@sajabcy continued from x
It was very possible she’d just volunteered herself for what was likely a very dangerous game she did not yet fully understand the rules of or know how to play with the uttering of that challenge, but the hunter had meant every one of those handful of words. Even if she’d wanted to back out (she hadn’t), it was too late – she could tell by the way his muscles had locked in a predatory stillness that there was no option for rescinding her taunt.
The hunter would now become the hunted.
She willed herself to match his stillness, least to the best of her mortal abilities. She would not squirm beneath his assessing stare or bolt like a rabbit fleeing the threat of danger; that wasn’t her style. Instead, expression is shaped into a mask of cool neutrality and poise, even teetering towards boredom as she managed an assured lift of her chin and offered little more than a slow blink. Let him question his competence for not only leashing the problem child but making her heel. Outsmarting her. Taming her.
Perhaps he would fool himself into thinking he possessed all the cards in their game before she revealed his neck had rest beneath her thigh length leather boots all along. Or perhaps she would learn she had underestimated him and finally met her match – it was too soon to tell when their game hadn’t yet begun.
Electricity seemed to crackle through the air, unseen yet felt, as he strode towards her, movements slow and calculated, dragging out this moment as the distance between them diminished to non-existence. She was, quite literally, dancing with the devil, only her devil was disguised as an idol and masked by hair of starlight.
Despite the florescence of Seoul and lights at every corner, their position on the rooftop of this particularly tall building offers little for clear visuals to her human eyes. He is still cloaked in shadow, his features harder to discern from this new proximity as he brushes rhodolite strands back from her shoulder, granting himself access to her neck where he all but buries his face as he scents her like a fucking dog. What secrets did his heightened demonic senses whisper to him that her own could not detect? Scents of emotion so strong he could practically taste them as they ghosted over that jeoseung saja’s tongue?
The sharp sting starts as little more than a pin prick before radiating across her scalp as those gemstone tresses are plucked with efficiency. The unexpectedness of it has her close to recoil on instinct, but she suspects the abrupt movement will only lead to backlash.
She will not break or falter – she will yield to the pain, accept and embrace it, for the sake of defeating him in what he clearly believes is his element.
His breath is hot against silken skin, and her pulse quickens in response. Can he hear it? Feel it? She tries not to think about it and instead forces herself to focus on his words; they are instructions. Orders.
She is preparing for her departure from the roof, to run and run until she and the wind are one and the same, when sharp canines pierce into her flesh, spilling her blood and drawing a hiss from clenched teeth. The fucking cheat sunk his teeth into her in a way he had only metaphorically done with Zoey, ensuring there will be an unmistakable trail for him to follow. There may have been rules to their game, but the demon had never guaranteed he would follow them. Or perhaps he was exempt from them entirely.
Any pain in her scalp had dulled until it was forgotten entirely, giving way to the new ache of her collarbone as blood slowly trickled from the puncture wounds.
“Should you eventually find me,” she hissed, teeth still clenched as the temptation to ram her knee up into his groin roiled through her, “I promise to pay you back for that damned mark.” Her words are honeyed poison.
Without offering extra words or warning, she is spinning free of his bubble, twisting her body with a dancer’s grace that has been honed after years of practice. He is giving her ten minutes, and she will make use of every second. She is gone in an instant, hair billowing behind her like the tail of a pink shooting star as she moves with unusual silence.
The first three minutes are spent headed west, the hunter carefully counting down each second to ensure she allots enough time for the rest of her plan. She weaves and hops with ease from roof to roof, allowing the wind to carry her as she flees. Occasionally does she make it a point to dip the tips of both her middle and index finger into the blood that still trickles from the wound he’d left before meticulously smearing that blood onto various structures – poles, walls, ledges, signs, and anything else within reach. If a blood trail was what he wanted, a blood trail was what he would get.
When she reaches one hundred and eighty in her count, the idol doesn’t even bother to slow as she pivots, using her momentum to launch her back in the exact direction she had come. It might be risky to travel back east towards her personal hunter, but she had to hope the next two minutes would not be wasted and would instead serve as an advantage.
Carefully, so, so carefully did she backtrack in her exact path, ensuring her scent would not linger elsewhere. It was only at the end of those two minutes that she made a sharp left turn, sliding across the glass of a skylight before launching herself northward. North was the direction she remained for the next five, avoiding leaving so much as a visible drop of blood as she pushed herself to move faster even when her lungs began to burn. And at the end of those ten minutes, she does not stop – arms continue to pump as she runs and runs, refusing to even glance back over her shoulder.
She can only hope he will fall for her trickery or that he will at least hesitate long enough to buy her an extra minute if nothing else.
