Squirming, you instinctively bit into the hand that covered your mouth, the bitter taste of salt and cigarettes quickly coating your tongue as you struggled against the attacker’s hold. They cursed into the back of your head but their grip didn’t budge, attempting to drag your twisting body out of cover. That is, until a familiar rumbling ominously emanated from behind you, chilling you right down to the bone.
Instantaneously, gravity shifted as you were wrenched to the side, the floor knocking the wind from your lungs as the man began fighting someone, his startled voice smothered while their two forms fell to the ground in a scuffle. In the corner of your eye, you watched a vague impression of Namjoon straddling the assailant, one clawed hand over the man’s face while the other pressed into his exposed throat; the man’s feeble attempts at defending himself doing no good against the lion’s strength as he thrashed.
You swallowed several gulps of air, lungs coming back online while you coughed and rolled onto unsteady limbs to check through tear blurred eyes if the scuffle had attracted unwanted attention. By sheer luck, the other two men were gone without any sign of having heard anything.
You collapsed, heaving shoulders against the wall, equally grateful for the short reprieve but distressed. You were so close to getting information on your hybrids’ whereabouts, if not for that near miss.. With that thought in mind, you hesitantly shifted to face Namjoon who sat by an unconscious body, the lion crumpled in on himself and panting while he leaned against the opposite wall.
“Joon?” You swallowed, moving to comfort him, only to be stopped by his cold tone.
“Stay. You should’ve been more careful.”
Dropping your head in a mix of regret and shame, you fiddled with the green velvet edge of your dress. “Sorry,” was all you heard yourself say after several minutes of uncomfortable silence. You wanted to argue that you didn’t even know you were about to walk into that scenario, but you knew from one glance at the lion, he was barely keeping himself composed.
His claws were still extended with popped veins, fanned out like white webs tracing over his tanned arms, his entire body faintly shaking with the strain of reigning in his aggression. Similarly, pulse points on his neck and temple throbbed as he pushed back loose strands of his blonde fringe before the hand came to rest over his forehead and right eye. The action coupled with his manic expression only made the lion look more severe than usual, void of the kindness you once knew to be there.
Not wanting to risk pushing him further, you waited until the lion tilted his head back and sank further down the wall, taking in the first real calming breath you heard from him as his muscles relaxed at last. Before long, he allowed the hand to drop from his face and relax into his lap, staring at a fixed point on the ceiling while seemingly refusing to look at you.
“I heard them talking when I came out of the bathroom. It sounds like they're putting Tae in a fighting ring and keeping Jimin locked up for other purposes, but I don’t think they said where..” You rehashed, uneasily getting to your feet when you could no longer take the wordless judgment.
“I know where,” Namjoon spoke at last, voice strained as he once again ran his fingers through his disheveled hair, the finally claws retracted. The male appeared more haggard than you’ve ever seen him. He cast up a jaw clenched glance in your direction before he pushed off the floor with his fist and knee, nudging the shoulder of the man with the tip of his boot. “This guy was also talking about it while you were at that party. I was following him, lucky for you.”
“Is he..?” You didn’t want to ask the question, so you clamped your teeth shut, taking the bleak gleam in Namjoon’s eye for an answer.
“Go get changed into something warmer,” he dismissed as though you never spoke, “the others are already in the room.” Namjoon picked up your attacker by the front of his coat as if he weighed nothing, slinging him carelessly over his shoulder. You had to remind yourself that he was your lion and a part of your family, trying your best to ignore the shiver of fear that ran down your spine when you took one last glance at the corpse.
By the time you changed and were following your hybrids through knee high snow, down the extensive hill from the lodge, your finger beds were bitten raw. With everything happening all at once, you were beginning to feel like a pressure cooker that was left on for far too long, fearing the moment one careless action would hit the release button.. and boom.
Your group stopped where your journey had begun, all huddled together at the relatively small airport, looking to you for answers on what to do next while shuffling around each other for warmth. Namjoon, ever the logical one, pushed his phone into your hands when you seemed just as lost as the others.
“I used that GPS thing, but we need a driver,” he explained, pointing to the little red mark that indicates your destination. Where Taehyung and Jimin were possibly being held captive.
You stared blankly at the marker, considering calling the police. But even as the thought arose, you knew they wouldn’t be able to make it as quickly as necessary. Not only were you in the mountains, several miles outside of civilization, the location on the map was even further away from the nearest town. Your group was half way there already, so the only option as far as you were concerned was to start heading that way, call the cops on the way, then get your boys while waiting.
Taking out your own phone, you called the airport, requesting a car to pick you up while the boys paced around or began to hunker down in waiting. Even from the pickup point, you all knew it would at least be a little while before anyone arrived. You stared hopelessly at the thin pole sticking up from the ground, topped with a little yellow sign that said ‘Taxi drop off/Pick up.’ Underneath that read, “up to 30 minutes.” While you prayed that that wouldn't be how long you would have to wait, you knew that sometimes taxis could take their sweet ass time, especially in the evening when local planes weren’t generally running.
Everyone was dead silent while they waited, the weight of whatever situation you were about to walk into evident on everyone’s minds. You also tried your best to not think about the fact Namjoon literally killed a man for you, everything getting too real too quickly. Replaying the last couple of days’ events through your head, you absently chew your bleeding cuticles until someone grabbed your hand, pinning it in theirs.
It was Jin, the shadow of unsaid words flickering behind his emotion-filled eyes, but you didn’t dare ask. You couldn’t handle anything more, and he must’ve known, because he didn’t volunteer his thoughts either. Instead, he pulled you into a tight hug that only served to make you feel even more grotesque of a person. He was trying to be there for you, but he didn’t know the extent of what you had done.
You thought back to the events leading up to this, things you could have done differently or could have said, you only came to the clear conclusion that you were a curse brought upon your hybrid’s lives. You must have mumbled that part out loud, because Jin’s grip on you tightened to an uncomfortable strength, his response a grate against your frozen ear. “That’s not true. Without you, we would—”
The car arrived, pulling up to you with the brights flashing in your eyes creating blue and green dots in your field of vision. Seokjin reluctantly released you from the warm hug, but kept a death grip on your hand as you all climbed into the waiting cab, the slam of the last door sending your gut into a nauseous frenzy.
“You really want to head out that way? There’s nothing over there,” the cabby questioned in a less than convinced tone once you showed him the GPS. “I don’t think a young lady like you should go out there with..” His voice uncomfortably trailed off when he’d glanced back up to meet your gaze.
Upon your glare, he let it go without speaking the words, patting the passenger side headrest in a signal of ‘alright, you win’ before he swiveled to grasp the wheel. But you knew what he had been thinking without the need of finishing his sentence, you just didn’t want your hybrids to hear any prejudiced talk like that. Not when you had bigger problems which also stemmed from the misgivings and abuse about their species.
When you officially didn’t change your mind, the older man put the car in gear then pulled away from the stop without another word. Confident he was taking you in the right direction, you put the phone to your ear again after quickly dialing the police. You gave them the location without preamble, stating you saw illegal hybrid trafficking, then hung up without a name. Things would only get more complicated if your identity got involved.
“We’ll find them there, right?” Jungkook murmured nervously, his foot bouncing a-mile-a-minute to your left. His tensing and relaxing fist that rested on the bouncing knee nearly gave you motion sickness as his elbow kept you steadily rocking.
You thought perhaps you should have left him at the ski resort where he would be safer and less anxious, but thinking on it further, you knew he wouldn’t have let you, nor would he have been safe or comfortable left alone with your family.
You grabbed his hand with a squeeze and gave him a reassuring smile you sure as hell hadn’t felt. “We’ll find them and bring them home.”
No one spoke for the rest of the ride. Everyone was stone faced and solemn, leaving you to worry in silence, watching the snowy landscape disappear into untouched forest and shadows of ice swept hills.
“You sure you want to get out here?” The cabby called back in concern, his sunspot brows pinched in the rearview. “It’s not exactly safe out here.”
“We have a cabin,” you explained without further detail, stopping to stand by the open car door while squinched eyes searched the darkness, listening to the crunches and shuffles of your hybrids climbing out of the car before you shut the door and walked around to the driver's side window.
The man hesitantly accepted your fare, telling you to be safe a second time then casting you one last look before he was gone, leaving you and your hybrids standing in the snow out in the middle of nowhere. The surrounding forest felt darker without the glow of the headlights.
“Shit, the GPS stopped working,” Namjoon growled, aggressively tapping the screen with the back of his index finger; the clicking the only sound to be heard.
“Damn it. I should’ve figured we wouldn’t have signal out here.” You pressed your face into your chilled hands, trying not to scream with building panic and frustration, a buzzing forming in your ears.
Yoongi, with his button nose in the air, stomped off into the woods, leaving you no choice but to follow despite the sinking feeling in your stomach. While you would do anything to find Tae and Jimin, you didn’t want to waste time or risk your group’s safety by getting lost in the woods.
“Yoongs—” You started, but his sharp, ‘shh’ cut you off.
“There’s more of us,” he hissed on a whisper. “A lot of them.”
You were just over the hill when Yoongi suddenly crouched down, waving back for the rest of your group to do the same.
Just through the trees you could see what he was looking at even from your distance—some sort of rundown lumberyard. All the equipment lay broken, forgotten and covered in snow, leaving only the warehouse in use with the subtle yellow hue of aged industrial lights that shone through broken windows.
“Noona,” Jungkook’s voice sounded choked, nothing more than a hushed cry that wrenched your gut in an invisible fist.
“Blood,” Jin swallowed, stating what JK couldn’t.
It was then you saw it. Just at the base of the hill, next to one of the mills was a dark pile that you had scanned your eyes over before, thinking nothing of it being more than a pile of logs. However, realizing instead of a stack spruce and pine you initially passed over, it was in fact a pile of corpses. Hybrid corpses.
“This must be it,” Joon stated coldly, taking the lead down the hill before anyone else could speak.
“W-Wait,” you whispered, slipping with your next step as you tried to keep pace. “What if there’s guards or something.”
“I don’t smell anyone outside, don’t worry,” Hobi reassured, his hand wrapping around your upper arm to help hold you steady.
He was right. The outside was thankfully clear as you and your group looked for an entrance, finding every door locked. Yoongi located a nondescript window that had been left ajar in the back of the building, on the second floor. It took climbing onto Namjoon’s shoulders with Jin’s help to get up to the overhang, but somehow you managed without sliding off, your boots digging into the notches between shingles.
You cast them a cursory glance before you crawled into the tiny opening, catching your arm on a stray nail. You cursed as quietly as you could, clutching your arm through your jacket with a wince, but you moved on, coming to a landing in a cold, barren room. The buzzing and zapping from the overworked, overhang lights sputtered electricity as moths unrelentingly bounced against them. In such an empty room it all resounded too loud for your ringing ears.
Counting your blessings that you didn’t end up—say—in the middle of a room of thugs, you cautiously glanced out the door. Space clear, you hurried to an iron staircase that stood to the edge of the floor, rotted and covered in rust from ongoing moisture, and found the closest entrance. Frantically struggling to remove the wooden block that had latched the door shut before anyone noticed you. You took longer than you'd like..
“You good?” Yoongi asked as soon as you let them in, only pausing to take in your condition before bounding into the room with nose in the air.
“Yeah, no sign of anyone just yet,” you panted out.
As if on cue, everyone startled at the sound of footsteps clanking on iron, two voices echoing off thin, crumbling walls as they slowly approached. They must have been coming up another staircase somewhere, but you didn’t have time to look for the source before you were pulled behind a wall of random machinery.
“That was a good one,” a male voice laughed, followed by a flick of a lighter.
“Shit, yeah. Told you that one would put up a fight. Too bad how it ended though,” the second voice paused before it resurfaced, louder. “Thought we could get more money from that one. Given the breed, you woulda thought he’d last longer.”
You could see two figures pass through the gaps between rusted parts and spiderweb dustings, softly highlighted by the cherry of their cigarettes as they moved through the shadows. They were young, you thought, looking to be roughly in their low twenties with beanies and stained Carhartt Duck jackets. They seemed like they could even be workers for the mill if not for the washed up druggy vibes and face tattoos.
“He was a goddamned bloody mess. Almost stupid how badly that one fucked him up.”
They continued their disgusting chat on the way out through another set of doors you couldn’t see, reminiscing about gory details of a fight that they appeared to have just witnessed while Jin had to cover your mouth because you started to hyperventilate.
When the coast was clear, you gently shook Jin’s hand away, running for the stairs and descending without thinking. There had even been a few times you had to catch yourself on one of your boys so you didn’t fall on the icier grates when they'd bolted after you, easily catching up and most passing you with ease.
The basement was warm and filled with roars of excitement as you came to a set of metal doors, stopping short where one very large hybrid stood, blocking the barrier with massive muscles that could rival a bodybuilder’s.
You were about to run, backed up against someone’s chest, when the male grunted in greeting. “How many?”
“E-Excuse me..?” You swallowed, righting yourself.
The bouncer lifted one brow over his thin shades, tattooed arms flexing to show his limited patience. “You’re submitting? How many?” His head seemed to land on Jungkook, who tensed under the scrutiny as one hidden hand clutched at the back of your coat.
“One,” Joon cut in, stepping in front of the both of you. “Just one.”
“Joon—”
“Make your bets at the booth. No weapons. Keep phones in pockets, and only in-house contraband allowed,” the male grunted around his enlarged canines protruding from his jaw before stepping aside.
Namjoon’s arm wrapped around your shoulders casually, directing you inside and into the wall of noise, crushing you to his side as you passed through a small empty space straight into an open arena. People lined the upper balconies where you stood, chanting names of—you could only assume—fighters, while pushing and shoving each other as they moved to change positions or weeded in and out of the crowd to get more snacks or drink.
Through them was a defense bar that kept staff—or in this case—drunk patrons from topping over into a much larger crowd that surrounded a concrete ring and occasionally broke up around the food trucks, the booth where bets and applications were made, and tables for those who had influence by the looks of it. There was a space on the same level that had also been set apart with a larger booth. You could only imagine that being the leader’s viewing point.
The underground fighting ring was between fights, allowing patrons to cast their bets while the orchestrators set up the fighters for the next round, giving you time to find your way to the bottom level, getting as close to the cage as possible before the wall of audience members grew too thick. Not that you wanted to get much closer anyway. From where you stood, the mess of blood and chunks of flesh smattering over the concrete or the links in the fence were already too visible for your liking. The sight and smell made you heave into the back of your hand.
Jungkook moved in closer, his face pressing into the back of your neck while his hands clutched at your coat, shuddering in fear. Filled with shame over the fact you found comfort in the bunny being so close, you reached to brush your fingers through his hair, smoothing it while you examined the room for potential plans.
It seemed that the hybrids they used for fights were kept in a separate room that had been sectioned off with the same fence that surrounded the center ring, looking something like a prison guard walk-route where it stretched to the center of the room, each cut off by another gate before forming the moderately sized dome. Not an easy escape, you thought while looking around for another opening. You wondered if you could just pay someone for your hybrids, but immediately cut the thought off. Not only did you not want to fund this horrific practice, but you knew you didn’t have nearly enough money for the amount they would likely expect for not just one, but two healthy exotic breeds.
A scuffle broke out next to you, Jungkook and Hoseok tugging you out of the way just in time before a bouncer shoved a guy who was barely the size of his arm where you had been previously standing.
The skinny one who was hopped up on too many drugs, eyes shot and dilated as they nervously bounced around, scrambled to his feet, pointing to the general area of the door the hybrids must have been kept in before scratching his neck and face. “Those fights were rigged! Give me my money back!”
The bouncer encroached on the guy before standing over him. “Fight’s fair and square,” he huffed in a thick, hungarian accent that rattled even you. You felt slightly bad for the man who had to be on the receiving end of the larger male’s menacing glare. Only slightly.
“Bullshit! You can’t pit a tiger against a dog type! Do you know how much I lost because of that beast?”
Your breath stopped short, eyes filling with tears. You wanted to jump in and ask about Tae; about the tiger that had fought. Afterall, what were the odds of there being two tigers? But three pairs of arms held you in place, one of them clasping over your mouth to keep you from yelling out to the two arguing men before the larger one physically dragged the smaller one into the throng of people, fading into the background.
“Y/n, you need to calm down,” one of your hybrids hissed in your ear while you struggled against their holds. You think it was Seokjin but your mind was racing too much to recognize the voice.
Shaking your head, you imagined Taehyung in that gory cage, fighting for his life while you were busy fucking Hobi and going to your parents’ stupid party. You felt a wave of nausea before your knees buckled, sinking into whoever had a hold of you.
“Just a bit longer. Stay strong for just a little longer.” It was definitely Jin’s voice, quivering with emotion into your hair, his arms wrapping tight enough around your chest to constrict your breathing. It sounded more like he was talking to himself than you, but you nodded anyway.
“I’m gonna go see—” Namjoon stated gruffly before he started for the cage only to stop in his tracks when the piercing ring of a microphone’s feedback rang through the building, cutting an announcer's voice through the noise and giving rise to a new level of cheers.
“Alright alright alright, everybody!” The voice showboated while two female hybrids strutted on the edges of the ring with spray-painted signs that read: ‘Round 3.’ “You know what time it is, so you better’ve got those stakes in!”
The bass of Slipknot’s, “Psychosocial” roared to life as some kind of dog hybrid, or maybe a jackal, was led into the arena by a control pole. The hybrid was jacked and covered in scars, and given by how tame he was, he was a veteran.
“Aaaaaaaaand now—” the broadcaster's voice called with newfound excitement. “You've been waiting to see it all night! Our very own killer coyote! Versus! The fresh! Meat!” Each word was enunciated on a roar as the coyote was released to pace the cage, snarling at the audience.
“Y/n—” Jungkook whimpered, pulling your head to his chest to block your view, but it was too late.
Taehyung was quite literally dragged through the double doors, fighting so ferociously against the poles and holds on him that he was smashing into the frame and walls of the fence, his roars deafening, each one ripping a new sob from each crack they created in your heart.
Strapped in some sort of belt that made you think of a straightjacket with a control pole connected to it, he squirmed and thrashed, throwing his head wildly, trying to bite and fight off his abductors even through the bite guard they had him in. Taehyung was simultaneously pulled by the choker on his neck and pushed by the pole at his back, struggling until they got him through the second barrier.
“Looks like he still has some fight in him,” the announcer laughed while the men holding the restraints hit the releases on the pole around your tiger’s neck and on the belt around his chest before quickly scurrying behind the barrier, Tae hot on their asses, spitting and clawing at the gate as it closed in his face.
Without the restraints and with Taehyung holding relatively still, you could make out his condition with a new clarity, especially as he tore off the guard on his face, revealing the cuts and bruises with a healthy smearing of red marring to his beautiful caramel skin. You had to wonder just how much of that blood was his, and how much of it belonged to his previous opponents as thoughts of the chunks of flesh flashed through your mind.
“Tae,” you croaked, unable to find much of your voice as your tiger turned on his opponent that dwarfed him, the two slowly circling each other with their backs to the chain links.
Jungkook was vibrating against your cheek, his heart hammering louder than the music and cheers, but still he tried to protect you from the sound and visuals as the fight commenced with a clap like thunder.
______________
A/N:
PolariTae watched Your Eyes Tell, demanded we have the fight.
Oh, and for those that asked for the Discord link,
https://discord.gg/dfQKNeRt