Detour

28

Haein

This mission was supposed to be easier than my previous ones.

We still have contact outside the police force, there's a surveillance team standby for our aid, and lowkey we could still carry guns for our protection. There's a lot of pros in our current situation that I could always use for our advantage.

But still, missions always equate to threat.

And what makes it more dangerous was that we were fighting an unknown force, a faceless culprit. I've been discreet about this but the fact that SMPA and Jeju Police cannot penetrate Thanatos firewall to obtain his actual location or any relative information from him, I don't consider him as just a random serial killer on the lose, but a very very clever one too. His moves are definitely all calculative. Who knows, he might already knew we were able to track his online account and getting an idea of what could probably be happening. I am thinking of all the possibilities. All the dangers that we could be facing. It's always better to be overprepared than lenient.

It was against another goddamn fucking rule of disclosing our case to a non-team member, but I consulted SMPA's resident psychologist regarding the killer's behavior recently. He predicted almost same findings only with some prominent notes.

A detour.

A change of his usual killing style.

Either the killer will show himself face to face to confuse us, either the crime won't happen at home like the usual, either the target victim will be changed, there are endless possibilities. But the main point is between us, Jisoo's life is more in danger than mine. Because on the all the killing patterns, the culprit's hatred towards the female victims are very notable, their gruesome deaths are enough evidence for that.

And that fact makes everything difficult for me.

Paranoia's hitting me day by day, and I've asked my sister for additional items on top of my usual undercover kit. For extra layer of protection. For precautionary measures.

Just for her. Only for her.

***

Kim turned around and faced me after minutes of us staring at our wedding portrait.

"Should we start unloading our things? I mean the boxes and our stuff. Those are the items that we ordered ahead, right?"

"Yeah."

Beddings and curtains, kitchen wares, bathroom supplies. Few items we pre ordered like an actual and real couple and picked them up earlier from the physical stores. Jeju Police had other items pre delivered before we moved, moving furniture like bed and couch, and I guess some appliances. I also bought few books from a local bookstore, and some wrapped boxes on a clothing store.

"Let's unload them later, we'll have to scan the place first." I answered, picking up my package. I noticed she's very eager to see what's inside. We both sit on the couch and I laid the case above the center table. I slowly opened it, and she wowed the moment she saw what's inside.

Pistols with spare mags, thigh holsters, a burner phone, handcuffs, covert cameras with high resolutions, radio frequency detectors, earpieces, long vision scopes and binoculars, specs with built in camera, up to collapsible batons, pepper spray, taser, to a compact med kit containing mostly pain killers.

I had few encounters of torture during my undercover stint, and being able to last without getting killed is a must.

Kim was checking almost all the contents, looking at me unbelievably.