A/N Only those who read The Bracelet Club will understand Kyungsoo's cameo but then if you don't, it's fine! lookout for the clues for Renjun's and Sungchan's stories!

We had no choice but to all go to the police station and despite my hurt arm, I clenched my jaw and handled the pain, rushing to the bathroom and putting on my clothes while I brushed my teeth at the same time. Jisung was no different, the male following my pace and by the time we were finished, we could see Jung Jaehyun and New York by the car. Both of them entered the car, Jaehyun starting it right at that moment before we made out way to the police station.

When we reached there, I was in awe at how many people were there. Bunny looked like she was on edge, the female trying to peek into the interrogation room while her husband told her to calm down. Renjun was there too, which made me wonder why he was, considering he wasn’t part of what was happening until I saw a very tired-looking Haechan.

To be Haechan’s babysitter, of course.

Mark was there, Hendery beside him and a few other people I didn’t recognize but Jaehyun greeted one of them as his cousin and he said he would be taking the deaf girl’s case when she would stand trial.

Sungchan, they called him.

“What’s going to happen to her? We need to protect her. She’s a victim, not a criminal,” Bunny said and Johnny looked at me, the male lifting a hand up to call me over. Right at that moment, Jisung grabbed my hand and I saw that he was holding his phone.

“KBS, work calls. They said it’s really important,” he told me and I nodded. “Tell me what happens, okay? If they are calling me on an off day it means they really need me.”

“Stay safe, Jisung.” I turned back to see that they had opened the interrogation room and people filed in, their eyes on the deaf girl. Her pupils darted back and forth, her hands tightened into fists when she slowly looked up and I could tell that she had been crying.

Renjun and Jeno were the first to react, both of them stepping forward to lower themselves to talk to her in a very hushed voice but with different questions.

“How are you feeling?” Renjun asked at the same time as Jeno.

“Can you tell me what is going on?”

And the caretaker and the psychologist glared at each other, the female looking confused at which question to answer first. I heard Jaehyun clear his throat and it was obvious he was still skeptical, the male telling Jeno to ask her about who she was working for.

She confirmed our suspicions after that.

“Mother,” she said and Johnny nodded. That much, we knew. We expected her to say more but she didn’t, lowering her head when Bunny decided to take the lead.

“You remember me?” she asked, the female dragging a chair loudly over to the girl and sitting down. The girl nodded slowly, a hand going out to touch Bunny lightly on her arm. The fact that she has seen Bunny before, even under very harsh circumstances, made her more comfortable. I noticed that she held something under her hoodie and she softly asked Bunny a question.

“How is Fluffy?”

Bunny blinked and overprotective Jeno seemed like he already wanted to bring his wife away but Johnny held up a hand to let them be.

“Fluffy?” Bunny asked, frowning. “Oh, the dog! Yes, he’s great. He lived a very long life.”

“Lived?” the girl asked and Bunny nodded slowly.

“I mean, he was alive for ten years… But I called him Bob.”

“You named Fluffy, ‘Bob’?” the female asked and Bunny nodded energetically. “Oh.”

And then silence, the female finally looking up at Bunny.

“You can call me Sign.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“It’s not my real name.”

“Bunny is not my real name either.”

“Why is your name Bunny?”

“Because…” I could tell that Bunny wanted to tell her that because the day she got kidnapped she had Bunny ears and the nickname just stuck but she held back, knowing it may have been just as traumatizing for Sign as it was for her. “Why Sign?”

“I know Sign Language.”

Her voice was monotonous and she spoke so softly and each sentence was coupled with a deadpan expression, it was like she was processing everything very slowly and carefully because she was scared of making a mistake. 

“Well then, Sign,” Bunny said, lowering her voice. “Why did you come here? Can you tell us what’s wrong?”

“I hurt her.” Sign pointed at me and everyone looked at my arm. “She bled. “

“And then what happened?”

“I fought with Mother. She killed one of my bunnies,” she replied, and right at that moment, I saw something move under her hoodie, the girl lifting her hand up protectively and staring at us warily.

“It’s okay…” Bunny said, smiling at Sign. “You can show us.”

Sign reached up to her hoodie. She was wearing a normal oversized T-shirt but underneath her hoodie, there was a small baby bunny that looked like it was sleeping. Bunny let out a soft squeal, the female unable to hide her excitement at the sight of an animal.

“What did your mother do to the bunny?” Johnny asked carefully and I saw Bunny finally lift the animal up in her arms.

“This isn’t a bunny, it’s a rabbit!” she began to tell Sign. “They are different.”

The two were about to get engaged in another conversation when Jeno told Bunny to ask her important questions.

“Tell me about your mother,” Johnny said, Sign blinking at him.

“Only if you say ‘please’,” she told him, Johnny frowning. “Mother said ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ are the magic words.”

“Please?”

“Why is your voice going up? Is it a question?”

“N-no— I mean. Please.”

“She can’t pick up on social cues, be nice,” Renjun told Johnny, the policeman nodding and trying to understand. “Go on, tell him about it.”

“My mother is sometimes bad but sometimes good. Last night, she killed one of my bunnies because I didn’t want to be locked.”

“She locks you up?”

A nod.

“She tells me it’s for my own good.” There was a pause. “Sometimes, her voice changes, and I don’t recognize her. She is like a different person. She talks to the mirror and drinks a lot of medicine. She hurts me.”

“Sounds like the mother is suffering from a mental disorder,” Jeno told Renjun, the male nodding. 

I could see Renjun’s fists tighten, Sign pulling up her baggy pants to show us cigarette burns on her thighs. She pressed her lips together, Bunny cradling the rabbit in her arms.

“You have to protect me,” Sign said, looking up innocently before quickly adding. “Please.”

“We will.” Renjun quickly said, looking at Johnny menacingly. “You have to protect her.”

“Can you tell me what happened yesterday?” Jeno sat down beside Bunny. “Please?”

Sign nodded. “She told me yesterday that something will change. That she is letting go and that she will finally have power.”

We frowned. We had no idea what that meant.

“Then she kissed me on the head and then she killed my bunny.”

Well, that took a turn.

“And then she told me to go to my room or she will kill the other one and I didn’t want to. But I was afraid so I did and then for the sake of my bunny, I ran away.”

“Rabbit,” Bunny corrected her, Jeno clicking his tongue at his wife.

“I am scared.”

“Now, can you tell me who your mother is? Does she have a name?”

Sign nodded.

“Mother.”

“No, her real name.”

Sign blinked, shrugging and looking down. “I know I see her on TV all the time.”

“What?” The room echoed.

“She’s always on 10 am News. Channel 2,” she said and I frowned. Wasn’t that the MBC news channel? With that, Johnny had grabbed the remote to put on the channel and I chewed on my lip. Everyone was distracted and I took the opportunity to kneel in front of her, the woman staring straight into my eyes.

“Is the only reason why you came here is because of the bunny? Are you sure there isn’t anything else?”

“She said she will hurt one of you. She said that death is the only way she will ever feel at ease before she leaves.” Sign spoke softly when the news came on and Johnny patted her on the arm.

“There are two male reporters today,” Johnny said and she looked up, whispering to herself.

“That’s weird. Mother said Head reporters always get the ten am news.”

Her words made me freeze, my mind going back to the beginning when Jisung told us that there was one person he looked up to. The Head Reporter of MBC, he had said. Was that the reason why she assigned him to report the building that collapsed 40 years ago?

I tried to steady myself, pressing a hand against my forehead.

Jisung went to work. Why did he go to work?

“Sign, when she said she’ll hurt one of us; she spoke of death right afterward, didn’t she?”

“Yes. She said one of you will die and all of you will cry and that is power.”

“What? What is she talking about?” Johnny demanded, New York stepping forward when she saw my expression. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Park Jisung,” I told New York. “Park Jisung is in danger.”

I didn’t wait for them to understand what was happening.

I bolted out the door to rush towards the MBC building.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The only person I could think of was Jisung. I rushed down the taxi and moved towards the building. If the head reporter of MBC wasn’t on the news, could this be because she already planned it out? Is that why she asked Jisung to leave?

I moved into the building, my eyes falling onto the list of notable people and their pictures when my eyes fell on the Head Reporter. Her eyes seemed empty and I quickly redialed Jisung’s number. I had been calling him nonstop but he didn’t answer.

It was different this time and when the call went through, I demanded to know where he was but I was greeted by the voice of a female.

“Rooftop. Or he dies.”

And then it went off.

I don’t know how long it took me to reach the rooftop but when I did, I saw her there. The Head reporter of MBC with Jisung tied up and knocked out. He was sitting at the edge of the ledge with her beside him.

One push.

One push and he would fall to his death.

“Barricade the doors,” the woman said and her eyes were harsh and filled with hatred. Her smile didn’t seem human and I found myself doing what I had to do, locking the doors behind me. The walls were made of glass and I could then see New York, Johnny, and the rest arrive right there. New York began to scream but I knew that it wasn’t the time to panic.

Not when Jisung was in danger.

“It’s just you and me now, child,” the Head Reporter was saying. “It’s just me and you and an audience.”

She was dangerously close to the ledge, Jisung still knocked out and I had to tear my eyes away from him to focus on her. I had to talk to her and make sure she didn’t bring him with her.

“My name is the Mad Hatter, the person you have been trying to find,” she began, a smirk on her lips. “Born Kim Ara, forgotten as Kim Ara. Until I found a name for myself as a different person, found a way to speak to the world as a different person.”

“Why are you doing this? Jisung did nothing,” I said, taking a step closer when she tutted at me, her hand letting go of Jisung repeatedly just to grab him again.

“One step closer and Park Jisung may not make it, child.” She sighed. “You know when it all started, child? It all started when my parents were murdered in that building. Imagine this… A child with no parents wondering what went wrong. There was no coverage either. It wasn’t their fault; it was the fact that the architects didn’t do their job correctly.”

A flash of pain flitted through her eyes.

“And then they decided to pay us off. One by one. And just like that, no one went to jail. No one was arrested for the death of thirty-two people. I grew up wondering why the world was this way—why was it that the people who allowed this to happen were still living happily? Despite the pain, they have caused?” She paused before she began to seethe. “The Kim’s. Real estate gurus, they called themselves. But they held a lot of investments from the Lee’s, both of the companies reliant on each other to grow. They were just as bad. All of them.”

She was talking about Doyoung and his family, I realized. Probably his grandfather and grandmother at that time. His family must have been responsible for the redevelopment of the area then.

“So, I grew up, Kim Ara, the child who wanted revenge. Day by day, that was all I could think about. I was a bit younger than their children but I knew what I was doing.  Consumed by anger, I concocted a plan. If I couldn’t bring the family down, I would find a way to hurt their children.” She ran a tongue over her teeth and I just wanted her to keep talking. “So, I made myself known. I went to a different school but I smiled at them when I saw them. The power of knowledge is that you hold leverage over people, KBS.”

I took a deep breath, the woman continuing to speak, her eyes turning wild.

“And I remember that summer very clearly. The Lee’s, the chairman of Lee enterprises now, was a huge drunkard. Oh, the drugs and the alcohol they would consume! Now imagine if that was out in the press?” she asked, throwing her head back and letting out a high-pitched laugh.

She was a madwoman and it made me wonder how she blended in with people so well. Her gaze was no longer normal and she slowly straightened herself.

“So, I followed them, a small vacation house. I lived in an abusive household with my aunt and uncle then. I was used to it. The moment I reached there, I knocked on the door and could tell that there were other people, too. The smell of meth! ! Alchohol!” She cackled. “Everything I needed to throw them under the bus and maybe they will be able to repent—”

“You took it too, didn’t you?” I found myself asking, the woman narrowing her eyes at me. “There must have been a reason why you went into shock. I know about what happened.”

“Do you honestly think that’s important?” she asked, her hand squeezing Jisung’s shoulder. “I went into shock! A sixteen-year-old who had taken the drugs and the alcohol they have given her went into shock and what happened? I was buried, child! From that day on I have remembered all of their faces. Do you know what angered me? The audacity of these people to lay flowers on the place they buried me with a small note saying that they were sorry.”

A high-pitched scream, the female shaking her head violently at the thought.

“Sorry? Sorry! There was no news, no one knew of my death and that was the day Kim Ara had faded out into existence.” I saw her close her eyes and I took a step forward. I could see people holding New York back but they knew that Jisung was in a hostage situation.

“I tried so hard to get back on my feet, but hatred was the only thing that kept me going,” she whispered and for a moment when she opened her eyes, she seemed normal. “Where is my daughter, KBS?”

“She’s here. We brought her, please step down.”

“She left, too,” she said softly. “My own flesh and blood left me.”

“You hurt her!”

Wow, she pissed me off. I wanted to run to her and hug her but slap her at the same time.

“You hurt her and drove her away.” I raised a hand and pointed at her accusingly. “You can’t expect people to stay when you locked her up like that.”

“I was protecting her from the harshness of this world,” she told me. “You know what I have learned, KBS? Death makes a statement. Death brings all their attention to you when it’s on camera, when it’s someone loved by many.”

Her eyes fell on Jisung.

“The power I have now. Don’t you see? One step closer to the edge and there will be people begging me to kill him. Begging me to think about it. How many sorry’s will I hear? How many times will they say ‘we didn’t mean it?’?”

And her normal demeanor was gone, the woman raising an eyebrow and taking something out of her pocket before throwing it to me. It was a USB.

“Everything is inside there. When I go, you do what you want with it. With that information, you will have power—”

“I don’t want power. I want Park Jisung,” I found myself saying walking towards her. She quickly grabbed Jisung on the shoulder, shaking her head at me to warn me that it wasn’t a very good idea. “Do it yourself. You can still demand justice for what happened—”

“Why would I? I know how this works. I had nothing to lose the moment my daughter left. I will be incarcerated and those people will find a way to wiggle out of it as they have always done. I do not want to live in a world like this.” Her words were simple. “I am in pain.”

“You don’t have to do this—” Jisung was beginning to stir and I gasped.

“You don’t understand,” she spoke softly, her eyes suddenly b with tears and it seemed like she was fighting something inside her. “I am in pain and I’m no longer in control of my body. Only death can save me now and I have to fulfill myself to die in peace.”

“DO NOT LEAN BACK, PARK JISUNG!” I screamed, Jisung jumping at my voice when she smiled. Her faced changed, her eyes glossing over, and like Sign said, she was a different person altogether. She grabbed Jisung, the male confused when I leaped towards both