The caretaker quickly led them down the first-floor hallway, trying to divert their attention from the second floor. When their eyes landed on the red bloodstain smeared across the pale gray wall, he offered a shameless excuse.
“He must’ve woken up halfway through swallowing the pill. There was... a bit of a scuffle.”
The two so-called volunteers exchanged a glance. It was a rote motion, a habitual exchange devoid of suspicion. Without a word, they nodded and followed the caretaker into a secluded room tucked into a corner of the first floor. The caretaker, worried they might ask to check the CCTV, exhaled a hidden sigh of relief.
Upon seeing the bloodied face of the homeless man lying on the bed, the two men let out simultaneous sighs.
“He’s covered in blood.”
“He resisted... more than expected.”
“They like to break things, not play with things already broken.”
“I’ll be more careful next time.”
One of them scowled, clearly annoyed. He reached under Siron’s armpits and lifted him like a doll. Pulling a rope from his back pocket, he tied him up like a captured prisoner, slung him over his shoulder, and exited the building.
The caretaker walked with them to the road and helped load the unconscious man into the back of a van. Only after the vehicle drove off did he finally breathe easy.
“Ugh. Should I look for another job?”
The thought flickered through his mind—half embarrassment, half idle fantasy with no real conviction.
“Yeah right. Another job, my ass.”
A new job? That was laughably out of reach.
He’d once dreamed of being a boxer. In his reckless youth, he'd brutally murdered his girlfriend’s parents after they opposed their relationship. Life imprisonment.
The rage had been real. That much, he had never regretted. He felt no remorse for the victims. What he did regret was the way that single moment of fury had ruined his entire future.
After twenty years in prison, he’d become eligible for parole. But every time, the victim’s family—the bitch, in particular—had opposed it.
Another ten years passed. The bitch finally died. Thanks to that, and to his “model prisoner” behavior, he passed the next review and walked out of prison after thirty years. But by then, he was a mid-fifties ex-con with no place in society. He drifted around Hellsohta, picking up day labor jobs until the prison warden arranged this position for him—“Public Shelter Administrator.”
A fancy title for a shitty gig, but it paid well, and the housing was free. Even if it was tied to human trafficking, he was content. Rumor had it a high-ranking police officer was protecting their operation. No risk of jail.
As long as he didn’t piss off the volunteers, the job was safe. Nothing bad had ever happened under his watch. Not even when he’d lost the gun they gave him—it’d been missing for three months and no one cared enough to look for it.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was happy with everything.
Even after all the twisted things he’d seen in prison, there were still things that didn’t sit right. Sure, female homeless people were rare, but they existed. So why the hell were these guys so obsessed with fucking each other?
“Sick fucks.”
By now, dawn’s first light was washing over the road, sweeping away the night.
The caretaker walked toward Joseph Miller’s car, glancing around.
It looked like there’d been an accident. A dried trail of blood stretched some twenty meters from a coagulated puddle to the rear end of the sedan.
There’s someone in there.
Miller rubbed his arms, a chill running over his skin. If it had been an animal, he would’ve left the body. But a person? Definitely.
The car’s front was smashed, just as he’d expected. No skid marks. No sign the wheel had been turned. It had to be intentional.
“These fuckers never do just one thing... Is he even still alive?”
He moved around to the back and banged on the trunk. Then leaned in, placing his ear gently against the surface.
Nothing.
Sounded like the guy was already dead.
Poor bastard. What the hell had brought him all the way out to this remote place, only to end up getting run over and stuffed in a trunk? Sad, sure—but not his problem.
He didn’t care if Joseph Miller had killed someone. But he couldn’t have a murder traced back to this place. Even if the road was mostly empty, cars did pass by.
He pulled the hose out from the garden and sprayed the roadside, washing the blood away. Then he went back inside and locked the door.
A chill snaked down his spine.
An inexplicable dread pressed against his chest like a vice. A gut feeling—something bad was about to happen.
“No good. I need to get that freak out of here. Fast.”
Just as he resolved to kick Joseph Miller out and find the missing gun in the storage room, he heard something strange.
A sound outside. A heavy, metallic rhythm, like hammering iron in a blacksmith’s forge. Then a sharp, violent crack.
“Construction?”
But who the hell would be doing construction work at this hour?
And just as he remembered the body in the trunk—
KA-BOOM!
The thick oak door slammed, shaking the entire building. At first, he thought the volunteers had returned.
But no.
This was worse. Far worse.
The door shook violently, like it was about to be kicked down.
BAM!
CRASH!
It sounded like a truck had rammed into the building. And then, with one final blast, the entire door blew off its hinges and collapsed onto the floor.
Dust and wood splinters flew.
A massive figure, soaked in blood, staggered into the shelter.
“...Haa.”
Lewis leaned his trembling body against the doorframe, breathing a cold gust of air. Blood must’ve seeped into his eyes—the world was red, like hell. The scent of blood in the air sharpened every sense in his body.
Unbelievably, someone had tried to kill him.
If he hadn’t regained consciousness just a little earlier, he’d be dead by now.
But he had survived. Escaped the bonds that restrained him. Crawled out of the trunk where he’d been folded up like a corpse, ready for disposal.
More than just regaining awareness, his nervous system had short-circuited. He could barely feel pain. His body was flooded with hormones that worked like synthetic drugs, awakening him completely. Right now, he felt like he could kill someone with barely any effort.
This adrenaline made him feel godlike.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Where’s Yoon Siron.”
“What? Who—who is that?”
“...You don’t know? ...Ah.”
Lewis spat a gob of bloody phlegm onto the floor.
“East Asian guy. Where is he.”
The man stared at him, visibly panicking. His expression twisted as though his next decision would determine life or death.
“Uh... uh... upstairs! He’s upstairs!”
Finally forcing the words out, the man pointed to the second-floor staircase. Lewis shoved past him and stormed into the building. Spotting the clear blood trail down the hallway, he sniffed the air and charged up the stairs. Second floor—second-to-last room at the end of the corridor.
Lewis reached the door of Siron’s room.
He opened it—
And what he saw stunned him.
Joseph Miller sat on the bed, dazed. His pants were bunched up around his thighs. His genitals—disfigured, swollen—were still hanging out.
“Where is he.”
Miller, finally registering the intruder’s identity, stared up at him, groggy and glassy-eyed.
“Who?”
“The East Asian homeless guy.”
“Oh.”
Miller blinked slowly, as if groping through a fog of viscous fluid. Then he let out a small, dumb laugh.
“Yeah... I remember. That bastard. Fucking psycho. Fought like an animal...”
He muttered to himself, shuddering at the memory of Siron’s resistance. Then, all of a sudden, he froze.
His head tilted upward—his eyes met Lewis’s.
It was as if he’d seen the devil.
Finally, the memory returned.
“You! You’re not dead?! I locked you in the trunk!”
“Trunk?”
“I—I swear I locked it!”
“It was you?”
“You zombie fuck!”
Lewis laughed as he spat blood onto the floor. Weirdly, he didn’t even feel angry about almost being murdered. Even with the bastard who’d tried to kill him sitting right there, it all felt surreal, like a scene from a movie.
But not Siron.
If Siron had bled... if he’d been hurt... Lewis felt like his heart would split into ten thousand pieces.
His thoughts could only connect in one direction—Yoon Siron.
Nothing else mattered.
He stared silently at Miller’s battered face. The bruises had already started to dry, crusting with blood. His dick was black-and-blue, swollen—clear signs of a violent struggle during an attempted rape.
“You touched him... didn’t you?”
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