You steadied your breathing and gripped onto the talisman in your pocket like it was a life line.
Please mother, keep me safe.
Your eyes began to adjust, but that didn't give you relief. If anything being able to see slightly just scared you. You didn't want to have to see what haunted this house. You imagined it wouldn't be pretty. They usually weren't.
Taehyung...that bastard what the hell was he thinking!? There wasn't time to deal with that now, you had to find Minnie, and there was a huge chance that she was frightened and alone at the bottom of that darkness.
Taking a deep breath, you turned and began to descend the stairs towards impending doom.
"Minnie?" You called, your voice instead of echoing was swallowed by the thick peeling plaster and stone. The only reply in the thick silence was the sound of your footsteps as you descended the stairs.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs you shone the torch on your surroundings as you moved forward with caution.
The basement was empty except from the bare wooden shelves and boxes littered around and there at the other side, was a second door.
The hairs on your arms rose as you felt yourself walk through a familiar cold spot. You willed yourself to continue and reach the door.
Your phone light flickered, leaving you for a few seconds vulnerable in the dark.
Something was down there with you.
Reluctantly putting the iron bar under your arm, phone held tightly in your other hand you swung the door open.
There on the floor was an unconscious girl, lying on the cold stone.
You hurried over to her, shaking her side causing a soft groan to leave her mouth.
You caught sight of the black and purple bruises that wrapped around her wrists...and throat.
"Minnie?" You shook her again, "Minnie you need to wake up for me. Come on you have to get up."
Your gaze shot to a bucket that suddenly rolled on the stone, hitting the wall gently. It only spurred you on, to leave faster.
"Minnie!" The said girl roused from her unconsciousness and forced open her tired swollen eyes.
"Who..." Something must have come back to the brunette, as recognition to the situation flashed through her suddenly frightened eyes. "No! No no no no, I don't want to die yet, please!" She stammered as she shot up from her position, her throat hoarse.
"You're ok, I'm here to help you," you told her firmly.
Minnie tried to concentrate on your determined eyes before her own shifted to the side of your head and widened.
"̵S̶h̸e̸'̸s̷ ̸M̷i̴n̸e̶!̴" The screech pierced through your ears like a needle and before you could move a force like a gale threw you back, your phone and iron bar almost flying out of your hands at the shock. The wind had been knocked out of you but you recovered quickly from the sudden shock.
Ok, now that was not a regular ghost. Only a poltergeist could pull something like that off.
You were now face to face with a ghoulish looking woman, long dark brown tendrils of hair, skin thin and grey with dark veins more prominent than on a living body.
Seeing ghosts like that never got easier, no matter how many times you came face to face with one. A sharp chill shot down your spine.
You inched over to the frightened girl on the floor, standing protectively in front of her never once looking away from the entity before you. If you dared to blink, she would disappear.
You spotted something that glinted in the spirit's hand.
The knife from the kitchen.
"Oh shit." You breathed before hauling the brunette out of harms way.
"̷S̴h̴e̷'̸s̵ ̶m̸y̷ ̸d̶a̸u̴g̴h̴t̵e̵r̷!̶ ̵M̷i̵n̶e̵!̴"̶ It wailed dark hair falling wildly over her pale face. You managed to narrowly avoid most of her blind swings, hissing as the blade caught the skin on your forearm. The adrenaline pumping through you covered up the pain for the time being.
"She's not yours!" You shouted back with just as much ferocity, causing the spirit to momentarily falter, giving you a slim opportunity.
With a strong grip on the iron rod, you lunged and swiped through the apparition. A distorted scream ripped from its throat as it vanished, the knife clattering to the ground.
Fumbling with the contents in your bag you ripped out the smaller bag of salt which you began pouring onto the floor to make a salt circle.
"W-what are you doing? What happened to her!?"
"Just trust me. Stay in the circle and you will be fine," you said, having no time to explain your actions. You could do that later.
"You need to listen to me. You must have something on you that belonged to your mother, or she's linked too in some way." You insisted, grabbing a ball of sage and a lighter from your bag and setting it alight on the floor in between the two of you.
You watched Minnie's hand unconsciously floated up to the necklace she wore, nimble fingers wrapping around the silver pendant.
The various old objects began to shake and convulse as the scent of the sage wafted across the basement. The spirit was not happy.
"̵S̶h̸e̸'̸s̷ ̸M̷i̴n̸e̶!̴ ̵L̴e̶a̷v̶e̷!̵ ̴L̶e̶a̷v̴e̵ ̴u̶s̸!̶"̴
"Give me the necklace!" You insisted, holding your hand out.
"B-but it was my mother's!"
"Yes, that's whats keeping her here! So if you want to live we have to destroy it!"
Just as a hesitant Minnie unclasped the jewellery she froze, looking up at the form behind you.
"Mother...?"
Your head shot round to see the poltergeist had reappeared, a twisted nasty expression on its face. Minnie was not seeing the same thing.
Minnie could only see her mother's gentle face, one with a sad smile on her lips.
You grabbed the necklace and dropped it into the burning herbs. Your eyes snapped up to the sound of a strangled scream that erupting from the spot in front of you. The apparition solidified so you could see the woman flailing in agony as flames engulfed her .
Minnie watched in horror, tears running down her pale cheeks as the spirit of her mother burned, the flames reflecting brightly in her glossy eyes.
The screams of Minnie's mother began to die and the flames grew brighter, before they flurried and vanished completely.
The basement grew still and quiet, the scent of white sage filling your nose and senses.
You breathed a sigh of relief as you felt the ghostly cold begin to ebb away, indicating Minnie's mother had passed on. Her soul no longer attached to the realm of the living.
Although it was over, you didn't want to stay down in the basement a moment longer.
A pain on your arm brought your attention to the cut you had been inflicted with, the adrenaline no longer covering for the pain. You drew a breath through your teeth at it but decided it wasn't as bad as it looked. You had nothing to wrap it in, your eyes glanced to your shirt you wore under your jacket.
Tearing a piece off the bottom of your shirt you created a makeshift bandage. That would have to do for now.
You swung Minnie's arm over your shoulders feeling her still trembling slightly and hoisted the girl up onto her feet, breaking the circle of salt as you both stepped through it. You couldn't blame her, you were shaking too, from the adrenaline withdrawal.
As you trudged up the stairs, leaving the darkness behind, Minnie couldn't help but ask as she caught a glimpse at the skin on the back of your neck, "That mark, it looks...odd, is it a tattoo?"
"Just a birth mark. Does it look strange to you? I don't see it much because its right on the back of my neck," you replied.
"Oh, no no, sorry, it just looks...too clean to be a birth mark, it looks like a tattoo. Its quite distinctive."
Her attempt at conversation wasn't great, but you could tell she was exhausted and trying to speak about something a little more normal.
When you reached the top of the stairs, the door was open and as you stepped through it into the musky light you saw the man you wanted to pummel into the ground with your fists.
"What. The. Fuck, Taehyung!?" Was the first thing you snarled at Taehyung once you saw him waiting outside of the door. To your disbelief the man feigned innocence, a startled look on his face from your anger filled tone.
"What's wrong? Did you settle everything?" His ignorant answer only fuelled your irritation.
"Of course I did you idiot, no thanks to you! You trapped me down there! Why would you do that?"
"I thought you wanted to keep it down there in one place? You know how ghosts can be, flitting from room to room. We needed to trap it down there..."
He had a point. However that wasn't an excuse and it puzzled you slightly. It was just as he said, ghosts could move through the walls, so why on earth would he assume it would stay down there with you?
"I don't believe you for a second!" You retorted.
With a sigh, Taehyung stepped towards one of the walls in the house, and slid his hand into one of the decaying cracks and pulled out something you recognised instantly.
A ball of rosemary wrapped in string. And again, as he pulled a second from the floorboards.
One of the few things that ghosts hated was rosemary. Minnie's dead mother really had been trapped down there with you, she wouldn't have been able to escape through the walls. In a way, that actually made it more dangerous for you.
It still didn't excuse his methods. You could have sworn he smiled at you before closing that door...
"I know a lot more than you think I do, Petal. I'm not just some naive kid coming along to get some scares out of this like you thought I was..." he said sheepishly, a smile you could pass off as apologetic.
"That doesn't explain why you left me down there alone!"
Instead of answering straight away he gave you a look, emotion wiped off his face. He stared at you until a small smile pulled at his lips, as if he suddenly understood something.
"You don't like being alone, do you Petal?"
You could only stare back dumbfounded at his statement, before wiping the surprised look off your face.
You scoffed and shoved past him, Minnie sending him a questioning look.
Breathing in the fresh air once outside was like having a bucket of cool water thrown on you. Refreshing.
You helped Minnie to the car, her bruises becoming more distinguished in the light evident of her struggle with the poltergeist and it worried you what would have happened if you had arrived a bit later...
Taehyung followed a few steps behind as if he were worried he'd kicked a wasps nest in you.
"Minnie I have to ask, what happened? Start from the beginning," you urged her to explain as you helped her into the back seat of the Volvo.
She let out a shaky breath and began, "my mother gave me up for adoption, when I was born because she was too young and...her parents forced her too," Minnie explained, still breathless.
"When she grew older, she tried many times to take me back. She tried to steal me from my adoptive parents and...she fought with my adoptive father and things got ugly. He stabbed her in self defence with a kitchen knife."
You and Taehyung listened to the brunette carefully, putting pieces together.
"Please don't blame her! She only wanted me back. Somehow got into my head, asking me to join her, coming to me in my dreams, of course I didn't know that she meant in death..."
"We don't blame your mother or you, Minnie. Your mother is at rest now, she's in peace," you comforted the traumatised girl. She nodded, offering you a weak smile before you closed the door gently.
"This isn't over!" You hissed at Taehyung, as you walked around the car. The man in question held his hands up in defence.
"I just thought-"
"You just 'thought'? That's not how we do things Taehyung," you scolded the boy like you would a child. "We stick together, that how this partner system works."
Instead of the reaction you wanted, you got something else.
"We're partners...?" He asked with a hopeful shine in his eyes.
Unbelievable. You gave a frustrated sigh and ignored him, swiping the keys from his hand. You couldn't help the feeling in your gut that this man had a hidden agenda behind his constantly shifting eyes.
Before getting in the car yourself, movement across the road was caught in your peripheral vision. Over by the Jung Residence.
It was a girl, taking out the trash to the front of the yard. Long dark hair, and looked around your age.
If you your gut feeling was correct, you couldn't let this opportunity slip.
Earning a confused look from Taehyung, you marched on over towards the unsuspecting girl.
"Excuse me!" You called, grabbing her startled attention.
"A-are you Dawon by any chance? Jung Dawon?"
"Who wants to know?" She shot, guard flying up on the fact that a stranger knew her name.
"Please. I'm with the P.I.A. We help people like your brother," you said, fumbling through your bag to reach a contact card.
She nervously glanced between the piece of card in your hand and the open door of her house. As if she was being offered forbidden candy and she didn't want someone to see.
She snatched the card from your hand and bolted leaving you standing there hopeful.
You wanted to drive off the frustration. However driving in such a state probably wasn't the best idea, but honestly you didn't give a shit at the moment. You'd be careful.
That's what they always say until you hit a little girl or boy running into the street after their toy.
You let the sound of the engine and wheels along the road calm you, the scenery flying past you in silence, you struggled to be entirely calm however because the remainder of the drive you felt Taehyung's gaze glued on you.
He didn't care that he was blatantly staring at you, watching your stern expression concentrate on the road, your dishevelled hair, tired eyes and white knuckles as you gripped the steering wheel a little too tightly.
He couldn't help but be very impressed with you, intrigued even. He found it captivating that you would risk yourself getting hurt for a girl you didn't even know. That kind of bravery and little care for your own well being was hard to find in human's nowadays. That and he thought you looked...alluring, in your tousled state.
He smiled quietly to himself as he turned his attention to the passing road. Taehyung decided that he quite liked that pissed off expression you held, even if it was due to him. He was glad he came along. He didn't even feel burdened that he would have to make it up to you later. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he liked toying with you as he did at the house. He wasn't sure yet.
But he did know one thing. He thoroughly enjoyed watching that expression of surprise and fear cross over your face as he shut the door. If only he had his camera ready... Oh well, there was always another time.
Taehyung spotted the ripped part of your shirt where the skin of your stomach peaked out slightly. His eyes flickered to the area on your forearm that had been messily wrapped in the ripped piece cloth, the wound staining it red.
He unconsciously wet his lips with his tongue and tore his gaze away.
You had a fire in you and you weren't afraid to get your hands dirty for those in need.
Admirable...But what would push you to your limit?
You got out of the car quickly as if there had been a nest of ants crawling all over you during the drive and slammed the door shut. Taehyung winced slightly and watched as your mood switched all of as sudden as you helped Minnie out of the car carefully, giving her soft words of encouragement. He chuckled to himself.
Women. What a handful.
Relief flooded in both Soyeon and Shuhua the moment they spotted Minnie as you walked her through the cafe entrance.
Hugs were exchanged and Shuhua led Minnie to the back of the shop, away from prying eyes. Soyeon thanked you gratefully, after handing you a small brown paper bag filled with the incense and herbs she had discussed earlier with you that day.
Before you left Soyeon insisted you exchange numbers to keep in contact, which you gladly accepted.
"If you ever need anything, drop by or give us a call." With that she sent you off after one last hug.
You rarely made friends on your line of work, but you felt you would make one or two out of them, even if you only had just met.
Taehyung waited for you as you exited the cafe, watching you walk closer, unrolling your jacket sleeves to cover your forearms.
"You can drive yourself back, I'm going to take a walk." You told the man who now held a look of a lost puppy. You hated how he seemed to have a million faces like an array masks he kept hidden behind his back. You had only known Taehyung for a bit and yet he had already started to vex you with his mysterious musings and sudden changes of personality. You would even go so far as to say he had bipolar disorder or even a second personality, but decided it was too reckless of a diagnosis and silly to accuse.
"Yah! How will you get back?" he called after you, something in his voice that was similar to concern, but after today, you doubted it was.
"I'll walk! Or take the subway!"
You needed a breather, and a stress reliever, somewhere to sit down for a bit.
With your back turned and striding off towards Seoul's busier streets, you failed to notice the intense gaze that stuck on your retreating form...
^^^Everyone's reaction when Taehyung locked you/reader behind the basement door in the last chapter XD
So I was listening to Shiloh Dynasty while writing this and the last chapter and its such a contrast, I'm trying to write intense scenes yet there's this very chill music playing in the background lololol
I apologise if this chapter seems to be a bit of a mess, I will come back to it later to sort it out, I just really wanted to publish it as soon as. Hope you guys enjoyed this one! -Rikki
UNEDITED
May. 10. 2020