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He crouches in front of me again, and before I can pull away, he grabs my wrist. His long fingers snap shut over me, his reflexes startlingly quick and his grip firm and strong.

His touch sets off all kinds of reactions inside me.

An instant shiver down the spine. Breath caught in my lungs. A pulse that pounds harder, like a drum.

He wrenches my wrist ’til the inside faces upward, dipping his finger in the vial and then painting a symbol on the delicate skin.

The ink sears into me, burning like I’ve been branded by an iron poker. I hiss and almost yank my hand back, but his grip is too ironclad.

He draws the symbol in a single, fluid motion.

“Owned by the Baekho,” he says, answering the question I’m thinking. “It means you have a debt to us. There is only one way to pay it. With your life. It is a symbol that no one should want. And now you carry it.”

For the first time, his cold expression shifts. His lips twist into the vaguest hint of a grin, like he’s amused by what he’s done.

“Now that it’s written,” he muses, “let’s see if you can outrun it.”

I blink, so stunned that I can’t make sense of what the hell’s just happened. I don’t get what any of this means, and I feel like I’m about to pass out at any moment.

Jin releases my wrist as suddenly as he’d grabbed it. He stands up and steps back as if admiring his handiwork.

How he and his men have humiliated me.

When several seconds of silence pass by, I realize he’s letting me go. He and his men won’t stop me if I leave.

So that’s exactly what I do—I can’t get out of this alley fast enough.

Tears streak down my cheeks and my knees nearly buckle as I scramble to my feet and take off, sprinting into the night.

Behind me, cruel laughter echoes from the dark recesses of the alley.

3.Jin

The smellof blood and ink hang in the air, even before the first needle breaks skin.

I sit still in Yoon Do-shik’s chair, letting the artist draw the latest piece of art on my body. His needle hums as he drags it over my skin and makes me bleed.

He works in silence so the only sound in the room is the rhythmic buzz. He’s precise and quick, wiping away the excess ink and blood spots, his eyes focused.

Tonight’s piece is being inked on my collarbone—more claw marks of a tiger. Baekho tradition signifying what happened tonight. Every kill earns a mark.

This one belongs to Kwon Hyuk-soo. He believed he could outrun his fate, but he didn’t realize how fruitless that was.

There was nowhere in Busan that he could run and hide.

We found him inside Club Gongshi, drinking soju like water and flirting with tourist women who looked at him with derision. He tried to run the moment he spotted us. We trapped him outside the restroom and dragged him into the alley.

He had run up debt from gambling rings for months. The warnings he was given were ignored. He believed he could escape what he owed forever.

He was hardly worth the trouble. But the Baekho never lets a debt go unpaid, no matter how trivial and small.

The machine buzzes even louder as Do-shik drags the needle deeper into my skin, filling in the slash marks of the tiger. Beads of blood seep from the wound. He quickly wipes them away, careful to protect the design.

The pain is sharp and stinging, but something I welcome.

Nothing worth achieving is ever painless.

I watch Do-shik wipe away more ink and blood and my mind turns to the girl.