"Jaehyun's waiting for us at the toll gate to Mad City," Sicheng said, breaking the heavy silence in the car. "Why couldn't he come here?" Ten asked, Rina regretting sitting between Lucas and Ten, the tension seeming thicker than ever between the two. She wondered how Yuta was able to sit up front with th stifling atmosphere, and still smile.
He did have a nice smile, though.
"He has better things to do than worry about you." Sicheng shot.
"Rude." Ten raised his eyebrows as he gave Rina a look that said 'you see?'
"Let's just be civilized, it really isn't that hard." Yuta sighed, before gesturing for Sicheng to go on. "We can't take the direct route, though." He continued. "There would be many too many risks with that. We'll have to go through the forest.
Time was ticking, but to Rina it didn't seem like they were making any progress to getting out of the forest.
The forest was a long stretch, circling almost half of the entire city's border, but although it was dense, it was not very wide. And for a while, Rina could tell that Sicheng had sensed they were lost, before finally admitting to it and stopping the car, getting out.
She shivered. The forest always brought back a flurry of bad memories that she was working so hard to fight off. All she could hope for was that they were nowhere near the area where she had found her older brother, lifeless. But her luck seemed to have run out today.
She looked out the window, and saw it. She recognized the bushes, the shrubs, the tree which had three horizontal lines carved on its trunk.
Rina flinched, images of a mangled body resurfacing, screams of horror and salty tears temporarily drowning out her sense of reality as she was thrown back in time momentarily.
That was where Youngho had died.
"Youngho!" She had been screaming, because back then she had her voice. She was running, tripping over broken branches and entangled roots, stray junk and all sorts of things as her eyes turned from side to side frantically.
"Youngho! Come back!" She screamed.
Her father and several of his guards were there as well, all of them having the sense to leave her younger brother at home, in the care of maids. She'd never want a three year old to have to deal with a group of frantic adults as they searched fruitlessly for the missing teenager. "Youngho!" His name was called out by so many different people, she could no longer differentiate her voice from the rest.
She was starting to cry, not wanting to be left alone again. He had run away once, but was caught by the border patrol and brought back. And here they were again, him running away for the second time.
"Those friends of him were always a bad influence!" Her father cursed, twisting his hands angrily. "I told him to stop hanging out with such barbaric boys!" Rina turned around, clenching her fists. "They were nicer to him than you ever were!" She shouted furiously, angry tears falling. Her father looked down at her, and for a second she felt guilty for the expression of hurt he had across his face. She unclenched her fists, muttering an apology.
He said nothing, merely patting her head softly and told her to go to Chittaphon, who was among the men searching for her brother, as if he understood the flurry of emotions she was feeling at the prospect of being left alone. He didn't. He never would, because it was him both her and Youngho was terrified of being left alone with. And although he always tried his best to protect her from the horrible things her family did, he couldn't always protect himself.
And she cursed herself for never being able to protect him like he would to her, having been her shield against how miserable her world was. And sadly, he lived in the same world as she did, yet he never had a shield, and now he was gone with little hope of finding him.
And so she turned her back on her father as she followed the group of guards deeper through the forest that lined the borders of Limitless, hoping that her older brother couldn't have gotten far enough to emerge on the other side, that he was stuck in the forest, unharmed, so that she could bring him home.
And then it happened.
A scream broke the frantic name calling, and her blood ran cold. Instinctively, she ran towards the source of the sound, followed by the guards. Their footsteps pounding against the leaf covered earth drowned out the sobbing of whoever it was.
When she reached the place, she froze.
A body, face and body horribly mutilated, lay on the ground, clad in a red shirt and dirt covered black pants. Her heart plummeted, letting out a choked gasp of shock. It couldn't have been Youngho, he didn't own a single red shirt. Red was a cursed color, despised and banned throughout the three cities.
She rushed to his side, trying her best to aid the man who was quite possibly the source of the scream in reviving the body.
It was futile, she knew it as soon as her hands pressed against the boy's chest. His body was already stiff, skin already pale. As she removed her hands, they came away stained crimson. Her gut twisted, recognizing the metallic smell of blood, realizing the shirt wasn't naturally red.
And then she saw the small birthmark on the neck of the boy, and it hit her. It couldn't be, it couldn't be, it couldn't be-
"GET HIM TO THE MEDICAL BAY AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE!" Her father's voice boomed in her voice, confirming her worst nightmare. The blazing torches flashed in her eyes, illuminating everything as men raced forward to pick him up.
Through the flurry of action, she merely sat there on the forest floor, heart racing and hands stained with blood. Her eyes fell on silver knife that lay beside her, bloodstained, unnoticed until that moment, and she was unable to tear her eyes away, even when Chittaphon tried to coax her away.
Her brother had been murdered. Her father's words came back to her in that moment. "I told him to stop hanging out with such barbaric boys!"
For once, she wished he had listened to their father.
She couldn't breathe, her eyes glued to that one spot, the place she had been kneeling at so many years ago, a year before her father turned on her, two years before she was thrown into the prison for disappointing the King. Hurry up, she wanted to scream at Sicheng and Yuta.
She wanted to scream, plead with them to take her out of there, take her anywhere except the spot she was.
Tears were starting to form, the lump in her throat starting to hurt, her lungs tightening, as she let out a gasp, trying to gulp down as much as she could - which wasn't much. She shut her eyes tightly, hoping the horror, panic, hatred- everything, would just disappear.
She was hurtling hard and fast down a spiral and she couldn't stop herself.
"Let's go- Hey, what's wrong with her?" Sicheng's concerned voice was barely audible to her.
She was fisting her pants so tightly she could feel her nails digging into her skin despite the material she was holding.
A low curse was uttered, from who she couldn't decipher, before warm arms enveloped her. She automatically buried her face into the chest of whoever was holding, a sense of familiarity and comfort washing over her.
"Get out of here!" Someone was yelling. "You don't get to tell me what to do-" "Her brother died here, so don't argue and get her out of here." Ten, she assumed, cut Sicheng off coldly.
She was still trying to breathe, crying as she clutched Ten's arm weakly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't remember." He whispered, rubbing her back soothingly, and although she had no idea what he was talking about, she let herself be comforted by his calm tone, by his embrace, reminding her so much of when she had been happier.
"Don't look." He instructed her, and she nodded listlessly.
After some time passed, whether it had been minutes or hours, Ten removed his arms from around her, gently wiping her tears. "We're out of the forest." He whispered.
She nodded, refusing to look at anyone else in the car, merely staring at Ten's black shirt that was now damp with her tears. 'Thank you,' she mouthed, unable to look him in the eye. He nodded, patting her knee comfortingly.
It did not occur to her how he had known Youngho had died there.