The Tiger King (Chaelisa)

80| No Time To Die

warning: mature

Previously: Rosé gained access to Burning Sun club and got the information they were looking for. Shenanigans happen, Jennie shows up in the nick of time, Jinyoung shows up too, taunts them but lets them go, threatening to set the terrorist police upon them. Chaennie are out of contact with Hani, Youngdon is MIA (after being knocked out) and the girls concocted a plan to clear the dancefloor and get to the exit (shooting the sprinklers). Jennie realises something disturbing. Someone screams before they can initiate the plan.

The moment she heard the screams, Jennie forgot all about confusion and jumped into action.

"Move!" she barked. She grabbed Rosé's arm and dived into the fray.

 Due to her short height, Jennie was buffeted from all directions as she struggled towards the exit, making little progress. People screamed and rammed into each other in the half-darkness, suddenly in a mad rush to empty the dance floor. Jennie caught several stray hits from flailing limbs, making her stagger back.

Rosé caught Jennie, arms trembling with effort to stop her from falling until Jennie steadied herself.

"What's happening?" Rosé cried. "Is it the SOU? Or Hani?"

Jennie couldn't think. She swivelled around, breathing ragged as her pulse pounded, trying to block out the screams of pain and fear around them that raised goosebumps on her arms.

Think Jennie. Think!

She spotted the obnoxious black car that had caught her eye when she passed by earlier, sitting on its raised pedestal in the spotlight, the only thing visible amongst the roiling sea of darkness around them. People were already swarming around it like ants.

Jennie took off. "Head for the car!" 

"Why?"

"Just run!"

She dragged Rosé after her, intending to escape the crowd rush by snagging a spot on the pedestal that wasn't as overwhelmed as their surroundings, hoping it would offer a temporary reprieve to get their bearings.

Glasses shattered, tables toppled, people went careening in all directions. It was a deadly stampede as the crowd surged around them, running helter-skelter for their lives. 

But what were they running from? 

Jennie was practically blind in the gloom. People shoved them and almost knocked them over repeatedly but Jennie and Rosé stumbled on grimly, hanging on to each other's shoulders like a pair of drunks.

"My purse! The tablet's gonna break!" Rosé said.

"Just keep moving!" Jennie bellowed. "Don't let go, don't let—"

Like an explosion, they were violently torn apart and thrown to the ground as a new surge of people crashed upon them out of nowhere. At the same time, the lights snapped on, blinding Jennie.

"Agghhh!" She covered her face, flinching away.

"Jennie!"

Jennie finally managed to snap her eyes open, coming face to face with Rosé a few feet away, grappling with a burly figure decked out in heavy armoured black gear complete with riot helmet and mask. 

Was he friend or foe? Jennie couldn't tell with all the madness around them. 

But she wasn't liking the way he was forcefully twisting Rosé's arms behind her back, overpowering her easily as she cried in pain.

"Let her go!" Jennie struggled to her feet, only to get another hit in the face from a passerby barrelling past. She went down again with a groan. When she raised her head, Rosé was still struggling and kicking out defiantly but it was no use; her hits merely hit the armoured stranger's well-protected shins.