Luhan let his eyes avert to Jinah just for a second before he looked back at Daehyun’s eyes. But a second was enough to confirm his theory – Jinah was scared. Her arms were trembling violently, her lips were tremulous, and her knees were at the verge of buckling. He read the panic and fear in her eyes. He was surprised she still had it together and was conscious. Everything came to her in such a vile and brutal way, and she was learning with her eyes instead of being told about it first. She was seeing what they were trying to hide without a warning beforehand. Of course she’s afraid. Luhan remembered the look on Jinah’s face when she saw the blood at the broadcast building’s parking lot. Damn, the Cougar pricks just had to challenge today, didn’t they?

          “Drop. Your. Weapon,” Daehyun repeated, emphasizing each word.

          “If you kill her, I’ll kill Himchan,” Luhan threatened.

          Daehyun chuckled. “Do you think I care? There are plenty of new recruits. Zelo replaced Youngjae in two days. Jinah, however…” He her cheekbone and Jinah grimaced in disgust and stuck her tongue out, making gagging noises.

          “What the hell did you just do?” she shrieked at him, her face contorted and scrunched up in the ugliest way possible in absolute, utter disgust. “Oh my god! What are you, a ing dog? Ew, ew, ew –”

          Daehyun put the knife closer to her neck and Luhan saw beads of scarlet drip down. Jinah stopped talking. But it was okay, for Luhan saw the change in her eyes. Even if it was just for a short moment, the panic and fear disappeared from Jinah’s eyes. She was distracted, getting used to things – processing. She’s working her way, Luhan thought in faint relief.

          And he was right. Jinah was sinking everything in and making scenarios and solutions that would be the best for this situation. Luhan’s theory was on the spot – they needed her, or this fight would be pointless. Daehyun was bluffing about not caring about Himchan’s life. She knew how close Wolf was with each other, that must be the same for other gangs too, right? And, from Himchan’s relaxed face, Himchan also knew that Daehyun was bluffing. She cogitated, weighing the consequences and comparing different strategies. Everything was a gamble. Knife by my throat – unreal, but okay. He’s really strong and I’m going to run out of air soon – whatever, not important. Luhan’s stomach and face are bleeding. Important. I mean – no, he’s alive, so it’s okay. What do I do? What do characters do when being held hostage like this? Beat the crap out of Daehyun? Impossible. I’m not even facing him. I can’t even breathe, ugh – I need to do something about this arm… what, bite it? …yeah, no, not working. I can’t reach. Stupid mouth. Stupid brain. Stupid Jinah! What if I elbow him? He’ll just stab me. He’d get in trouble, but I’m not that important. They already have Liha – okay, remember to talk to her… if you make out of this alive. Be pragmatic. I can’t punch him, kick him, or anything like that… I can’t even spit at his face to distract him, damn it. Wait – distract him?

          Luhan kept looking back and forth between Jinah and Daehyun. The way Jinah’s eyes were spaced out; he knew she was thinking, speculating. He needed to buy her time. And the only way he could do that was by running his mouth. He wasn’t much of a talker, but he found words to speak and questions to ask, even if he really didn’t care. “Why do you want Jinah so much anyway?”

          Daehyun shrugged. “She’s interesting, and definitely different. And ing gorgeous. Minhyuk had his eyes on her, but you guys didn’t let her go at the ceremony meet. And now that he saw her at the interview and at the markets a few times, he’s hooked onto her. She’s smart but not snobby. She handled that Cheonsa really well.”

           “Why’d you choose Liha then?” Luhan asked. His eyes searched for that thinking-complete spark in Jinah’s face, waiting for that moment when she thinks of something incredible. Oh, how lucky he was to have kept his eyes more on her face than on the screen when they gamed. Because of that, he was familiar with her little quirks. A strategist – that’s what Jinah was. Now he just had to wait. Aish, since when did I have to depend on another person?! Luhan thought.

          “Liha doesn’t have the word ‘spontaneous’ in her brain,” Daehyun said. “Give her a script and she’ll remember it word for word. That’s great, but sometimes, you have to change things up a bit in the heat of the moment for heighted intensity, you know?”

          “What makes you think Jinah has ‘spontaneous’ in her brain?”

          “Isn’t it obvious? I think it’s pretty clear that Jinah’s different from all the other doll copies of Pacem. Don’t get me wrong, Pacem girls are cute but… there’s a thing called undying charm, right?” Daehyun grinned. Luhan’s eye twitched in irritation. “Speaking of charm… this girl has it, doesn’t she?” his arm around Jinah tightened and Jinah was now on her tiptoes. Daehyun was wrapping this conversation up.

          Jinah’s train of thought came to an abrupt halt when he suddenly pulled her up, but it didn’t matter. She was finished thinking anyway. She looked at Luhan who was looking at her with a slightly open mouth and round eyes. He saw her smirk a bit and he unknowingly exhaled. But he felt himself anticipating what she was going to do next. This Callidum girl of six records – just what did she have in mind?

          Jinah bent her knees as the knife dug in a tad bit and she jumped up, the top of her head hitting Daehyun’s chin. She stomped her foot down on Daehyun’s toes and Daehyun let out a cry. Just when his arm slacked around her neck, she jutted her arm back, her elbow ramming into his gut. Daehyun’s eyeballs enlarged to the size of baseballs and Jinah quickly pushed him back, all at once and almost as fast as – what was his name, Jongup?

          Jinah spun around and punched Daehyun the way she punched Chunji at the Rave: hard and with purpose. She could’ve sworn that she heard something crack. Probably her surreal imagination. Or maybe it was a tooth. Daehyun was on the ground, and he looked up at her, unable to process what just happened. Never did a female stand up to him like that, dare hurt him, and no one, he doubted even a male, would think about jumping up. It wasn’t a super original move, but don’t usually girls bite? Gangs were warned that Callidum girls bite. Didn’t that meet chomp-chomp, with their teeth? On purpose, Daehyun had his neck right up the bottom of her chin so that she couldn’t face down to bite his arm. So the girl jumped?

          Luhan didn’t waste a second. He pushed Jinah to the side, and Kai caught her. Uh, when did he get here? Jinah thought. Luhan had his arms out, his fingers outstretched. Jinah looked at him weirdly, and Kai groaned. “Look away…” he mumbled and covered her eyes. Jinah smacked his hands but the impact hurt her eyes too, so then she gripped Kai’s wrists, digging her fingernails in, telling him to release her, but he endured it. “You don’t have to see this, you idiot!” Kai said through gritted teeth. At least now, Jinah knew that Kai felt pain.

          “Protecting your Prix’s sanity, aren’t you, Luhan?” Jinah heard Daehyun say. “How unexpected. What made you start treating your Prix like a queen?”

          “She’s Wolf’s Prix, not just anyone’s Prix,” Luhan said in an eerily calm voice. “Think twice before challenging us again.”

          Then the ground rumbled and Jinah heard something collapsing and drop. Kai sighed as he took his hands away. He rubbed his wrists where there were dents the shape of crescents – the marks of Jinah’s nails, “ you and your fingernails…”

          Jinah frowned. Daehyun was knocked out and his head was bleeding. Jinah looked away from the scene. Is he dead?

          Luhan huffed. “No, he’s not dead, you little smartass.”

          “What?”

          “Jumping? Really? What are you – a rabbit?” Luhan chortled as he made his way towards Jinah. He smiled at her, his eyes hardly crinkling. “You made use of yourself. Good to know that you’re not a burden.”

          “Tch. You make it sound like I was a burden to you before,” Jinah muttered, not meeting his eyes.

          Luhan shrugged with a trace of amusement. “I just expected you to scream my name for help. And, you know, wait for me to rescue you.”

          Jinah punched him, “You stupid juck.”

          Luhan raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you mean ‘prick’?”

          “Do I look like I care?

          Luhan chuckled at her. He ruffled her hair and gazed at her warmly. It made Jinah feel fuzzy inside. Miss Kim didn’t teach me what this is… “How’s your neck? You stupid, bending down before jumping. What if the knife –” Luhan stopped short as his expression darkened… and pushed her aside harshly. Jinah’s shoulder hit the wall again and a dagger whizzed right by, just missing Luhan who took a step to the side just in time.

          Luhan’s gaze snapped to the thrower – Changsub, the Hunter. The nickname came from his perfect aim, always hitting “bull’s eye” Luhan’s knife wasn’t a throwing dagger. He couldn’t just go around throwing it. Changsub threw another one and Luhan deflected it just in time by levitating a rock. By this time, Jinah had recovered from her surprise and the pain in her shoulder. Luhan was making a rock float?! He made a swiping hand gesture and the rock flew to Changsub and Changsub threw a dagger at it. The dagger’s blade scrunched up and shattered, while the rock crumbled from the sharp point.

          Chanyeol stopped using his fire. He was out of breath, and so was Minhyuk. Suho and a Cougar were in a tight fight. Zelo was still full of energy, though. He was laughing and kicking, and looked as if he was having fun, which irked Baekhyun to no end.

          “How about we call it a truce?” Lay suggested as he ducked to avoid from getting hit by Yongguk’s Morning Star, his spiked club.

          Sungjae stopped fighting for a second. He threw Chen off of him. “Yes.”

          “No!” Minhyuk growled. “We’re getting Jinah.”

          “Minhyuk, take a look around you idiot,” Sungjae said with a small frown. All of his expressions were evident, but small.

          Minhyuk glanced around. His fellow gang mates were injured and tired. Minhyuk wasn’t stupid. He was hurt and tired too. As much as the Army warned them all about having sentimental attachments and the encumbrances they bring, Minhyuk wasn’t the type to listen to orders. He was more than attached to his gang mates, but at the same time, he wasn’t oblivious of their exhaustion. He sighed in defeat. “Temporary pause. Next time, we’ll continue. And we’ll win.”

          With that, he turned away from Chanyeol, who raised his fist to punch the back of Minhyuk’s head, but Kai appeared in front of Chanyeol to stop it. Kai shook his head and said something that Jinah couldn’t catch. Jinah didn’t know what to make out what he said, or how he got there. Was Kai able to run that fast? Was a human able to run that fast? She saw the faint swirling smoke on the spot where Kai had previously been standing. She frowned at it. Then she saw Cougar come together, preparing to leave. Jongup and another boy were helping the pale-and-bloody Himchan up, while Sungjae and Changsub carried Daehyun over to the rest of the gang.

          “Wait!” Jinah called, surprising both Wolf and Cougar. I have to. “Liha,” Jinah said as she swallowed nervously. I need to. “Can I talk to her?”