Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance (13 page)

I heard doors slamming at the front of the van, and I saw lights blaring behind. Voices yelled out, and there seemed to be a meeting ground of sorts emerging, feet smacking concrete, boots and high heels.

Oh-seong and Bit-na and Hyun-jun.

“I have him in the back,” I heard someone say, probably Oh-seong. “I’m going to get him out now. But you have to prepare the prison. I don’t want the officials getting all weirded out about us. We need to make sure we have everything prepared nice and right. We can put him in the living room first, but make sure the upstairs gets good.”

A hand came up from underneath the tarp. It groped about the darkness, lifting off my cover and bringing on the morning dawn.

“Here he is,” Oh-seong said. It was him who was talking. I could put two and two together. “You guys have to remember not to act so coy. And don’t be shy with the officials. They’re not the types to negotiate.”

There were other men wearing suits and ties, women dressed in sharp skirts. Blouses and professional wear. They manhandled me, yanking me off from the van’s backside, dropping me to the ground like a piece of stone.

My body shook, my shoulders shivering, my stomach hurting. I had not had a real meal in ages.

“Bring him to the hotel,” Oh-seong said. “Bit-na, are you sure you want to do this?”

Bit-na came to my side. Her heels did, at least. She wore a shimmering sundress, and I could see into it. Shimmering lace stockings covered her thighs. Beautiful, but not the same way my dream woman was. Bit-na had a viciousness to her, and elegant strike like a snake’s tooth. About to inject poison with one wrong look.

“I’m ready,” she said. “You can have your break now.”

Oh-seong pulled Bit-na against himself. The other men and women watched on as he locked his lips tight around her mouth, squeezing her breasts, then kicking me once with his foot.

“If he tries to escape,” he said, “then just drop him dead. He’s better that way than alive.”

Oh-seong walked back to the front of the van. The door opened. I assumed he got in, because the van drove off.

Bit-na pointed to the men and women around us. “Get the room prepared. And make sure the premises is all secured.”

The others split off as if driven away by a spell. They were underneath her command all right, as the girlfriend of Oh-seong.

That’s what I could figure out between her and him. She was maybe a prostitute of sorts. For sure now, that’s what I could see. It made me sad that some girls had to fall into this line of work.

But then again, some women were vicious—just naturally so—and would take this kind of job to secure a position of power.

People who were unable to find their way in the private sector, in the “real world,” would fall into places like this.

And for that—for fighting her way in life—I could not blame her for her choices.

There were women like that in the Double Dragons. And then there were women like that in the Twin Swords.

“Aren’t you just a bundle of joy?” Bit-na said, yanking me upwards. She slumped me against her shoulder, commanding one of the men nearby to come back and pick me up. We walked together, the three of us, down a beaten path, a dirt road shrouded with the green leaves overhead, a canopy of tree limbs, dying birds’ nests, and the sounds of a vibrant forest.

“Are you really giving me up to the Korean government?” I said, smiling. “When did the Twin Swords become so good?”

“We’ve always been like this,” she said. “We’ve been planting small insurgents in your organization for a while now.”

“What happened to Hae-il?”

Bit-na smirked. “He’s not that important anymore. What happens to him, well, you’ll see.”

We made a turnaround in the forest jungle. Deep within a clearing, there was a house. Made of brick, two-story, and having a chimney, the house seemed to be out of a storybook, surrounded by beautiful grasses and tulips. Well-maintained, as if a grandmother lived here.

It seemed too much like a trap. The government officials would never fall for this, would they? Or if they bothered to come, they would come armed. Ready to arrest everyone on the premises. I did not understand what the Twin Swords were up to.

Unless they had officials of their own in the Korean government itself.

I would not have been surprised if they did—the Double Dragons did as well—but we, as criminal organizations, tried to avoid the Korean government on account of snitches.

“You’re really going to hand me over then,” I said, defeated. If I were committed to the hands of the government, I would never get away.

I would never have a chance to dismantle what my parents started, and begin a new life someplace else, someplace better.

It’s not like I had killed people. It’s not like I had done anything truly abominable.

Though I was willing to now in order to get out.

Cracking a couple of skulls? I would’ve done it in a heartbeat, if I had the strength to do so.

If only I could muster up the adrenaline to power me through. In a couple of moments, I could flip around, push the men aside, and knock Bit-na out.

Would it be possible…

“God have mercy on me,” I whispered.

“I hope so as well,” Bit-na said.

“I think he’s more upset with you than anything,” I said.

“And why is that?”

“A beautiful woman like you? Dating a poor guy like that?”

I spat. Then I quickly stepped on my saliva, right as we neared the house.

“You can talk like that,” Bit-na said. “But it doesn’t change the reality of who he is. He’s the king of the jungle now. You’re nothing more than a lone antelope. Can’t even run.”

“And what about you?” I said to the man in the suit and tie holding me up. “Don’t you want more in life? I could give you more in the Double Dragons.”

The man laughed.

“He has everything he needs with us,” Bit-na said for him. “Don’t you see that? You’ve lost the war. In just a matter of moments, we took you down from your stage. Your pedestal. Not even the public loves you anymore. They’ve forgotten you—worse than knowing who you really are, I guess.”

“And I suppose they’ve done this with the help of the Twin Swords? Am I supposed to believe you’ve toppled my popstar empire in just a matter of months?”

Bit-na flinched for a moment, just as I had when they forced me into the back of the van. I noticed a sense of anxiety flickering across her eyes. I had scared her, but why?

“We are strong,” she said, nodding. “We’re much stronger than you ever were.”

“That sounds like something out of an action flick,” I said. “But be real: were you really able to stop us in a matter of months? Or are you trying to just bring me into your world of lies. Where I know you have not much to gain from being a man’s whore.”

The suited man in the tie smacked my face. I dropped to the ground, my stomach caving in. His foot driving against my sternum.

Bit-na pushed him away, shouting at him. “Stop,” she said. “Stop it right now.” The man glanced at her in surprise. But he stopped. “If we kill him,” she said, “then we’re going to have real problems. Oh-seong was just joking. Don’t listen to him about this deal. That’s why he left me with Jong-soo instead. If he were here, he would’ve beheaded him by now. And then we would get nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

She crouched low against the forest floor, picking me up slowly. The other man wrapped his arm underneath my armpit, tugging me along as he had before.

“I need him alive,” Bit-na said.

She needs me alive because the money she’ll get from the deal of handing me in is her escape.

Isn’t it?

“Here we are,” Bit-na said, knocking on the front door. It had an arch over it with the designs of a traditional Japanese teahouse. It looked strange and out of place here in the Korean wilderness. Maybe I was right, this girl, this Bit-na was a half-Japanese woman.

There wasn’t a doorbell to ring, so we had to wait for someone to come. Bit-na stared at me, looking into my eyes. It was the first time I was able to truly see her, face to face, without the bars between us or people blocking our way. She had dark brown eyes, and straight eyebrows. A long nose, with around heart-shaped chin—her chin reminded me of a dagger.

One of the men in suits from before who was standing around the van came to answer. They were already inside, the Twin Swords, setting up shop. The man let us in, and then the other who was holding me, left my side, abandoning Bit-na to carry me all the way to a couch in the middle of a living room.

A television sat blank on top of a wooden table. A crank fan hung overhead. I did not feel air conditioning on—this was an old house, before air conditioning was even invented.

Underneath my feet were planks of wood, the floorboards covered up in rugs. By the windows were women whispering, prepping up for a meeting of sorts. The other men were adjusting their ties, shining their shoes, the scent of perfume and cologne wafting in the air.

“Are you really going to hand me in then?” I said to Bit-na. She sat down next to me, and was leafing through a magazine on the table before us. What a strange set up, this house. I had no idea if they built it for the specific purpose of handing me in or what.

“We really are,” she said, casually. After flipping through the front part of the magazine, she put it down back on the table, crossing her legs and looking at me again straight in the eyes. She pouted. “And it’s too bad, because you really are good-looking. They’re going to do so much to that face, you probably won’t come out recognizable.”

“You and I could get away,” I whispered. Low enough for no one to hear. Low enough for no chance of attention. “We could run for the hills. Quite literally.”

“Let me get you something to drink,” she said. “Your lips are looking chapped. And you’re going to be doing a lot of talking in the next couple of days.”

With a flourish of her hand, and a clacking of her heels, she turned for the kitchen, only a couple of feet away from my very own. I stared at the heels of my shoes, wondering if I would get out through the window.

It would only take me pushing out the woman. Then I could jump and maybe force the lock. Of course, not in that order.

Bit-na came back. She carried on a tray chai tea and a pair of sandwiches. “I thought you looked hungry as well,” she said, taking a bite out from one of the sandwiches. “Here, have some.”

Her hands leaned forward, egg and cheese pouring out from the side of crusty bread. I leaned forward myself, tasting the edges, salivating all the while.

“And don’t think I’m just being generous to you because,” she said. “Count yourself lucky. I’m taking pity.”

I figured I was making headway. At first, it didn’t seem like we were getting anywhere at all.

With just a little bit more suave, I might be able to persuade her into doing what I want.

“How did you end up working for him?” I said. Making small talk might bring her down some. Especially considering she probably had no recourse during her days. Being the right-hand woman of a kingpin was no easy task. At any given time, she could simply be disposed of, thrown to the side like garbage. Useless, and then what? Oh-seong would simply take up a new girl. He would have someone else at his disposal.

Bit-na pushed aside her brown hair. It had a thickness to it, a weight that Korean women did not possess naturally. The roots were done in braids. Definitely a military father. I would’ve bet my life on it.