Chapter 9: The Ambush
The library’s warm, dust-moted silence was a tangible thing Min carried with him as he stepped out into the evening. He hugged a worn volume of Rilke to his chest, a shield. Jung had smiled—actually smiled—when Min mentioned it over breakfast. "Read to me later," he'd said, fingertips brushing the nape of Min's neck. The ghost of that touch still lingered, a confusing warmth against the chill of the coming night.
He took the shortcut. A miscalculation. The alley was a suture between the university's ornate history and the city's grim machinery. Neon from
The alley was a suture between the university's ornate history and the city's grim machinery. Neon from a broken signage bled a fizzy pink light over wet cobblestones, and the air smelled of greasy rain and rotting marigolds from a nearby shrine. Min walked faster, his shoes scattering a few abandoned bottle caps.
The poetry book felt foolish now, a child’s blanket. He thought of Jung’s rooftop garden, that kiss so full of devastating promise. A black van idled up ahead, its side door rusting. He dropped his gaze, a habit from a lifetime of making himself invisible, and moved to pass it.
The door slid open with a metallic shriek.
A sack, rough-hewn and reeking of concrete dust, engulfed his head. The world vanished into scratchy darkness. He sucked in a shocked breath, and the taste of burlap filled his mouth.
“N-n—” was all he got out before a fist drove into his stomach.
The air left him in a silent, agonized rush. He folded, the book tumbling from his numb fingers. Hands, too many of them, grabbed him. They yanked his arms behind his back, and a plastic zip-tie seared a line of fire around his wrists.
“Easy with the merchandise,” a voice grunted. “Boss said not to dent him too much yet.”
They hauled him into the van. His shoulder hit the metal floor. The engine roared, and the vehicle lurched forward, tyres squealing against the wet alley. He tried to breathe, but the sack clung to his nose and mouth with every panicked inhalation.
“Please,” he gasped, the word muffled by cloth.
A boot nudged his ribs, not a kick, just a reminder. “Quiet.”
He lay there, cataloguing the pain. The throb in his wrists. The deep ache in his gut. A new, sharper fear lanced through him, and his free hand, trapped beneath him, fumbled to press against his lower abdomen. He waited for a different pain, a catastrophic one. Silence from within. He focused on the van’s movement, the turns, trying to plot the city in his mind until he was utterly lost.
The drive felt endless. The van eventually stopped, and the doors opened to a new orchestra of sounds: distant traffic, the hum of industrial refrigerators, the drip of water. They dragged him out. His feet scrambled for purchase on uneven ground.
They walked him inside somewhere vast and echoey. The air turned cold and stale, smelling of diesel oil and damp cement.
The sack was ripped from his head.
He blinked, eyes watering in the fluorescent glare. He stood on the concrete floor of a warehouse. Racks of empty pallets climbed into the shadows. A single man sat on a metal folding chair in the center of the empty space, illuminated by a hanging work light.
Vikorn. Min had never seen him, but he knew. The man had a scar that split his left eyebrow and trailed down his cheek like a crack in porcelain. He was smoking a thin cigarette, the ash glowing red in the gloom.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Vikorn said. His voice was surprisingly light, almost melodic. He stood and walked a slow circle around Min. “Jung’s little secret. He’s been hiding you pretty good. Had to wait for you to get brave enough to leave the nest.”
Min remained silent, his heart hammering against his ribs. He kept his hand cradled protectively over his stomach.
Vikorn stopped in front of him. He blew smoke into Min’s face. Min didn’t flinch. “Heard you’re full of fancy words. Poetry and shit.” He reached out and tapped the slight, firm curve of Min’s belly with two fingers. “Looks like you’re full of something else, too.”
Min jerked back, a small, involuntary sound escaping him.
Vikorn’s smile was a dead thing. He backhanded Min across the face.
The crack was horribly loud. Min’s head snapped to the side, his vision flashing white. A coppery warmth flooded his mouth where his teeth cut his cheek. He swayed, the taste of blood and fear thick on his tongue.
“That’s for making me hunt you down,” Vikorn said, his voice still casual. He pulled a phone from his pocket, dialed, and put it on speaker. It rang once, twice.
Jung’s voice answered, a low vibration that somehow made the warehouse feel colder. “Vikorn.”
“Jung! Miss me?” Vikorn’s eyes gleamed under the work light. “I found something you lost. Or someone. Has a real pretty mouth. Well, it’s a bit bloody now, but you get the idea.”
A pause on the line. Static, or maybe just a deadly, controlled silence. “Let me hear him.”
Vikorn shoved the phone against Min’s bleeding lips. “Go on. Tell your daddy to come and get you.”
Min’s throat locked. He looked at the phone, at the scarred face grinning at him. He thought of the rooftop, of the whisper you’re more than a body. The lie of it choked him now. This was all he was. Bait.
“Jung,” he managed, his voice fractured and wet. “Don’t—”
Vikorn cuffed him hard on the ear. “The line!”
Min flinched, the sting bringing fresh tears to his eyes. He swallowed blood. He repeated the words Vikorn had demanded, his voice shaking but clear. “He says… come alone. If you want your little bitch and your brat alive.”
The silence from the phone this time was absolute, a vacuum. Min heard a soft, sharp exhalation. Then the line went dead.
Vikorn took the phone back, looking pleased. “Good boy.” He pocketed it, then gestured to his men. “Make him comfortable. We’ve got maybe an hour.”
One of the thugs forced Min down onto his knees. The concrete was icy. Another produced a roll of duct tape. The ripped tape screeched as a strip was torn off and slapped over his mouth, silencing him. The finality of it was worse than the zip-ties.
Vikorn crouched in front of him, smoking his cigarette down to the filter. “He’ll come,” he said, almost confidentially. “Man like him, it’s not about the kid. It’s about someone touching his stuff.” He flicked the butt away. It skittered across the floor, a tiny dying star. “He’s gonna walk right in here. And then you get to watch what happens to people who take what’s mine.”
Min knelt in the pooling light, the metallic taste in his mouth, the cold seeping into his bones. He waited, not for rescue, but for the storm he had just summoned. He could feel the tiny, silent flutter beneath his palm, a secret heartbeat echoing the one hammering in his own chest.