High Maintenance 👑 h.zt

36

~Min-hee~

Min-hee hung up, what Tao had said didn't reassure her. It made her feel a little better, but, the reality was a group of men were yelling downstairs, and she could hear them banging on the door. Then she heard them come in, breaking windows, a heavy thump that sounded like the front door hitting the floor hard downstairs.

Min-hee almost screamed at the noise, and she couldn't help but think about Suri down there by herself, she could still hear her barking at the people coming in. She didn't want to lock the little dog out but...Tao had told her to move something in front of the door, so she went over to a bookshelf and started pushing it in front of the door.

Downstairs she could hear one clear voice above the rest. "Search the whole house! I want that bastard in front of me in three minutes, or someone's getting fired--permanently!"

This was one of those gangs then. Min-hee had known that, but to confirm the thought was like swallowing castor-oil, bitter and terrible, something she should know, but still hard to swallow. Worse then that, they were going to search the whole house, it was only a matter of time before they came upstairs, only a matter of time before they came pounding on the door, and if they could knock down the front door, this door would be child's play.

After Min-hee had the bookshelf in front of the door, she sat in the reading chair, just watching the door. She hoped Tao came soon, she hoped he could fix it somehow, she didn't want him to get hurt again. She wanted him to stop fighting, but the reality was that he would have to if he showed up.

She listened to her heart pound in her ears, seemingly louder then everything else, her breathing felt painfully loud over it too. This was a gang, they'd kill her without a second thought. It scared her beyond any amount of fear that she'd ever felt, and she felt goosebumps all across her skin.

She hid her face in her hands, trying to calm her breathing, telling herself that Tao would be there soon and...do something. If what she heard was anything to go by, she had three minutes or less.

She heard a hard pound on the door. Less. She had less.

"This door is blocked!" she heard someone yell.

"You know what that means, don't you? We've got a rat in the trap, let's have a little fun dragging him downstairs."

They must have thought only Tao would be in the house. Min-hee crawled away from the door sitting behind the counter of the minibar. That wasn't a good hiding place, they'd find her in no time, but it would delay it, and it was the only place to go. There wasn't even a window in the room. It was hopeless, even if Tao came right at that moment, they'd still get to her first.

Min-hee closed her eyes. She wished she could disappear. Disappear like how the world does when she took off her glasses.

The world was never that perfect though.

She heard them ram into the door, the bookshelf wobbling and barely holding it's ground, books falling from it with each hit to the door. She shivered.

It hadn't occurred to her before, she wasn't sure why, but it was very likely that when they came in, they'd kill her. They were looking for Tao, if they didn't find him, they were a gang, they wouldn't let her hang around.

She should have felt something akin to an intense sadness at that, or at least it should have made her more scared then she already was. But she couldn't be more scared then she was at that moment.

When the door opened, the bookshelf came crashing down so loud, Min-hee could hear nothing at all over it, and her heart jumped, the speed of it picking up and hammering harder against her chest, playing out a rhythm that begged her to run away. There was nowhere to go, so she stayed put, biting down on her lip so hard she tasted blood.