L*st and Death

It felt like someone had smashed his heart with a hammer, like dozens of exclamation marks were driving into his skull.

Flashes of bay leaves, laid like toppings on the kimchi stew, flickered through Baekgyeong’s mind.

Nearly out of his senses, he scoured the floor like a madman until he found another bay leaf. Crouched low to the concrete floor, he held his breath and picked it up with trembling, cautious fingers.

「Siron」

A throbbing vein bulged from his forehead in excitement. The rage he had felt just moments ago—wondering what kind of bastardized kimchi stew this was—now stood trial in the court of consciousness.

“Fuck—what a goddamn lunatic!”

Baekgyeong slapped himself across the face, unable to contain his fury.

“That little shit—what the hell is he doing here?!”

Siron had obviously been kidnapped, just like him—to this place that wasn’t aboveground or underground, not clearly America or Korea, somewhere untraceable on Earth.

Did they kidnap him to be a cook?

Baekgyeong was dying to know what happened to Siron—why he was here, making this weird stew. But above all, he was desperate to know if Siron was safe. The anxiety was eating him alive.

Suddenly recalling the ever-watching CCTV camera, Baekgyeong crushed the bay leaf in his fist and shoved it down the clogged toilet.

Then he sat on the stiff mattress and began plotting how to make contact with Siron. It didn’t take long. Baekgyeong had always possessed a natural talent for identifying pushovers he could use for his own ends—ever since he was a child. But his temper usually screwed it up. His lack of patience often turned those tools into enemies.

This time would be different. There was a man who had just wandered into his radar. The only connection Baekgyeong had to the outside world—the stuffy, rule-bound guy who brought his food and bore witness to his outbursts.

“His name was... Ian Fitzner, wasn’t it?”

Ian chuckled weakly and replied to the prisoner behind bars.

“Fine. I’ll make it happen.”

The man inside the cage—a tiger in a cell—scanned Ian’s face with shrewd, calculating eyes. He didn’t trust Ian’s answer, not one bit.

“Really?”

Baekgyeong’s voice was doubtful. Ian answered seriously.

“Yeah.”

But Baekgyeong’s intense black eyes were still filled with suspicion. Ian subtly, slowly swallowed dryly, trying to hold eye contact. The vertical slit of the observation window in the thick iron door was too narrow to read his expression clearly, which felt strangely frustrating.

Ian kept his tone calm.

“It’s not a bad deal for me.”

In exchange for three letters of the eleven-character phone password, Ian agreed to some of Baekgyeong’s demands. Baekgyeong had asked for a cell with a separate shower and toilet and a daily walk—and also, to be given the garlic-smelling Asian who made the kimchi stew as his plaything in the cell. A vulgar request.

In the end, only part of his request was granted: a cell in the underground wing with a shower—and the Asian punk (a prisoner reduced to a sex slave).

“For an alpha, you don’t seem to have much appetite or libido. Unexpected.”

To that dry remark, Baekgyeong replied with a sneer.

“An alpha without sex drive is like red bean buns with no filling.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It’s a Korean saying. Refers to people like you. So when are you granting my request?”

“Starting tomorrow.”

“Well, aren’t you bolder than you look. I’m starting to like you.”

Baekgyeong grinned as if amazed by his own luck, then quickly became indifferent again, as if it was no big deal. He was clearly someone used to getting approval from others—people probably groveled to avoid his wrath or to win favor. But what Baekgyeong overlooked was that Ian Fitzner wasn’t the tediously honest, by-the-book type he expected.

Back in the surveillance tower, Ian relayed Baekgyeong’s requests to his team. Since cracking the phone password was a top priority, most of them agreed. All except one.

AJ.

AJ, who always questioned Ian’s decisions, objected again.

“You fucking idiot. You’re too soft.”

His reddish face was twisted with irritation, eyebrows arched sharply. Ian glanced briefly at him, then turned back to the CCTV monitors. The place they were in was the tall steel tower on the island’s west side. It functioned as both satellite relay and surveillance center, with a half-dome antenna on top and a 100-square-meter facility in the center.

Inside were a guard post and a security room. Along the wall of the security room, twenty monitors displayed footage from over 100 cameras placed around the island.

While the other alphas were frantically searching for the missing 3547, Ian’s gaze lingered only on Baekgyeong. He was doing push-ups, shirtless, wearing only his pants. Ian forced himself to look away and said to AJ,

“That’s called flexibility.”

“Flexibility, my ass. All that for a couple password letters?”

“I’m your superior for the next two weeks. Don’t question my orders.”

Ian placed the charging phone on the stand and tapped the screen. The eleven-letter password prompt stared back at him, tempting his curiosity.

“That bastard could’ve fed us the wrong letters. He might just be screwing with us.”

AJ had a point. That was entirely possible. Baekgyeong had no reason to help them—not after they’d killed his mother, kidnapped him, and locked him in a windowless cage. Of course he’d be filled with hatred.

“We’d get more out of torturing the truth out of him than granting his fucking wish.”

Ian shook his head.

“Torture won’t work on that one. He tried to rip off his bomb collar just because he didn’t like the dinner menu.”

“Guys like that never actually kill themselves. They’re just putting on a show.”

“Still. The answer’s in his head.”

AJ’s face flushed redder.

“You only get ten tries to input the password!”

If they used all ten and failed, the phone would lock, and there’d be no guarantee of recovering it. Ian believed Baekgyeong’s cooperation was their safest bet—but he understood AJ’s frustration. If they failed to get the password, HQ wouldn’t let them off the hook.

“If it really doesn’t work, we’ll torture it out of him. For now, go find 3547 instead of whining.”

Snorting, AJ left the security room. Still, he was a responsible guy—he’d turn over the entire island if that’s what it took to find the vanished 3547.

Despite the incident in the lab earlier that afternoon—the chaos of Ted’s attempted rape—they still hadn’t located 3547. Even though the island was small enough for them to know it like the back of their hand, the guy had vanished without a trace.

Ian zoomed in on a monitor in the top corner, checking the dormitory. With a few movements of the mouse, he adjusted the camera angle and found 3543, sleeping sprawled out on the hard concrete floor.

Arms folded, Ian observed the night-vision footage of 3543’s peaceful face, captured in ghostly gray tones.

“I—I’m good at Korean food. Need a cook? I’m, uh, I’m a cook. Kimchijjigae, that stuff...”

A fellow Korean like Baekgyeong. A cook who knew how to make kimchijjigae. It had already seemed suspicious when 3543 randomly volunteered that information. And now Baekgyeong had requested the kimchijjigae cook to play with in his cell.

Something about it didn’t add up. But Ian was sure of one thing now—whatever the circumstances, those two definitely knew each other.

Just then, his radio crackled to life.

—Sierra here. Alpha, confirm holding cell location for BK to connect CCTV feed.

Ian brought the radio mic close to his mouth and replied slowly, clearly:

“Alpha here. Move BK to cell B202.”

The cell Baekgyeong had requested—one with a separate toilet and shower—was practically a suite by detention standards. Coincidentally, there were only two such cells in the underground wing: Room B201, where Isaac Bazelli was currently housed, and Room B202—now assigned to Baekgyeong, separated only by a single wall.

Ian switched the radio to standby and zoomed back in on Baekgyeong’s footage. Sweating and doing push-ups, Baekgyeong’s posture—back arched, hips down—somehow reminded Ian of a man thrusting from above during sex. The image was oddly obscene. He couldn’t look away.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!