Pain was constant.
Constant. Constantly different. Constantly present.
Shoulders ached. Heart pounded. Face burned. Legs screamed.
Brush of cool steel. White-hot pain flared.
No questions. No questions.
Why God please why
Fun.
White-hot flare. Flare. Flare. Pain everywhere.
Pain was everything.
Chin Ho hadn't moved since Kono had left his side. A flurry of activity surrounded him: Washington and his crew went over additional entrances to the school, creating a back-up plan that they and everyone else knew should have been completed before sending anyone inside; reporters, parents, and other bystanders argued with the officers at the civilian barricade and tried to force their way in; news copters buzzed overhead, their loud chirring only adding to the stress below. But Chin remained focused solely on the doors that had swung shut behind his cousin minutes before.
"Hey kid," said a soft voice to his left. Chin didn't have to look to know that Duke had joined him at the edge of the barricade. "How are you holding up?"
"She should be in there by now," Chin muttered, ignoring Duke's question. "Why hasn't he contacted us yet?"
"He's unpredictable," Duke commented. "He'll talk when he wants to and no sooner than that."
Duke was right, but Chin also knew that Sang Min had a minor obsession with his cousin. His request for supplies at the hands of Kono was more than likely nothing more than a ploy to get his hands on her, and Chin knew it. From the look on her face as she hopped the barrier, Kono knew it too.
"I've got movement!" shouted an officer to their right. Chin and Duke and every other officer drew their weapons and aimed at the school entrance, only to drop them when they realized the arrivals were all kids. Four of the bigger ones were half-carrying limp bodies, and Chin's blood ran cold when he recognized the hair of the smaller body.
"Kono!" He rushed forward to his cousin's side. Her head lolled towards him as he took her hand, and he was forcefully reminded of the aftermath of her last encounter with Sang Min. The only difference now was the lack of blood. "What happened?"
One of the boys carrying her sniffled. Other officers appeared beside him to escort the kids to safety and carry the other adult to a waiting ambulance. "He gave me a stun gun and showed me how to use it, and told me if I didn't use it on the first cop I saw then he would shoot Grace. Then he shot Miss Marty. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"It's alright," Kono mumbled as the kid was pulled away by a uniform. Chin tried to hold her down, but she brushed his hand off and sat up. "Chin, we need to get Danny in here. That bastard's holding Grace."
"Ten kids in that room and a wounded adult, and he chooses Danny's daughter to keep?" Chin shook his head. "No way that's a coincidence."
"It isn't. He told me he was following orders."
Sang Ming was working for someone. He wasn't just doing this to get Kono. As horrified as Chin was by Grace's captivity, he couldn't help but feel slightly relieved.
"Like hell I'm not! Where's my daughter?!" Chin looked around to see Danny struggling with one of Duke's men at the barrier. "Gracie?! Grace!"
"We need to go to him," Kono said weakly. She tried to stand, but had to fall against her cousin when her legs gave out. Chin helped her walk over to their former teammate, who was still trying to fight his way past the barrier. "Danny, I'm so sorry."
"You said you'd get her back!" he snarled, turning his aggression on her. "You said you'd take care of her, and you left her in there for dead!"
"We'll get her out, Danny," Chin said. "It'll take some time, but we're gonna bring Grace back. I swear."
"How can you make that promise?!" his friend howled. "Especially after the last time somebody made it!"
We're gonna bring Steve home.
Chin felt like the world was tilting out from under him at that moment. The panic on Danny's face was exactly the expression he had worn on the trip to Korea. They had all lost a friend that day. Danny was in danger of losing his child.
"Danno?" Grace's soft voice startled everyone. Chin grabbed at his walkie-talkie, but Danny snatched it from his hands with a cry.
"Monkey! Danno's here, Danno's here."
"Good, 'cause I would hate to have to wait on you." Sang Min's oily voice drifted through the speaker. Chin grit his teeth at the sound. "I didn't have to, but I wanted to watch you suffer. I wanted to see you realize what it's like to watch your kid taken away from you and not be able to do a thing about it."
Danny tried to speak, but Sang Min's admission seemed to have stripped his vocal chords of all functionality. Chin took the radio back. "What do you want?"
"Safe passage to the docks and outside of Hawaiian waters for me and the girl. I know some people who she gonna make real happy."
"My dad's gonna kill—ah!" A strange cracking noise and Grace's cry made everyone cry out. "He-he's gonna kill you," she continued, her voice tight with pain.
"You try anything, Williams, and your girl is dead."
"Guh!" Danny choked. Chin moved out of his friend's reach and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You have to give us something, Sang Min. We can't just give her up like that. We won't."
"You don't, she dies. I ain't afraid to do that. One bullet, that's all it takes." The clacking of the gun's safety spurred Chin into action.
"Don't hurt her. I'll drive you myself." Danny and Kono both protested, but he continued speaking. "Bring Grace out here right now, and we'll talk about this face to face."
"You think I'm stupid, cop? I come out there, I get a bullet to the head. No, I want you to pull that car of yours up to the doors. Me and the girl, we'll get in and get down so we don't get shot. You have two minutes."
"Wait, Dan—" Grace's voice was cut off with a sickening crackle of static, and Chin felt tears form in his eyes. Danny was breaking down even further behind him, but he didn't have time to comfort him.
"I've got no choice. Duke, get anyone available on the nearest set of docks," he ordered. "We'll have to stop him there."
"Chin, let me get my rifle," Kono pled, sidling up beside him as Duke nodded and began barking orders into a radio. "If you stall long enough, I can get an eye on him and snag him from a distance."
"Too dangerous," he countered as they moved closer to his car. He wished it wasn't. How he wished he could send one of the best snipers he had ever seen to the nearest rooftop and that she would hit Sang Min squarely between the eyes and end this nightmare forever. But it was, and if something went wrong, his soul would be irredeemable.
"Dangerous?! Cuz, I'd be on the roof over there!" she shouted, waving her arm across the street. "What the hell is he gonna do to me, glare in my general direction?!"
"Not for you. Grace, on the other hand, would be in danger of being shot by a stray bullet." He stared pointedly at his cousin's hands, which still shook like palm fronds. "You're still feeling the effects of that stun gun."
"I'll be fine!" she protested, but he shook his head.
"It's a risk that I'm not willing to take. Duke, keep her here." He turned from her furious expression and got into his car, wiped his eyes, and maneuvered around the barrier towards the front door. He didn't stop until his car was completely blocking the doorway, knowing that Sang Min wouldn't come out unless he felt absolutely safe.
Grace was barely visible in the shadows of the school's atrium. Only her mussy hair and one bony hand on her shoulder suggested that she was a hostage; her expression was stalwartly furious, her stance as strong as any officer's. She was every bit as brave as her father.
As their eyes met, Chin knew that being the courier for Grace and her captor would be among the hardest things he had ever done. He steeled himself for this inevitability as his friend's daughter was shoved forward, and sent every ounce of hatred he could muster towards Sang Min as the sallow face came into view.
He imagined, if he only concentrated hard enough, that he could make the monster's head blow up with the sheer loathing he felt for him. That he could shape his negative feelings into a bullet and use his gaze as a gun. That the bullet would blow Sang Min's brains across the floor. That he would never again hurt Kono or Gracie or anyone else in the world of the living.
Chin knew that was impossible.
And yet Sang Min's head exploded less than a second after he came into sight.
A/N: Aloha! I don't have a whole lot to say today, other than I'm sorry for not getting around to replying to your review this time 'round. It's been hectic on my end, to put it mildly. I do read all of them, and I listen (whether it seems like it or not). And I know some of you are confused, and I understand that. In fact, I'm purposefully taking this story in ten different directions at once, but they'll all lead to the same place eventually. I hope you stick around to see that place.
See you Saturday!