Feathers and Carnations

Chapter Twenty-four

*TW: knife on skin= blood (lol)

There was no turning back now. The trap was set, and Jisung was the bait. He sat in the passenger seat of Chan's SUV, tensely rubbing the fresh bandage on his arm. It was painful setting a tracker under his skin, but it was the only way to guarantee that Chimera wouldn't find it.

"Jisung, I'm still not sure about this," Chan finally broke the suffocating silence.

"We've been planning this for two days, I know what I'm doing."

"You know what I mean. Plans go astray all the time and since you'll be a captive, nothing is guaranteed."

"Well I have a better chance than Changbin. Even if everything else goes wrong, I'm at least getting him out of there. He doesn't have anything to do with Chimera, they have no other use for him except to lure me in."

Chan went quiet for another long moment. "I trust you. I just don't want to send one of my own into the mouth of a beast."

Jisung let out a breath, willing some tension to leave his body. "I know. Just stick to the plan and we'll work with what we've got."

"The numbers we've gathered are still relatively small, but I'll try to pull more into this fight while I can."

"Hopefully we won't need that much manpower. As long as Felix is able to work with that formula for the explosive and Jeongin and Hyunjin can get things set up, there won't be much fighting to do." Jisung turned his attention back to the window, mentally running through his plan over and over. He wasn't worried about succeeding in destroying Chimera, he was worried about getting out in time. He had to get himself and Minho out of there. He didn't voice his concerns to anyone, however. Everyone was worried enough as it was.

A heavy cloud of uncertainty and tension fell over the car as they reached the isolated road where Chimera was waiting for them. Three vans sat blocking the road ahead, and a small crowd of guards stood in front of them, armed to the teeth. Just ahead of them was Hyeon standing behind Changbin, who was kneeling and restrained. Two large men flanked them.

"At least they didn't lie about him being alive," Chan muttered, stopping the car. "Are you ready?"

Jisung wordlessly climbed out of the car, his eyes glued to the scene in front of him. It took everything in his power to stay calm. Lashing out now would derail the entire plan.

Chan followed closely behind him, his hand resting on his holstered firearm as they slowly approached Chimera.

Jisung immediately noticed a thin bandage wrapped around Hyeon's head, which made him feel a spark of satisfaction. I'm sure Minho was the cause of that. He then scanned Changbin, noting the bruises on his face and his bloodied lip. Despite the circumstance, Changbin had a subtle smirk on his face.

"I must say, I'm fairly surprised that you actually showed up," Hyeon said in way of greeting. "After our last visit I wasn't sure if you'd have the guts to come back."

The echo of an ache rippled through Jisung's hands and he curled them into fists. "We've both shown up as agreed.  Now the question is, are we going to complete this exchange as agreed?"

Hyeon tilted his head in amusement. "If you want things to go as we agreed, why did you show up with only one man as backup?"

Jisung flashed his teeth in a threatening smile. "He's all I need."

Hyeon's amusement flickered away at the sight of Chan's glare, and he pushed Changbin with his foot. "This thing doesn't mean anything to me, so unless I know you're giving up willingly, I'll just kill him."