Page 121 of Ruthless Touch

Another flight of stairs takes us down to lower level, where luggage carts and utility vehicles clutter the space.

The air down here smells like jet fuel and industrial cleaning supplies, heavy with the kind of chemical stench that burns your nostrils and clogs your throat.

Through the maze of equipment and machinery, I spot salvation: a delivery gate in the distance, marked with signs in both Hangul and English that promise access to the service roads beyond the terminal’s secure perimeter.

“That’s our way out,” I say against the backdrop of whirring sirens and alarms.

Any second this corridor could be flooded by authorities. We’ve got to get a move on.

We stumble out of the gate still hand in hand, heaving air into our lungs while not daring to slow down.

At a distance, the emergency vehicles storming onto the scene are in view. They’re clogging up the service road with their flashing lights and wailing sirens.

But we still have a small window to flee the scene in time. I scan the area for anything drivable.

Anything that can get us the hell away from here.

“What about that?” Elise asks, pointing to our left.

It’s a courier-style motorcycle left running near the rear terminal gate. The owner’s probably been called away by the commotion or ordered to evacuate the area. The vehicle sits only a couple feet away like a gift from whatever gods protect criminals and lovers on the run.

In the moment it doesn’t matter as we dash toward the bike, its engine purring with barely contained power.

As soon as it’s within reach, I’m throwing a leg over the seat and yelling at Elise to get on.

“Elise! Now!”

She doesn’t hesitate either—just wraps her arms around my waist with the kind of trust that speaks to how far we’ve come.

How much we’ve come to trust and rely on each other like we never imagined.

Her body presses against my back as I gun the throttle and we shoot forward through the airport infrastructure.

The pressure is suffocating: barricades blocking every obvious exit, emergency vehicles creating mobile roadblocks, sirens chasing us from all directions while helicopters overhead sweep the area with searchlights.

We might as well be trapped in a fucking video game where every route leads to a dead end and the level difficulty keeps increasing with each passing second.

Soon it’ll be game over for us both.

“Left!” Elise shouts over the strong gusts of wind pushing back against us. “There’s a maintenance tunnel!”

I lean the bike hard around cargo trucks and service vehicles, following her guidance. We dive into a narrow concrete passage, the walls whizzing by in gray blurs as we break our line of sight with the authorities after us.

The tunnel amplifies every sound—engine echoes, tire squeals, the distant wail of sirens that can’t pinpoint our location anymore.

When we emerge back into open air, I merge onto the expressway heading toward central Seoul, the city’s neon lights glowing in the distance.

They beckon us like a promise of safety.

But real safety is still miles away. The radio chatter from the courier’s bike crackles with updates that make nerves roil inside my stomach.

“Suspects heading eastbound. Air unit tracking.”

I weave through traffic almost to the point of recklessness, cutting between semi-trucks and late-evening commuters who have no idea they’re witnessing a high-speed chase.

The bike responds to every subtle shift of my weight, every twist of the throttle, like an extension of my own body as we slice through Seoul’s arteries.

We encounter yet another sign we’re not in the clear yet—up ahead is a drawbridge starting to lift for its scheduled late-evening maintenance, the two halves of the roadway beginning their slow separation like a mouth opening to swallow us whole.