Rush

twenty two

be quiet this is downtown
I don’t need anything to kick up

"This is your informant?" I sputtered, stepping back in half-indignation and half-shock.

"Now, now, Y/N," Jennie smiled at me serenely, but her eyes were as hard and cold as ice. "He's valuable to us. He has a good cover, and how do you think we could've found out about your relationship with the bikers without him?"

My mouth hung open, gaze still trapped by Baekhyun's somehow entrancing expression. "You..."

"Unfortunately, yes," he smiled thinly, and straightened his jacket. "I'm sorry if it makes you feel bad, Y/N, but you of all people should've known not to trust."

Swallowing back a hurl of insults, I straightened and raised my chin. "I didn't trust," I said in a high and cold voice reminded me of my past arrogance. "And what do you mean by me of all people?"

He looked me in the eye, and there was something flat but passionate behind his gaze, a cold calculation of the sum of everything criminal. "Believe it or not, we are not so different, you and I," he said, voice dropping lower. "Even our origins, so to speak, are similar in a way that you couldn't even think of."

Frowning, I parted my lips—though I wasn't sure what I was going to say. Jennie, probably having realized that I wasn't done, stepped forward, angling her body in a way that it cut through the tension between me and Baekhyun. "We came here for information."

"Ah, yes." His posture relaxed, transforming from tense to easy with a few fluid, miniscule movements that I couldn't comprehend in my anger. "Once we can drop her off with one of the others, we should be able to talk about the bikers."

"Drop me off?" I spoke before she could, offence creeping into my voice. "Why'd you bring me here then?"

"You had to know about him, first of all," Jennie drawled, gesturing to the boy with hair like caramel and wheat. "And of course, we can't exactly let you go back. Better to show you the ropes of the business."

Her words left me almost shaking, but whether it was from the cold or the rage, I didn't know. I stayed silent, biting down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from speaking, hard enough that I tasted blood in my mouth.

Baekhyun must have picked up on my mood, because he turned to me with what resembled an emphatic look. "It's necessary, Y/N. We'll take you there, since it's the next checkpoint anyway."

Checkpoint, huh?

I turned my eyes away from his, wondering what they were trying to achieve. The only thing I knew for sure was that they had at least an idea of what tied me to the bikers, if not the whole thing—which was why they had used me as bait. Every single one of them had known, and rather than letting me know, they'd treated me like I was a liability...