The sound of Minji’s heels on the concrete floor was loud in the suffocating silence of the night. Her heartbeat sped up, frantic and nervous like that of a hare running from a lion. She did not have a good feeling about this, and she was sure that it was a stupid idea to come here in the middle of the night.

The loud chattering of the group of students somewhere outside was smothered by the thick walls of the building. Baëkhyun and Minji were cut off from the rest of the world. The darkness was impenetrable, a veil that hid the inside of the house from view.

Baëkhyun flooded the hallway with soft warm light that chased the darkness away. However, what he uncovered was not something that Minji desired to see. Perhaps she would have even preferred the darkness over this. They were faced with the unsettling sight of curses and odd symbols written on the peeling wallpaper. The color was hard to name, looking like a mix between a muddy brown and charcoal black.

Sensing a sinister aura, Minji drew in a breath, quivering in fear and stumbling backward. Terrified, she clung to Baëkhyun’s hand who scrunched his brows as he gazed at her.

“I want to leave. Let’s go back outside,” she whispered. The mark on her wrist burned and the uncomfortable feeling of being watched overcame her. It was a sensation comparable to ants crawling over her skin. She despised it.

“That’s fine. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It’s not worth the trouble when you aren’t feeling well,” he replied and held her hand as they turned back to the entrance in order to leave. They didn’t get very far.

“No. No, no, no,” she whispered frantically. Her eyes widened slowly as she came to a realization. Her stomach dropped, terror causing her to shudder. The door was gone. Their way out of the building had just vanished in the blink of an eye without them noticing. They were staring at a solid wall with a large symbol written over it. It looked similar to an eye, and it unsettled her.

“Where’s the exit?” she breathed, shaking like a leaf. The sense of danger within her was growing and growing.

Baëkhyun glared at the wall with bright red eyes, clenching his hand to a fist when he recognized the symbol that decorated it. “It was a trap. We walked right into a trap,” he snarled. “. Whoever made this knows what they’re doing. I did not notice the spell at all.”

“Please tell me you can get us out of here,” she said fearfully.

“There is only one way. We need to find the person who created this trap. They need to undo the spell,” he muttered darkly. “I’m guessing that they are waiting for us somewhere in here.”

“Oh please no,” she mumbled, nervously rubbing her arms. She had seldom felt this uncomfortable—right now, all of her instincts were screaming at her to flee, but she couldn’t. There was nowhere to run.

“That woman from earlier,” he growled. “She’s suspicious.”

“You mean Lisa?”

“Yes. She was the one who suggested to come here… and she was the one who wanted you to go inside alone. I bet this trap was set up by her.”

Minji couldn’t believe it. “What are you saying? She’s a human and unaware of—”

“So what?” he cut her off. “It’s not that hard to manipulate a regular human with magic. Especially not when you’re a blood mage.”

“You think the person behind this is…” she trailed off.

“Probably the person Kāi warned us about.”

She fell silent as dread pooled in her stomach. How had that mage known about them being at the party? Just how? They couldn’t have found them by pure coincidence. And since the mage had had time to prepare a trap, they must have planned this beforehand.

Baëkhyun heaved a deep sigh, staring at the cracked tiles on the floor. “I told you we shouldn’t have accompanied those humans! I will never understand why you always feel obligated to help everyone,” Baëkhyun grumbled. “We could have stayed at the club and had more fun, but no, you just had to babysit those dumb humans. Why can’t you let them run into their doom if they want that so much?”

“They don’t know of the dangers that the supernatural world poses to them. They have no idea that they might encounter actual demons in this building. To them, this is just a game,” Minji explained. “And since I am aware of the danger, I feel obligated to keep them safe. On top of that, I couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for their demise. Should anything happen to them without me trying to help, my conscience would kill me.”

He sent her an odd look, not completely following her way of thinking.

“I know that this must sound like bull to a demon, but to me, looking out for others is important,” she then added, hoping to make him understand. “View it from a different angle: Didn’t you accompany me here for a similar reason? You could have stayed outside and waited, but you chose to join me.”

“Like I would have let you walk in here alone,” he huffed and crossed his arms.

“See? You’re worried about me,” she smiled. “I want to keep them safe like you want to keep me safe. Got it?”

“I don’t think you can compare these two things,” he said. “Those humans out there aren’t worth the effort, you on the other hand…” His lips stretched into a smirk. “You are mine. And I like to protect what’s mine.”

She flushed. “F-Flirt.”

“Ah, I see you’re blushing again,” he teased, smirking wider.

“Damn demon,” she muttered.

“Damn human,” he mimicked cheekily.

She wasn’t sure if it was his intention, but their conversation moved her thoughts away from her trepidation. She wasn’t that scared anymore since she concentrated mostly on him and not their creepy surroundings.

“Stop pouting, sugar.”

“I am not pouting,” she grumbled, hugging her shivering body in order to keep warm. It was freezing in the hallway, and her flimsy Halloween costume wasn’t meant to be worn in a place like this. Neither were her high heels. She hoped she wouldn’t break her ankles in here.

“You’re cold, aren’t you?”

“Well, this stupid costume isn’t exactly warm…”

“You might get sick at this rate,” he sighed and slipped off his black leather jacket. “Take this.”

“B-But you only have a thin shirt underneath,” she said.

“Demons aren’t bothered by the cold,” he shrugged and shoved the jacket in her hands. “Put it on.” It sounded more like an order than anything else, especially paired with the steely look in his eyes.

“Thank you,” she said and put it on without complaints, closing it in the front. It was warmed up by his body heat, and it protected her from the freezing temperature. She curled her fingers around the edges of the sleeves that were a bit too long.

“You’d be lost if you didn’t have me,” he then added, sounding quite arrogant and full of himself. The way he raised his chin reminded her of a snobbish cat.

“Yes, indeed,” she chuckled amusedly. “What a lucky human I am to have a demon around.”

“You’re the luckiest,” he nodded.

She snorted and stood on her tiptoes to give him a sweet kiss on his cheek. “Let’s hurry and get out of here. I promised you a strawberry cake, remember?”

“You said you’d make two!” he reminded her.

“And that’s why we should leave as soon as possible.”

“Well, first I have to kick this bastard’s for cornering us here,” he growled, scrunching his nose in disgust. “Blood mages are scum.”

He took her hand in a tight grip and used his magic to brighten the light in the hallway. Minji couldn’t say how grateful she was that his magic wasn’t of a different element. With water or even earth magic, they would have been stuck in pitch-black darkness. She still had the flashlight of her smartphone of course, but that wasn’t as efficient and the battery wouldn’t last forever.

“Where do we go first?” she asked unsurely and looked around, checking their options. The hallway was so long that the light didn’t reach its ending. It looked like a black hole waiting to swallow them. However, the alternatives were no better.

Left and right of them, she spotted two closed doors that would take them to an unknown place, and in front of them, a concrete stairway led up to the next floor. The entire orphanage looked decrepit and forlorn. Nobody had taken care of it in decades. It had been left as it was, and in some areas, it was easy to see that nature had overtaken the structure. Parts of the wallpaper near the ground was covered in green. Minji suspected it was moss or mold, but she didn’t feel like taking a closer look at it. The stagnant air was permeated with different smells and none of them was particularly inviting. It reeked.

“I don’t know… but we have to start somewhere if we want to find the blood mage,” Baëkhyun said lowly. “I’m sure they have set a few traps in here for us… and I assume they are watching us from somewhere.”

A quiver ran through her body. This was like a scene taken from her worst nightmare. Minji hated to be trapped, it made her anxious. And the fact that some deranged psycho was waiting in here for them did not help either. She was relieved that she was at least not alone… but of course she would have preferred if both of them could have just skipped this ordeal. It was her kindness that had gotten them in this predicament. She figured that the blood mage had foreseen she would be worried about the other humans and used it to their advantage. They really couldn’t underestimate this person, whoever it was.

“Let’s go upstairs first, okay?” Baëkhyun suggested and she agreed. She held on to his hand because his touch was the one thing that grounded her. The fear in her heart was a bit more bearable thanks to him. She concentrated on their bond and noted that he felt mostly angry. No fear was mixed into his emotions. However, what she did notice was the paralyzing feeling of worry that was hidden behind his rage.

Frowning, she ascended the stairs with him and reached the next floor. This one didn’t look much different than the ground floor. The walls were grey and worn, the floor made of concrete. Maybe this place had been lively once, but now