“Please listen to me, I’m telling you, he is brilliant.”

Jae Suk floated around room 307 in his pyjamas and slippers like a butterfly—to the bed, to the bathroom, to the door, to the window—unsure of where he wanted to alight in this, the first actual crime scene he’d visited in his entire life. He was himself again, having left the perils of traffic behind.

The nurse on duty and the administrator stood by, still in shock that their patient had been abducted.

It had taken only ten minutes after arriving to track down the admission of First Name: Eun Sang, Last Name: Unknown, who’d been admitted two hours earlier after being picked up by police in a park not too far from CWI.

“Brilliant,” Jae Suk repeated Sister Mi-Kyung’s word, “Always a step ahead.”

“We can’t know for sure it was her,” Mi Kyung protested, without a shred of confidence. She snapped open her mobile and called the number Agent Dong-il had given her.

“Of course it was,” Jae Suk cried. “All the details fit. A girl just over five feet. Clearly psychotic. Dark brown hair. Found near the centre. I can smell Shin Hye in the air.”

He answered after the first ring. “Agent Sung Dong-il.”

“You heard?”

“I heard. And I just received confirmation. Seven bodies were just discovered dead in beauty salon opposite the park. Best guess is the killer tracked her location to the hospital. We don’t know how yet.”

Her legs felt weak and she sat on the edge of the bed. “A beauty salon?”

“Does it mean anything to you?”

“He’s… He’s trying to break her spirit.”

“Frankly, that’s the least of our concerns now. What matters most is that Lee Joon now has both Min Ho and Shin Hye, and we don’t have a clue where.”

“He’s going to kill them.” She said it to herself as much as to him.

“We have every law enforcement agency searching the most likely locations: barns, abandoned buildings, anything. A vehicle we discovered is registered to his name; we’ve included that truck to the profile. Rental records, banking—we’re digging up everything we can tie to his identity, but this guy ran a pretty tight life. Not much coming up. False address.”

She forced herself to her feet, past her weakness. “You have to find him!”

“We’re trying, Mi Kyung-ssi. Trust me, this affects us all.”

“How could he just escape? He just walked in here and took her without being seen?”

“Slow down. He may very well have been seen. I’ll have a team there in three minutes. We still don’t know how he managed to get in much less get her out, but we will. These things take time, Mi kyung-ssi.”

“We don’t have time!” she cried.

His end was silent.

“I’m coming down,” she said.

“I’m not sure what good that will… Hold on.” She could hear his muffled voice off the phone, swearing.

“What is it?” she demanded into the empty phone.

“… down there, Min Hyuk. Palli!” He swore again and came back on. “Sorry. We have another body.”

“They found her?”

“Ani. Someone else. At the hospital.”

“I’m coming down to your offices. I’m not just going to sit around as long as he’s out there with Shin Hye”

“This is an our investigation, ma’am. I know you’re upset, but there’s no way you can help us down here.”

“I may not be able to, but Jae Suk may.”

He paused. “Jae Suk? This is… one of your patients…”

“This is the man who identified Lee Joon. This is the man who helped Agent Lee put this case together while the rest of your team stumbled around in the dark. And I’m bringing him down.”

He remained quiet for a moment.

“If you insist, ma’am, but I really don’t think—”

“I agree.” She looked up at Jae Suk, who was staring at her with wide eyes. “He’s invaluable.”

She hung up. Grabbed her purse.

“Let’s go. They is waiting.”

“They’re asking for me at headquarters?” Jae Suk stammered.

She spun back. “They are begging,” she said, then walked out with Jae Suk at her heels.

----------------------------------------

Min Ho had lost track of time. Twice he’d passed out upon collapsing to the ground after his regimen of slams against the wood pole to his back.

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Five slams each time, like a football drill in reverse, ignoring the pain before sliding back to the ground for a rest.

Hours had passed, he knew that much. But he’d stopped trying to keep track of his progress or gauge his hope. He had no hope. The reasoning that had gotten him into this pointless escape attempt had long left him.

The exercise had become a simple one. As long as he still had enough strength to stand and throw himself backward, he would. Thinking about whether the strategy was working only weakened his focused resolve. He had no destination now, just the will to place one foot in front of the other. He kept only one thing on his mind.

Park Shin Hye.

With each  of his body backward, an image of her filled his mind. He didn’t harbour any illusion about saving her, because back when he was thinking things through, he concluded that he’d long ago run out of time.

His exercise became as much a erse form of penance as an attempt to escape. Even if he did manage to break the post, he had no clue where he was or how far from help. Even if he did get to help, he knew he was too late.

There was always the possibility that Joon would grab Shin Hye and bring her back here, but that thought terrified him more than any other. The killer would find him alive and awake and would take twisted pleasure in forcing him to watch while he tortured Shin Hye in new, unthinkable ways fuelled by the audience. Her death would be worse because of him.

He slammed into the post in bitter protest of his own weakness. For every woman who had ever been told she wasn’t normal or that she was ugly. For every girl who’d been abused by a father, for every man blinded to the true beauty of every Shin Hye.

What he would give now to sweep her off her feet and rush her to the highest mountain refuge, far away from all the cruelty the world threw at those it judged to be less than extraordinary. Because Lee Joon was right about one thing.

They were all God’s favourites.

They were all beautiful, exquisite creatures in their own way. Men as well, but this was about women. Everyone was a treasure of the highest order, and with the pain of each crash into the post, this truth, no matter how melodramatic it might seem in less pointed circumstances, was driven deep into his mind.

Crash… crash… crash… crash… crash…

If only he had protected her. How, he didn’t know, but that hardly mattered now. A week ago she was nothing more than a curiosity to him, a monkey in the zoo, as she put it. It didn’t matter that he had only known her a short time, didn’t matter that there was no obligation on his part to love her over any other woman.

Had he ever met a woman as desirable as Shin Hye? Had he ever connected with such a deep soul, seen such soft eyes light up when he walked into the room?

Forgive me, Shin Hye-ah… I beg you… Forgive me. I was a fool for not knowing. I wouldn’t do it again. I swear I would sweep you off your feet. I would smother you with kisses and promise to never allow a man to lay a hand of harm on you again.

In his tortured mind, now stripped of the pretence that distorted the world’s view of beauty, he understood clearly: Shin Hye was the favourite. The one bride every man would kill for.

And now Lee Joon, this demon from hell who strutted about the world in a man’s body and called himself human, would rob him of all second chances.

Tears had long ago dried on his dirty cheeks, but now his eyes flooded with them again. He pushed himself to his feet, sliding up the pole, which creaked angrily against his bodyweight. He leaned forward, body quaking. It was all pointless, but he couldn’t think like that.

He hurled his weight backward. Crack. This time the collision did not take his breath, because he was falling.

His impact with the earth behind him, however, pounded the air from his lungs. He tried to breathe and blinked up at the splintered end of the post over his head, still hanging from the beam above.

It took him a moment to fully realize that he’d just broken the pole and that the bottom half was lying on the dirt floor beside him.

His breath and his mind returned to him at the same time. Adrenaline flooded his veins, jacking his heart rate up to a steady hammer.

He rolled to his right, desperate to be on his feet, but his hands were still secured behind him, and for an awful second he wondered if Joon had tied him to a stake in the ground in case he managed to break the post.

He frantically rolled away from the post. In the process his hands came free—the knot apparently having loosened as he fought to free himself. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain on his right side. If he’d survived this long, he wasn’t in danger of dying from the wound now.

He stood tensed, hands clawed, beside the blanketed stage, at a momentary loss. His freedom had come so unexpectedly that he forgot what it was he’d had in mind.

Escape.

A phone, he had to find a phone. Or a car. He had to make contact with Dong il sunbae.

Ani, first the medical kit.

He leaped over the blanket, threw the black medical kit open. Scissors, gauze, and a scalpel lay in a neatly arranged tray. A thick bunch of first-aid antiseptic bandages was bound together with a yellow tube of antibiotic ointment. Besides these items, he saw a large assortment of medications and some putty, a sm