L*st and Death

“I think... I’m going into rut.”

Lewis shook, staring at Anna with eyes like a rabid animal. Anna, like someone trying not to provoke an armed robber, kept her voice calm and steady.

“Let’s get you into the panic room. You can do that, right?”

But Lewis didn’t answer. His condition was rapidly deteriorating.

---

Dealer H:

When a male who has manifested as an alpha enters a rut cycle, he will fall into a completely uncontrollable state due to shock. For the safety of yourself and others, confine the alpha in a secure location and administer the sedative every 12 hours. Rut symptoms can last from three days to a maximum of one week.

※WARNING※ The moment symptoms begin, do not hesitate—fire the tranquilizer round immediately.

---

As the alarm bell in her brain went off, Anna dashed to the kitchen cabinet and pulled out the tranquilizer gun she’d hidden there.

But Lewis’s instincts moved faster than her judgment. He slowly rose to his feet. His loose shorts were visibly tented, the fabric straining around his fully erect cock.

Anna knew—without a doubt—she would remember this day until the day she died. Just like the night she watched her parents die, this memory would never fade.

The alpha instinct that had swallowed her brother whole was revolting. Monstrous.

She fought not to look at it, even by accident. Her voice rang out—resolute and grave.

“Get into the panic room.”

She aimed the gun at Lewis and repeated herself.

“I said get into the panic room, now!”

But Lewis didn’t obey. No—he couldn’t.

His mind had already been flooded, like a dam bursting, swept away in a torrent of instinct. It had drowned out all reason.

The confusion vanished from Lewis’s face. His pupils dilated like someone overdosing on drugs, and his bright olive-colored eyes turned pitch-black. His gaze locked onto her with eerie, motionless intensity.

Anna, seized by fear, fired at Lewis as he came rushing toward her in an almost sprinting gait. She had no time to remind herself to shoot just once. She screamed and kept firing until all six cartridges hit the floor.

By some miracle, Lewis didn’t die. Even after being hit with tranquilizers strong enough to take down a bear, his heart was still beating.

Anna crouched next to him, placing a trembling hand under his nose. His breath was faint but regular.

They wouldn’t need to call emergency services. It hadn’t come to that. Thank God.

“They say alphas are transcendent, right? As long as he’s breathing, he’ll recover.”

She steeled herself.

Wiping her tear-drenched face with the hem of her T-shirt, she grabbed her brother’s massive arms and began to drag him. Lewis, all 6.4 feet of dead weight, hung limp like a corpse. She managed to pull his boulder-like body all the way to the panic room—a small, windowless cell no larger than a closet.

---

Siron was not good at hiding lies or mistakes.

Even though he’d once been praised for his acting, he always froze up when he had to improvise off-script. Variety shows were his worst nightmare. Even when he stayed silent, people could always tell when he was hiding something.

“Did you mess up a delivery?”

Ikbal eyed Siron suspiciously as he hesitated in the doorway of the shop.

“Huh? Oh... yeah. Yep.”

It had just been a throwaway question, but Siron flinched so hard it was obvious. Ikbal furrowed his brow.

“The bike just swerved a bit. Nothing dangerous.”

“You gotta go deliver it again?”

“No. The customer said it was fine. I told her I’d give her some extras next time she orders.”

Siron smiled sheepishly, flashing a set of clean white teeth and batting his lashes like a kicked puppy. Too much damn charm for a guy. No wonder the bugs kept crawling in. Ikbal grunted, clearly unimpressed.

“And who said you could give out extras just ‘cause you messed up?”

“Ah—!”

“Take it out of your paycheck instead.”

“Aaaagh, boss...”

Siron shrank, whining in protest. Ikbal cut him off without a trace of sympathy.

“I’m kidding.”

“...I told you before. No one laughs at your jokes, boss.”

Ikbal snorted. Like he cared.

He jerked his chin toward the dining area beyond the kitchen wall.

“Look at those kids. Been nibbling on bread the size of a baby’s palm for over an hour. Worms eat faster than that.”

Siron leaned through the narrow window that connected the kitchen and the dining hall to see who Ikbal was talking about. Four pairs of twinkling eyes locked onto him.

Fuck. Siron flinched and pulled his mask from his pocket, slipping it on before heading out.

Three girls and one guy—late teens to early twenties, ethnically diverse but no Asians among them. Nerds, all of them. The kind of group that made you wonder what niche fandom had brought them together.

“Do you need anything?”

Siron asked politely, his voice warm.

The group exchanged a quick, conspiratorial glance.

“We, uh, want to add something to the order.”

A girl in a hijab with thick brows glanced between Siron and the menu as she placed their order. While she spoke, the other three openly stared at Siron, drinking him in with their eyes.

No way... no fucking way.

After passing the order to Ikbal and prepping the ingredients, Siron was rolling out dough with a pin, deep in thought.

They didn’t recognize me, right? No way. Right?

He’d lived for over four years in a place where it was easy to become paranoid. Back in Korea, he was a celebrity—an actor constantly in the spotlight. No matter where he went, people would recognize him, ask for autographs, sneak pictures.

And after the scandal that blew up in every headline, it had felt like all of Korea knew who he was—and hated him for it.

But once he crossed the ocean and returned to the States, everything went quiet.

Especially here in Baggers City, where not only Koreans but even East Asians were a rare sight. No one here knew who Yoon Siron was. No one whispered behind his back.

Sure, every once in a while, someone who’d watched a K-drama would recognize him, but that maybe happened three or four times a year. And if Siron insisted it was just a lookalike, they’d nod and believe him without question.

No one here knew him. And those who did, treated him like he was nothing.

Maybe that’s why he was able to cure the celebrity complex that had rotted his brain like terminal cancer.

But still... something about those kids was off. If you’ve got something to say, just say it. Why go quiet and exchange glances every time I come near?

As the little curry shop began to fill up with evening customers, Siron stayed friendly and professional, hiding his wariness. He made sure to avoid the nerd table and quickly retreated back to the kitchen.

“Those guys are weird.”

“Weird, sure. But if you flashed them a smile, I bet they’d tip you a hundred bucks. Go on, ask shamelessly.”

“Hundred bucks? They look like they still ask their moms for allowance.”

Ikbal glared at Siron and Ashimi as they bantered over the customers.

“Stop loitering and get the hell back on delivery, you punks!”

Finally—something Siron wanted to hear.

He carefully taped down the curry containers so they wouldn’t spill this time, then slipped out of Curry King without another glance back.

The destination was a residential neighborhood beyond Summers Park. If he cut through the park, it would take ten minutes by bike. If he went around it, more than thirty.

But even in broad daylight, Summers Park was a seething mess—junkies, prostitutes, dealers. The kind of place that serial killers would rub their hands over, calling it a buffet. Cars could technically drive through, thanks to the well-maintained inner roads, but most people avoided it anyway because the addicts would lie down in the street like roadkill.

Siron, though, always cut through the park when delivering to the eastern side.

But today, the park was unusually loud. The sun was going down, but flashing lights from cop cars and ambulances lit up the area like it was noon. Someone had probably gotten stabbed—maybe a full brawl—and a white sheet had been draped over a corpse on the ground.

Baggers City had a homicide rate of 284.3 per 100,000 people. For comparison, South Korea’s was 0.6.

It was a trash fire of a city.

The most dangerous area by far was south of the Nathan River—Riverland. Slums, brothels, drug dens, and violent turf wars between Latin American gangs. That was Riverland.

Linhart, on the other hand—north of the river—had its own city police. A safer place, closer to Midtown with its corporate towers and tech startups. Rich white people lived there. A few successful Asians, too. Protected by police and private security, they lived peacefully behind high walls.

Siron’s thoughts drifted to the blonde woman he had seen earlier at the Linhart mansion.

And then—like pulling a fishbone from his throat—he finally placed the nagging sense of déjà vu.

She looked just like the soldier he’d been obsessed with lately in the drama Return to Bunker—Private Second Class Norman Anderson.

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