The War of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 3), Page 2

  It was only then that Yoori saw guilt devour his eyes. Jae Won understood Tae Hyun because he related to him. Jae Won blamed himself for what happened to Chae Young; he blamed himself for bringing her into this world. Yoori breathed in painfully. The guilt he felt was something she wanted to relieve him of. It wasn’t his fault that Chae Young was raped. The burden rested on her and her alone.

  When she was about to muster up the courage to tell him that none of this was his fault, the bathroom door opened.

  Chae Young came out in her white sweater and pink pajama pants. The outfit dwarfed her normally tall figure. Chae Young used to emanate the most vivacious aura but for the past few weeks, as the weight came off her like the falling water from her newly washed hair, she looked like a shell of her former self. The very sight broke Yoori’s heart.

  “Are you guys ready to eat?” she asked meekly.

  Dread assailed Yoori as she stared at Chae Young. She no longer found the valor to voice her guilt. She became a coward again and wanted to run away.

  “I actually have to return some books to the library,” Yoori shared with a smile that hid the storm brewing inside her. “We’ll have dinner together another time, okay?”

  As Chae Young nodded in confusion, Yoori walked over and gave her a huge hug. She pulled out, gave Jae Won a stiff nod, and left without another word. As she exited the building like the coward she was, Yoori belatedly realized she didn’t have her keys.

  Damn, she thought.

  Rushing back, Yoori quietly reentered the apartment. Chae Young and Jae Won were no longer outside. From the mumbled voices coming from the hall, she deduced that they were in Chae Young’s bedroom. Yoori slowly inched in to look for her keys when she froze like ice. She was taken aback when she heard soft sobs emit from Chae Young’s room.

  Chae Young’s cries spilled over her like acid rain, sending aches to eat at her heart. It was then that Yoori realized Chae Young had been holding in her tears this whole time, waiting for her to leave. Yoori wanted to rush into the bedroom to comfort Chae Young, but she resisted the urge. She couldn’t see Chae Young at that moment without breaking down as well. God help her if she broke down again. Her chest tightened while she suppressed her own tears. Unable to withstand it, Yoori quickly grabbed her keys and left before anyone found out she was there. She trusted Jae Won to take care of Chae Young, holding and comforting her as a boyfriend should . . . as Tae Hyun once held her when she needed a shoulder to cry on.

  Yoori chewed on her lips.

  She had never felt more alone.

  Heaving a quiet breath as she thought about Chae Young and what happened that night, Yoori flipped the next page of her library book. It had been days since she last saw Chae Young, and the pain was still fresh within her.

  “Shh! Go outside if you want to make a call.”

  Yoori lifted her gaze from her book when she heard murmuring from the other corner of the library. The source of the sound came from three men. All were dressed in dark puffy jackets, jeans, and beanies. They were three of the many men who had kept her company in the library for more than three weeks now.

  Although Tae Hyun hadn’t made an appearance in her life since their fall out, that did not mean that Serpents gang members hadn’t appeared in her world either. After moving back into her apartment, Yoori noticed that there were Serpents watching over her and following her everywhere she went. If she hadn’t recognized some of them, then she wouldn’t have even suspected she was being guarded. She hadn’t complained because they had all been very quiet. She also wasn’t a fool. She knew her life was in danger. Regardless of where it came from, she would accept all the protection she could get. Lastly, she felt alone so it was nice to know that wasn’t actually the case.

  “Miss, we’re about to close in fifteen minutes,” a library assistant informed Yoori, smiling warmly at her as Yoori’s gaze averted from her unofficial bodyguards.

  Yoori nodded at the young college girl, thanking her for the notice before the girl went to inform other library patrons that it was time to pack up.

  It was closing time again.

  Another day gone by . . .

  Snow was pouring when Yoori walked out of the library. She pulled the white hood of her jacket over her black ponytail and raced to her car. She peered at the rearview mirror after she started the engine. Like clockwork, three Serpents got into their black BMW, ready to follow her.

  Yoori drove in silence, thinking about nothing in particular. She parked a block away from her apartment and was running home when she suddenly felt a pair of eyes on her.

  She stopped in her tracks and looked around.

  Countless people walked around her in the drizzling snow. Yoori looked across the street. The Serpents were in their car, drinking coffee while looking all around to make sure no threats were present. The feeling of someone watching her became more prominent, and she knew it did not come from the Serpents in her company. Yoori surveyed the street again. Though people surrounded her, the sensation of being watched did not appear to be coming from those who stood in her direct line of vision. It felt like it was coming from above.

  Her gaze gradually climbed up to one of the taller buildings on the block. Her heart jolted to a quick stop.

  What the?

  Was it her imagination or was someone standing on the roof of that building?

  Yoori blinked the snow off her eyes and continued to keep her focus on the silhouette above. She began to walk toward the shadow when the sound of tires screeching distracted her.

  “Watch out!”

  She averted her eyes in a panic, thinking a vehicle was coming for her. Her breath steadied when she saw that a red truck had skidded to a stop in front of a young couple jaywalking on the street. Luckily, the truck stopped in time. The couple waved their apology to the driver and ran off into a nearby apartment building. The truck resumed driving and everything returned to normal on the street. Yoori took her eyes off the scene and looked back at the top of the building. Surprise met her when only an unoccupied roof greeted her eyes. The mysterious shadow was no longer there.

  Yoori blew out a relieved breath. It was nothing after all. Shaking her head at her overactive imagination, she wasted no more time and hurried up to her apartment. She stepped in, flicked on all the lights, and locked the door. She was about to step into her bedroom when she heard the sound of someone breathing.

  Yoori straightened like a cobra on the attack.

  She moved back into the hall. Slowly, she started approaching the living room. She stopped cold once she spotted the silhouette of someone hiding behind the bookshelf in her living room.

  “Shit!”

  Wasting no time, Yoori made a beeline for the door when a second intruder sprang out from the kitchen and kicked her away from the exit.

  “Ugh!”

  Her body slammed into the back of the living room sofa. Pain from the impact detonated inside her, and she scrambled to escape. She was merely inches away from the door when the man, who was previously hiding behind the bookshelf, locked a powerful arm around her neck and held her prisoner.

  “Always so good with your hearing,” he whispered with amusement.

  Yoori looked at him and the other man by the door. They wore gray suits and had dark hair perfectly slicked back. They looked like they belonged in a business meeting rather than in an apartment ambush.

  “What do you want?” she said breathlessly, attempting to get oxygen into her lungs while in a chokehold.

  They were either here because of her relationship with Kwon Tae Hyun or because she was the Queen of the Underworld prior to her amnesia. Either way, Kwon Tae Hyun and An Soo Jin had a lot of enemies. Being attacked for either reason would never end well for her.

  “To bury you in your coffin,” he growled, confirming her worst fears. He eyed the other man by the doorway. “We have five minutes to get her down. Will the Serpents downstairs be a problem?”

  “No,” answered the second man
. “We’re taking her through the back exit.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Survival instincts overtook Yoori. She would be damned if she made it easy for them to kill her. If she was going down, then she wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Fuck you!” Yoori shouted, grabbing a lamp from the table and hitting the guy holding her across the head. Taking out all her pent up anger on him, she hit him continuously, drawing blood as the light bulb flickered into darkness.

  “Fuck!” the guy screamed, stumbling back while holding on to his assaulted head.

  In that instance, the man by the door rushed to Yoori. She attempted to hit him with the same lamp, but unlike the other man, he avoided her strikes with ease. In her state of panic, Yoori resorted to chucking the lamp at him. While he was distracted with batting the lamp away, she seized a dining room chair. She raised the wooden chair and broke it over his head.

  Boom!

  The wood shattered over his skull. He screamed as he crumpled to the floor.

  Using this as her opportunity, Yoori unlocked the door and sped out into the hall. She bounded down the stairs, huffing and puffing for air.

  “Help!” she called out, hoping a neighbor or one of the Serpents would hear her. “Help me—Ah!”

  Yoori nearly toppled over the stairway railing when a third attacker snatched her off the stairwell and hauled her through the back exit. Snow pelted her at full force as he dragged her into the quiet back alleyway of the apartment complex.

  “Get off me!”

  Adrenaline still pumping through her, Yoori used the wall of the apartment complex as her crutch. She jumped on it and pushed herself backward, slamming the man against a parked red car behind them. He cursed and loosened his hold on her.

  Screech!

  Yoori whirled around. A black, unmarked limo sped toward her. It stopped right in front of her, its bright headlights blinding her eyes momentarily.

  Car doors slammed. Two other silhouettes sprinted toward her.

  “Shit!” she screamed.

  Yoori tried to make a run for it, but was stopped when the two men who attacked her in the apartment dragged her into the limo. They roughly threw her in. The back of her skull hit the window, nearly causing her to black out. The first attacker from the apartment pulled her down to the floor. He pinned her to the ground by jamming his knee into her neck. Yoori struggled to breathe as she watched the rest of the men pile in. Like the two from the apartment, the other three were also dressed in gray suits and had their hair slicked back.

  They closed the door as the limo sped off like a runaway train.

  “An Soo Jin,” said the one pinning her to the ground. “Do you remember us?”

  Yoori groaned. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone from Soo Jin’s past caught up to her. She just didn’t think it’d be this soon. Anger inundated her. She was still reeling from how fucked up her life was; she was not going to allow these assholes to make it worse.

  “Get the fuck off me!” she shouted.

  Fury filling her, she grabbed the hand of the one pinning her to the ground.

  She flicked his wrist back.

  A loud crack suspended in the air.

  “Ahhhhhh!” He screamed bloody murder and recoiled from her.

  Yoori surged up, gasping for air. She crawled on her hands and knees, and moved to the farther end of the limo, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. Yoori almost reached the end when someone seized her legs and tugged her back.

  “No!”

  She kicked against the one who grabbed her. He collapsed back on to the seat, taking two other men down in the process.

  “I don’t think so, Soo Jin,” said the one who pulled her off the stairwell. He lunged for her, pinned her to the ground, and started punching her in the face.

  Pain engulfed her before she started seeing stars.

  “You piece of shit!” she shrieked.

  A monster awakened inside her, and she no longer felt fear. All she felt was the thirst for blood. Blocking his hit with her arm, she punched him hard in the neck. He let out a scream and released her. She drew up, snatched his head and banged it against the limo window. After that, she threw his body to the ground and stepped on it before lunging for the rest of the men.

  Everything that followed was a blur for Yoori.

  All she remembered was punching necks, slamming skulls against windows, and cracking bones. Her fists bled from the assault she was bestowing on to her kidnappers, but she could hardly care.

  “Who the fuck are you to attack me?” she hollered at the top of her lungs. “I am not someone to fuck with!”

  One laughed and elbowed her chin, causing her head to collide against the window. Soon after, a large hand grappled her neck and pinned her against the highest part of the window. The crown of her head touched the limo ceiling. Once again, she struggled for air.

  Yoori opened her eyes to see the rest of the men wipe blood away from their mouths. Her eyes strayed to the one who held a syringe in his hands.

  “Seriously?” she struggled to say, knowing the purpose of that needle was to sedate her. “You guys can’t take on a girl without that?”

  The one restraining her against the window chuckled, blood from his forehead trickling down his face. “We all know a simple girl cannot beat the hell out of us like you just did.”

  The one holding the needle came closer to her. He pricked the needle into the side of her strained neck.

  She screamed when the syringe pierced her.

  “Always a pleasure, An Soo Jin,” he whispered as darkness engulfed her world. Yoori blacked out when he said his final words to her. “Now enjoy your coffin.”

  “Where the heartless and vengeful. . .”

  02: The Coffin Throne

  Darkness surrounded her when she opened her eyes. At first, she did not know where she was. However, as she reached out blindly, she began to realize where they had laid her body.

  Sobs overtook her.

  “No . . . no . . . not again,” she whispered, sobs wracking her body as her unsteady hands touched the tight walls that imprisoned her. She could hardly move.

  Her hands struggled to find anything in the confined space. Her fingers grazed over an object. She quickly grabbed it in the darkness. She touched it and recognized that she was holding a lighter. Her breathing was becoming erratic as she struggled to light it. Light illuminated the space she was in, and her heart stopped cold.

  Her worst fear was realized as she stared at the sight above her.

  The coffin.

  She was in the coffin again.

  The putrid smell began to fill her nostrils and bile rose through her. She moved the lighter to the side to determine the source of the disgusting scent. Horror clutched her once she made out what else was in the coffin. The light spread over severed legs, broken fingers, and ripped off ears like a wave from the ocean.

  Body parts.

  She was sleeping in a coffin with amputated body parts.

  “No! Not again!” she continued to cry. She started pounding on the coffin lid, using all her might to push it open. It would not budge. “Please . . . Please let me out!”

  The rancid smell grew stronger as her panicked body moved against the decaying body parts. Air was becoming scarce and it felt like the world was closing in on her.

  All she wanted was to get out.

  All she wanted was to die . . .

  Yoori opened her eyes in terror.

  She attempted to calm down by focusing on slowing her breathing. When the disgusting cadaver odor from earlier was nowhere near her nostrils, she placed a reassuring hand over her frantic heart. To her great relief, she concluded that what she experienced was not real at all.

  It was just a dream.

  Her relief was short-lived when she found a lighter sitting atop her chest. Yoori picked it up and stopped breathing when she realized she was holding a similar lighter to the one in her dream.
/>   Her hands fumbled in the darkness until she was finally able to light it.

  Light bloomed around her, running over the walls surrounding her and the lid above.

  Her pulse quickened in fear.

  She was indeed inside a coffin.

  She moved the lighter, afraid that her reality would reenact the awful dream. To her relief, there were no decaying body parts inside this coffin. It was only filled with her presence, along with a lighter and a white bandage wrapped over her injured hand.

  Yoori calmly stared up at the coffin lid. She furrowed her brows when she noticed distinct markings on it. She lifted her lighter and moved her fingers over the fingernail marks. There were so many markings that she wondered how often this coffin was used to trap a living person.

  She gulped.

  Yoori did not intend to be the last occupant of this coffin.

  She flicked the lighter off and pushed the coffin cover.

  Creak.

  The lid easily lifted, permitting fresh air to enter her lungs.

  Yoori shielded her eyes from the bright light that suddenly assaulted her after being surrounded by darkness. Once her eyes acclimated with the bright stream of light, she looked around the room. The entire room was pitch dark. The spotlight was on the coffin.

  She struggled out of the coffin, her legs feeling like jelly. She nearly crashed to the floor after she jumped off the table the coffin sat on. Once her muscles started working properly again, she stood up.