“They’re on the outskirts of Incheon,” Sulli says. She takes in everyone’s shocked faces and realizes that it’s really, really far away, and that it’ll take hours to get there. “Oh no.”

“Yeah, oh no,” Siwon says and storms out of the room. Kris and Suho look after him with confusion and all the heads slowly turn towards him; he runs out of the loft, leaving them all even more surprised.

“Where did he go?” Chanyeol asks. Suho follows the man out, nobody complains, and they all turn towards Sulli again.

“I think a trickster took them,” the girl says. “The ghosts said so. But they didn’t tell me what kind of trickster it was.”

“Someone like me?” Amber asks, pointing at herself.

“Someone stronger.”

“Wait, does the trickster have anything to do with the werewolf pack that kidnapped Hyojin’s daughter?” Daehyun asks.

“I think so,” Sulli nods. “I think the trickster belongs to their pack.”

“They want us to leave Hyojin,” Kris decides. “They want us to go after Dal and Kai, so that they can kill Hyojin.”

“Why would they want to kill Hyojin?” Krystal question. She looks at the woman and can only read fear from her mind. “She’s just a human. They already have who they wanted – Sori. So why take her mother, too?”

“As a hostage?” Chanyeol proposes. “Sooner or later, Sori will realize that she’s under that witch’s spell, and she’ll try to break through. If they have her mother, though, they have leverage. She won’t try to run away from them because she won’t leave her mother.”

“That’s far-fetched,” Baekhyun mutters.

“Makes sense though,” Luhan states.

“I’m not sure they wanted us to find Dal and Kai, though,” Sulli says. “If they wanted us to find them and go after them, they’d let me find them right away. But it was hard finding them.”

“Okay, then I don’t understand ,” Chanyeol says, seemingly giving up on life.

“Calm down,” Kris shoots at him. “Can a trickster take a mage’s power away from them?”

“No,” Chanyeol says quickly. “Not really. But some tricksters can feed on energy if they trap someone inside an illusion. I guess trapping a mage inside one would give them an energy shot. They literally live off tricking people.”

“So Dal and Kai became food?” Amber asks, squinting.

“Someone definitely knows how to take chances,” Sehun scoffs, rolling his eyes.

*

“Pick up,” Siwon whispers, “pick the up.”

His hand is shaking around his phone and he feels panic building up inside him. Panic and anger. He hears stable beeping on the other side of the line, and then a woman tells him that the number he’s trying to reach is unavailable. He swears loudly and almost ends up throwing the device onto the ground. A lady walking a dog gives him a weird look.

He clicks on Sung’s – Father’s – name again, and angrily puts the phone to his ear. There’s beeping again.

“Who are you calling?” someone asks. He startles and looks to the side. His and Suho’s eyes meet, and Suho immediately goes from curious to wary. “What’s going on?”

Siwon puts the phone between his shoulder and his head, and digs around his pockets for cigarettes. He almost tears his arm off while doing so, and Suho takes pity on him – he grabs the cigarette pack away from the man, pulls one cig out, and puts his hand inside Siwon’s other pocket, knowing right away where the druid keeps his lighter. Siwon is so confused by that that he freezes and lets Suho do whatever it is that he’s doing. He takes the phone into his palm, Suho puts the cigarette between his lips, and lights it up for him like it’s a normal thing for the two of them to do.

Siwon hears the secretary’s voice again. He clicks the disconnect button and takes a deep inhale of the smoke; it fills his lungs in a way that’s somehow comforting. Some of his restlessness goes away, replaced by lightheadness.

“That’s a terrible habit,” Suho tells him. Siwon scoffs around the cigarette and takes it between his fingers. He exhales and Suho takes a step back, scrunching his nose at the smell. “Who did you try to call?”

Siwon glances at him. Should he just tell him? “Jaejoong,” he lies without his heart skipping a beat.

“No answer?”

“None.”

Suho sends him a weird look, but doesn’t ask anything. Siwon knows that he doesn’t fully believe him, but he also trusts him enough not to question him.

“You’re gonna have to go there the old-school way,” Siwon adds.

*

You wake up to the smell of something burning. Scrunching your nose, you sit up and look around your room. You slide out of your bed and go downstairs to find your dad screaming at his burned pancakes and throwing the frying pan into the sink. You lean over the wall, crossing your arms over your chest, and quirk a brow at him. He turns on the water, screams even louder when hot steam hits him, and then continues to swear under his breath.

“Good morning, dad,” you greet, trying not to smile and look serious. Your dad prevents you from doing that by freezing completely and then slowly turning his head towards you like a thief caught stealing. You stare at each other for a few seconds, and then he grins.

“Good morning,” he says. “Did you sleep well?”

“Did you cook well?” you ask.

“I’ll let you know, it was a troll,” your dad says, pointing at you with a random spatula, the smile disappearing from his face. “You ungrateful kids.”

“Was there a fire?” a tiny voice asks from your side. You look down to see Sena, your little sister, standing there. She’s still sleepy and she’s trying to pry it away by rubbing her eyes. They widen when she sees the frying pan still steaming in the sink, and she opens widely at it. “Dad! Was it the trolls?!”

You burst out laughing and scoop her up. Then you walk towards your dad, who crosses his arms over his shoulder and shakes his head with sadness.

“It was, honey. I didn’t even see them coming,” he says.

“But how did they break the wards!” Sena calls.

“They must’ve been very powerful,” you say, nodding. You peek into the sink and Sena almost slips out of your grip when she looks down at it, too. “Mom is gonna be soooo mad. They just won’t stop coming to our house, will they?” you look up at your dad, who winks at you.

“Sooo mad,” Sena repeats after you and then giggles. “How come they never did anything to my things?”

“They only do bad things to grumpy people,” you explain to her.

“I am not a grump,” your father says, pointing angrily at you. Sena giggles in your arms and looks at him.

“You are sometimes,” she says, giggles again, and hides her face behind her little hands. Laughter bubbles in your stomach and your eyes crinkle at the corners; your dad smiles softly at the two of you.

You can feel your heart tearing a little then. It lasts a second, but the sadness that comes with it makes you dizzy. You sway on your feet, but your dad doesn’t notice, nor does Sena.

*

“Hey,” Sehun says, entering Kai’s bedroom, where Sulli has decided to lie down for a moment. “You okay?”

She turns towards him and nods. She looks ing exhausted. He comes into the room, leaving the door open behind himself, and sits on the bed, the mattress dipping under him. He reaches out for Sulli and puts his hand on her forehead. She’s burning up.

“You’re really hot,” he says. “You should stay.”

“No,” she says. “I’ll sleep on the way there. I need to go. In case they decide to move them again.”

“That’d be awful, if they knew that we’ve found them,” Sehun whispers. “We’ll buy some food on our way.”

“Yeah.”

“You did a great job.”

He takes his hand away. Sulli is looking him in the eyes now; her own are sleepy and half-lidded, tired, but very shiny at the same time. She’s burning up and she’s still sweating after the amount of searching that she’s done. Hair is sticking to her forehead and cheeks, so Sehun gets them out of the way, and his ears pick up Sulli’s heart beating hard in her chest. Frantically. He swallows the regret and pain down.

“Sulli…” he starts, but the girl burrows her face in the blanket and shakes her head ‘no’. So he doesn’t say anything. At least not what he wanted to say. “You did a really great job.”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “It feels good after so much time being completely worthless when it comes to finding the bad guys.”

“Sometimes things just don’t go the way we’d want them to, right?” Sehun mumbles. Sulli sticks her head out to look at him again, and this time there’s wonder visible on her face.

“Yes,” she says. “That .”

“It does,” Sehun says. It’s barely hearable. “I’m sorry,” he says. He’s sorry for many things, but he decides to voice the one thing he’s the least sorry about. “That you had to use so much strength.”

“That’s okay,” she smiles. “I don’t really mind. It’s all good now.”

Even though they’re talking about you and Kai, about finding you two, it feels like they’re talking about something completely else. Something that neither of them has quite voiced before, something that started, but never fully developed nor ended. About an ‘almost’, maybe.

Sehun lets his hand rest on Sulli’s for a few moments more. Then Suho tells them to come downstairs.

*

“I’m home!” Taeyeon calls, and then shuts the front door with a thud. Kai and Sooyoung flinch on the couch, and Taemin yells something from the kitchen about spilling salt. Taeyeon marches into the living room with a huge smile on her face. “What are you guys doing? What’s for dinner? What movie are we watching today? God, I love Fridays! Friday, my Friday, lil Friday!” she sing-songs and then plops down onto the couch between Kai and Sooyoung, almost spilling all the popcorn that they’ve set there. Naturally, both Kai’s and Sooyoung’s reaction to that is for them to drop their consoles and let out similar gasps of terror, but Taeyeon catches the popcorn bowl just in times and saves it from totally covering the couch. Then she looks back and forth between them with an even wider grin.

“Reflexes,” she says, putting the popcorn onto her lap and leaning back. She takes a handful of the food and pushes it all into , around the popcorn. “I love life.”

“Biology exam on Monday, just saying,” Taemin says, walking past the living room with a phone in his hand.

“Stop texting so much, you’ll get blisters on your fingers!” Taeyeon calls after him.

“I’d flip you off, but I’m too busy having a social life!” Taemin calls back. Taeyeon bursts out with a sarcastic laughter, and almost spills the popcorn again; Kai thinks he just went deaf.  

“Shut up!” Taemin calls from the stairs. Taeyeon is still laughing when Hyoyeon walks into the room, confused, and points at the stairwell.

“You pissed Taemin off,” she states, and then grins. “You know how much his gaming community means to him.”

“Oh shut up!” Taemin screams from his room. Taeyeon high-fives Hyoyeon and the older girl sits down between her and Sooyoung, taking some popcorn from the bowl and frowning at the TV screen. “Kai, you gotta step up your game.”

“If he steps up his game, I’m gonna shove my foot down his throat,” Sooyoung threatens, very happy with her score that’s obviously higher than Kai’s. Hyoyeon makes a face and sends Kai a knowing glance; Kai just shrugs and smiles at her.

“You know Sooyoung, if you’re only winning because Kai lets you, it’s meaningless,” Taeyeon says smartly. “You’re just living a lie.”

“You’re living a lie when you say you’re pretty,” Sooyoung deadpans.

“Ain’t that true,” Hyoyeon says, munching on her popcorn. Taeyeon somehow manages to kick both of them at the same time, but also manages to knock Kai’s console out of his hands.

“Jesus, Tae!” Kai calls, scrambling up to retreat the object, but before he can do that, Sooyoung wins the game and all the girls are laughing on the couch and spitting out chunks of popcorns around. Kai looks down at them with disgust. “How am I even related to you three?”

He hears Taemin’s door open with a bang. The boy runs down the stairs, his cheeks flushed, and almost knocks Kai out when he throws himself at him. Kai yells, loses his balance, and hits the wall with Taemin on his back, resulting in both of them screaming.

“Get off!” he screams.

“Listen, listen, oh my God, 2NE1 are coming here!” Taemin screams. Then, right into Kai’s ear. “They. Are. Coming. Here!” he jumps off Kai’s back, grabs him by the shoulders, and shakes him like Kai’s a rag doll. He definitely feels like one right now. “Take me there. Will you take me there? To their concert? I will love you forever. Please. Please.”

“Shut. Up!” Taeyeon screams, excitement hearable in her voice. She jumps off the couch and joins Taemin on his side, and both of them start bouncing right in front of Kai’s face. He literally goes flush with the wall behind him, fear visible on his face. “Please, Kai, take us to that concert! Please, please, please, pleasepleaseplease–“

“What the hell is happening here?” someone asks. Kai looks at the corridor. Jaejoong is frowning at him and his sisters, disbelieving, and Donghae is right behind him, with Kyuhyun asleep in his arms. His parents are also just entering the house, and they have groceries. “What’s that all about?”

“Donghae!” Taemin screams, and abandon’s Kai for the sake of trying to please Donghae into buying him concert tickets. Taeyeon sees exactly what he’s doing, so she abandons Kai as well, and goes to beg Donghae. Jaejoong, as soon as he realizes what’s going on, sneaks out into his room, sending Kai a truly frightened look.

“Hey Kai,” Sooyoung says sweetly from the couch. He turns towards her and sees both her and Hyoyeon giving him puppy eyes. The best ones he’s seen this far, oh no. “If Donghae is buying them tickets, does that mean you’ll buy us tickets?”

He swallows hard.

“Okay, enough,” his dad’s voice booms through the room. “I’ll buy all of you tickets, just please, calm down.”

The whole room erupts in screams of success and happiness, and Kai is pretty sure he goes deaf again. But honestly, does he even mind it?

*

Sehun, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Kris, Chen, Xiumin and Min stay at Kai’s to keep an eye on Hyojin. Siwon stays with them, and Krystal goes home with Daehyun, just in case things go real bad and they will get hurt. They’re much safer in their own house, away from the pack and from Hyojin, where they’re protected with your magic. The rest of the pack – Baekhyun, Suho, Tao, Yixing, Luhan, Amber and Sulli – go to Incheon, taking your's and Kris’s cars. The drive there is long and tense, almost quiet.

Once they reach the city, they all get even more tense, and ready to fight at any given moment. Sulli, who’s sitting in the passenger’s seat, takes off her bracelet and closes her eyes. She starts shaking and moving a little, and letting out tiny sounds every now and then, which means she’s doing her thing.

“Drive to the airport,” she says quietly. Yixing looks for the right sign and soon turns left, Suho following him in the car behind. “We’re getting closer. Hurry up.”

*

You take your phone and go to your text messages. You’re about to click the first name on the list when you don’t see the name you expected there. Instead of Angry Alpha it says Mom.

You scroll down. Your head starts aching.

Wait, who’s Angry Alpha?

“Dal?” a voice calls. You look to the side. Your mom is standing in the door, she’s wearing an apron. “Dinner. Didn’t you hear me call?”

“No,” you admit. “Mom, are we friends with a werewolf pack or something?”

“A werewolf pack?” your mom smiles. She wipes her hands in her apron. “Silly. Of course not. They’re dangerous.”

“No, they’re not,” you say, laughing at her. “You’re the one being silly right now.”

Your mom’s smile disappears from her lips.

“My God. I swear, no matter what reality I show you, you always end up figuring it out within hours. It’s starting to get on my nerves.”

You blink at her. She’s angry; she staring at you like you’ve just killed her cat.

“Mom?” you say, unsure, and sit up on your bed. Something red shows up in the corner of your eye and you glance down.

It’s a fox.

And then you’re in the middle of a field. The grass is yellow and the wind is blowing hard enough to whistle into your ears; you grab at your hair, trying to keep them away from your face, and almost choke, because the air is so strong and so thick, it’s hard to inhale.

It stops very suddenly. You open your eyes, spit out the strands of hair from your mouth, and throw them back. Opening your eyes, you see a pair of black boots, and when you look up, you recognize Kai standing in front of you. He notices you at the same exact moment.

Reality hits you. Your father is dead. You don’t have a little sister. You’re a mage, and you were taken, and you’re trapped in an illusion; that’s the only logical explanation of what you’ve seen. Tears well in your eyes at the memory of what could have been, and you stand up.

“Dal,” Kai says, his voice as vulnerable as you feel. You and him start walking at the same time, and you meet somewhere in the middle. He pulls you close, breathing out harshly.

“I saw my dad,” you whisper in disbelief.

“I saw Taeyeon,” he replies.

“Well, isn’t that just adorable?” someone’s voice muses right next to your ear. You and Kai jump away from each other, both taking fighting stances, and a giggly laugh erupts somewhere behind you. You turn on your heels, surprised. “Ugh, you’re so warrior-y. No wonder my tricks don’t work well on you.” The voice seems to be everywhere, and it’s the creepiest thing ever. “Suspicion is just in your blood.”

You remember your dream then, the one in which you met the Astomi, and you freeze.

“This isn’t good,” you whisper to Kai. He panics when he sees your wide eyes.

“I’m here,” the same voice says again. You and Kai follow it; this time it’s clear and sharp. There, a few feet away from you, sits a fox. It’s small, very red, and quite beautiful. It doesn’t move its mouth when it speaks, but you know that it’s him talking. Well, her. The voice definitely belongs to a woman. “Hello.”

“Who are you?” you ask. “What do you want?”

“Truly, I just wanted to play with you two for a while,” the fox says, “but you’re just no fun. You don’t even let me get you inside an illusion long enough.”

“Long enough to do what?” Kai asks warily. He lets his eyes shine red and the fox’s eyes shine green at that; you gasp when you remember the girl who took you away from Kai’s loft. She had red hair and green eyes, just like this fox here.

“You’re a kitsune,” you say with something akin to awe. The fox straightens up with surprise.

“Whooa!” she says, sincerely surprised. “That was fast! I heard that you’re good, but this good? I should’ve taken the form of a cheetah, or something.”

The fox turns into a woman right in front of your eyes. She’s at first, and Kai looks pointedly away, but then she gets enveloped with bright light, and a dress slowly appears on her. She smiles.

“You got yourself quite a gentleman,” the kitsune says, nodding at Kai. “Most of them prefer to look.”

Kai looks up, weirdly offended at that.

“Name is Hiroto,” kitsune says, smiling even wider. Her smile belongs to a predator; her face is long, fair, and very unique. There’s no real way to describe it; she does look a bit like a fox. Her arms are covered with tattoos. “Never thought I’d meet the famous werewolf-mage soulmate couple. I have to say, you two give me quite the power kick, despise being able to see right through my illusion. That doesn’t happen often. It means your minds are very strong.”

You don’t have the time to reply. A growl comes from your side, and you startle; you see sudden movement and when you turn, there’s animal teeth right in front of your face. You throw your hands out to use your magic on the animal, but nothing happens, and its teeth catch around your wrist, slashing your skin completely.

You yell in pain that pierces your skin. Kai shows up next to you in his wolf form and literally bites the animal in half with his huge jaw; bones crush and blood spills around, and you fall onto your back, pain ripping your arm and your own blood trickling down your arm and onto your stomach and the ground.

You hear more growls. Sounds of dog fight come from every side, Kai’s jumping over you and running past you, chasing the weird, antsy animals that weirdly resemble hyenas away from you. At some point, he whimpers in pain, and that’s your cue to calm down and sit up. It’s all just an illusion, and every illusion can be broken. You need to remember that.

When you open your eyes your arm is whole again, but there’s a pool of blood on the ground, and the pain is still there. One of the hyenas throws itself at you, so you raise your legs and let it land on your feet. You kick it away and it whimpers as it flies away.

There’s more of the hyenas now, and they’re all circling you. Kai is walking around you in a circle, too, his fur all spiky; he’s growling menacingly, and every time one of the hyenas tries to attack you, he scares it away with a clasp of his huge teeth. The hyenas are all staring at you like they want to eat you, but Kai is there to protect you.

Why can’t you use your magic? If Kai can turn into a werewolf in an illusion, why can’t you use your powers? Was it the kitsune’s decision to make it like this?

You stand up, set your feet far apart, and clench your fists in front of your face.

“I could use a baseball bat right now,” you whisper. Kai snarls when one of the hyenas jumps towards him, as if testing the waters; he’s jogging around you now, his paws thumping dully on the ground.

The ground shakes below your feet. You look down, not sure what you’re gonna see there, and then some kinds of whips break the surface and curl around your arms, legs, neck, and your middle, wrapping around you tightly, slashing through your skin and erupting a scream out of you.

The whips tug at you until you’re flush on the ground. You see the sky above you; this is the same position you woke up in for the first time in this illusion. You can hear Kai snarling, whimpering, and something splashing on the ground, and you know that it’s blood.

“It’s not real!” you scream to him. “Kai, this is not real!”

The whips go tighter around you, and your ribs begin to crack. You let out a scream and you never stop screaming, because the whips are slowly slashing your skin, squeezing your insides, and breaking your bones. You can hear them crack in your arms, feel your legs breaking, your ribcage cracking, and your scream gets cut off when blood completely fills your insides and drips out of your mouth, gurgling in your throat.

You’re dying.

You can’t hear anything anymore; you just feel pain, and it takes over your every sense, over your very being. There’s no real and not real anymore, there’s pain.

You see someone standing above you. Their expression is one of disgust.

“I think you overdid it this time, Hiroto,” the person says. His eyes flash beta blue at you. “She might die from shock.”

“Their friends are here,” someone else says, and the person staring at you jerks as if something has just hit them. Then he’s gone from your sight, and you’re staring, breathless, wide-eyed, as the sky above your head cracks and starts to fall.

The illusion breaks and with it, the pain is gone. The whips are no longer around you, and you take a huge inhale of breath, still feeling the metallic taste of blood in your mouth and the sting of your skin breaking under the whips; your triangle tattoo comes to life, warms up, and your magic hits you like a train, filling your veins. Everything is sharper now, and you know exactly how many people there are around you, what’s happening, and who’s there.

You know that someone is about to jump at you and slash your throat, and that they’re attacking from the side, so you move your hand up and to the left, letting your magic flow freely. Blue flames erupt from your fingers, hitting the werewolf in the face, and you sit up as fast as you can, looking around.

There’s your pack here. You’re in some huge room; it looks like it could’ve been a store house. There’s werewolves around you, but no sign of the kitsune.

Kai is by your side and he the back of your neck, whimpering softly. You startle at his touch at first, then grab at his fur and pull yourself up with his help. Kai touches you with his nose, motioning for you to jump onto his back, so you do. You feel tired and worn-out, like you’ve just used up a lot of your magic, and you’re super dizzy. There’s a big fight happening right in front of you, werewolves fighting werewolves, and blood is splattering around. Kai lets out a howl, throwing his head back, and the evil werewolves all startle at that and look to him with both awe and terror. That gives your pack a good opportunity to attack, and the ones that can do just that. Kai jumps and attacks one of the bad guys, grabbing them into his mouth and then throwing them at another bad guy; you watch it all from Kai’s back.

You spot one of the evil betas wrestling with Suho, and the guy is currently winning, so you shape your hand into a gun and let a thin strand of magic fly his way. It hits him on the back, spreads out in waves, and the guy freezes, drops onto the floor, and starts shaking in spasms. Suho throws him off unceremoniously and goes on to fight the next one he sees.

The fight is over before you can even see, and once you see the last werewolf – the alpha – drop onto the ground, you let yourself collapse on top of Kai’s back and let out a long-suffering sigh.

“You guys okay?!” Luhan yells to you.

You slide down Kai’s back, landing heavily on the ground, and sway to the side. Suho catches you, and Kai tilts his head towards you to hold you up as well.

“I’m fine,” you assure. “Just…lightheaded.”

“That ing kitsune was out your magic,” Chanyeol hisses, showing up in front of you. Actually, they’re all circling you now.

“That explains why I wasn’t able to use my powers,” you mumble. You look at your boys’ dirty, enthusiastic faces, their flushed cheeks and eyes that are still flashing blue every now and then after the fight, and you find yourself smiling at them all. “Have I ever told you I love you?”

“Not today you haven’t,” Baekhyun replies. They all start asking questions, and you try to reply to them, but you feel very tired. They all come to hug you and touch you, to make sure that you’re okay, and a sense of safety embraces you. But there’s still something nudging the edge of your mind.

“Where’s the witch?” you ask. “Kitsune?”

You feel a whiff of magic. Your heart rate speeds up and everyone picks up on that. You look around in search of the source of the power, and three seconds later, a literal bullet of it hits your shoulder.

You fly backwards, hit the ground with a thud, and get hit with another powerful of magic. This one gets you in the leg, and you try very hard not to yell, but it goes right through your skin, magic sizzling on it like a firework. Your magic reacts to the unknown magic with intensity you’ve only ever felt before when you were fighting the evil you, when you were fighting Ilsig, and it bursts around you, creating sudden light around you. It’s like your body remembers what happens after that, like it remembers what happened to Kai when you were fighting a mage, and it’s reacting on its own.

You turn onto your stomach and look to where you think the mage is. You spot her easily; she’s no longer hiding. It’s a little girl. It’s Sori, it must be Sori. Hyojin’s daughter. The one the pack took. Her eyes are closed, and her whole body seems pliable. Like there’s invisible strands of rope holding her limbs up.

You look past her to see a witch hiding behind her. She’s covered in red paint, in sigils that make her more powerful but drain her of her life power; you know because you’ve studied them before. She looks scared and angry. She’s young, younger than you, and your heart aches when you realize that.

“Stop,” you say, standing up. Kai is on your left, Suho and the rest stands on your right or behind you, all ready to fight, face her. “Don’t do it. Stop.”

The witch moves her fingers and Sori moves together with it. Magic flies out of the girl’s little fingers, piercing the air; the boys jump away, you raise your arms and create a simple barrier in front of you all, and Sori’s magic bounces off of it, cracking it at some places. She really is powerful, and you’re completely drained.

“Hiroto!” the witch calls, her voice laces with desperation. “Hiroto!”

Next to you, Luhan moves so quickly he becomes a blur. He shows up on the witch’s side, and she doesn’t even notice him. He punches her in the throat, using human strength, and the girl staggers back.

“She’s gonna let Sori go!” you scream, your words all melting into one.

The witch grabs at , because she can’t breathe after Luhan’s , and whatever voodoo magic she was using on Sori is gone once she does that. The invisible threads holding the little girl up are gone, and Sori is falling onto the ground like a rag doll, with no reaction whatsoever.

Tao is there to catch her, though, and he embraces her tightly, pulling her head close to his chest. He then jumps away from the witch, just like Luhan does, and you’re once again all facing the witch. She’s huddled on the ground, choking, coughing, and letting out wheezy exhales, also trying to breathe properly. She looks up to glare at Luhan.

“Stop it,” Luhan says to her. “It’s meaningless. You have no reason to fight.”

The girl’s eyes become full of tears. She squeezes her wrist with her right hand, her chest heaving, and suddenly scratches herself so hard she actually slashes her skin. You gasp out in shock, just like the rest of your pack does, and the boys all move to stop the witch before she hurts herself when some weird, black shadows appear below her feet and emerge from the ground.

They move so fast you barely see them, and you jump in front of the boys. Your initial plan is to create a barrier behind your back, so that you can protect your pack, and then to attack the creatures with some bright magic, so you do just that. But the plan doesn’t exactly go accordingly, because Yixing and Baehyun jump out of the row, following your lead.

You create the barrier, but it only hides the rest of the pack from the monsters, and you flail your hands around, whispering the right spell. You’re not too quick, though, and one of the monsters throws itself on you, its shapeless body closing around your right forearm. Your skin immediately sizzles, as if acid just hit you.

You hear both Yixing and Baekhyun screaming and then you finish the spell. Bright light erupts around you, the monsters screech, and you fall onto the ground – again – when you feel that the one that attacked you is gone. You’re breathing hard, your magic slowly dispersing, and you’re eyes are fixed on the witch.

She’s still bleeding, and she’s looking at you completely shocked.

“Do you really think that’s all the monsters I have?” she asks you, wide-eyed and, honestly, looking like a psychopath. You brace for another attack when you see more shadows erupting from the ground, but then a sound you know all too well pierces the air and the witch yells and tilts forward, hitting the ground with a painful yelp and a cry.

There’s an arrow sticking out from her back, and her body is shaking.

Poison, you think to yourself when the girl’s body goes still and numb. You can still feel her magic pulsing through the air angrily, but she’s knocked-out for some time.

You look behind her to see Seon. Her bow is still raised, but empty; she shot the arrow that got the witch. Her eyes take in the battlefield and then she’s frowning with confusion, her gaze fixed on someone. She starts running, runs past you with a whoosh, and you follow her movements. She throws her bow away and drops down next to Yixing, who was attacked by one of the shadows and is currently on his knees, his skin still sizzling; his whole neck, shoulder and arm are covered in tiny, burn-like wounds. You look down at your own forearm and find it red, sore, and hurting. The adrenaline level in your blood is way too high for you right now to feel the full pain of it, but you know that once that dies down, you’re gonna experience the full thing.

Another unexpected thing happens then. Just as you feel the skin of your forearm transform and do something weird, which makes you scream out in pain and lose consciousness, you feel Father’s magic and warm light touches your skin. Then it’s all gone.

*

Krystal is reading a book. Daehyun is singing in the kitchen as he cooks, and Jessica is talking to someone on the phone. It’s a calm evening; Junsu and Yunho are both watching a match on TV and drinking beer.

And then happens.

There’s bright light, thoughts all over the place, and Krystal almost loses consciousness when images, words and memories hit her, from different people and all at once.

Startled out of her skin, she looks to where the light and voices are coming from, and she sees loads of people. And one wolf.

“What the ,” Daehyun says from the kitchen.

Kai is standing in the middle of the room in his wolf form. Next to him stands an old, muscular man, and everyone is holding hands. Some guy in leather is holding you up, and you seem to be hurt; same goes to Yixing, who’s held by Seon, and Amber, with Sulli’s help, is carrying Baekhyun. There’s also Suho and Tao and a bunch of people  Krystal just doesn’t know.

Suho is holding a tiny girl in his arms. Tao is holding an unconscious teenager. There’s like six hunters in there, too.

The peaceful evening turns into a storm that the Jungs can only truly expect from the Moon Pack.

Daehyun storms into the room. Suho hands him the little girl, and Daehyun is too confused to resist in any way. And then the werewolf throws everything that’s on the dining table off of it, making Krystal and Jessica gasp in surprise when the glasses and a few plates shatter on the floor.

“Holy hell,” Yunho says from somewhere.

“Junsu!” Suho calls. They literally throw you, Yixing and Baek onto the table, and you’re all in spasms. The skin on your limbs is sizzling in different places, and everyone moves in to hold you down on the table. You all look like you’re having an epileptic attack simultaneously.

Junsu doesn’t have to be told what to do. He approaches Yixing first, seeing as the man has the most serious-looking wounds, and uses all the power he has. Yixing goes still the second Junsu uses his power, arching his back, and Junsu lets out a whimper; he closes his eyes. A wave of his magic goes through Yixing and the boy drops onto the table, unconscious, gasping out a very distressed breath. Junsu then moves to you, then to Baekhyun, and once he’s done that, he drops onto the chair that one of the hunters moves towards him when he sees that the man is gonna collapse. Krystal doesn’t let that escape her attention.

Everyone is silent now, just breathing out very heavily. Jessica looks at your arm and sees the skin slowly healing there; the burned-out wounds are melting together, fresh skin covering them.

There’s three people sprawled over their dining table, seven hunters hanging around with bows and guns, one huge werewolf that barely fits into the room standing in the middle, some super old guy with ridiculous beads in his hair, there’s two girls that Krystal doesn’t know that look like they’ve been through hell and back, and–really, Jessica closes her eyes at that because she’s feeling ill.

Then Luhan speaks up weakly. “Who wants pizza?”

*

Somehow, all the hunters and the entire Moon Pack ends up crashing Jungs’ place, and everyone is eating pizza. The ones that aren’t sleeping, that is.

Krystal doesn’t think she will be able to sleep tonight.

They’ve moved the couches so that they could all fit on the floor in front of the TV. They’ve hurdled all the pillows, blankets, covers and plushies from all over the house to here, and set it on the carpet. Sehun, Chanyeol and Tao are spooning, soundly asleep. Baekhyun is eating pizza, but Amber is the one feeding it to him because his hands are still hurt from the shadow attack (Krystal calls bull, and she doesn’t even have to look into Baek’s mind). Suho and Kyungsoo are eating pizza with the hunters – all but one – but they seem like they’re gonna pass out the moment they finish their slices. Kai, who’s wearing Yunho’s clothes, is leaning against Taemin’s chest, and Taemin is leaning against the wall. Your head is on Kai’s lap and you’re talking with Jessica (although you're dozing off), who’s legs are all tangled with yours and Luhan’s. Kris is asleep next to Luhan, curled around him. Chen, Min, Xiumin and Eun are asleep too, a few feet away from Kris, and it’s hard to say who is where.

Father has disappeared God knows where the second he actually appeared, and Krystal didn’t even manage to look into his mind, which she was really looking forward to – she’s heard all kinds of stories about him. Jaejoong took the little mage – Sori – to her mother, and promised to keep an eye on the two of them together with Siwon, who was still hanging around at Kai’s loft.

And Father took that witch with him.

Krystal is thinking about Father, her eyes fixed on Yixing. The boy is sleeping, and his head is on that Seon girl’s lap. She’s his hair and looking down at his face like she’s seeing something really beautiful. Krystal tries not to look inside her mind, though; it feels too intimate right now.

Someone appears next to her. She’s been leaning on the counter for a while now, just staring at the people in their living room, and she honestly didn’t see anyone coming close to her.

It’s a hunter. The one that has slipped the chair towards Junsu when he saw that the man was tilting backwards. He’s carrying some leftover pizza.

“You haven’t eaten,” he points out. Krystal looks him in the eyes and oh, boy.

She opens to reply, but nothing comes out. The guy’s eyes are incredible. Not to mention his nose, his lips, in fact – his whole face is a work of art. Krystal’s heart becomes a frenzy.

And then she realizes that she can’t hear the guy’s thoughts.

“Oh my God,” she whispers. She looks down at the pizza box, takes it away from the guy, puts it onto the counter, and looks at him with open. “You’re the Bella to my Edward.”

This is the longest RALF chapter. ALMOST 7K WORDS and to think every RWW chapter used to be like this or longer, lolol

A long time ago I created a Dal playlist, btw. I can't remember if I actually shared it with you guys bc I'm trash lol
Here it is if anyone's interested, it's all girl power and magic and other stuff: x

I hope you enjoyed the chapter chocolate-covered sweet mangoes! (see, I care for your health, so. FRUIT)