Sehun and I move quickly across town. He follows me though backyards and side streets, not attempting to talk to me about what just happened. And even thought I don't want to discuss it, I also hate the silence. Every familiar inch of this town does nothing but remind me of Jisoo and the life I'm giving up. When I was in the Academy all I wanted to come back here, and now that I'm here I want to shut my eyes, crawl under my covers, and cry. I bite my lip, trying to physically hold back my upset, and I blink away the wetness in the corners of my eyes.

Sehun stops when we reach the edge of the forest that leads to my house. He gives me a hard look. I'm certain he's thinking that going to Jisoo's was a terrible idea. But he doesn't say it; he doesn't have to. We both know.

"We need to retrieve whatever your dad left you in that tree," he says instead.

The shock pulls me out of my thoughts. "Hold on, now?"

"Now," he says, and I can tell he's frustrated with me. "We can't sneak back into your house in the pitch dark, because we'll have no idea if someone is following us. Because you didn't even known that I was following you."

"All of our stuff -"

"I stashed our bags at the edge of the woods. We just need that note and we need to leave." What he doesn't say is "before you cause any more troubles."

"Okay, let me see . . ." I scan the woods, mentally planning the best route to the tree and twisting eomma's ring on my finger. I can navigate these woods with a blindfold on, then I can definitely do it with only a little moonlight. "I've got a plan, but it'll require us climbing through a few branches that are much thinner than the ones we practice on at the Academy. You okay with that?"

He nods and I exhale. Sneaking out to see Jisoo was one thing, but sneaking into woods that might have a Strategia in them is something else entirely. My pulse is racing and I'm sweating under my winter coat.

I weave us through the familiar forest, going around area that are overgrown with brush and littered with fallen branches. Even so, our steps aren't completely silent. It's impossible to avoid making noise in the dark when there is so much leaf and plant debris on the ground. And every crunch we make zings through me like a jolt of electricity, making me feel increasingly worse than I put us in this position.

I lead us around a patch of particularly thick brush near my house and our steps get louder. Sehun touches my arm and brings his fingers to his lips. I stop moving. He scans the forest and my heart pounds so hard in my temples that my vision blurs momentarily. Doe he hear something? I desperately want to ask him, but I have no intention of talking, given the possibilities of exposure.

I take the most deliberate steps of my life, counting them off as I go, like there is a magic number where this horror ends and we get out safely. We're still a good couple of hundred feet fro the cluster of large trees that grow close enough together that we can climb from limb to limb. At least when we're off the ground, our sound and visibility will be reduced. When I count off eighteen steps, a particularly dry leaf crunches under my boot. I freeze, holding my breath.

One excruciating second passes and I scan the trees around me. I cautiously lift my foot, but before I can take a step I hear a faint hum and Sehun pushes me to the ground so fast that I barely get my hands under me to break my fall. As I land in a pile of cold leaves, there's a telltale thud as an arrow strikes the tree in front of me. The arrow hits exactly where my chest had been only a half second earlier.

"Run!" Sehun says, and we shove ourselves up, my legs moving so quickly that I'm shocked they don't slip out from under me. An arrow flies by my head, so close that I feel its win on my cheek.

I sprint through the woods, Sehun by my side, our boots pounding through dry leaves and snapping twigs with each step. Another arrow hits the tree next to me. By the evenly measured delay between shots, I would guess there's only one archer. And whoever it is has excellent aim in the dark with moving targets. I push my legs harder, demanding that they move faster. I lead us in a zigzagged path behind trees and fallen branches, aware that if I ease up for one second or give the archer a clean shot, one of us will die.

"Up, Sehun," I breathe as we run full-speed toward the closely clustered patch of trees I was looking for. My hand-to-hand combat skills are definitely lacking and I've got much better chances of holding my own off the ground.

I grab the tree trunk and hoist myself up onto a familiar branch. I look over my shoulder, but Sehun wasn't behind me. Sheer panic squeezes my chest. I scan the trees, looking for signs of him. But the only thing I see is a light-colored bow, and it's pointed directly at me. I immediately jumped to a neighboring branch and an arrow hits the trunk. I can't run without knowing where Sehun is, but I can't stay here, either.

I yank off my gloves and shove them in my pockets, wiping my now-sweaty hands on my coat. I peek around the trunk, and just as I do, Sehun lands a kick, not on our attacker, but on his bow. The wood cracks and splits. The Strategia, who I can now see is a man both taller and broader than Sehun, takes a swing before Sehun can recover his footing. The impact is so hard that I hear the thunk as the guy's fist connects with Sehun's skull. Sehun goes flying into the tree behind him, but the guy doesn't stay to fight. Instead, he turns and takes off in my direction.

His black hood flies back as he runs, revealing his long hair and stubble. His strides are so long that they encompass two of mine. Sehun is moving now, too, but he's a good twenty feet behind. I turn and scramble along the branch faster than is safe.

I hear the Strategia's boots scrape along the tree trunk behind me and hear him grunt as he pulls himself up, Given his speed, I have ten seconds at most before he reaches me. I catch a glimpse of Sehun running below us, and if I didn't think I would break something from his height, I would jump down to him. There is no way Sehun will make it up here in time to help me fight-if this guy grabs me, I'm done. He moves like a well-trained assassin, and while I'm good in trees, I'm also a student who barely spent a few weeks at the Academy.

I grab a higher branch, pulling myself up quickly enough the bark burns my hands. The guy makes a swipe for my ankle and gets so close that if I were a fractioned of a second slower, I would be tumbling to the ground. Please don't let me die. Please, please don't let this be the end. I won't make this mistake again. Ever. I promise. Just let me make it to appa in Gyeonggi.

The branch I'm on forks and I take three daring strides and jump to an even thinner one on the next tree.

"Stop, Suzy!" Sehun yells, and I'm so surprised that I actually do.

I turn around and the Strategia is running along the branch I was on.

"Mr. Baines!" Sehun shouts.

My mind snaps into focus. Baines-Old English from the Latin word ban, meaning "bones." It likely referred to a thin person. Thin. I look down at the branch I'm on and it suddenly occurs to me what Sehun wants me to do.

The Strategia makes a leap to the branch I'm on. Just as he lands, I jump, grabbing the branch above me, and slam both feet down on the thin one. The branch snaps in half, the sound ringing through the forest, leaving me dangling and leaving the Strategia no time to recover. His arms flail desperately around him and he falls twenty feet, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

I swing my legs back and forth for momentum and get my ankle wrapped around the branch. I pull myself along with my arms and legs until I reach the trunk, then rush down it to help Sehun. But the moment my boots hits the ground I can see there's no need. The tall man lies perfectly still, his arms and legs splayed out around him, a pool of blood forming below his head where a piece of rock sticks out.

For a long second I stare wide-eyed, my feet frozen in place, not able to process what I'm seeing. I blink, but he's still there, unmoving. My stomach turns and my hands fly to either side of my face.

"I didn't know he would . . .Oh my god . . ." My voice is fast, and even in the cold night air, I'm burning up. "I didn't mean to . . . He almost killed you, Sehun. I mean, if he'd used a knife instead of a punch . . ." I stare at the man's unmoving face, instantly reminded of all the dead bodies in my dream. "I did this. I killed him. I can't believe I killed him." I repeat it because it hasn't fully sunk in, because it's all too awful to be true.

Sehun walks right up to me and put his hands on my shoulders, turning me away from the body. "Look at me, just at me," he says insistently, moving me until the dead man is out of sight. Even in the moonlight I can make out the intensity of Sehun's eyes.

Guilt ripples through me. How could I have done this? I'm not a killer . . . I'm not.

"You need to focus, Suzy," Sehun says in a demanding voice. "You need to get the message from your dad. Whatever you're feeling right now will pass; but if you let it consume you, you won't be able to think. You're the only one who can retrieve that message."

I nod at him and break eye contact. It takes every ounce of my determination not to cry. I almost got Sehun killed. I killed someone. And I broke my promise to Sejeong. This isn't  the Academy; there aren't teachers and guards, curated challenges and structure. This is real, and it's deadly.

"Go," he says, and I do. I jog about fifty feet, focusing all my energy on locating the clmbing up the right tree, scrutinizing each detail more than necessary, and trying to push away the image of the blood I dear will be with me forever.

About fifteen feet up, the trunk split into two parts, I brush aside the leaves int he crevice created by the split and wiggled out a loose piece of bark. Underneath it, exactly where I stashed it four years ago, is a worn square tin a little smaller than my palm. I pull it out of the trunk and pry the top off. Folded inside is a baggie with a piece of paper in it that wasn't part of my original time capsule. Appa. I close the tin again and press it to my heart, relieved that I was right and that he didn't disappear without leaving me a message.

"Suzy?" Sehun says from under the tree I'm in.

"It's here," I say, and climb down to the ground.

He spots the small tin in my hand. "And your father -"

"There's a new note inside," I say in a hushed voice.

Sehun lets out a sigh of relief. "Good," he says. "Let's get out of here, and then we can read it. But first" -he hold up a key with a small wooden horseshoe attached to it- "I found this in the assassin's pocket, practically the only thing he had on him, besides weapons, which I took. Do you know what it's for?"

My thoughts return to the man's bloodied head and I clutch the tin like it's the only thing tethering me to my sanity. Sehun holds the key out, and I reluctantly take it.

I tilt the horseshoe to catch a bit of moonlight. "It looks like it goes to a padlock. And if I had to guess, I'd say it's for a barn or storage shed," I say, trying to suppress the sick feeling welling in my throat that this not only came off a dead body, but from a person I killed. "There are lots of both around here, especially on the outskirts of town."

Sehun nods, like he came to the same conclusions. "Are any of them rentable, possibly a barn someone could pay cash for? Or even better, something someone could use without the owner noticing?"

"Hmm. It would have to be one of the bigger properties. But I can think of four or five farms that are big enough to have unused barns or sheds," I say, going over a mental map of Jeongsan. "Would it need to be walking distance from here?"

"Definitely. And with a direct route through the forest to and from your house that avoids the town and people," he says.

I nod. "Anything else?"

"If I'm right, the building this key belongs to will be in a large open field with no crops or trees," he says.

I hand the key back to Sehun like I can't get rid of it quickly enough. "There's farm about a mile from here, a straight shot through the forest, that has a field tucked way back in the property that pretty much never gets used."

He exhales like he was hoping that was what I would say. "Let's go get our bags and see what we can find."

"But what about . . ." I point behind me.

"There is nothing to hide here," Sehun says. "His injuries are consistent with falling out of a tree. Nothing more."

"Won't the arrows be suspicious?" I say, worrying about what the scene will look like to Sheriff Baek. Will he somehow connect it with Appa's and my disappearance?

"Collected them," he says, pointing to a pile of shafts and a broken bow, which I had't seen in the dark. "We'll bring them with us and dispose of them."

"But we can't just leave him. I mean -"

"We have to. We have no idea if he was alone, so we need to move out quickly," Sehun says, the urgency in his voice intensifying.

I in a deep breath. I know he's right. But it all feels wrong-leaving my house without saying goodbye, leaving Jisoo with lies, leaving a dead Strategia in the woods. This isn't my Jeongsan; it's a nightmare.