the coolness of the gun in her hands when she raised it for a killing blow.
Begging for forgiveness, for mercy, for quiet, for darkness, she grabbed Taehyung's necklace from where it rested on her neck. But she must have pulled too hard because there was a pinch and a snap and the clasp broke. Remington gasped and forced her eyes open to look at the pendant in her hand. The charm was intact, but the woven chain was broken. As she stared, the necklace slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor.
She covered her ears and screamed.
The car kept speeding, never stopping for anything. The blackness of the night sky turned to a dark blue. There was light coming from the East, far away, but promised.
When the car stopped, Jeongguk didn't even turn off the engine before throwing open the door and running to grab Remington. She winced as her leg was jostled. The house was beautiful in the nautical twilight, the white paint colored violet and pink. Jeongguk held her tightly in his arms as they approached the door. The air smelled of salt and plants.
"What's the code?" he asked quietly.
"Min's birthday, backwards," she said back. Her voice was hoarse.
He flinched but didn't hesitate to type in the code. When he opened the door, a shrieking alarm burst like a siren, and the quiet headache that had been building in the back of her head bloomed into technicolor reality. "Override 0-4-0-9-1-7RLW," she said, and the alarm went silent.
"You've got a good security system," he said and pushed the door open.
"Well, you can never be too careful," she whispered with all the energy she had left. She shivered and tried to bring herself closer to him. "God, it's freezing."
He paused in the doorway. "Remy, it's warm."
"Oh."
His hands tightened just a little around her, and he ran into what Remington assumed to be the living room. She wasn't certain, based on the fact that everything seemed to be blurring together like watercolors. He set her down on something soft -- a couch? -- and pulled a blanket over her before running off again.
There was a print of Van Gogh's Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers on the wall, and for a long moment, she wondered why the hell it was there. She hated the color yellow. And then she remembered that Jimin loved the painting. There was frantic rattling nearby, the sound of drawers being yanked open. Remington felt a horrible, familiar feeling in her stomach, and she turned over the side of the couch and gagged, dry-heaving. When had she last eaten? She didn't know, she hadn't planned on being alive for much longer, so she didn't want to waste the food.
"I was afraid," she found herself saying through gasps. "I was-- I am afraid. I wanted love like what you guys have. I wanted to be a part of an 'us,' you know? I think that's the best thing that could happen to someone, to have love like that. I mean, I know the grief is so much worse, but it's worth it. Grief is just a different feeling of love, right? I was always worried that there wouldn't be anyone that I could say 'I love you' to."
"You shouldn't talk," Jeongguk said. "You need to--" There was a relieved sigh, and then footsteps coming back. "Okay, we have to clean your wound."
"Okay," Remington said, and she felt happy wrapping her arms around his neck. He held on to her arm and her waist. "Down the hall to the right."
"Okay," he said, with just a hint of mocking, and Remington wondered if just maybe he was joking with her.
"Aw, are you finally lightening up a bit?" she asked as they slowly started to make their way through the kitchen. Oh, neat, she knew where she was now.
"You're still bleeding out. I will lighten up if it makes you relax."
"I'm actually quite relaxed. I mean, not as much as if I was on Amnesia, but, you know."
"When's the last time you took a hit?"
Remington tried to remember. "A year ago, I think. I ran out."
He sighed. "Yeah, me too."
"When did you last take it?"
He shrugged. "Almost a year ago."
"Being alive sucks, right?"
"It's the worst."
She giggled and pressed her forehead into his cheek. "And yet, here we are."
"We're brave like that."
She shivered again. "I'm so cold."
"I don't think that's a good sign."
"Probably not. I miss the others."
"Do you?"
"I missed you, too."
He held her impossibly tighter, gripping her waist in a way that probably would have been painful if she could still feel pain, but instead just felt nice.
Her knees wobbled as she stood in the shower, still pristine and white. Jeongguk turned on the water, warm as it could be, and when the water hit her skin, Remington was sure she was being baptized. The blood on her arms, dried and flaky now, melted off her skin in sheets of red. The white floor below was soon a steady, rosy shade of pink. She let go of Jeongguk's shoulder, and he seemed too busy washing the stab wound to notice. She held her hands out, the palms up, to catch the water droplets. They gave tiny zaps of electricity as they hit her. Wash me of my sins, she willed them.
The floor stayed pink, and much too soon, Jeongguk turned off the water. She frowned. "I'm cold," she said.
"I know. I'm sorry. But I have to--"
"Don't apologize to me for anything ever again," she snapped, fiercely enough that his eyes widened and he took a step back.
Remington was sure her injured leg was going to give out, then she'd slip and fall and crack her head open on the tiled floor, but still, she glared at him long enough that he nodded. "As long as you promise the same."
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I think I've forgotten what that means."
He smiled. "Come on. Just the most painful part to go."
Still, Remington didn't feel it as he set her back down on the couch and dragged a sterilized needle and thread through her leg, tying the skin back together. She could picture it well enough now: the blood, the open flesh. She was still up-to-date on her tetanus vaccine, right? She lay with her head back, looking at a print of Starry Night. The swirls in the sky slowly waved, the stars twinkled. Once, out of curiosity, she glanced down at Jeongguk. He had no trace of disgust on his face, only cool determination. He was a hardened soldier now, after all. Full body shivers wracked her body now, despite the heaters turned on all the way and the blanket wrapped around her.
She was pure now. No sense in staying alive, no reason, other than one. But unfortunately, the one, the one with beautiful black eyes, was enough of a reason.
Where was the perfume bottle? It must still be in the car. Where was the necklace? It was broken now, but it was still good. Still fixable. It wasn't too late. She wanted to cry out that Jeongguk needed to go get them, that they could fade away like dust at any time. But her mouth couldn't form the words, and all that came out was a garbled scream.
"I know, I'm s--" he paused. "I know it hurts. I promise it's almost done."
She tried again, and only another scream came out. Her vision became blurry. All she could do was sigh and wait.
When her leg was stitched and bandaged, she glanced at him. He was pale and his hands were bloody. He noticed her watching and ran to the kitchen to wash his hands.
"You need to sleep and get warm. Where's the bedroom?" he asked, when he came back, holding out a hand for her to lift herself up. She held on to him tighter than she probably needed to. Looking around hurt her head, so she stared at the wood flooring instead.
"Which one?" she murmured. "There are eight of them here."
He was quiet and unmoving for so long that she lifted her head to look at him. He was staring at her, his eyes soft and glassy. "Oh, Lacie," he whispered.
She tried to smile. Instead, a sob burst from her lips. Tears fell from her eyes, no matter how much she wished for them to stop. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and suddenly, Remington was full-on crying, her chest heaving with desperate, breathless sobs. The memories played like a musical in her head: when they met in that truck, sitting on the cliff with Namjoon contemplating death, the wind in her hair, the dance in the firelight at the beach, building cities together in Amnesia, the fights, the rope around her throat, the screaming, the bombs, Jimin taking her hands in his and pulling her to her feet, laughing,"You're ours now, you know that, right?" "Till deaths do us part."
'Til deaths.
"It's okay," Jeongguk whispered, his lips touching her ear. "It's okay. It's okay. It's not too late. It's going to be okay."
It wasn't. Nothing was ever going to be okay again.
When they found a bedroom, he lowered her down on the bed and let her weep into the pillow as he covered her in blankets. He laid down next to her and wrapped his arms around her. Even though she couldn't see him, she could feel the way his body trembled and how his tears also dampened the silk pillowcase. Outside, the ocean waves rhythmically hit the sand, uncaring of any human's grief. They're out there somewhere, she told herself. All of them.
There was more light in the room when she awoke, her eyes and leg sore. Her skin felt hot and sweaty. Jeongguk sat on the bed, staring out the window at the water. He was shirtless, and Remington looked at the scars from the shrapnel covering his chest and back. After a minute, he looked at her. His eyes were red, and Namjoon's ring was on his finger. He was holding Taehyung's necklace in his hands, the break in the chair knotted together. She glanced down where her leg was and saw that blood had stained through the blankets that had never been used before. He touched her cheek to make her look at him again, and he gave a small, tired smile before gently clasping the necklace around her neck. Where it belonged.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He leaned down and kissed her forehead, her neck, the scar on her cheek.
"Where are we?" he asked, voice as soft as it was when he sang to her years ago.
"Home," she said, staring at the waves of the ocean. "We're home."