Chapter 15. Trust

When he woke up, he was no longer over the dirty ground but over soft mats, and a pillow had been placed under his head. Everything hurt terribly. His chest felt and oddly constricted. His whole body was covered by thick blankets and… feathers. SooJoo’s wing was covering him. She was sleeping beside him, mouth parted and deep eye bags under her eyes.

“She’s been keeping an eye on you,” Minzy said at his other side. Even moving his neck hurt terribly and he whined in pain, waking up SooJoo.

“Hey there,” the demon said with a sad smile and placed a tender hand over his stomach, “Does it hurt?”

Seungri simply nodded and looked around confused. They were inside a house or inside somewhere with a ceiling, for it was wood, a wood ceiling what was covering them from the cold.

“We are inside one of their houses,” Minzy explained to him, “Seunghyun and Youngbae are keeping watch outside. We brought the wounded here. Daesung woke up two hours ago. SooJoo,” Minzy said, pointing at the demon with her head, “also got some bad wounds on her wings. Aigiel has a really bad cut on his face, though he is acting as if he is not in pain.”

Seungri gulped and looked at his covered body once more, eyes roaming over the improvised bandages covering his chest.

“He attacked you. Maeum had to drag him away from you. Before you got unconscious you emitted a cry, a horrible cry of pain, it was what brought him back from his rogue state.”

“Where is he?” Seungri rasped.

“Outside, a few kilometers from here. He said he couldn’t be here,” SooJoo whispered, she looked tired and strangely dispirited. She closed her eyes and said nothing else.

Seungri fisted his hands and closed his eyes.

“You acted like an idiot,” Minzy finally sighed and shook her head, “You should listen to Maeum. You can’t be this stubborn Seungri. If you want to survive, you got to be smarter than this.”

Seungri felt the need to shout, the need to hit something, “I just thought…”

“I know what you thought,” Minzy interrupted him, “but this is not the way to be useful. Being reckless won’t help anyone. Respect your enemies, respect danger, know your limits, know your powers, empower yourself. What have you been doing to empower yourself, Seungri?”

Seungri looked at the alpha demon in the eyes. She knew the answer. He knew it too. Not much. He hadn’t done much.

“Rest,” Minzy whispered, “Thankfully you didn’t break anything. He could have killed you instantly. And I believe it wasn’t luck. He recognized you, in some twisted way, his beast recognized you enough not to kill you.”

“That’s not…”

“It is,” Minzy said, “I’ve seen angels and demons go rogue. You weren’t lucky. That,” she said pointing outside the house, “wasn’t luck at all. But you got to figure out that by yourself. Now rest.”

Seungri spent the night coming in and out of unconsciousness. The times he was awake he glanced at the sun rays lighting up the ceiling above him. The lights moved through the day, signaling the day ending until they vanished, painting the ceiling in black and dark tones. There was silence too. Nobody was talking and if they did, they would hush and murmur unintelligible things. He heard steps coming in and out of the house too, but always gentle and feminine. Only once he thought he listened to Aigiel’s voice whispering something from the entrance. He tried to ask several times but his voice seemed gone, his throat felt weak and tight. He rolled over the mats and tried to stretch his aching wings and gazed at the figure of Daesung sleeping at the other side of the room.

Defenceless. That’s how Daesung and himself looked, totally defenseless. He closed his eyes and tried to scream, whine, swear and let out his frustrations but nothing came. His eyes fell to the ground and followed, absently, the dust marks over the floor. He looked at the petty particles being blown by the air, vulnerable. He squeezed the pillow his head was resting on and grunted. He looked at the side where SooJoo was sleeping and thought about her powers. He thought about Minzy, Layl, Maeum fighting against the angel extremists, about Aigiel saving him from plummeting down to the ground. About Seunghyun protecting them at the quadrant, or Jiyong saving him from the fire. And he pictured himself running only to be thrown to the ground with one blow. His fists only tightened, his hands trembled in fury and disgust. How petty he must have looked. How stupid he must have looked to all of them. Weak. Useless. With the back of one of his hands he whipped a tear he wasn’t even aware of shedding and stifled a scream with the fabric of the pillow, biting the fabric and striking the soft mattress with his other hand until he tired himself.

He fell asleep soon after only to be attacked by nightmares of black eyes and bloody fangs ripping apart his skin. The face was blurred until it got inches away from his neck, and then he saw the features distorted and enraged, eyes that would never recognize anything but its prey. Seungri woke up sweating and with a throbbing heart. The light was out and the room was in complete darkness. The silence was still there, even more, hurtful and disturbing.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position and tried to steady his breathing, but a sudden burst of anguish and pain burst inside his chest and made him squirm uncomfortable, and let out silenced screams.

“What’s… going on?” he choked the words and whined, clutching his chest.

A murmur and hurried hush voices came from the outside through the window. The voices seemed desperate and stern, just like Youngbae and Maeum used to talk when scolding someone. They wouldn’t stop if anything they went louder and louder.

“For ’s sake!” a frustrated growl broke the silence. Undoubtedly, it was the voice of Seunghyun, recognizable for its deepness.

Seungri stood up and touched the ground with his bared feet. He pushed himself up with as much strength as he could gather, and walked to the outside with doubtful and weak steps.

Outside a small fire was on. The first person he recognized was Seunghyun, who was pacing around the fire, wrapping his knuckles with bandages and shaking his head violently. Aigiel was standing just a few meters from Seunghyun, arms crossed and the fire lightened the big gash on his left cheek. Youngbae was the one whispering something to the hunched figure at the edge of the fire. He kept moving his hands and lifting them up in frustration, gaining more frustrated growls from Seunghyun. The hunched figure had his head hidden behind his hands and his shoulders kept shaking as if he was crying.

“Jiyong,” Seungri whispered, his voice too low to be heard but somehow it was enough for everyone to turn their heads at his direction and for Jiyong’s shoulders to stiffen, though he didn’t look up.

“Jiyong,” he whispered again and the figure of Jiyong only flinched back and shook his head, as if he was terrified of him. Youngbae stood up and walked towards Seungri, his palms up.

“You shouldn’t be here. You must rest,” Youngbae started saying and tried to push Seungri back to the house. But Seungri only growled and pushed his hands away from him.

“Look at me!” he screamed, fury gathering up inside him. When Jiyong kept his face down, Seungri shouted, “I said ing look at me! You better look at me, damn it!”

Youngbae gasped. Seunghyun’s eyes widened. Aigiel lifted one of his eyebrows. Jiyong finally looked up to reveal red-rimmed eyes and deep eye bags.

Seungri gulped but he was going to do it: empower himself. He was going to do it. He straightened his back and looked directly into the eyes of Jiyong.

“You hurt me,” Seungri said. Jiyong’s face crumbled in agony at those words and his eyes were about to fell to the floor again when Seungri spoke again, “And this time it was you. You stopped. I am alive. But next time it won’t be you; it would be anyone else stronger than me. And many out there are stronger than me, and that is a real problem,” he spat out and pulled his eyebrows together.

“What I see is that we got two options,” Seungri lifted two fingers in the air, his hand was trembling but he kept going, “Either we keep this going on, you all saved my life at every chance until one of you fail. Or two, you teach me how to look out for myself,” he exhaled the air he had kept in and looked around with wide eyes, determined.

Jiyong was staring at him, brows furrowed and he started shaking his head.

“I’m tired! I’m tired of being always the one everyone has to save!” Seungri growled and looked at Youngbae with furious eyes.

“But you are not Alph…” Youngbae started saying but Seungri lifted a hand and shut him up.

“Don’t patronize me, you hear me!” Seungri exclaimed and looked at Youngbae and then at Seunghyun with murderous eyes, “I saw young people being killed by extremists back at the eighth quadrant. You saw them too, Seunghyun. And you and I know the truth. We,” he said pointing at his own chest, “are damned already. We can’t fight against any of you. We depend on your goodwill, on you being there for us! This mark…” he said showing the mark to all of them, “Is the proof of how damned we are.”

Seunghyun’s eyes flickered with something, he turned to look at the house were Daesung was. His wings fell to the floor.

“You are doing us no good. What if you can’t get to us? What about all the angels and demons at the town who were not born to be Alphas! What about them, huh? You are no heroes! You are condemning me! You are condemning us to death!”

“I will teach you,” a voice said from behind him. Seungri turned around and faced Minzy. She had a proud smile on her face, “ I will teach you if any of them don’t want to do so. I am with you.”

Seungri nodded and sighed relieved.

“I will teach you too,” Aigiel murmured from where he was.

“Thank you,” Seungri murmured and felt all the anger abandon his body. He looked at Jiyong whose eyes looked conflicted. The demon said nothing.

“You will need an angel to teach you how to use the anatomy you were given,” Seunghyun finally spoke, “We will start training once your injuries are healed. You asked for it, remember that once we start training,” he said with a frown.

Seungri mumbled a yes.

“Now go rest those injuries,” Seunghyun ordered him.

Jiyong growled at that but one look from Seungri shut him up. He merely looked at all the angels and demons with fury in his eyes and walked away. Youngbae followed his steps.

“Don’t mind him,” Aigiel murmured and walked to extinguish the fire. He gave Seungri an assuring smile, “He will understand sooner or later.”

Seungri spent to following two days in bed. And while the amount of attention both Layl and SooJoo gave to him bothered him at times, it also made him remember, for the first time, his family and how his life used to be. The topic was something he tried to avoid thinking about, the thought of not been able to see any of them again still devastated him.

“You are from the house of Victory!” were his father’s words the day he left them behind.

With a shake of his head, he pressed his lips together and forced himself to think of something else. That was when he remembered the books. His eyes roamed around the room in search for his satchel and found it right next to Daesung’s sleeping figure. By his side, both SooJoo and Layl were already sleeping. Seunghyun and Maeum were outside the small cabin talking to each other, their voices were muffled by the walls. Aigiel was nowhere in sight, as same as Youngbae and Jiyong.

“I am right here,” Minzy’s voice made him jump when he had already pushed himself up from the bed, “What is it?”

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