Han Bo-young pressed her back against the cold cabinet. The voice was measured, academic, and chillingly familiar. It sent a surge of adrenaline through her that momentarily drowned out the throbbing in her gut.
But she found that no matter how hard she pushed her brain, she couldn't remember where she had heard this voice.
"The neurotransmitters in the prefrontal cortex were still firing when the femoral artery was opened," the familiar voice said, his footsteps stopping near the central island.
"But the data is noisy. Yoon-a's threshold was too low. She slipped into neurogenic shock before we could stabilize the S1 bridge."
"He gave up his fucking daughter!" The second voice barked. "He needs results, and fast." He added bringing his voice down to a whisper.
"Then find me someone with a higher pain tolerance," the familiar voice snapped. "Someone whose nervous system has been tempered."
Han Bo-young felt a drop of cold sweat slide down her face. She clamped her hand over her abdomen. She didn't feel the wetness of a fresh bleed, but she felt the sickening, jagged pull of her stitches. The climb through the ceiling had pushed the injury's ability to heal to its limit. If she moved too quickly, the wound would dehisce. Every second she held her breath and stayed crouched was torture.
She looked at the floor around her. There was no blood on it yet. But she was trapped.
She caught sight of a bottle of concentrated acetic acid on the bottom shelf of the cabinet.
Tempered. That's what her professor called her in college. "You have a tempered mind, Bo-young. Most students flinch at the smell of the morgue; you thrive in it."
She reached for the bottle. She couldn't climb back into the ceiling; her injury wouldn't withstand the strain. She had to force them out of the room.
She unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle into a waste bin filled with paper scraps and discarded nitrile gloves. Then, she reached for a canister of powdered chlorine from the shelf above. It was a basic chemical reaction, one she'd learnt in freshman-year.
She poured the powder in and ducked lower. Within seconds, a thick, acrid cloud of chloramine gas began to billow from the bin.
"What is that?" the second voice barked, coughing.
"Get out! The ventilation in this sector is localized. If the sensors trip, the gas will suffocate us before the fire department even arrives!" The familiar voice shouted, panicked.
The sound of scrambling footsteps followed. The heavy lab door hissed open and shut.
Han Bo-young didn't move. She counted to ten, her lungs burning even behind the makeshift mask of her sleeve. She lunged for the terminal, grabbed the ripper, and scrambled toward the emergency exit.
She burst into the stairwell, the cool air hitting her face. She stumbled down three flights before the fire in her stomach forced her to stop. She slumped against the concrete wall, gasping for air, her vision blurring at the edges. She checked her shirt. A small, dark bloom of red was finally beginning to spread. The stitches had partially given way, but the wound was holding.
She pulled the ripper from her pocket. The data was there. But as her eyes flickered toward the stairwell window, she saw a black sedan pulling out of the parking lot below.
Han Bo-young watched the sedan's taillights vanish into the traffic. The driver remained a silhouette, and the passenger—the owner of that hauntingly familiar voice—was obscured by the dark tint of the windows.
She stood frozen on the staircase, the adrenaline beginning to recede. In its place was a sharp pain. It felt like she had been shot again. She took deep painful gasps.
Tempered.
The word was a hook buried in her mind. But the face attached to the voice remained blurry.
She forced herself to move, hand pressed firmly against her abdomen to provide mechanical support to her wound. She reached her car, her other hand grabbing onto the top of the door to stabilize herself as she climbed in.
She barely had the door closed when the headlights hit her.
Two beams of blinding white light cut through the shadows of the garage, pinning her against the headrest. She raised her hand raised over her eyes to block the excess light. It was a black SUV, idling near the exit. It didn't move.
"Not today," Han Bo-young hissed.
She pushed the car into reverse, the tires screeching against the concrete. The SUV lunged forward. She didn't head for the main exit; she knew they'd have it blocked. Instead, she turned the wheel hard, heading for the service ramp that led toward the loading docks.
The chase hit the streets with a violent jolt.
The SUV was faster, a modern beast of a machine, but Han Bo-young had the advantage of a car she didn't care about ruining. She veered into a narrow alleyway, the walls clipping the side mirrors with a screech. The SUV didn't flinch, staying glued to her rear.
She took a hard right, drifting toward the Han River expressway. Her gut was on fire, a sharp reminder that her abdominal wall was currently held together by hope and a few frayed threads of nylon. She couldn't outrun them on a straightaway. Her car couldn't. It was only a matter of time before they caught up and she'd end up either in a hospital or the morgue.
"Min-ho!" she shouted into the hands-free mic as she swerved around a delivery scooter.
"Bo-young? I hear tires... are you driving? Where...?"
"Mapo Expressway, heading East! I need you to trip the signal at the Gongdeok intersection. Now!"
Han Bo-young knew she didn't need to say it twice. Song Min-ho had been her partner long enough and he knew exactly when the situation called for zero questions.
She saw the light ahead. It was green.
Behind her, the SUV pulled alongside, attempting to ram her toward the divider. She felt the impact—a sickening crunch of metal—that tossed her head against the window. The window cracked. Her head spun, her vision blurred as streaks of blood started flowing down her face. But she held on.
Five hundred meters.
"Min-ho, now!"
The light turned red. Han Bo-young didn't brake. She floored the accelerator, her car roaring as it shot into the intersection.
Cross-traffic honked, tires hissed, and a bus loomed like a wall of yellow metal. She slipped through a gap that shouldn't have existed.
The SUV wasn't so lucky. A delivery truck, unable to stop in time, slammed into its side, spinning the heavy vehicle across the road.
Han Bo-young didn't look back. She pushed the car until she reached the backstreets of Mangwon-dong, eventually pulling into a darkened car wash.
She killed the engine and sat in the silence, the only sound the ticking of the cooling metal. She reached down and touched her shirt. It was sticky. She held her head in her hand, gasping for breath. Her eyes rolled in their sockets. She was exhausted.
She opened the car door and shakily got out. She hadn't taken a step when her knees gave way. She had lost so much blood. She grabbed onto the sides of the car, desperately crawling on the floor to get to the boot.
She needed sugar. Fast.
She managed to open the car's boot and with a snap, popped open the can of soda. She took large gulps of it, hoping the sugar in it would rejuvenate her a little.
The can was emptied rather quickly and she took out another from the box and drank from it.
She lay on the floor, looking up at the ceiling, resting, trying to clear up her vision a little and regain her energy.
Her car had been thoroughly damaged, but she didn't care.
A small smile settled on her face before she fainted.