Joonho's applause echoed across the docks, sharp and venomous. "Family reunions are so… explosive, aren't they?"
Yoochan's gaze darted between Sooyoung's gun and Miyoung's wheelchair. The red blink beneath her shawl pulsed like a dying star.
"Let her go," Yoochan said.
Joonho smirked. "Or what? You'll cry? Beg? Pathetic."
Sooyoung's finger trembled on the trigger. "The USB, Yoochan. Now."
"You're working with him?"
"Working for survival." She jerked the gun toward the wheelchair. "Tick-tock."
Miyoung's breath hitched.
Yoochan lunged.
---
The world fractured into chaos.
Yoochan tackled Joonho, their bodies crashing into the van. Metal groaned. Sooyoung shouted—"The bomb!"—but her voice drowned in the scuffle.
Joonho's elbow slammed Yoochan's ribs. "You'll watch her die again!"
Yoochan headbutted him, tasting blood. "Where's the trigger?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
A gunshot cracked.
Miyoung screamed.
Yoochan froze.
Sooyoung stood over the wheelchair, smoke curling from her gun—not at Miyoung, but at the bomb's control panel. Sparks flew. The red light flickered.
"Run!" she yelled.
Joonho laughed, wild and unhinged. "Too late!"
The bomb beeped—10 seconds.
Yoochan wrenched free, sprinting toward Miyoung. Joonho's knife sliced his calf. He stumbled, crawling the final feet.
"Mother—"
Her fingers brushed his. "Leave me."
Never.
Sooyoung tossed him wire cutters. "Blue or red?!"
"What?!"
"Choose!"
Yoochan hesitated. Blue. No—red.
He cut both.
---
Silence.
Then Joonho's roar. "Impossible!"
The bomb's light died. Miyoung slumped, unconscious but alive.
Sooyoung kicked Joonho's knife away. "You lose."
"Do I?" Joonho wiped blood from his lips, grinning. "Check the van."
A screen inside lit up: LIVE FEED—PATRIARCH'S STUDY.
The patriarch sat at his desk, Miyoung's dossier in hand. "Lee Miyoung. My loyal shadow." He lit a match. "Pity she forgot her place."
The dossier caught fire.
"No!" Yoochan lunged, but Joonho gripped his collar.
"You're nothing without proof," Joonho hissed. "Just a concubine's bastard playing king."
Sooyoung aimed her gun. "Let him go."
"Or what? You'll shoot me?" Joonho pressed Yoochan's face to the screen. "Watch."
The patriarch opened a safe, revealing rows of USBs. Protocol 1997. Protocol 2015. Protocol 2023.
"Burn them all," the patriarch ordered a henchman.
Flames engulfed the screen.
---
Yoochan went numb.
Joonho released him, strolling to the van. "Game over, Maknae."
Sooyoung fired. The shot grazed his shoulder, but he kept walking.
"Let him go," Yoochan said dully.
"He'll kill you!"
"He already has."
The van sped off, taillights bleeding into the night.
---
Miyoung stirred in Sooyoung's arms. "Y-Yoochan…"
He knelt, cradling her hand. "I'm here."
"Don't… become… them." Her eyes fluttered shut.
Sooyoung pressed a USB into his palm—Protocol 2023. "I copied it before the meet. Only Joonho's crimes, not yours."
Yoochan stared at it. "Why?"
"Because someone's gotta keep you from burning the world." She helped him stand. "We need to move. The patriarch's men are coming."
---
The safe house was a ghost of itself. Seojun waited, bandaged and furious. "You left them to die."
Yoochan said nothing.
"The gas killed thirty-seven people. Children."
"And the drones?" Yoochan's voice was ash.
"Disabled. Thanks to her." Seojun glared at Sooyoung.
She shrugged. "I had a change of heart. Sue me."
Yoochan plugged in the USB. Files spilled across the screen: Joonho's offshore accounts, assassination orders, a ledger of every life he'd erased.
"This ends him," Seojun said.
"No." Yoochan stood. "It ends them."
---
---