PROLOGUE



Jeongyeon is supposed to be home hours ago, and the fact that she’s not sends whispers of dread dancing down Mina’s spine. The worry and anxiety got her trapped in their cold fingers, with no hope of letting her go. 

The tick-tock of the clock doesn’t help matters any. It sounds so loud in this empty house, which should have already been filled with Jeong’s laughter and her own as her fiancée cracks stupid jokes and makes an amusing rundown of everything that happened today at work. 

But there’s no laughter, no giggles, no jokes. There’s only Mina and the clock that seems to taunt her, and Mina hates that instead of telling the hour it seems to countdown to something immensely, inexplicably terrible.

And when the phone suddenly rings, harsh and sudden and thundering in the silence, Mina’s heart seems to skip several beats before settling on an aggressive staccato.

The dread sinks into her skin even more brutally and cruelly and bitterly, and Mina can’t help but think that she’s been unknowingly waiting for this call. Her hands are shaking as she lifts the phone up. 

At the first words, “Is this Miss Myoui Mina, listed as Miss Yoo Jeongyeon’s emergency contact?”, Mina’s world stops on its axis.

And at the words, “Ma’am, Miss Yoo has been involved in an accident,” her world completely collapses, crashing down on her and swallowing her whole.