A drop of blood slowly trickled down the man’s throat as a dagger lifted his head to meet his interrogator’s gaze, and he grimaced slightly, feeling the threatening tip of the blade probing a little deeper than what he was prepared for. 

“Speak.”

The man kept silent, and Namjoon inched the weapon a little closer towards the pulsing skin on his prey’s neck, watching in smug satisfaction as the glower faltered a bit behind his eyes. “I said, speak.”

“What do want me to say?” the man gritted out between tightly clenched teeth, and struggled against the secure knot in the thick rope which captured his hands behind his back and against the wooden chair.

“Start with the tattoo.” Namjoon’s gaze flickered momentarily to the black art inked on the man’s left wrist. Quickly shifting his attention back to his hostage’s horrifically scarred face, he scanned for any traces of fear like a shark looking for the stench of blood. “When did you get it?”

“And why would I ing tell you?” The man spat out, glaring at the boy’s shaded features. The chair shook along with his body as he fought against his restrictions, but immediately stopped when the trickle of blood by the base of his throat had began to pool through a thin, steady stream of crimson. 

“Oh, I don’t know, so you can live a few hours longer?” Namjoon had detected a hint of hesitation, and exploiting the momentum of the man’s reluctance, he pressed on, “So, tell me. When did you get that tattoo?”

“Seven years ago.” 

“And your leg? What happened to that?” 

“Let’s just say that I was included in a little game of…tag with the police.”

“When?”

“Why are you so nosy? Let me go, you little bas—” Before the man could complete his sentence, the dagger at his throat was replaced by an icy gun barrel, pressing itself mercilessly in the space between his eyes. Namjoon exhaled impatiently, tapping his foot against the dirt flooring of his headquarters in an erratic tempo. This man’s lips were certainly sealed a little tighter than the other’s he had put in that chair before, but he proceeded in an eerily calm voice, the pistol in his hand never wavering once. 

“You see, friend,” he hissed out that word sarcastically, and lowering himself so he stood eye level with his hostage, he continued, irritation soaking his sentences. “I know that you’re a little uncomfortable right now, and I know that the rope is probably rubbing your wrists raw, but I really need you to cooperate with me. So I highly, and I mean highly, suggest you to do exactly what I say if you want your body to be discovered in one piece.”

The man stared into Namjoon’s eyes, irises quivering as he sank into the dark orbs of a boy whose conscience was stained with the blood of many others of his own kind, and gulped. “I messed my leg up six years ago. The bullet cut straight through.”

Namjoon straightened, and the corners of his mouth lifted subtly as the information he gathered matched his own memories, although the weapon aimed at the man’s head remained in place. “One last question, and you should probably answer this one better than you did the others, because I’ve saved the best for last.”

The captive shifted uncomfortably, and braced himself.

Namjoon examined his face one last time before opening his mouth, “Have you ever abducted and murdered a girl named Haejin?”

The man looked up at him in confusion, “All my victims are male. I’ve never killed a girl...”

“Wrong answer.” Namjoon clicked his tongue in annoyance, and tightened his grip on the gun. “Well, I can’t exactly let you live now, can I? How would I know if you will keep your mouth shut and not share my location with anybody else?”

“NO! No, RM, please don’t, I won’t say a word!” His captive begged, tears of panic beginning to stream down his scarred cheeks.

Namjoon’s unreadable expression didn’t falter, instead, it hardened even more darkly. 

“Shut the up.”

The man only screamed louder, thrashing wildly in the wooden chair against his restraints as he noticed Namjoon’s finger flex on the trigger. “What can I do for you? Tell me! I can give you information, I know several inmates from off the streets, I can tell you anything! Just let me live!”

Namjoon made the mistake of letting his curiosity and reluctance display on his face, and loosened his hold on the trigger a bit, “I’m listening.”

The hostage’s shoulders sank evidently in relief, and in a shaky breath, “You’re looking for someone with a tattoo on the left wrist and a limp, right?” 

Namjoon nodded carefully. None of his other targets have made it this far into the interrogation, but he was undeniably tempted by the opportunity that had offered itself under his nose. 

“There’s a guy in the city over, I’m not sure what his name is, but word on the streets have it that he is infamous for abducting young females. He has a tattoo and a limp, just like you wanted.”

Pursing his lips into a thin line, Namjoon tilted his head and observed the captive for a moment. The man’s forehead was drenched in sweat, and his bangs stuck to his skin. He desperately scanned Namjoon’s tightly knitted features, searching for mercy, for a chance at survival. 

BANG!

The gunshot echoed off the walls, and forced the ground to tremble under Namjoon’s boots. His hostage went limp against the wooden back of the chair suddenly as a puddle of dark red expanded beneath his legs.

Lowering his head, Namjoon idly dropped the gun on the dirt floor, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his fingers as it landed with a soft thud. He untied the body from the chair, and dragged it outside through the trapdoor to the deep dirt hole he had dug beforehand, careful to avoid the pitfall he had set up by the entrance to avoid intruders. Flinging the body inside the crater, he whipped out the lighter originally stored in his pocket, flipped it on, and tossed it at the dead man. He stood watching, motionless, as the light emitted from the flames danced randomly across his face, and as the stench of burning flesh overwhelmed the atmosphere around him. He moved efficiently and agilely from prior experiences as he buried the remains, ridding any persecutors of all evidences, and headed back inside his lair once he finished the task, glancing at the cloudy night skies which warned him of rain.

Within the poorly lit headquarters, Namjoon shuffled silently to the farthest wall, and picked up a broken piece of chalk. Raising his hand, he made a diagonal slash across the other four existing tallies on the grimy stone wall. 

He had captured the wrong person, again. 

Staring at the makeshift records he crudely created on the stone wall, Namjoon couldn’t help but feel more or less horrified with himself as no other emotion flooded his brain. No pain, no uneasiness, and worst of all, no guilt. He allowed his mind to wander back to when he first began his search, when he burned and buried his first target, and how he was disgusted with himself. He had felt as if he had become the very person he despised, the person who had brutally torn the girl who was his best friend, the girl he loved, from his life. But then he reminded himself that his victims were all criminals and murderers themselves, and that, in a sick way, he was doing the world a good deed by eliminating one more of those. He reminded himself not to be weak, and not to let his sympathy for those pathetic, evil bastards hinder his plan, his revenge. He reminded himself that everything he has done and become was all for her.

Namjoon let out a little shudder as, all of a sudden, he realized that it has been five years. She has been gone for five years. And within those five years, he had mistakenly, although not accidentally, interrogated and killed five convicts, all which he had assumed were Haejin’s murderers entirely for that same limp and stupid tattoo because he had no other clues. Their blood has tainted his hands red, and had numbed and dirtied his conscience.

Yet, even until this day, he still hasn’t found the real killer. 

A long sigh of frustration escaped his lips, alarming even Namjoon himself. He had began to grow tired, tired of this endless game of hide and seek, tired of setting his hopes too high, expecting his captives to actually be who he was searching for, but being disappointed every time. Although, he knew it was a vicious cycle whose exits and escape routes has sealed themselves off to him, despite how cold-blooded, how ruthless, it molded him out to be.

Backing from the walls on which the tallies of casualties lashed out at his tainted morality, Namjoon allowed himself to sink into the worn couch in the center of the room, which was the only piece of real furniture in his headquarters besides the countless file cabinets scattered disorderly around the underground hideout. He reached for the laptop resting on the end of the seats, and powered on that most prized possession. 

As the vibrant screen blinked to life, windows that he had forgotten to shut the previous night slid out on the display. Unwillingly, Namjoon found himself face to face with a headshot of the man he had just incinerated, and shuddered involuntarily, hastily closing the picture and all the information of the man's profile that was plastered on the screen. The one thing he absolutely hated was staring into the eyes of his victims while the light of life drained out of them, and tonight was no different. Not wanting to be reminded of the gory events that had played out in this very room, he resumed his browse for Haejin’s murderer as he hacked into the file storage system of the police department. 

He was taken back by surprise as a warning blocked his access to the information he usually was able to retrieve with ease, and he raised an eyebrow curiously. I guess someone finally realized how weak the firewall was, he smirked to himself. Not even pausing to think, his fingers continued to fly across the keyboard as he typed in the familiar code for breaking into the database, quickly surpassing the cyber obstacles that were strategically designed to keep him out. 

While he allowed the criminal records to retrieve themselves into his computer, his mind wandered off to all the possible candidates that could have discovered him stealing from the file system. Maybe it was a new, overenthusiastic officer who was still confident that he could take on the world? Or perhaps it was that security guard that was supposed to supervise the surveillance room around the clock?

Even better, Namjoon mused, a corner of his mouth starting to rise, it could be that stupid, naive detective who is always on my tracks. The few rare occasions where he was almost exposed replayed in his head, and he grew hungry for clues about his persecutor. He remembered hearing the detective’s voice from his own discreet hiding place as he led a search group looking for Namjoon, actually sounding quite young, likely around Namjoon’s own age, although he was never able to properly see the guy’s face. He recalled eavesdropping on the detective’s conversations with his colleagues, and the surprise he felt when he realized that the man’s analysis of his own actions were disturbingly accurate despite the fact that he cleanly erased all his tracks, for that’s what Namjoon had to do for living as a certified deceased person. He concluded that the detective was a rather clever guy, considering from the fact that he was able to theorize his behavior so precisely. He figured that he was also probably of a high rank, as his partners always referred to him as “sir” or “detective”, and never directly by name. Gathering all this, that also made him Namjoon’s biggest threat.

Namjoon couldn’t allow anyone to destroy or stop his plan for revenge, particularly not a detective who was a pawn of the disgusting justice system he so passionately despised, the justice system that marked Haejin’s murder as a suicide. He thought proudly of his own little schemes against the officials; the endless chase he sent them on after him, the absence of clues about him, and especially the death certificate. The death certificate he had forged and sent home to convince the world that he was dead, the certificate that allowed him to live as a new, anonymous being with no past. He remembered also sneaking a copy of that certificate into the same police database he was hacking into now, making sure that no one would be skeptical of his own "death", as he certainly didn’t need the police coming after him and hindering his revenge. No one would suspect a dead person to be doing what he was doing, right? And quite frankly, he loved living this way. He loved the feeling of fooling the justice system that was portrayed to the public to be so powerful, but could be blinded so easily by a flimsy piece of paper. 

A light ping! from the computer system snapped him out of his daze, Namjoon narrowed his eyes as he focused on the files placed in front of him. He filtered through the criminal records, deleting all those profiles who didn’t have the characteristics he was seeking for, a man with a tattoo upon the left wrist and a crippled leg. The results had become very exclusive once he collected the information of the few criminals that matched, and he scrolled through them slowly and precisely, eyes darting carefully at any signs of similarity from the murderer in his memories. 

As he wandered down the page, numerous faces flying past his sight, he halted suddenly when the headshot of a certain inmate appeared. The man in the picture looked bored, head tilted up at an angle, staring directly at the camera through bloodshot eyes. Yet there was a murderous glint in his pupils, so subtle that it was nearly unnoticeable, but Namjoon has seen that kind of gaze so many times that he recognized it almost instantly. The man’s stature was set back lazily in the photo, looking uncannily familiar to the criminal from Namjoon’s memories, the same build, the same nonchalant attitude. His profile had recorded him to own a tattoo on his left wrist and a deformed leg.

Just to test his luck, Namjoon opened the program that allowed him to hack and gain access to nearly every security camera around the city. He scanned each tiny, grainy screen scrutinizingly until his eyes zeroed in on a figure in one of the boxes, his back profile exactly alike with the man in the profile. He was in a narrow alley, graffiti and garbage decorating its brick walls. Namjoon knew exactly where it was, for he himself have been there many times to capture other criminals for interrogation. It was a hotspot for culprits in the nearby cities, secluded and difficult to locate, not to mention the surveillance cameras around there were hard to access, and Namjoon had only been able to accomplish that through much frustration. Hastily clicking open the criminal profile again, Namjoon’s eyes flicked down to the “Average Criminal Activity Time” section. The words “1:00AM-3:00AM” were printed in neat black letters, and he glanced at the time in the corner of his computer. “12:30AM” it read.

He snapped his computer shut after making sure to erase his online traces, and propelled himself off the couch rapidly, grabbing his coat, face mask, and sunglasses on the way out, even though the skies were already dark. Climbing up the stairs that led him to and out the trapdoor of his headquarters, Namjoon slipped his arms into the coat, and pulled up the hood, letting it hide his face in a deep shadow. 

The alley he had saw in the security cameras was quite far from his hideout, so by the time he arrived in the car he managed to hijack along the way, it was already 1:34AM. The moon casted a silver glaze on the grimy ground, and the pungent odors of garbage and blood surround the area. Glancing around the alley, he detected no motion, except for some red eyed rats burrowing into the trash piles. 

Then he recognized him.

Actually, he heard the man before he saw him. He heard, from the vehicle he was hiding behind, the angry hisses being emitted between teeth, and the sound of boots grinding against the filthy floor. Namjoon crept closer, still safe from the man’s peripherals thanks to the vehicle. The lighting was awful, being only supported by a lone dim, flickering florescent bulb, thus disabling him to see clearly, so to compensate, he craned his neck towards the direction of the previous noises. 

That was when he detected a sound that made him freeze in his hiding spot in confusion. There were whimpers, soft and frightened.

Namjoon narrowed his eyes towards the source, and painstakingly made out another outline behind the man’s crouching figure. He was seeing something he had never encountered before while hunting down a target. Threatened and trembling under the criminal’s shiny blade, which made the minimal light to reflect onto her face, revealing a expression of terror and disgust, was a girl.