Bomi was running out of places on her body that hadn’t already been punched, kicked, or slapped. She would have liked to say her body felt so numb that she no longer felt the pain, but that was hardly the case. Every inch of her hurt, and she didn’t know where one injury ended and one began. 

Today, the mean-looking woman with the very punchable face had come to see Bomi. The moment the woman crossed the room with a very smug smirk and immediately kicked Bomi in the chest, Bomi knew that she was not in for a very fun ride.

“Do you remember me?” the woman asked evilly. She grabbed a handful of Bomi’s hair and pulled her up. It felt like her scalp was going to rip off, but Bomi suppressed her scream.

“Remind me your name again,” Bomi said. “I can’t seem to remember unimportant people.”

The woman’s face twisted with fury, and she threw Bomi to the floor. “Yunseo. Kang Yunseo. You’ll remember that.”

“I’m sure I will.” Bomi murmured.

Bomi didn't know how long it had been since she had been taken away. When she was dragged away from the factory, she had been blindfolded and thrown into the back of a van. When the Shadow Clan finally removed her blindfold, she had found herself in a dark, musty room enclosed by thick concrete walls. She had remained tied up in this room since then, and though she had tried in the beginning, she had no way of telling time. The room was blocked off from any source of external light, and whenever the Shadow Clan came in to spit at her or beat her, they would come at irregular times to throw off her sense of time. She could have already been in there for a day, three days, or a whole week, for all she knew.

Bomi used her elbows to prop herself up. Her hands had been tied together for so long that she had forgotten how it felt to move them freely. “What do you want from me? Why did your leader insist on taking me?”

“You must be stupid to believe that we owe you answers.”

“I’m smart enough to know that what your leader wants from me is so valuable that it’s keeping him from killing me,” Bomi said. “We all know that if I wasn’t so vital to a part of his plans, I would have been dead a while ago.”

The corner of Yunseo’s right eye twitched, and Bomi knew that she had struck some nerve. As big and powerful as Yunseo was, she didn’t have the highest intelligence. Bomi could tell that she was all brawn and no brain.

“Why hasn’t your leader come to see me yet?” Bomi continued. “Is he too ashamed to face me after he broke our deal?”

“He is ashamed of nothing,” Yunseo growled.

“He should be. He broke our deal. I fulfilled my end and brought him the princess, but he didn’t even show me Yookyung.” Bomi leaned forward and tried to pull up her best angry face. “Where. Is. Yookyung?”

“It’s your fault for being stupid enough to fall for his trick.”

Bomi glared at Yunseo. “Where is she?”

“You are in no position to demand things from us.”

“Where is she, God damn it!” Bomi shouted. “Bring her to me!”

Yunseo lunged forward and lifted Bomi by the collar of her shirt. “Don’t you dare try to command me.”

“Does it look like I give a sh**?” Bomi grunted. “Bring her to me. Bring out that cowardly leader of yours. Tell him to stop hiding and face me!”

Yunseo lifted Bomi even higher in the air with her impossibly large muscles. Her face was red like a tomato and the vein in her neck was bulging out with her anger. “You don’t command me!”

Bomi struggled in the air, trying in vain to kick her legs up. “Where the h*ll is your leader?”

Yunseo’s biceps flexed with effort as she fully extended her arms, and Bomi knew that she was about to throw Bomi against the wall.

“I’m right here,” a painfully familiar voice said from behind Yunseo. The woman froze, leaving Bomi suspended in the air and thankfully not crumbled against the wall. When Bomi saw who had walked into the room, she also froze.

The leader of the Shadow Clan approached them with his dangerously ominous presence. He was wearing a black overcoat and, of course, his mask. His hair, a deep black, was neatly slicked back like he was the rich CEO of a large business.

“Put her down,” he ordered, and Yunseo immediately released Bomi. When Bomi’s feet hit the floor, her knees nearly buckled with the impact, but she managed to pull herself together and straighten up.

“Nice of you to finally come,” Bomi said. 

“It’s nice to see that your attitude is still intact,” the leader replied. He nodded at Yunseo. “Leave us.”

Yunseo’s evil sneer and cocky demeanor were gone; she dropped into an immediate bow and scurried out of the room. Under normal circumstances, Bomi would have enjoyed watching Yunseo’s shift in confidence, but the leader-subordinate dynamic here was utterly unsettling. The Shadow Clan leader did not lead by respect. He led by fear. And a leader who led by fear was no leader at all; he was just someone who had enough power to destroy anyone who crossed his path.

“Where is Yookyung?” Bomi demanded. 

The leader stepped in front of Bomi and lifted a hand to her chin. Bomi bit back her tongue and tried not to pull away from his touch.

“Does it matter?” he replied. He grasped Bomi’s face in his hands and roughly turned it side to side. “Either she’s going to die before you see her or you’re going to die before she sees you.”

“You don’t want me dead. I’d already be dead if you wanted that,” Bomi said. “What do you want from me?”

The leader’s hand paused on Bomi’s face before releasing her. He studied her silently for a second longer, then reached behind his back and pulled out a long, wickedly sharp knife. A chill swept through Bomi, followed by fear. 

He was going to kill her. He didn’t let his followers kill her, because he wanted to do it himself.

But before Bomi could come up with some plan to escape death, the leader grabbed her, twisted her around, and severed the rope around her wrists. They fell free from her hands and dropped to the floor, leaving a burning feeling of absence where they had once been.

Bomi raised her hands to her face and marveled at her newfound sense of freedom. Her thumb tentatively rubbed the small white scar on her palm.

The leader forced Bomi back around and returned the knife back to its sheath. Bomi frowned and waited for him to do something, but he didn’t. “What are you doing?” 

“Punch me,” he said.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he said without a trace of doubt. “Punch me.”

So Bomi did just that. She closed her fingers into a fist and threw the most powerful punch she could muster. If it had landed, she was fairly certain that it would have knocked out a few teeth, but the leader breezily dodged it. Bomi stumbled forward and tried to regain her footing as fast as possible.

The leader held his hands behind his back. “I said punch me.”

Bomi gritted her teeth and launched herself at him, but he easily dodged the punch again.

“I said,” the leader repeated, “Punch me!”

With a loud curse, Bomi threw another punch at him, but her movements were painfully slow. The time she had spent rotting in this room, suffering beatings and eating whatever scraps they gave her, had sapped the power out of her. Her entire body felt like it was on fire and her breaths were ragged.

The leader caught her punch, twisted her arm around, and slammed her against the wall. When she turned around, the leader immediately landed a punch to her stomach, burrowing his fist deep into her belly. Bomi couldn’t help the painful grunt that escaped from her. She fell over, coughing and grasping her gut.

“You’ve gotten pathetic,” the leader spat.

“I’ve gotten pathetic?” Bomi staggered up. There was the metallic taste of blood lingering on her tongue. “Have we met before?”

“You tell me.” Slowly, the leader brought his hand up to mask and began unfastening it. Unconsciously, Bomi began holding her breath.

“Is this a face you remember?” The leader dropped his hand, his mask with it, and looked at Bomi with his completely bare and hateful face.

Bomi’s knees buckled underneath her. Her vision began tunneling, and the world felt like it was crashing in on her.

It was him.

It was the One-Eyed Man.