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A monster without purpose is twice the monster as one that knows its goal. Just as murder demands blood, fury demands motion, else it become stagnant. And in stagnant waters grow fates worse than death. Therein lies the problem: rage can stumble, can grow weary, can coil itself up deep, deep down until it seems lost, but sooner or later, the spring must be cut. The blood must surge. The monster never dies.It was just a shame that the monster never slept.Ji-woo stifled a yawn as she leaned against the railing. As she shifted her weight slightly on her feet, stemming any oncoming pricklings of restlessness. The club below her, nestled deep, deep within the Seoul underbelly, was… tedious. The music blared too loudly. The lights flashed too dizzyingly. The bartenders could barely pour a beer without making a mess and the clientele could barely drink one without making an even bigger mess.And there she was, watching over them from the top level of the club, trying not to grimace at each ill-coordinated elbow that jostled into her. She had been a cop once. A good cop even, a rising star through the ranks. She had been a gangster once. An excellent one, trained by Choi Mu-jin himself, trusted to infiltrate the police and report directly back to him. She had been all that and she had given it all up to be a murderer. A mass murderer. Not only one of Seoul’s most wanted, one of Korea’s most wanted. Wanted in connection with the slaughter of slaughter of Dongcheon’s leadership. Wanted in connection with the sparking of the vicious gang war that was tearing the city apart. Wanted for identity fraud. For having aided the distribution of narcotics. For having stolen evidence from a police locker. And so on and so on. Oh, and not to mention: wanted in connection with the murder of Detective Jeon Pil-do.She was all that, and here she was. Underpaid hired muscle running security in a seedy club somewhere in the shadows of Seoul, without a name and with no questions asked. Turns out even monsters still have a survival instinct. To some degree, at least.Sometimes, she really did think it was a shame.Down in the far right corner of the bar, a couple had stopped dancing to press themselves against the wall and make out furiously. She would have to keep an eye out – she knew the boss wouldn’t want a repeat of the last time that went a little too far in public. Another sweep of the toilets might be good too, just to keep track of which hands the drugs were passing through – she had learned the hard way on her first that, even if the club officially stuck to the laws on narcotics, officially was only a word.At least the night had been quiet so far. Unfortunately, the night had been quiet so far. She had only had to intervene a couple of times. Once to glare at someone until he paid for his drink and once to give the bouncers at the front door a hand with someone trying to smuggle alcohol in (on that drug, the club was more than happy to stick to the law). Most of the night, she had just had to stand around, keeping an eye out.She was supposed to be on a beach right now, listening to the waves. Fishing, maybe, in a small wooden boat with a small case of food and drinks next to her, rocking gently up and down with the tide. Or maybe just sitting down in the sand, soft and warm beneath her, the birds singing in the air above her. If she closed her eyes, maybe she could fool herself into believing she could smell the salt in the breeze.“Oi!” Not that she got the chance to close her eyes. One of the boss’s… assistants (she wasn’t sure what the official title was, if there was any) jabbed her with more force than was strictly necessary. He then jabbed his finger towards a trio of guys at the bar. “Get them out.”Sometimes, she wondered if the boss and all his assistants would be able to take her in a fair fight. She knew better than to test it – she was working here with no questions asked, but with how often her face had been plastered over the news, she knew those questions had to be there. “What have they done?”The boss’s assistant scoffed at her. “Just get them out.”No questions asked went both ways, she supposed. And at least it would give her something better to do than lean against the railing and brood. She rolled her shoulders back, stretched out her arms, her fingers, and took one last look at the target. Three of them, one a little on the tall side, the other two average, all mildly fit, all definitely drunk. It would be over quickly.And the trio certainly thought so. After she had made her way down the stairs, through the crowded dance floor, and had told them (politely, of course) that they were being kicked out of the club, their first reaction was to raise their eyebrows in mocking disbelief. One of them even snickered. Chuckled something along the lines of, “if you want to take me out, why don’t you—”A good person would have tried to reason with them. A monster would draw first blood. Mu-jin had taught her that, hadn’t he? Take advantage of surprise, strike their weak points, don’t try to overpower them, try to fight faster than them, you’ve got better balance, better stamina, and whatever you do, don’t hold back, don’t hesitate.She was right too: it was over quickly. The one who had chuckled had only just started to double over with his lungs knocked out of him by a punch to the solar plexus by the time her boot was slamming down onto the tall one’s knee with a satisfying crack. The third one tried to turn to grab his bottle. She grabbed his hair first. Smashed his face onto the bar counter.It was over. When the first one regained enough of his breath to look unsteadily up at her, he knew it. He started raising his fist and dropped it before he even made it halfway. Part of Ji-woo was disappointed. Part of her didn’t want to stop. But all the monster said was, “Do you want me to get angry?”*Home was a concept Ji-woo couldn’t trust anymore. Home had been where her dad hadn’t seemed to live, before he got murdered outside of it. Home had been where she had been given the promise of revenge by her father’s greatest friend, until it turned out that Mu-jin was the one she needed to kill. Home had been an empty, spartan flat, until she had been forced to run and realise that she had never really cared for the flat at all.Of all the homes she had experienced, of all the homes she could imagine, the only one that seemed like it could be hers was a small cottage by a beach, somewhere where the tide made the waves rush through the sunlight. But that had never been real, had it? It had just been a dream. Just a young, naïve dream. And monsters aren’t supposed to have dreams like that.So, where was home now?She didn’t know. Frankly, she didn’t care. As long as she running on survival instinct and survival instinct only, she couldn’t let herself put it as a priority. Any home she made that wasn’t a cell in Korea’s highest security prison wasn’t likely to last long. And frankly, really frankly, she was starting to resent the people that insisted that she could have a home.“Stop fussing!” Like every night, the second Ji-woo had stepped over the threshold and into the apartment of a stranger, she was accosted immediately. And like every night, the nurse only seemed more determined that they weren’t strangers. “Sit down.”Unfortunately, every night – every morning, really, considering the dark blue that was starting to pierce through the haze of Seoul’s light pollution-blanketed night – Ji-woo was too tired to do much else than make vague grumbling noises. “It was a quiet night.”The nurse scoffed as she grabbed a chair from the table. As she led Ji-woo over to it and practically shoved her down into it. “You say that every night.”The first night, she hadn’t said much at all. She had barely had the blood in her to breathe, let alone form words. Hell, she had barely been able to think and she definitely didn’t remember much after the fight, just blood, just her shoulder slamming awkwardly into a wall, just… just waking up with a start to find the nurse with too many bandages in her hands and a needle between her teeth and then waking up again alone.“Take your shirt off.” Alone until the nurse had popped her head back in to make sure she hadn’t died overnight. And until the nurse had said that she had seen her face on the news and she needed to get her out of the hospital immediately. “Come on,” the nurse tsked at her when she didn’t follow the order, “there’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”Ji-woo couldn’t remember making the decision to find the nurse again. In retrospect, she supposed it was logical – the nurse had helped her once and she needed medical attention badly. But, in retrospect, it was also a huge gamble. She wasn’t sure she had made the right decision.“Come on!” Ji-woo winced at the urgency in the nurse’s voice. The nurse had barely waited for her to step through the door before she had grabbed Ji-woo’s jacket off her and Ji-woo fully expected that she would rip her shirt off her if she thought she had to. So, she sighed and took it off. The nurse was on her immediately. “Lean forward.”Ji-woo leaned forward. Ji-woo let the nurse inspect her for injuries, for bruises, for the memories of a good night’s work. She made a hmm when she didn’t find any. “I told you it was a quiet night.”“You’ve got a new bruise here,” the nurse jabbed a spot Ji-woo didn’t know had been hit. But at least she closed her first aid kit. At least she picked Ji-woo’s shirt back up from the floor and tossed it at her. “You do say that every night, you know? I’m tired of having to stitch you up. One of these days…”Ji-woo shrugged on her shirt without bothering to respond to the nurse. She would have to leave soon anyways – the handful of months she had spent taking advantage of her was already too long. She didn’t want to put her in danger and Ji-woo knew that her presence was danger. “I’m going to go have a shower.”She made it all of three steps away from the chair before she heard the nurse sigh behind her. Before she heard the nurse say something that she absolutely shouldn’t’ve. “Ji-woo?”She froze. Glanced back at the nurse (and she was only ever going to call her the nurse and nothing more personal) and put as much emphasis on her words as possible. “I never told you my name.”“Still?” The nurse rolled her eyes. She had figured out who Ji-woo was pretty quickly after Ji-woo had come back to her that first night. She had just needed to glance at notifications on her phone to figure it out. But if she was harbouring a wanted fugitive called Yoon Ji-woo and she was knowingly harbouring a wanted fugitive called Yoon Ji-woo, well… “You don’t have to pretend that I’m stupid. You… You don’t have to pretend.”Ah, but pretending was one thing Ji-woo was very, very good at, wasn’t it? “I’m having a shower.”“Ji-woo…” She could hear the nurse biting something back behind her. “Wait.” Unfortunately she didn’t manage to make it as far as the bathroom before she got intercepted. “Please.”She sighed. Deliberately audibly. Shot a glare at the nurse.“I…” At least her glare still worked. The nurse faltered. Swallowed. Tried to straighten herself back up and appear confident. Ji-woo had to give her credit for that. “Whatever they say about you on the news, you don’t seem that bad. You saved me, once.” Her arm did a weird motion, an aborted stretch towards Ji-woo. “But what’s on the news… Do you know how many gunshot patients I’ve seen I the hospital in the last couple of months?”Ji-woo shrugged. She was neither gangster nor cop anymore.“More than I’ve ever seen before. More than anyone’s ever seen before!” Her arm made that small, weird twitch again. She ended up wrapping her arms around her tightly. “Even if you weren’t Seoul’s greatest mass murder, or whatever, it’s dangerous out there. Okay?”As long as Ji-woo remembered, she had grown up as the kid of a gangster. She had been forced to learn to fight early and she had been forced to re-learn how to fight over and over and over again. Out there was always dangerous for a monster. “I can handle myself.”“That’s not…” If there was any space left of the nurse to squeeze her arms tighter around herself, she would’ve. Instead, she just closed her eyes and cursed. “Look, maybe you can stay home tomorrow. We could order some supper together and—”The nurse had to know what the answer would be. Ji-woo thought it best not to keep her waiting. “Go to sleep.”*For a club that was supposed to be on an invite-only basis, the queue outside the door stretched all the way across the block. It set Ji-woo on edge. Even if her face was half-hidden in the shadows, it would only take one person to think there was something familiar about her to throw everything upside down. Only one. So far, she had apparently managed to avoid it. But, so far, she had also mostly been able to avoid door duty.“And this is the most important step.” The other bouncer on door duty, whose name JI-woo had done her best not to remember (and she had definitely not told him her name), mimed the action with his fingers. “You sprinkle the salt on first. Sprinkle, not rub, and definitely not toss. It needs to be delicate. A light touch.”He had been going on all night. He was a veritable cookbook. Ji-woo wasn’t sure how many of the dishes he had been describing he had actually made, as opposed to just watching on the latest viral channels, but he definitely didn’t lack for passion. She wished she shared it.“Of course, you can’t leave out the rosemary. That’s also the most important step.” He took a quick break from his monologue to turn a couple of people away from the door. “God, I love the smell of rosemary. I always add way too much and I don’t care what I add it to. Steak? Rosemary. Soup? Rosemary. Ice cream? Rosemary.”The next group at the front of line were good to go. Their names were on the list and, when Ji-woo gave them the quick pat-down, they weren’t hiding anything too lethal. But the way the woman at the head of the group, too tall and too well dressed, looked at her as she passed, an uneasy feeling squirmed in Ji-woo’s stomach. There was something predatory in the that smile.“And then there’s the sauce. The absolute most important part of the process.” At some point, the other bouncer had moved on from rosemary. Unless, of course, he was about to proclaim the virtues of rosemary sauce. “There are a million different sauces out there, so you have to make sure you choose the right one.” He pushed one person in the queue back, let through another. “Me, personally, I’m partial to—”Hold on. “Cover me.”He didn’t have time to stammer before Ji-woo broke out of formation. Before she slipped throught he doors of the club and back into the din of the music. The temperature on her skin rose instantly by more than a few degrees, as did the smell tingling her nose, and, of course, the number of elbows bumping into her. But she had seen something. Something that she hadn’t seen since she had started working here, something that she suspected nobody saw much of in the city these days.Whoever that last person the cookbook had let in was, he had a Dongcheon tattoo on his neck. A prominent Dongcheon tattoo. Ji-woo had thought, from what she had heard from the news and from the nurse, that Dongcheon had imploded. And she assumed it had – she had, after all, slaughtered its leadership. She had left it headless and soaked in blood. She had, in the end, left it a monster.But if Dongcheon tattoos were back in vogue, then maybe the organisation was back in vogue. And, maybe, that meant that she would have a goal again: to finish what her dad had started. To finish what she had started. Oh, she would still be a monster, but she could put that monstrosity to better use.The problem was a tattoo may be big on a body, but it’s small in a crowd and she hadn’t had a good look at the face of the person who carried it. By the time she made it back inside the club, she had lost him. Somewhere in the crowd, in the constantly moving, constantly writhing crowd… She jumped up the metal stairs to the upper rafters. Took up her usual spot along the railing. Scanned the crowd. She couldn’t see him. But he couldn’t have gotten far. He-- “Yoon Ji-woo.” She found him. He, along with the other members of the group she had let in just before him, had surrounded her. And the woman with the predator smile was smiling at her again, not to mention saying her name and relishing every syllable of it. “It’s a pleasure.”“If you’re Dongcheon,” Ji-woo let herself fall into stance. Let her muscles tense, ready to spring into action, “then you know what I can do to you.” “Cute.” The woman’s smile didn’t falter for a millisecond. “But I’m not into drugs. I just have a business proposition for you.”Ji-woo didn’t believe it for a second. If she was in this club, she was either an undercover cop or someone with too many connections to the Seoul underworld. In neither case were business proposals good news. And if she was after Ji-woo in particular, if she had tracked her, that was beyond bad news. “Not interested.”“Ah, but you haven’t even listened yet. Don’t burn a bridge before you get to it.” The woman dug a hand into her three-piece suit. Pulled out a business card. She held it out towards Ji-woo. “I was very impressed by the way you took on Dongcheon. If even half of the other rumours about you have any truth to them, I’m even more impressed. I think you could do better than playing security in a place like this. I want—”Ji-woo didn’t take the card and had no intention of taking it. “I don’t care.”She shoved past the woman without lingering, hearing only a small laugh behind her as she headed for the stairs. She glanced back once as she reached the bottom to make sure they weren’t following her, and let out a half-incredulous, half-relieved huff when they weren’t. The last thing she wanted to do was business with someone who was impressed by her.Unfortunately, she didn’t make it back to the door in time. “Oi!” One of the boss’s assistants (it was always the same one) caught her first. “What are you doing? Your supposed to be on door duty.” Ji-woo took in a breath to come up with an excuse. “Never mind. Boss wants to see you.” She even made the first sound of an excuse. “Now.”*Ji-woo hadn’t known many jobs in her life. In fact, she had known exactly three: gangster, cop, and gangster posing as a cop. Being a fugitive on the run didn’t count as a job. Nor did being a monster. But even with just those few jobs, she had learned one thing: when the boss says they want to talk, it could either be a great thing or a terrible thing, but it was never an unremarkable thing.With Dongcheon, she had liked it. It had been an incredible thing. Mu-jin had never felt like a boss. He was the boss, of course, but to her, he had felt like… like a father. Like a best friend. Like both, two things she had never really had before. Or, at least, that she had thought she had never really had and which it turned out that she didn’t have with him.She still understand what he had been playing at. He had trained her, he had encouraged her to find the person who had killed her father, and he spent every second of it telling her how much her father had meant to him. She would believe that he wanted her to kill him, if he hadn’t tried to kill her when she figured it out. She would also believe that he thought he could manipulate her to the end, but she couldn’t believe that he was naïve enough to think she wouldn’t have figured it out.She didn’t know. She hated him. She missed him. She… She didn’t know what she was supposed to feel or what she was supposed to do.What she did know, the moment she made it to the back of the club, the moment she stepped into the boss’s office, was that this time was one of those terrible times. The office was as overtly and garishly luxurious as it was possible to be, dominated by the couch that circled around and entire length of the wall, perfect as a throne when the boss sat down on it. And perfect as a threat when she saw the lawyer sitting down on it with him.“So, you are here.” The lawyer, Kang Soo-yeon – it took Ji-woo a moment to push herself out of her shock and into remembering the lawyer’s name – put her glass back down onto the table and rose. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”Ji-woo didn’t take her outstretched hand. She just two words and then turned back to march out back to her post at the front door. “Fuck off.”“Language.” The boss spoke before she had the chance to make it out of the office. “Save it for the people you’re kicking, not for my guests. Or else I might have to start asking questions.” Slowly, reluctantly, she turned back towards the couch. The boss waved at it. “Sit down.”She didn’t want to, but she did, as far away as possible from the lawyer as she could. She had never interacted much with Kang, but she had respected her once. The couple of times that Mu-jin had talked about her in front of Ji-woo, he had spoken highly of her and that had been enough. But that was before Ji-woo found out who had killed her dad. And that was before Ji-woo had given Dongcheon every reason to consider her enemy number one.“A drink?” Kang held up a bottle of something dangerous. Ji-woo glared at her. “Suit yourself.” Kang set the bottle back down and relaxed into the couch. “But it is good to see you in one piece. I hope that you’ve been well.”Ji-woo didn’t have a gun on her. Or a knife. Or a baton. She just had her fists and whatever she could reach within the split second of the battle’s start. She hoped it would be enough. “How did you find me?”“A good lawyer never reveals her secrets.” Kang reached for her glass and took another small sip. When she finished, she glanced over at the boss. “But let’s just say that it was expensive.”There was an implication there: make it worth my while, or else. Ji-woo wasn’t sure she wanted to know what worth it would be. “And if I say no?”Kang… smiled. A small smile, just enough to show off a condescending hint. It was a smile that was too confident for Ji-woo’s liking. “I think you know that saying no isn’t an option for you anymore.”“And I think you know that you aren’t an option for me anymore.” Whatever the lawyer wanted with her, whatever Dongcheon wanted with her, she was done with it. After what she had done, after she had let herself become a monster, there was no way back to it. “It’s over.”Kang’s smile got a little wider, enough to let slip a small ghost of a laugh. “Nothing’s ever over in Seoul.” She took one more sip of her drink before pushing herself up to her feet. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small, single old-fashioned flip phone. Tossed it at Ji-woo. “Start thinking about it. Call me when you’re ready.”*A staff drink could be a dangerous thing. Ji-woo didn’t usually indulge, even if they were complementary each night (as long as they were under a certain price on the regular menu and limited to just one and don’t expect any other benefits, we don’t pay you to drink, we pay you to…). But tonight, well, if there was any night to take advantage of a free drink, it was tonight.And that meant that tonight was dangerous. Dangerous because she had her suspicions that some of the drinks they served weren’t fit to be drunk. Dangerous because it meant that she had lingered after closing, putting her in the boss’s cross sights (and he was eager to remind her that he expected his club to hold up its deals). And dangerous because, well, it meant that when she walked out, she was just tipsy enough to think that taking a walk was a good idea.In her defence, it had been a long time since she had been able to walk freely through Seoul.She missed it. The city wasn’t a beach, it wasn’t the low, calm rush of the tide, and the echoes of seagulls, but it had its moments. When the lights hit the rain puddles at just the right angle in a hundred different colours. When the smells of fresh food wafted in from a hundred different restaurants. When it was dawn, when the sun was rising over quiet, sleepy streets, and the air was, for once, cold and clear.It was maybe a miracle that the police didn’t catch her.Even more so because somebody else did.She had heard the first siren ring through the streets somewhere in the distance and thought nothing of it. When she had heard the second, she had sobered up enough to realise that she didn’t really want to get caught. She had no idea what the sirens where responding to – she could hazard a few guesses, based off experience, but sooner or later, and probably sooner, she knew they would be responding to her.So, she went home. Or, at least, she started going home. She made it to the entrance of the nearest metro station she could find, she made down the stairs, she even made it onto the platform. The underground was almost entirely deserted. With the hour, she didn’t think much of it at first. But then, it was almost deserted. Almost.Leaning against one of the columns, the woman from the bar glance dup when Ji-woo’s last bootstep finished echoing through the platform. “Ready to talk business?”Ji-woo was slipping. If the woman was waiting for her here, she must’ve been tracking her. And Ji-woo hadn’t noticed. She swore under her breath. “What did I tell you at the club?”“That you could beat me to death with your bare hands and that I should fuck off.” Maybe not in those exact words, but Ji-woo couldn’t disagree that it was a fair enough summary. “But what type of businesswoman would I be if I gave up so easily?”The light tipsiness of the staff drink was starting to wear off, leaving Ji-woo increasingly and uncomfortably sober. Sober enough to realise that it was dawn and that she was really tired. “Fuck off.”The woman pushed herself off the post. Stood in the middle of the platform. Her hands never left the pockets of her dress trousers. “Or else?”Ji-woo sighed. “Or else.”“Some of the rumours about you say that you’re not human. Only a demon would be able to take down Dongcheon the way you did. So bloodthirsty.” The woman laughed. Too late, Ji-woo realised that she wasn’t the only one on the platform. That the rest of her associates were there too. Were surrounding Ji-woo. “So, go on then. Show me what type of monster you are.”She barely had time to count them before they charged at her. There were five of them, four of them taller than her, one about the same height, all, as far as she could tell, unarmed. She hoped. She ducked under the swings of the first two that reached her. Slammed her shoulder into one that hadn’t had the chance to reach her yet. Spun around to knock—A fist found her first. She staggered back with the force of it, a blunt shock of pain spreading through her nose. And they moved fast. They didn’t give her enough time to recover before they were on her again, all five of them, forcing her backwards, forcing her on the defensive. She ducked, she blocked, she tried to absorb the blows, one after the other, tried to redirect them, tried not to get knocked off her feet.“Hold it.” All five of them froze as the woman spoke up, sounding… not bored. Disappointed. Petulantly so. “You’re supposed to be better than this.”One of her associates glanced back at her. She nodded. He reached into his jacket and, with a casual flick, pulled out a knife. The other four did the same. Shit. One thing that the Police Academy had stressed was that the moment a knife comes out, the fight had escalated out of control. Mu-jin had told her the same thing. Knives were always more fatal than you believed.Worse, whoever the woman was, her underlings were good. They weren’t amateur fighters, neither by police nor Dongcheon standards. But were following orders, and apparently orders meant giving her just enough time to get herself ready for round two.When they charged again, she didn’t wait for them to reach her. She met them first. She charged right into the tallest one, swinging low and hard into his sternum. He doubled-over with a gasp, dropping his knife. Ji-woo kicked it as far away as she could before diving into a roll to dodge the swish of another blade aiming for her neck.When she sprung back up, she aimed another punch. It was deflected. She jumped back to miss the knife. Almost got caught by another knife to her back. Almost. It still left a mark, a thin rip through her jacket.She was outnumbered, outarmed, and tired. Worse, the one she had managed to knock the breath out of was recovering. However she was going to end this, she needed to do it quickly. She needed…No time to think. The four still breathing charged at her. She ducked. Dodged. Managed to grab a hold of one arm as it jabbed the blade at her. Managed to twist it. To slam it down with a nasty crack. That knife clattered away with another kick, falling over the edge of the platform and onto the tracks.Another knife caught her cheek. Not deep, but easily drawing blood. It stung like hell. It sent her staggering back. She barely managed to recover in time to knock the knife away before it came in for a more lethal blow. Barely managed to roll away and kick one of the associates legs out from under her. The next kick she made hit that associate’s knife hand hard enough to send the knife flying into the wall.One left.One that sliced through her arm. One that-- One of the knifeless associates sucker-punched her from behind. Her vision momentarily went dark. When it came back, the last knife was hurtling towards her. She didn’t have time to miss it, only to drop just enough for it to hit her shoulder instead. At least she was able to pull away with it, to take advantage of being stabbed to disarm the last of them.But they were still standing. And they were still coming at her. She managed to slip away from the first blow. Managed to slip in a first to the lower jaw. Managed to block. To kick back. To send another one crashing to the ground struggling for breath.She was starting to win. Found herself getting back into the flow of things. A couple of months in the bar dealing with drunk idiots who needed to be thrown out had gotten her out of shape. But the flow was coming easier to her. Smoother. She was able to move out of the way of the next blows. Was able to direct the momentum, slowly, towards the platform edge. If her memory of the train schedules was any good-- “Okay.” Too late, far too late, she noticed that the woman in charge had taken off her blazer. Had rolled up her sleeves. Too late, Ji-woo realised that she was fast. “That’s enough.”It was over before she knew it. Four quick blows, twice to the face, once to the gut, and once more to the face. And then a couple of hard kicks to the ribs when she was down for good measure. It was a rookie mistake: she had let herself get caught off guard.“You’re out of practice, but that can be fixed.” The woman crouched down next to Ji-woo as Ji-woo tried to push herself back to her feet. “And I’m not asking nicely anymore.” She reached into her suit and pulled out a business card. Tucked it Ji-woo’s fingers. “Me and my associates represent an underground entertainment venue. Since your butchering of Dongcheon, we’ve lost a lot of business. Both our clients and our stars have decided that there’s more action to be found in other fights. You’re going to be our new attraction.”Ji-woo took a quick glance at the card, careful not to let her focus shift too far away from the woman, or the rest of her associates who were gathering themselves behind her. The card was glaringly made, like an attempt to appear professional by someone who had only seen the word on TV, but she got the idea: underground entertainment, aka illegal fighting rings.“And before you tell me to fuck off again,” the woman bent down lower and sharper, “I want to be clear: we won’t kill you if you say no. We’ll make it worse. And it won’t just be you, it’ll be your friend the nurse too. Got it?”Shit. Ji-woo’s blood ran horribly cold. Somehow, she managed to nod.“That’s better.” The woman stood back up, brushed herself off, and snorted lightly. “See you tomorrow evening. Nine o’clock. Don’t be late.”*Of all the places Ji-woo could’ve gone, the worst place had to be back to the nurse’s flat. She had just heard the nurse be directly threatened because of her association with Ji-woo, and she had spent the night finding out that more than one person had tracked her down, which meant that there had to be more looking for her, and which meant that there were more that would find the nurse.So, that was exactly where she went.She did so slowly, trying to both keep herself from bleeding out and from looking like she was in danger of bleeding out. The latter would end with someone calling the emergency services, which would end with her in custody, and the former would end with her… well, with her end.At least the flat was only on the second floor. It was cheap enough that the lift was perpetually out-of-service (as she had learned quickly, both through personal experience and through hearing the nurse mutter about the landlord), but it was only a couple of flights of stairs. Only.She had to pause halfway up to catch her breath. To stop herself from passing out headfirst into the concrete. At least it was only on the second floor. At least in a block of flats like this, nobody really cared if you were bleeding out. She hated to think which gangs controlled this district. She was a little too woozy to remember just now.It was a terrible idea.She should’ve disappeared. Maybe tried to find a way out of the country. Or maybe she should’ve just turned herself in. It would be over then. At least until the trial had finished and the first attempt to assassinate her in prison happened, which she had no doubt it would – she didn’t expect to be treated kindly by the cops on guard or the ex-Dongcheon members or the members of other gangs she had helped lock up.And, of course, if she turned herself in, there would be questions about where she had been hiding. Questions that would inevitably lead back to the nurse. She was even surprised that the link hadn’t been made already – it wouldn’t be a stretch to link her escape from the hospital to the roster of nurses on duty. She had gotten her out of trouble once, she didn’t want to put her back into a lifetime of it.In any case, she was bleeding out and she needed help. She needed someone who could patch her up, who could give her a place to hide until it was time, who could… She just needed someone, and this was a walk she had made before. She could do again. And then, tomorrow, she could disappear. She could-- The flat was empty.A moment of panic surged through her. The nurse had been threatened, the nurse wasn’t at her flat, the nurse was always at her flat when Ji-woo got home, and so… And so, Ji-woo was being stupid. Of course, the nurse wouldn’t be here. She had the morning shift today. She probably would’ve warned Ji-woo tonight, like she had the first couple of weeks she had sheltered her, if Ji-woo had listened.The flat was silent.She managed to shove the door shut behind her. Managed to drag herself over to the table and collapse into the chair. The nurse had left the first aid kit on the table, next to a thermos of tea and a handful of cheap chocolate bars. The nurse, Ji-woo realised with an odd pang, was starting to get to know her too well. And, terribly, that didn’t feel uncomfortable.*Forehead against cheap wood was not a good way to sleep. Mu-jin had caught her in that position too many times, slumped against one of the benches in the gym in the middle of the night. Each time, he would wake her gently, would sit down next to her, and ask her what she thought she needed to work on tomorrow. She’d give him an answer, he’d nod, he’d offer a couple of suggestions, and soon, they’d find themselves talking about anything. Sometimes the weather, sometimes the politics, sometimes… often, her dad.It was awful, wasn’t it? To miss someone you had killed?Especially when she would do it again. She didn’t regret it, even if it had led her to where she was now. It was a small price to pay to avenge her father’s killer. It was a small price to pay against a lifetime of not knowing who had killed him, of thinking that the killer was free out there while her father was ashes in an urn.Still, sometimes she wished she still had someone who would sit down next to her when she fell asleep in the wrong place. Someone who would talk to her in the middle of the night. But then, Pil-do was dead too, wasn’t he? Because of her. Because he had tried to help her, had convinced her that she could do the right thing. Because he had been her friend.No wonder she couldn’t sleep.She had only half-finished patching herself up before her head had started slumping, before her forehead had hit the table and her eyes had closed. She had woken up shortly after. Had fallen asleep again. Woke up. Fell asleep. Fitfully. Restlessly. The bandage that was supposed to be wrapped around her arm trailed off the edge of the table. She didn’t even dream.Eventually, she was jolted out of it by the clicking of the door opening. She jerked upright, almost knocking herself right off the chair, and grabbed the tiny scissors from the first aid kit.It took her brain a second to jolt back into somewhat functional awareness. It was just the nurse. She had planked herself against the door at Ji-woo’s movement, dropping her bag quickly to raise her hands. Of course, it was just the nurse. Ji-woo was sleeping in the nurse’s flat. Ji-woo had been sleeping in the nurse’s flat for weeks.It was just the nurse, back home from her shift at the hospital. And Ji-woo had almost eviscerated her. “Sorry.” Ji-woo’s voice came out a little scratchy from her restless sleep and the wince that came with the realisation that her injuries still stung. She dropped the scissors back onto the table and slumped back down into the chair. “I’m sorry.”The nurse giggled. Knocked her head back lightly against the door. “We can share the bed now.”Bed. She could’ve be sleeping on the pockmarked old mattress the nurse had dug up (Ji-woo had refused to kick the nurse out of her own bed). As uneven as it was, it was still better than a tabletop. But, even as the jolt of adrenaline started to fade back down, she was still awake enough to notice that something was off with the nurse. Her pupils were a little too wide. She was practically jumping from one foot to the other. “Shit. Don’t tell me you—”“Work is stressful, okay? Even before I had to deal with you.” The nurse scoffed as she shrugged her jacket off, dumping it on the ground next to her bag. Her shoes followed it quickly after. “I’m allowed to relapse every once in a while. You don’t have to save me all the time.”Ji-woo winced as the nurse scoffed again. If her presence was causing the nurse to relapse, then she definitely would have to disappear. “I’m sorry. I’ll get my stuff. Clean up.”“Oh, for…” The nurse tsked, spinning around halfway through her march towards the bed to pivot towards Ji-woo. “That’s it? This is what I mean! You don’t talk. You don’t even try to talk! You just… run away. Fucking coward! You just glare at me! Fucking…” The nurse tsked again and marched over to shove Ji-woo back down into the chair. “Fucking hell, sit down. You did this wrong.”Ji-woo didn’t say anything as the nurse tsked and tsked, looking over her injuries one by one and rating each one more poorly bandaged up than the last. Ji-woo couldn’t really disagree. She flinched as the nurse applied disinfectant. She stuck out her arm at the angle the nurse asked for. She tried meeting the nurse in the eye. The nurse just glared at her.“Fucking fuck.” The nurse grimaced as she finally got Ji-woo to pull the neck of her shirt down enough to take a look at the stab wound in her shoulder. “How did you…” The nurse very carefully dabbed a cloth against it. “Do I want to know?”Ji-woo shut her eyes. Tried not to flinch. “Probably not.”“If this gets infected, you’ll need to go to the hospital.” Ji-woo opened her mouth to explain exactly why she couldn’t, but the nurse got there first. “I know you can’t, but you can’t die either. It’s not fair.”Fair wasn’t really a word Ji-woo cared about anymore. In another life, maybe, but in hers, fair had left her behind a long time ago. “I should already be dead.”“Ji-woo…” The nurse finally met her eye, and when she did, it was unbearable. “Don’t say that. It’s not fair. It… Hey!”Ji-woo didn’t let her finish before she pushed herself back to her feet. Before she pushed past the nurse. She grabbed her jacket, her shoes, and she only looked back once. It wasn’t fair, she had to give the nurse at least that. It really wasn’t fair. “I have business to take care of.”“Oh.” The nurse ended up back in the chair Ji-woo had been slumped over in, the contents of the first aid kit still scattered across the table, next to the empty thermos, next to a few dried traces of blood. “Can… can you tell me it won’t be dangerous?”And if it wasn’t fair, one little lie wouldn’t hurt, would it? “Not today.”*The city smelled like coming rain. Between the apartment blocks, a light breeze slipped through that brought with it grey clouds and a slight chill to exposed skin. Sooner or later, probably sooner, the rain would start falling and it would start falling down heavily. The streets would turn into puddles. The walls would drip with water. There might even be thunder.Sirens slipped through the gaps between the buildings as well. Blaring, glaring sirens, along with the furtive glimpse of flashing lights. There were more of them than JI-woo had ever heard before, even when she was living in a criminal safehouse. Even when she had been a cop.Part of her couldn’t help but think that it might be her fault. She had effectively decapitated Dongcheon, which would’ve left a power vacuum, and in that vacuum, every other gang out there and every wannabe gang would have seen a chance to position themselves on top. Monsters always smell blood, don’t they?And monsters always leave havoc in their wake.So, why was it then that she was considering making things worse? She hadn’t walked far from the nurse’s flat, just down into an alleyway between two destitute apartment blocks (she couldn’t quite place the smell of it, but at least no one else was around). She had still had hours before her shift at the club, and before her apparently decided meeting at the underground fighting ring. She’d have to pick one. She hoped she wouldn’t.The choice left her, as far as she could see, with only one option. There were more options, of course, but she couldn’t think of any that wouldn’t put the nurse in danger. But the one that was left was, even if it was the one she chose, almost certainly the worst: the phone. The old, remarkably pristine flip phone that the lawyer had given her.When she turned on the power, there was a password. It took her a couple of tries before she got it: camomile. She tried not to dwell on the odd pang the word brought to her stomach. Instead, she focused on the only number that was pre-programmed into the contacts list. It didn’t have a name, but it was there, and she figured she could make a safe guess. “Kang?”“Good afternoon, Ji-woo.” The delight in the lawyer’s voice sounded almost genuine. “How are you?”Ji-woo didn’t want to play games. She was tired of it. Very tired. “Can you offer protection?”It took Kang a couple of seconds to answer, but when she did, her answer came out smoothly. “For you or for someone else?”Ji-woo didn’t quite manage to stop herself from letting out a huff. She had been hoping that her tone of voice and general attitude of disdain would be enough to get the message across: no fucking games. “Someone else.”“I might be able to arrange that,” Kang continued just as smoothly as before, “but it depends who the protection is for, how much protection you want them to have, and, of course, what you’re willing to trade for it.”“Let’s say that I’m willing to trade,” Ji-woo glanced from side-to-side, both ways up and down the alley. She didn’t see anyone. Didn’t hear anyone. “What would you want from me?”“Why don’t we start with dinner tonight? I’ll pay, you listen.” Kang only added one more thing before she hung up: “You might even like my idea.”A few seconds after the line went dead, the phone buzzed with the arrival of a text message. Ji-woo scanned it quickly: there wasn’t much, just an address, from the same number that se had just been calling. When she looked it up, it was a restaurant. Fancy. Expensive. For a second, she was tempted to call the police and warn them, to see how the lawyer would react if dinner got crashed. They probably wouldn’t have any grounds to arrest her, but if they saw Ji-woo, maybe they…Or, why not?A little impulsively, a little idealistically, Ji-woo started walking. As soon as she was even further away from the nurse’s block, she pulled up the police website. Pulled up the page for anonymous tips. She still had the business card for the underground fighting ring – she had an address and she had a time. Maybe she could turn her situation back into her advantage. Maybe back towards the right thing to do. If nothing else, maybe she could hope.*“Tell me, and tell me honestly,” Kang peered up across the table and fixed Ji-woo with a piercing look. Ji-woo wasn’t sure she wanted to know what she was looking for. “What do you think of your soup?”Dinner, as it turned out, was in a small restaurant tucked away on the outskirts of the city, just past the last metro stop. From the outside, it had seemed more like a small, overgrown cottage by the roadside than a place where Seoul’s richest and most corrupt lawyers would eat. It looked much the same in the inside. But the soup, Ji-woo had to admit, was excellent. “What do you want from me?”Kang’s mouth twitched up, slightly amused. She waited to give an answer, cutting her knife through her fish and taking another bite. “Do you watch the news?” Ji-woo nodded. “Then you’ve noticed the shootings? The arrests? The violence?” Ji-woo nodded again. “Well, so have I.”Ji-woo couldn’t help herself from snorting. Loudly. It was a good thing the restaurant was deserted - it was small enough (barely the size of a dining room) that the noise would’ve attracted everyone’s attention. “I can imagine.”“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I dislike violence.” Kang scooped a spoonful of rice. The steam wafted upwards from it. It smelled delicious. It smelled better than anything Ji-woo had eaten in months. “Violence is a tool, and it can be a very powerful tool, if used the right way at the right time. Fishers use it to make food, the cops use it to keep people in their place, and the gangs use it to get rich. As a lawyer, my job is to help my client use every tool at their disposal to get what they want.”That didn’t answer the question. “And what do you want?”“I admired Mu-jin. He was smart, he knew how to take risks, and he knew how to win. He was a brilliant partner.” It was something Ji-woo could’ve said herself. It was something Ji-woo hated to hear. “And you killed him.”Was that what this was about? Revenge? Some mornings, when Ji-woo couldn’t sleep, she had wondered if there was anyone in Mu-jin’s life that she had missed, someone who saw him like a father and who would start down the same path as she had gone down. But he had always said there wasn’t, until he had started saying that the only one was her.“Don’t worry, I jumped ship before you sent it to hell – I can’t hold it against you.” The lawyer took another bite of her fish. Took a sip of her wine. Ji-woo hadn’t touched hers and had barely touched her soup. “But you did send it to hell. An organisation like Dongcheon can’t just implode overnight without consequences. You’ve left Seoul in the state that nature abhors.”A vacuum. Hence the violence, hence the arrests, hence the sirens. Ji-woo tried (and mostly failed) to not think about it too much. She couldn’t stand it, but it didn’t change anything. She would still do it again. “I can’t do anything about that now.”“What if you could?” Kang set her fork down on her plate and leaned back in her chair. “I might’ve jumped ship, but you can’t survive in the ocean without a ship. I’ve seen the other ships and I find them… inadequate.”If alarms bells weren’t already ringing in Ji-woo’s head, they were now. The conversation was leading somewhere that couldn’t possibly end well. “What do you mean?”“I’m not the only who thinks so and I’m not the only one who sees an opportunity in this vacuum.” She shot Ji-woo the same piercing look. The corners of her mouth moved slightly upwards. “A new organisation can rise from the battlefield where the old gangs and the cops have left their bullet-ridden corpses.”Alarm bells. Oh fuck, this couldn’t end well. “That’s not my problem.”“It’s your chance, Ji-woo.” Kang’s voice got stronger, a little sharper, but her demeanour, her relaxed lean backwards, didn’t change a bit. “To win, a new organisation would need a Choi Mu-jin, and who better than Mu-jin’s executioner?”She was out of her mind. She was absolutely, incomprehensibly out of her mind. Of all the things Ji-woo was, of all the roles she had played in her life, she was not and would never be a gang leader. She would never. Could never. Her dad… it would be everything her dad would’ve never wanted her to become. “No.”“Think about it.” The lawyer shifted in her chair, leaning back towards the table, almost standing up as Ji-woo stood up. “You could be free. You could have everything you ever wanted. You…” Kang looked at her. Really looked at her. “You would have the power to stop the violence. How many people are going to hurt in this vacuum? How many kids are going to lose their parents?”Out of her mind. Ji-woo scoffed. Grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair.“You could even be a double agent.” Ji-woo found herself stopping just after turning away. She couldn’t help but turn back. But give Kang a look that was beyond description. “You’re good at it. If you led Seoul’s criminal hegemon, you’d be able to pass along all the information in the world to the cops. I don’t think anyone would suspect a thing.”Maybe out of her mind was generous. Or maybe it didn’t describe it. Desperate might have been a better. Desperate enough that her attempt to manipulate Ji-woo was shockingly transparent. And desperate enough that, even if Ji-woo was tempted by the offer, it was obvious that Kang’s ship was in a bad enough situation that it would be the wrong ship to back.Even if she was tempted (maybe just the tiniest part of her).Ji-woo rolled her eyes. Shrugged on her jacket. She had better things to do, like underground fighting. She didn’t need to think twice about the offer. “I hope you like the fish.”*The flip phone was silent in Ji-woo’s hands. She wasn’t expecting it to ring – after all, the only person who had its number was the lawyer, and she hoped that Kang still had enough dignity not to come begging. But it was the only phone Ji-woo had. She had thrown her old one the moment she had gone on the run and had decided not to get another one, just in case. If she had, she wouldn’t have anyone to call her. Maybe the nurse, but… The flip phone felt heavy.“Come on, now,” the head of the underground fighting ring brought her foot up onto the bench next to the Ji-woo and plucked the flip phone out of her hands. “You know the rules: no phones at work.”Ji-woo let her flip the phone around in her hands once before she snatched out of the air. She shoved it pointedly in her bag. She didn’t return the woman’s grin.“Come on!” The woman, absent the three-piece suit Ji-woo had earlier seen her wear, tank top and sweatpants in its place, stretched against the bench. “Aren’t you excited?”The bench was old, rickety, and made of wood barely held together. The locker room walls were stained yellow, made worse by the dim strip of lights that ran through the middle of the roof, providing the only illumination still working. The lockers themselves smelled of must that wasn’t quite right, including the ones whose doors had fallen off their hinges. The equipment provided – tape and the same sweatpants and tank top – smelled much the same. So, yes, Ji-woo was excited.The woman laughed at Ji-woo’s lack of response. She leaned down closer. “I know this isn’t you versus Seoul’s most wanted, but I know you. You can’t go up against Choi Mu-jin by yourself and not like the adrenaline.”Ji-woo didn’t bother to look up at the ringleader. She just searched for the tape on the bench. “You don’t know me.”“Oh, but I do.” The ringleader’s grin managed to get even wider. Even more vicious. “I know everyone who passes through her and I have the scars to prove it. You’re hardly the first cop or the first traitor I’ve seen.”Ji-woo found it. Began wrapping her hands with it. “I thought I was supposed to be your new attraction.”The ringleader laughed even harder. Shrugged. “Marketing.” The bench shuddered as she finally took her foot off it. She grabbed a towel from the basket near the wall and flung it towards Ji-woo. And, just like that, she was leaning towards Ji-woo again. “Now, let’s talk your fight. You’re up against Mr. Shim. He doesn’t have a first name, but he does have an undefeated record. Tonight, that changes.”At least this was more useful. If Ji-woo was going to have to fight, and it looked like she was, she would rather come out of it as unscathed as possible. This wouldn’t be drunkards at the club, this would be real. And real could hurt. She just hoped that the police read her tip. She just hoped.“He’s been briefed about the outcome already, but your job is to ignore that.” The ringleader placed two fingers on Ji-woo’s forehead in a mimicry of a pistol. “Push him until he starts thinking he’s actually going to die. Until he thinks that he needs to start fighting for his life. Then… bam! End him. The crowd will love it.”She really, really hoped. She held her breath for a moment waiting to hear sirens. She heard nothing. The breath came back out a little shaky, and she couldn’t help but notice that her leg was getting restless too. “I’m not—”“The Butcher of Dongcheon needs to earn her reputation publicly.” The ringleader grabbed Ji-woo’s arm. Pulled her off the bench. “Do you like the stagename? I came up with it myself.”She was being steered towards the curtains that separated the locker room from the ring. She knew that this was her last chance to resist. To fight back before she had to fight. But the ringleader had threatened the nurse and… “Don’t I get to choose my own?”The ringleader just shrugged. “Marketing.”With that, she pushed Ji-woo through the curtains. Ji-woo blink against the wall of noise that greeted her, shouts, whistles, and then dead silence, like everyone in the room had suddenly held their breath. Her first steps out into the ring were stumbling, halting. She couldn’t help herself from glancing around – a warehouse, she would guess, long abandoned by industry if the rust in the rafters was anything to go by. The crowd, on the other hand, was as heterogenous as they came, save for the fistfuls of cash being passed around.She landed on her opponent, barely hearing the announcer shout out their names. Mr. Shim, the ringleader had said his name was. To Ji-woo’s eyes, he seemed remarkably unremarkable. Slightly on the taller side of average, with defined muscles marked by a couple of scars on his left side, but otherwise, he could’ve been any of the Dongcheon members Ji-woo had fought once in the gym. That gave her some confidence.He strode out to the centre of the ring. Waited for her to meet him there. When she finally did, he as the crowd picked the volume back up, he bowed. She followed. When they had both raised themselves, he winked at her. “I have a feeling this is going to be the last fight of my life.”He didn’t say anything else. Just dropped back into stance, arms raised, legs tensed. She supposed she had to do likewise. She stretched out her arms, her knuckles, and fell back. Let herself breathe. The last time she had been in a real fight was against Mu-jin. She closed her eyes to not see him in front of her here. She let herself breathe.The announcer’s voice boomed.Ji-woo didn’t hesitate. Her eyes snapped open. She pounced. The first blow landed on his jaw. The second to his cheek on the other side. The third, a kick that almost cut his knees from under him. Almost. Whatever balance he lost as he staggered back, he was able to recover it the moment Ji-woo hesitated. Of course, she had been able to strike the first blow: if he was supposed to throw the fight, he wouldn’t—He charged. Caught her off guard. His shoulder slammed into her chest with the force of a freight train. The bodycheck sent her tumbling to the ground, hard. She had to scramble to roll out of the way of his boot that came crashing down where her face had just been. Had to scramble to jump back up to her feet.She just had time to think that her ribs were aching before he was charging again. She jumped out of the way easily. Maybe he had caught her off guard the first time, but he wouldn’t again. And, she was beginning to notice, he was slow. At the very least, slower than her. The next time he charged, she would be able to… He didn’t. He took a heavy step forward. Grinned when Ji-woo braced herself. But he didn’t move. He just stepped backwards, just relaxed, just waited for her. Slow, maybe, but not stupid.She circled him. He circled her. A few cheers broke out in the crowd, encouraging, goading them onwards. Neither of them pounced.So, she did. She went low. Feinted. Managed to get around him until his side was wide open. She brought her boot down hard on the back of his knee. Tried to force them to the ground. She almost made it. Almost. His leg buckled, but not enough. And when she brought herself back up to take a second swing, he was there already. His elbow met her nose.When she had finished staggering back, the slight of metal reverberating on her tongue, she braced herself as quickly as she could. But he didn’t attack. He didn’t press the issue. He… She could see what he was doing. It was a smart enough strategy: if you can absorb the blows without getting knocked down, you can outlast your opponent, and if you’re slower than your opponent, than it only makes sense to move when you’re sure you have the advantage.The question was: how could she beat that strategy. She could mirror him, but she suspected that the ring’s newest star would be expected to put on more of a show than that. She could keep charging and hope that eventually she managed to knock him down – just once would be enough. She could…Or, she could set a trap.The next time she moved in, she followed the same path. First low, then a feint, then around. Again, he didn’t lose his balance. Again he was there when she swung for the next blow. But this time, she caught the blow. Wrapped her arms around it. Used its momentum. And this time, he did lose his balance.She landed on her bac in a roll. He went right over her, landing head first in the thin layer of sand. She kept up the momentum. Used the roll to flip herself back to her feet. To slam her knee into his nose. And then her fist. And then, the toes of her boot. This time, she had caught him off guard.And this time, she was supposed to… how had the ringleader put it? Until he thinks he needs to fight for his life. Just drawing blood wouldn’t be enough. It-- She had hesitated again. Had tried to tell herself that she wasn’t a monster. And he, again, took advantage of it. And he didn’t let up. Before she could realise what was happening, she was face-first in the sand, blood drooling out her lips, and his boot was coming down ag—It hit the sand hard. Hard enough to break bones, if she hadn’t caught herself just in time. But she had. And she made sure that she didn’t roll away too far. Just enough to make sure that he thought he still had the advantage. She lunged upwards the moment his boot hit the sand again. Caught the underside of his jaw with her palm and all the force of her legs. She thought she heard something crack.And now that it was her advantage, she didn’t let up. She brought her fists down on him, her boots, her elbows, faster and faster, much faster than he could, moving from side to side, making sure he never managed to regain his balance, never managed to see a pattern in her movements.It worked. Brutally, but it worked. Before long, he was on the ground, and he was staying there. Splatters of his blood stained her shirt. His jaw was slightly off-centre in a way that it wasn’t supposed to be. Her knuckles ached. She supposed his did too.But at least he was still alive. The crowd didn’t like it. They were roaring at her to end it. To give them a real show. The adrenaline was roaring too, a deafening rush that filled her ears and made it impossible for her legs to stay still. She needed to move. She needed to… To end it.She took a step forward. She didn’t notice how many she took before she had closed the gap between them. She nudge him with the tip of her toes. Got a response – a bloody glance upwards, scared. Genuinely scared. The crowd roared louder. She could feel the ringleader watching her. Waiting for her. All it would take was one quick kick to the skull. Just one kick. She raised her boot. Closed her eyes.Brought it down into the sand.She crowd didn’t like it. Hated it. But she had won. She could breathe. And it was over. She was out of shape, but she had won. And, oh, the adrenaline really was rushing through her. She left a little dizzy. She felt a little… like she had missed this. Maybe it was just the monster inside her, but she had missed this. Maybe it was just the monster. But she had won.*The bench wobbled under Ji-woo. Wobbled because it was old enough to be rickety. Wobbled because the ringleader had slammed her boot down on it again. Wobbled, above all, because the whole world was wobbling in front of Ji-woo’s eyes. Or maybe she was the one who was wobbling. She couldn’t tell. She guessed she didn’t care.Someone made a small huff of a laugh.The ringleader punched her. Glared at her. “Listen to me when I’m talking.” The punch, but not as much as it should have. She wasn’t sure whether it was that the ringleader hadn’t punch her as hard as she could or whether it was just the adrenaline. “If you’re going to draw in an audience, you need to build up a reputation. And then, you need to reinforce that reputation.”Ji-woo chuckled again as she looked up at the ringleader. “How much do I get paid?”“You’re supposed to be the Butcher of Dongcheon!” The ringleader lifted her boot off the bench. Kicked it. It almost toppled over backwards. “I’m deducting twenty-five percent from your pay. That’ll cover the cut to my bonus that you just caused.”Ji-woo could see the problem with the pay: if she got paid per fight, she’d have an incentive to fight more often. And since she was in the middle of skipping her shift at the club, she would alternative employment (she wasn’t going to let the nurse pay for her food by herself). And if she got money for being more of a monster…“Come on. Get up.” The ringleader kicked the bench again, jolting Ji-woo slightly back to it. “You’re going in again.”Back to it. Back in? Ji-woo barely heard herself as she asked, “Against who?”The ringleader grabbed the tape off the shelf. Began wrapping her own hands. Ji-woo had just enough time to process the fact that she hadn’t protested. “Against me.”Against her. Ji-woo found herself chuckling one more time. A rematch sounded good. One-on-one, without a gang of knife-armed minions to outnumber her. One-on-one, just her and the ringleader who had forced her to free her, who had threatened the nurse, who had shoved her back into fighting. She might even be looking forward to it. And the ringleader definitely seemed-- A man in a three-piece suit, just like the ringleader’s burst into the room. He shot the ringleader a panicked look. “The cops are here.”“What?” The look the ringleader shot back was as incomprehensible as his was panicked. It took JI-woo a second tor realise that the noise filtering in through the curtains was definitely getting louder. More chaotic. “But how? But…”The ringleader’s eyes turned towards Ji-woo. Ji-woo didn’t hesitate. She lunged forward, tackling the ringleader around the waist and slamming her against the ground. Just as quickly, just before the ringleader could recover, she rolled off, punched the ringleader back down. Landed a kick right to the gut of the man in the suit. Went back for a third punch to the—The ringleader ducked. Managed to get out of the way. Managed to get back to her feet. And, oh, she looked beyond pissed off. “You.” The venom in her voice was remarkable. She grabbed the man by the collar and shoved him back upright. Stretched out her fingers. Her fists. “I’m going to kill you. And then your nurse. Slowly. And then—”She took one step towards Ji-woo before the man managed to cough out a word that sounded like a name. It made the ringleader stop. “The cops,” he managed to get out. It sounded like it took effort. “We need,” he winced as he placed a hand against his ribs, “to evacuate the money.”The ringleader wavered. Glanced back at Ji-woo. Back at the man. Back at Ji-woo. Back at the man. Back at… “FucK!” She shot Ji-woo a look that could kill. Grabbed the man and helped him stay on his feet. “This,” she gritted out between her teeth before she hurried away, “isn’t fucking over.”Ji-woo stayed on her feet a few moments longer. Kept her stance ready, just in case. But the locker room stayed empty. The ringleader didn’t come back. Money first, presumably. Eventually, Ji-woo slumped back down on the bench. Forced herself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.The adrenaline rush was starting to fade. She was tired. Bruised. Exhausted. But she had won. The cops were here, breaking up the ring. She had done the right thing. Her dad, she thought, would be proud of her. She’d never know if he was, but she could imagine that he would be. She could imagine.She stayed on the bench as the first couple of police officers burst into the room, bullet-proof vests on, guns drawn. Their flashlight beams landed on her. “I submitted the tip,” she managed to say, if wearily. She raised her hands halfway up as a detective marched in after the cops. “I—”The detective stopped. The cops stopped. The detective’s eyes narrowed. Went wide. Snarled. “Cop killer.”Two words. Ji-woo heard them. Ji-woo barely heard them. The detective’s gun had been raised. Ji-woo had to move. Had to-- The gun went off.Ji-woo, already in motion, felt a surge pain hit her arm. Felt herself hit the solid, cold concrete floor. She needed to keep moving. The detective fired again. Missed. She needed to get out. The cop fired again. Grazed her stomach. She needed… After the ringleader. A way out.She needed to run.*Blood.There was too much blood.Too much pain, shooting up and down her arm, through every bit of her body. Her muscles were screaming at her. Her lungs were screaming at her. Her brain was screaming at her. She was surprised she wasn’t screaming. Or maybe she was, but just couldn’t hear it.The rain didn’t help. Sometime between the moment she had walked into the warehouse and the moment she had managed to slip out, the clouds had broken and the downpour begun. It did make it easier to slip past the police, the raindrops concealing the sound of her footsteps, the water in the night concealing the shape of her movement. But it did leave her drenched. Cold.Maybe incoherent.She wasn’t sure where she was going. She ended up with stairs. Ended up stumbling back through the door of the nurse’s flat. The nurse rose from her bed, dropping her phone, to greet her. Her eyes went wider than Ji-woo had ever seen them.Ji-woo didn’t follow what happened next. The nurse scrambled into action. There were bandages. There were stitches. Stinging disinfectant. There was a chair somewhere. Maybe a table. Maybe water. More water. Tea?“Aren’t you going to…” Ji-woo waved vaguely at the nurse. Waved vaguely at her arm. “…take out the bullet?”“Take out the bullet?” The nurse’s voice sounded off. Or maybe Ji-woo’s hearing was off. Either way she was exhausted. “Do you know what happens to an infected wound? I don’t know where the bullet is! I don’t know if it’s stopping the wound from bleeding out! I don’t know if… Do you know what an infected wound looks like?”Well, Ji-woo wasn’t a doctor. “Oh.”“Fuck me.” A kettle popped somewhere on the counter. A few seconds later, the nurse was shoving a cup of tea into Ji-woo’s hands. It was hot. It smelled amazing. “This is going to infected. This is going to need a hospital. This… How the fuck did you manage to get yourself shot?”Well, instead of going to the club like she was supposed to, she had gone off to an underground fighting ring, where she had fought, and then had been shot by the cops, who she had called. And that was one day after she had been stabbed by the ringleader of said underground fighting ring, would almost certainly be coming after her again. “You need to move.”The nurse blinked at her. “What?”“You need to move to a different flat.” Ji tried again after she had taken a sip of tea. It did help her throat. The nurse was, she had to admit, excellent at tea. “It’s not safe for you here anymore.”“Not safe?” The had frozen still halfway towards dropping another cube of sugar into her coffee. The cube did drop out of her fingers, landing with a plop in her mug. After a couple of seconds, she blinked again. Slumped back in the seat across from Ji-woo. Sighed. “Who knows you’re here?” All of the injuries Ji-woo had suffered over the last couple of days seemed to be all hitting her at once. The stabbings, the gunshot, the fists and kicks. And maybe even more than just the last couple of days – she still wasn’t sure she was completely recovered from the fight with Mu-jin. She had taken one hell of a beating. “They’re dangerous.”The nurse glanced down at her mug. She didn’t take a sip. She didn’t look back up. “You said it wasn’t dangerous today.”She had. She had lied. Part of her felt a prickle of regret, but other parts of her knew that she would do it again, if she thought she had to. And, somehow, it seemed like she always had to. Fuck, she really was exhausted. Beyond exhausted. “I’ve put you in danger.” She just… just wanted it to be over. “I’m sorry.”“You saved me.” The nurse still wasn’t looking at her, but her voice sounded stronger. “I… I’ve been in danger for a long time. I’d still help you.”“You’ve already saved me enough times.” But the problem with over was that she had no idea what it looked like. Once, she had thought it had looked like a small cottage on the shore, but everything she did just seemed to push her further and further away. It would a tsunami now for the water to reach her. “You’ve given me shelter.”“And I’d do it again.” The nurse finally looked up at her. Her hands still stayed tight around her mug, but at least she was looking at her. Ji-woo couldn’t help but think that she had beautiful eyes. “It… it hasn’t been that bad, having you here. It’s better than being alone.”Ji-woo didn’t like to think about that. Not about herself, not about the nurse. Not about her father, who had spent so long so deep undercover. Not even about Mu-jin, betrayed by his closest friend. There was a common thread there, wasn’t there? Everyone in her life was alone. “I’m sorry.”Silence fell between them. It hung over the table, only the sound of the rain against the window, only the sound of their breathing, and occasionally, the small slurp of a sip of tea breaking through. She was sorry, she was bloody, they were tired, they… Ji-woo’s mug was empty. She had raised it to her mouth to take another sip and found none left. It had helped. It had helped immensely. But she was still exhausted. She needed sleep. She… She realised she had always done her best not to remember the nurse’s name. She pushed herself up, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. She walked around the table. Leaned towards the nurse. And gently, as gently as a monster could, she pressed a kiss to her forehead.*Breakfast was simple. Eggs, rice, kimchi. A glass of fresh, cold juice. Ji-woo didn’t want to know how much it cost. It was still raining outside, lighter, more of a drizzle now that the sun had started its rise up from the horizon. She and Kang were still the only ones in the restaurant.“What,” Kang was the first one to speak, after finishing her wine glass, “do you think of the food?”Ji-woo took another bite before she answered the question. Let the flavours linger on her tongue, the softness of the egg yolk, the light, vaguely herbal fragrance of the grains of rice, the slight tingling spice of the kimchi. She answered truthfully. “Good.”“I’m glad.” Kang smiled at her across the table. “I came here for the first time when I was a student. I had gotten lost on the trains and found myself—”Ji-woo saw her refill her glass. “Was it here where you started drinking?”Kang’s eyes widened, just a little, just for a fraction of a second. “Observant.” She chuckled, a little dryly, a little less than amused. “And blunt. That habit will get you into trouble.” She reached for the bottle. Held it across the table. “Want some?”Saying yes was a bad idea, and Ji-woo should’ve known better (coffee at least, would be better to keep her awake), but she shrugged. Took the glass that the lawyer poured without complaint. It was a white wine, too sweet for Ji-woo’s tastes, but it went down her throat smoothly. “Can I ask you a question?”Kang leaned back in her chair, the glass between her fingers. The painting on the wall behind her depicted a scene from centuries ago. Farmers. Rural. Simple. “Of course.”There were many things Ji-woo didn’t want to know, mostly about herself. Why was she here? Why had she decided to call the lawyer as soon as she had woken up in the nurse’s bed? Why… “Why me?”“Because you’ve never been a leader? Is that what you want to know?” Yes. “Because we need a symbol. That’s what the best leaders are for: showing off power. Both the unity and direction of that power. And the threat. The micromanagement is for people like me to spend our time worrying about.”Sure, Ji-woo had killed Mu-jin. That gave her symbolism, but only as far as it gave her threat. She didn’t have unity, and she definitely didn’t have direction. “I’m not the only person who has a reputation.” Off all the criminals and potential criminals in Seoul, she would’ve been the last person she would’ve picked. “So, why me?”For a moment, she thought Kang wasn’t going to answer. Or was going to give her a vague, empty answer. A symbolic answer, not a real one. In the end, she simply shrugged. “Mu-jin was proud of you.”One monster proud of another. It hurt. It hurt terribly. With a deep, desperate pang. And it hrut because, well, she had killed him. And worse because… because she was becoming him. “I have two conditions.”Kang nodded. “Go on.”“First, protection.” That was the priority. That had to be the priority. Not just because it was the only thing Ji-woo had left that made her feel a little less alone, but also because it was urgent. The danger was imminent. “I want it now. Not soon, now. Today. Including a change of address and bodyguards at work.”“Give me the details, and I’ll sort it out as soon as we’ve finished breakfast.” Good. Very good. Thank fuck. “And the second?”“The second,” JI-woo let out a shaky breath. The next breath in came easier. A lot easier. She setill gulped down a quick mouthful of wine. “This new organisation, if I’m going to be its figurehead, I want to choose its name.”Maybe it was a trivial condition, but it seemed important. Terribly important. And, thankfully, Kang nodded. “Did you have one in mind?”Direction. Purpose. If she was going to do this, she needed to remember who she was, she needed to remember why she was doing this. Most of all, she needed to remember where she wanted to go. Maybe, just maybe, she could convince herself that this would end where she had always wanted it to end. “The Beach.”