The ride to wherever could be pleasant... but it wasn't for some reason, too many kilometers passed within an hour. Yoonahs body jerks from one side of the van to the other, hitting her head or shoulder against it's wall. All she wanted right now was to sleep somewhere quite and calm. Where no ruckus or what-so-ever existed, just the silence of the air around her and maybe the hush of the nigh sky. That sounds nice. Perfect actually.
There are no windows in the back of the vehicle leaving her in pitch black. She had screamed at the top of her lungs and had pounded her fists against the doors but nothing happened. She tried calling one of the people she knew but the the structure of the van cut off all networks. The twenty year old lays her head on the metal floor of the van. She's completely detached from the outside world. Just when she was about to give up, her eyes adjust to the darkness to find duffel bag hooked to one corner.
Like most human beings, her instinct tells her to investigate the bag and that's what she does. She unzips it and in front of her are laid tools and weapons and rolled up paper and cash. They're probably stolen, she thinks, or its black money...which is stolen money. With a stolen pocket knife hidden in her right boot and a metal rod with a curved -hooked like- end in her hand, she crawls towards the doors again. But this time, she sticks the hook inside the small slit of the door. With proper calculations, the door will open if she puts enough strength on the other end of the rod. The ride is offaly smooth now...I wonder where we are. The skin above her knickers turn white because of the pressure she puts on the rod. Open! As her claustrophobia starts to kick in and the need to escape grows. Her breath starts to get uneven, making its way in and out too fast, causing her to feel a little light headed.
Thud...Thud...Th-
The doors fly open and relief flows through her. It seems as if she's being taken though a forest. The tall trees pass by and the dirt rises above the ground due to the tiers lifting them up. She jumps out of the van. Her aim was to land on both feet but she stumbles and rolls on the dirt road. Her eyes readjust to the lighting. It's a lot brighter from her neighborhood. A more of a orange-yellow color dances on the sky. How long was I in there? Dusting herself off, she sees that she earned a scrape on her arm from her failed stunt. She hears the skidding of tiers and turns her head towards the sound. The breaks are pulled and the van stops. No. She gets up, one foot after the other, she begins to run as Jimin storms out of the van in a frightening manner.
His assistant rushes by his side. "She's getting away, what should we do?"
Jimin sighs, "Follow her by the car. If you get her get, make sure she can't run away again."
"Okay. I'll—"
"You will not hurt her in any way." Jimin's voice is deep and threatening. The assistant doesn't question nor does he argue. "I'm going by foot. Don't attract any attention. This isn't our part of the city and I'm sure we're trespassing someone we don't want to mess with right now."
His assistant nods and starts the van as Jimin runs a different direction, away from Yoonah, but his plans are still to reach her. His lips press into a thin line before returning to its original and plump form. Why here?, he worries, Why now?
Yoonah's hair soar in the hair as she runs through the forest. She doesn't know where to go but she need to get away from that man. That man who shifted the ground beneath her feet within a few minutes. Her legs give up, feeling like rubber, and she falls to the ground. She breaths heavily as her heads starts to spin again. She was never the athletic one nor was she the one to run. So this sudden exercise of her body made her sick. The roar of the engine startles her and she sees the van, a few yards away, rushing towards her at full speed. Using her brain, she gets off the dirt road and into the thickness of the forest. There was a slope at the side of the road and the smartest thing to do was to go down it. But because of the lack of energy left in her, one step in and she tumbles down the leafy slope. When she reached flat ground again, her hair turned into a birds nest. All twigs and sticks and autumn leaves tangled in knots of her hair. The large man gets out of his van and starts to go down the slop awfully slow. Yoonah gets back up and oh, how she hates this running game.
+++
Thud, thud, thud.
Yoonah hear her heart beat in her ears and feels it her fingertips as she slides down the wall of the warehouse. The sound of large feet crushing the dry leaves underneath them reach her ears and she hold her breath. Please. Please. Please, she silently begs. When the sound is gone, she lets her breath out in a long exhalation of relief. Thank God for this place. Getting back on her feet, she starts looking around the warehouse which she happened to find during her escape. Strange, she thinks, why would someone have a warehouse so deep in the forest? She wanted to call out for someone, anyone but something told her not to. The whole place had her feeling uneasy. A different uneasy feeling from when Jimin barged into her house just a few minuets after breakfast. While serving the food for her family, her stomach twisted just before the storm. But what she feels now, foreshadows a near tsunami in the future.
The roof of the warehouse allowed limited sunlight in, as it was covered with rusted metal sheets, making everything hard to see. Large towers of crates are scattered around the room and Yoonah wonders what's inside them. She comes across a figure, most likely a car, covered with a white cloth. She removes the cloth and a layer of dust flies around her.
"Wow..." She walks around her the old fashion vintage car. "Haven't seen anything like this in a while...they stopped making these models since the 90s." The vintage car was painted crimson and lined with silver. Such a royal treasure. She moves to its side and peered inside, seeing its leather, fine-grained leather hand sewn into the seats. "Probably worth hundreds...no, thousands of dollars. Who ever this person is, they must be damn rich to own this gem." Removing one cloth after the other, five costly cars stood in front of her and more than a fifty were still unseen. Both vintage and modern, sports cars lined up infant of her. She nods, "I see...who ever owns this place has a thing for cars...a car collector...not bad."
Walking away from the cars, sh goes to investigates some of the other parts of the warehouse. Every room she went in was the same, with towers of wooden crates, lines of expensive cars and some things she didn't see before like safes and furnitures and
Her phone buzzes. A small gasp escaped her lips as she realizes that she got off track. She didn't really think there would be any network in much a place like this; deep in the forest with not a single tower to connect with. But here she is with her phone buzzing with notifications. When she begins to reach for her phone someone suddenly grabs her wrist with a grip she getting familiar with. Looking up, Jimin's harsh and frightening eyes pierce into her's, as if digging right through her eyes and looking into her poor soul.
"Let go of me!" She finally gets back the audacity to speak as twists her wrist, trying to get out of his grip.
But she fails again, he's too strong her and her wrist starts to hurt easily making her wince in pain. He lets go to only grab her by the arm and pull her towards his chest to get her to look at him and not their hands. "What do you think you're doing?" He doesn't yell but makes sure to be loud enough to startle her.
"What do you think you idiot?! Trying to get free from you! Have some mercy and let. Go. Of. Me!" Her fist pound against him but it doesn't affect him. Not one bit. He keeps looking around, left then right, hoping for something not to happen but chances are that it will. It always has with him.
"Shut up! You talk too much and that too loud." He says, then commenced dragging her behind him—once again. All he wanted to do right now is get back to the van, speed out of this place and back to his mansion where no living nor dead soul dears to threaten him. With only one man beside him and a winey girl behind him, he'd barely make it out alive. "We're waisting time, we need to get out of here before—"
"A.J., I swear I heard someone. Plus, I don't remember those sheets being on the ground."
Two large doors open swing open and a group of men walk in. Three men actually. Two of the men wear black trench coats with matching hast on top of their hands. Both tall with built bodies. Its hard for Yoonah not to unseen the large hand gun twisted around their fingers. She lets out a shaky breath but Jimin gives her sharp glare, making her hold the rest of the air in her lungs. The shorter man whose less built, A.J., walks between his black-coated companions. His hands tucked into his stripy black-white trousers as the suit jacket loosely hung on his broad shoulders. The North lands were controlled by a dangerous this man, who is both cunning, desirable and murderous. A deadly combination. And a reasons to why Jimin was being so conscious while traveling though these terrain.
He pulls Yoonah behind a tower of crates, trying to hide from A.J. and his men. Yoonah gets pushed back on the crate, with Jimins hand covering her mouth. She tries to pry his fingers off but he pinnes her hands above her head. He tries to to see the group of men but her constant fidgeting doesn't make it easy.
"Look," Jimin says, irritated to death. Maybe he should have left her there and ignored her cries. "if you want to live, then you sill listen to me and do as I say. Or else those people will find us. I know what they will do to me and I know that I will be able to handle it but I don't know what they will do to you. And whatever it is, I'm sure yo don't want that to happen to you." Her wipers stop. He looks at his hand, drenched in her tears. Her eyes are swollen red, puffy from all that crying. "Let's go."
His hand holds hers as he carefully guides her and himself through the maze of crate and expensive vehicle. The men sit around a large table, decorated with expensive liquor, and chatter about things Yoonah did not understand. The man—A.J.— with silver hair, obviously dyed, seems to be the leader or the highest ranked among the men. His skin glows, telling that he's around the age of his late thirties. He laughs and the ash of his cigarette sprinkles on the glass ash tray.
Yoonahs head began to spin and she stops pulling Jimin to a halt. The stench of alcohol and smoke swirled into her nostrils making her scrunch up her nose and face. She never liked that smell, it always made her head spin. A reason why her father would always get angry with her whenever she would refuse to fix him a drink. His temper would reach the roof and not a second was spared for him to unbuckle his belt and mark her with lashes. Her body grows weak, the stench hits every nerve on her forehead making it throb and she stumbles on her own feet. He tries to get her standing straight and not bring any attention. But because of his bad luck and her neuralgia, she knocks over a small chest and the thud of its fall. Guns, knifes, bags of white powder and whatnot scatter on the floor causing all three of the men to turn their heads.
"Who's there?"
"See, I knew I heard something."
"Well," A.J. says, "Do I have to ask you all to bring whoever it is to me? Go!"
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