Rule #38: Everyone makes bad calls

Mrs. Xiong was walking across the living room of the safe house when a sharp pain sliced through her head.

Yuan was currently asleep in her bedroom, still recovering from being kidnapped and there was no one else in the house.

She groaned and stumbled into the kitchen to grab a glass of cold water. She took a gulp  and hissed when the pain came back.

Mrs. Xiong closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her head to try to ease the pain when images started flashing hazily in her head.

Her eyes brows knit together as images of herself in a hospital holding a swaddled child that didn't look like Yuan.

She gasped in pain as another image flashed of her clapping as a little boy dressed in blue waddled towards her, taking his first steps.

She squeezed her eyes tight as the image changed to the little boy a few years older.

"Yi-en! Say hi to ma!"

Mrs. Xiong knelt to the ground when the pain was becoming unbearable. As the image of the young boy smiling up at her.

His smile was so familiar.

Who was she seeing?

Why was she seeing him?

She was never around a baby boy before and she sure as hell never had a son.

"Ma!" He giggled. "I love you!"

"Ma!"

"Ma!"

"MA!" Yuan screamed when she saw her mother on the ground. She raced over to her and put her arm around.

"Are you okay?" Yuan asked as she helped her stand up.

Mrs. Xiong let out a little sigh when the images started to fade and the pain lessened, "I'm fine. I was just dizzy."

"You should sleep for a while." Yuan said in worry as she helped her mother walk to her room.

Mrs. Xiong hummed in response before holding her daughter tighter than normal.

Who is Yi-en?

-----

"You were blonde." He breathed out in terror as he walked next to her.

Saera nodded sadly, "My dad made me do it. I didn't want to do it, but he forced me to."

"Oh  god." Mark felt like throwing up. "Why would he want that?"

Saera shrugged, "I don't know. He just said that I would look pretty like that, but I was young and I thought it was so weird, but he wouldn't give me food and he wouldn't acknowledge me in the house until I agreed to it."

"When was this?" Mark asked.

Saera laughed, "I was 11. It was long before The Collector started killing."

"He dyed your hair when you were 11!?" Mark exclaimed in disbelief.

Saera nodded, "So my mom wasn't happy when she saw me come from the salon. She fought with my dad for about a whole week before she snuck me out of the house to get it re-dyed, but the hair stylist said that because it was bleached I had to wait a whole month."

"And when that month was up?"

"I got it dyed black and dad threw a fit. It was…it was the first time I had ever seen my dad hit my mom." She whispered shamefully.

Mark closed his eyes before sighing, "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, well, I never learned why he was so fixated on blonde hair and when I dyed it black, that's when he started going after blonde targets. Sang Min didn't start killing until 10 years ago. My dad was killing long before that."

"." Mark said in disgust.

Saera laughed soullessly, "The bleach was really strong that it even messed up some of my hair. It made it brassy and orange, that's why I highlight my hair."

Mark watched as Saera flipped her hair over and showed him a part of her hair where her pink highlights were wearing off and revealed the bronze stands. "I used cheap hair dye so it usually doesn't do much."

Mark reached out and touched her hair, feeling himself choke up, "How come you never told me any of this earlier?"

Saera shrugged as they headed to the precinct, "At first I didn't even think that your case was connected to my past, so it didn't seem necessary. But when you told me that The Collector had a pattern, I started putting it together but I held out hope that it wasn't connected. By the time I figured it all out, I was too scared that you'd hate me."

Mark's lips turned down, "I don't hate you."

"When I realized that I was in love with you, it was too late." She said softly, smiling at his comment. 

Mark felt his heart skip a beat as shivers racked through his body.

Saera sighed, "I never thought I was capable of selfish love. I was too broken and scarred to fall in love with someone who was actually good for me. I was sure that I would only fall in love with someone who would hurt me. I kept waiting for the moment when you'd hurt me, but I guess I was too scared that things were going so well that I self-destructed and hurt you first."

Mark fisted his hands and closed his eyes tightly as he ignored the pain shooting through his chest. She sounded so defeated when it came to him that it scared him.

It scared him that she might not try to fight for him. It scared him that she would just let him go thinking that it would be best for him.

But she was what was best for him.

He was just too scared to admit that.

"You don't deserve what happened to you when you were young. Don't act like it was your fault."

Once they reached the main doors, Mark pulled it open and stepped through before turning. Saera was still standing outside, staring at him without making a move to enter.

"What are you doing?" He asked in confusion.

Saera gave him a smile, "I have things I need to do."

"Where are you going?" He asked while walking back towards her.

"I can't stay around here, Mark. I need a plan in case we don't get proof before that videos gets leaked. I need to get out." She said while stepping away.

Mark's brows knitted together, "What do you mean, 'get out'?"

"I'm not so sure, myself. I need to figure that out."

Mark reached out and gently tugged her close to him and stared into her eyes. For the first time since he met her, he was actually able to read the emotion in her eyes.

There was no poker face.

There was no mask.

She made no attempt to hide.

This was Saera is her truest, rawest form.

She was scared, she was lost and she was desperate.

He softly squeezed her arm and dragged the tips of his fingers down her skin. God, he missed touching her and being around her.

He just missed her.

"Don't…don't go too far."

Saera's eyes watered when she heard his warm voice and smiled, "I'll try."

-----

"Holy ." Jackson breathed out as Mark finished filling him in.

Mark nodded, it made it no easier telling the story twice, "I know."

"I feel like I'm going to throw up." Jackson muttered while twisting his face in disgust.

"I know." Mark repeated quietly.

Jackson looked over at Mark, "What are we going to do?"

"Protect her. Make sure that we don't let her take the fall for someone else." Mark said firmly.

Jackson shot him a weak smile, "It's nice to see that you're at least kind of a decent person."

"Excuse me?" Mark scoffed with a raised brow.

Jackson shrugged, "You're still butthurt about her lying to you even though you now know that she really didn't have a choice. But at least you're still looking after her. It shows that maybe she still has a chance with you."

"My perspective is changing." Mark said defensively.

"Good." Jackson said, "Because if you really love her, you should be able to see it through her eyes too."

Mark ran his teeth along his lip, "I just don't know what to do and where to start. I made her this promise that we have her back, but how are we supposed to do that?"

"I would try to find something to connect Sang Min to her father. You said that she mentioned that they were 'business partners', right? We need to prove that they know each other ,because once we make that connection, it'll be impossible for him to be off the hook."

Mark nodded, "That's a start."

Jackson groaned and stood up, "You know that I got your back, whatever you need to held her, you can ask me and I'll do whatever I can. After all she's been through, we can't let her rot in jail. I'll some of my contacts to look into it as well."

"Thanks." Mark muttered.

"Don't give up man, we got this." Jackson said as he patted him on the back before walking away.

Mark chewed on his lip as he turned back to stare dumbly at his computer.

Every time he started to focus, his mind would fall right back to Saera's past. He used to think that he had it hard with his mother and sister, but he couldn't fathom what Saera went through.

He didn't even know it was possible for someone with her past to turn out into such a normal seeming adult.

But the more time he spent dazed, the more time he spent not helping Saera. Mark opened up a  search engine and keyed in Park Yoo Chang.

The information didn't help him at all. Just like Saera said, everything about her father was average. There wasn't even a parking ticket under his name.

He lived his life spotlessly.

That's when a thought crossed his mind.

The Chief has information.

Long before they suspected Sang Min, Kwon was looking into Yoo Chang, that was why he had so much information in his safe.

Mark looked into the Chief's office and on his bottom lip when he saw that it was empty. He would love to be able to just tell the Chief why he needed information on Yoo Chang, but it would only look more suspicious.

If he found out that Saera was connected to Yoo Chang, he would most likely drop everything to arrest her.  Chances are that Kwon knew nothing about Yoo Chang's family and Mark wasn't about to fill him in.

If there was anything Mark learned from Saera, it was that there was always more than one way to get what you want.

Mark stood up casually while glancing around before sn