Chapter Text
Junior struggled helplessly at the rope that bind his hands. Nothing he did helped and the little strength he had was beginning to leave his body too. He felt vulnerable and afraid, as any ten-year-old would in his situation. He had no idea where he was or who his captors were. The only thought keeping him from bawling his eyes out was the calming thought of his mother’s embrace.
How long had he been awake and struggling for? A good hour? No one had come by to check up on him. He had no idea where the kidnappers were and no audible human sound had come through the closed barn doors to indicate they may be keeping a watchful eye outside.
Junior struggled on in silence, trying desperately with his small hands to slip through the ropes. His skinny arms had started aching and his wrists were chafed, even bleeding in some places. Still, he tried.
He’d almost given up; a good two hours having passed. He was slumped in the chair, looking up at the dark sky outside that was visible through the lone barn window towards the top of the adjacent wall.
He wished he could scream but he knew the sound would be muffled by the tape masked over his lips.
He was dozing off now, the day’s events and constant struggle draining him of his remaining energy.
CRASH
A loud noise from beyond the barn door awoke Junior.
“Keep it down! We don’t want to attract attention, moron!” Junior heard a gruff voice say. He tried to find a face to go with the voice, but he couldn’t remember anyone sounding familiar.
“That brat is probably still out cold. I can’t wait for the ransom money to come through.” Another squeaky voice said.
“Shut up. The boss decides what happens and where. Right boss?” The voice said expectantly.
“I don’t care, I just want the fucking money. Then we can get out of here.” This voice was smoother, and somehow chilling. Junior felt angry and humiliated. His heart ached for his parents and how worried they must be for his safety. He didn’t know many swear words but he repeated whatever he knew in his mind, trying to commit the voices he heard to his memory.
“What happens to the boy? Do we kill him after we’re done?” The gruff voice says again. The word kill sends a cold shiver down Junior’s spine, the gravity of the situation sinking in slowly. All this time he’d thought that if the bad guys got their money, he would be allowed to return home. But now…
Silent tears dripped from his eyes as he thought about never being able to see his family or his friends again. Heck, he even thought about the neighbor’s dog that barked and kept him up all night.
“Maybe, we’ll see what happens. Everything should be over in about an hour.” Junior heard the chilling voice say.
One hour. That’s all he had. Either he escaped somehow or he’d end up dead.
The hour went by agonizingly as Junior fought with all his strength. There was a surge of hope when he thought for a moment the ropes had come a little lose, but it didn’t last long. The door bust open and in walked two men, masks covering their faces.
All Junior had time to see was a tattoo on one of the man’s arm, barely peeking through the sleeve of his long shirt before a cloth was put over his eyes, blindfolding him.
“The brat’s awake.” The squeaky one said excitedly.
“Shut up, boss said no talking in front of him.” The men continued their work in silence as they brusquely handled him and tied the ropes tightly again behind his back.
“Walk.” The gruff one said and pushed Junior in a direction he assumed was the door. Junior had a mind to run, but he realized his legs were wobbly and he fell after taking several steps.
“Get up!” The squeaky one kicked Junior and yanked his arm hard to get the boy to stand up. Fresh tears appeared in Junior’s eyes as he struggled to take a breath and get back on his feet without the help of his arms.
“Walk properly or I’ll break your legs.” The gruff man said and Junior focused every ounce of his attention on trying to walk straight.
“Let’s-“
BOOM!
A loud explosion behind Junior sent him flying blindly somewhere in front of him. He could hear agonizing screams from behind him and smell wood and something else burning. He could feel the heat searing his back too and the pain of something crushing his right leg. He had no strength to stand up. His arms were useless, as were his eyes and now one of his legs.
Mom…
He closed his eyes, struggling to breath as he tried to remember her smiling face.
I’m sorry…
“Hey!” Junior heard the faint sound coming from somewhere. Perhaps he’d heard wrong.
“HEY!” There it was again. Junior opened his eyes but of course that didn’t help as his eyes were still blindfolded.
“Hey are you okay?!” He couldn’t see her but he could clearly hear the girl’s voice. Someone was calling out to him.
“Aaah!” He heard her shriek and for a moment, Junior wondered if she’d gotten hurt too. He tried to call out for her, but his voice drowned out behind the tape.
“Mmmmm! Mmmmmm!” He tried and tried again, trying to hear something back. It was getting harder to breath, the surrounding smoke beginning to choke him.
Moments ticked by and little by little, Junior’s hope of anyone rescuing him dwindled. He thought about the girl’s voice he’d heard. Had he been hallucinating? Or was it an angel? He closed his eyes, trying to imagine the striking beauty of an angel he’d once read about.
“He-hey!” A hand touched Junior’s cheek and Junior immediately opened his eyes again. “Are you-“ The voice trailed off coughing, the warmth of the hand on his face retracting for a second.
“S-sorry, we need to get out of here. It’s getting harder to breath.” The voice was high pitched, like a young girl’s but also very soothing. Junior wanted to hold on to that voice and lean into the blind warmth her hand had offered.
“I’m going to take off your binds first.” Junior felt the girl’s fingers brush against his as she tried to undo the tight knots, stopping only to cough for a few moments.
Junior felt the aching pain ease up a little as his limbs came loose. He immediately reached for the blindfold on his eyes, determined to see who his savior was.
Junior never forgot the first time he laid his eyes on an angel. She was far from what he thought they’d look like. This angel’s face was partially covered by a dirty handkerchief, doing almost nothing to keep the toxic air out. There were black, soot like smudges on her porcelain face and her hair was all over the place and yet, nothing took away from the beauty of her benevolent eyes. They were a piercing green, unlike any eyes Junior had ever seen before. Even in the chaos, Junior felt like he’d found peace just by looking at them.
“Come on, I’ll help you get to your feet. We have to get out of here, now! This place is about to come down.” Junior snapped out of his daze as the girl propped her arm under his shoulder to help him up.
He winced at the pressure both on his shoulder and his possibly broken leg, but he bit his tongue and held the tears back as he leaned on the girl and tried to walk through the wall of smoke covering them on either side.
He felt out of breath and realized that he still had the tape over his mouth. Slowly, he ripped it off, trying to be as gentle as possible.
“Th-this way.” The girl barely stammered out.
“Hmmm.” Was all Junior could say.
“We’re almost out. Come on!” The girl urged Junior.
It felt like hours before Junior felt the cold night air hit his face. Junior had never known how precious air was before that night. He breathed in greedily, letting the clean air fill his lungs.
“Come on, we have to get away from the barn!” The girl’s urgent voice called to him.
“B-but-“ Junior was about to say but she grabbed his arm and immediately began walking, still hauling part of his weight with her.
“It’s still dangerous. I don’t know how many of them were in there but we can’t risk it…”
As if on cue, a voice shouted from behind them.
“Oh no! Come on!!!” Junior didn’t look back and instinctively followed the girl.
“We need to hide somewhere. You’re leg isn’t good, so we can’t keep running.” Junior never thought he’d hate his body ever but at that moment, he wanted to curse at his own legs.
“You should go.” That was the first coherent sentence he’d spoken to her. The girl stopped for a moment and looked back at him, her eyes wide.
“What? No! Now come on!” She pulled Junior along. They could hear the angry voice behind them getting closer and closer as they climbed the hill in front of them.
“Look! Over there! There’s a house! Maybe we can find someone to help us!” A few meters away, stood a lone, dark house.
“I don’t think anyone is home…” Junior said.
“Maybe there is a phone.” Junior gave the girl points for being able to think straight in this situation.
“You fucking brats! I’m going to find you and kill you!!!” Junior didn’t wait to argue any longer and let the girl lead the way.
“Hurry!” To their surprise, the front door to the house was unlocked.
“Hello? Is anyone home?” It didn’t seem so. Most of the furniture in the hallway they could see were covered in white sheets sheened with dust. No one had been there for a while.
“Let’s look around. We might be able to find something to help us.” Junior was reluctant to let her hand go but he nodded and proceeded to look downstairs.
“I think I found something!” Junior heard the girl call from one of the rooms. He wobbled over as quickly as he could in the dim light coming from the moon outside. They hadn’t turned on the lights in fear of attracting their attacker.
“It’s a phone. I hope it works…” The girl gave Junior a hopeful glance before picking up the phone and putting it to her ear. “It works! Okay, let’s call the police!”
“Thank god…” Junior said, a sense of relief finally filling him.
“Hello? Hello?? Can you hear me?...”
Several moments ticked by as Junior heard the girl try her best to describe where they were. In the few moments they had, Junior tried to guess how old the girl was. Physically, she was a little shorter than he was, about as skinny as he was too. He guessed she was around his age and yet, she seemed so much older. Or maybe more mature…
“Okay, so the police said they’ll be on their way. For the meantime, let’s stay here and wait.”
“Okay…” They sat down on one of the sofas after removing the white cloth covering it. They sat in awkward silence for a few seconds before the girl finally spoke up, watching Junior as he stared at his bloodied wrists.
“You’re bleeding…” She said, sounding slightly saddened.
“Yeah…but it’s okay…” Junior said, trying to play it off as nothing.
“Sorry I don’t have anything to help you with…”
Surprised to hear this, Junior immediately looked up at her. “You did so much for me already…you don’t even know me…and yet…you helped me out of there.” Junior shuddered at the thought of being left alone, dying alone, his parents and police finding his charred body.
“I had to…it’s no biggie…”
“Yes it is!” Junior said getting to his feet, suddenly displaying his bratty ten year old self. He winced at the pain from his injured leg but still stood with determination.
“Umm…thanks… I guess…” She looked at him expectantly, hoping to catch his name.
“Umm…it’s Ju…I mean Jinyoung.” Junior said, giving her his real name.
“Thanks, Jinyoung.” She said. Junior wanted her to remove the handkerchief shielding her face so that he could see the smile he guessed she was giving him by the way her eyes squinted happily.
“No…thank you for saving my life.” Junior said smiling himself. “By the way, what’s your name?”
“My name is-“
CRASH
A loud crash at the front door cut off the girl’s sentence. They looked at each other terrified, scrambling for each other’s safety.
“I know you’re in here, you stupid kids. I’m going to find you and I’m going to kill you!” The man’s voice bellowed in the empty house.
“What do we do?” For the first time, the girl looked unsure and looked at Junior with scared eyes.
Something caught Junior’s attention. “Those double doors, they lead out to the backyard. We need to run again. If we stay here, he’ll eventually find us.” Junior said as quietly as he could.
“Okay. I’ll help you, come on!” They stood together slowly, careful not to make a single noise as they heard the heavy footsteps walking about in the front of the house.
“Let’s go!” They managed to open the door as silently as possible and were almost out of the door when they heard the terrifying voice behind them.
“HEY! YOU!”
“RUN!!!” Junior yelled, trying to clobber along on his injured leg as much as he could. It was his fault for not being careful because suddenly the earth got closer to him as he fell hard on his knees. The pain from the pressure on his leg blinded him for a moment as he called out.
“Come on, get up! He’s right there!!!” The girl shouted, trying to pull at Junior’s arm.
“No, it’s no use, just go! Please!!!” Junior insisted through gritted teeth.
“Are you crazy? He’s going to kill us! Come on, Jinyoung, please.” He could hear the desperate tears in her voice.
“GOT YOU!” Junior felt the large hand pulling him up by the hair on his skull.
“NO!!! Let him go!!!!” The girl screamed and shouted.
Junior did nothing to move or fight back. Somehow, he accepted his fate. Fate had it written that he was meant to die tonight and it would happen no matter how far he ran. It was too much for his ten-year-old mind to wrap around but he still understood.
“Shut up stupid girl. I’m going to kill your little friend here and you’re going to watch! Then I’m going to kill you next!” The man switched from holding Junior up by the hair to a head lock in which he almost choked the boy.
“No…please…let him go…” The girl had fallen to the ground, nearly begging the man now.
“How the mighty fall. Your rich parents can’t do shit now!” Junior was unsure who exactly he was talking to but he had no time to decipher anything. “OW!!!” The man screamed loudly, letting go of Jinyoung who tried to wobble away immediately.
“YOU STUPID BITCH! I’M BLEEDING!” Lying beside the man was a big stone the girl must’ve picked up from the ground and thrown at his head.
Junior stopped and turned on the spot to see the man run towards the girl.
“RUN!!!” He screamed at the girl. Before them was nothing but darkness and to his unfortunate surprise, he realized they’d ended up on a cliff. His fear came true as the girl stopped and turned to look at the man who’d noticed it too and started laughing like a maniac.
“Nowhere to run now. Time to die.” In the darkness of the night, lit only by the paleness of the moon, Junior saw the man pull out a shiny revolver from inside his pocket and point it at the girl. He counted the seconds of deafening silence that followed.
One. Two. Three.
BANG!
His angel was gone. His beautiful angel, whose name he didn’t even know, with those mesmerizing eyes. She was gone.