#thewintereden

[thewinter-eden]

psycho | han jisung (7/20)

7 : the new girl

Pairings: HAN JISUNG x OC | LEE MINHO x 2nd OC

Rating: mature

cross posted on AO3 under the_winter_eden and wattpad under alone-at-last.

Warnings: discussions of murder, torture, rape.

psycho masterlist

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note: for the last chapters, Cass's notes were supposed to be underlined and italicized and Minho's were just italicized but I guess that's not a thing with Tumblr so I'm adding tags to avoid confusion. Sorry about that.

There’s a commotion that Anna can hear all the way down the hall when Han comes to get her for evening meal. He’s finally got some color back in his cheeks, finally able to stand up a little straighter. It’s been nearly two weeks since Anna first cleaned up his stab wound. Two weeks since Sara stopped appearing at evening meal.

Han didn’t have to tell her the she had been killed that night.

They all knew.

When he comes to get her, surrounded by sounds of chatter, he offers her a shaky smile. It’s been the same routine ever since. Careful smiles, friendly touches, words of reassurance from both of them to each other.

She’s now one of the girls.

One of the girls that he holds and comforts in their worst moments, one of the girls that he looks after like his own sisters.

“Anna,” He greets her, pulling her door open. “How’s your arm?”

It’s still her most recent injury. Cain has left her alone to allow the bones to set a little before he starts in on her again, to exacerbate her wound when it’s safer to do so. As far as she can tell, he does his best not to break them too soon. It’s a strange system of scientific precision mixed with ungodly disregard for humanity.

She crawls out of bed with slow movements. “Hurts like hell.” She manages a weak smile. “But I don’t think it’s getting worse.”

He smiles back, and loops an arm around her waist to help her down the hall. He’s warm and stronger against her, a testimony to the evident healing that he’s somehow managing in the hellscape they’re all trapped in.

“And you?” She nods to his lower torso, and sees his right hand come up to hover over the wound.

“I’m cleaning it regularly, I promise.” Han gives her a little squeeze. “There’s something important, though.” He pulls them back, halting them before they get to the community room where all the conversation is coming from. He gestures with his chin. “There’s a new girl out there.”

Anna’s heart sinks. “What?”

It’s only been a little over a month since she was abducted. She’s still the new girl.

“How can there be a new one already?”

Han’s jaw clenches. “He killed two of his test subjects.” His eyes redden as he shoots her an awkward smile. “He doesn’t want to risk running out.”

“What a terrifying sentiment.” Anna swallows harshly and feels her stomach turn. “Is she okay? Was she hurt badly?”

He shakes his head. “I looked at her a little before I came to get you all. She has a few bruises but she seems alright. When she wakes up, she’ll be scared. Like you were.” His eyes are round and sincere as he watches her. “None of this works without everybody’s support.”

Anna nods slowly. “You’re asking me to reach out to her?”

He leans back a little, pulling them both a bit farther back into the hallway. “Look, when I first started this…everything was so much worse. The girls were surviving this on their own. They didn’t know each other, they never saw each other. They could hear each other, but that only made it worse, you know? They sat in their rooms, terrified, never knowing what was coming next, just to be dragged away and tortured whenever Cain chose.”

She listens, holding her breath. She thinks of Ruby, huddled in her bedroom, listening to the screams around her. Waiting in the dark, never released except to be strapped down to a chair and tortured by a madman.

“When we started this system,” He gestures to the group of girls that they can see huddled around someone in the middle of the room. “They were able to lean on each other. They were all going through the same thing, feeling the same fear, the same pain. And they started learning together. They shared information and figured out his schedule. They figured out his motives, his techniques. The older ones were able to warn the younger ones and give them support for what they would soon have to endure, and it got them through.” Han watches the group of girls with a terrible fondness in his eyes.

She feels her own well up with tears as she realizes how much he has done to help them all survive, at risk to his own safety. He’s brought them together to fight the terrible loneliness and abandonment they must have felt when they were on their own.

“You have to understand, Anna.” He whispers. “Before they got to build this support system together, there was a killing every week. Without each other, without being able to see behind the curtain, they did everything they could to block out the pain and it was literally killing them.”

She can imagine. If she thought she were alone down here, if she were just waiting in the dark in fear of the next torture session, she would probably be just as desperate to detach her mind from her surroundings in any way possible.

“You guys keep each other alive.” He tells her. “If you don’t take each other in, you don’t survive. Okay?”

She knows what he’s telling her.

This new girl needs all of them.

“And you?” Anna wonders. At his confused frown, she hurries on. “You do all of this for us. Does it help you survive, too?”

He chokes out a weak laugh and turns to grasp her by both shoulders. “I am trapped in this hell, watching my little brother die every single day.” A tear slips down his cheek and follows the trail of a thick scar beneath his eye. “Caring for all of you, seeing actual people every day…” His hands tremble as they squeeze her. “I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

She barely manages a smile.

“And that.” He adds, peering at her through his bangs. “I never thought I’d see any of you happy after what he does to you. But you all smile at me. And the way they hold me—and you looked after my injury—if you squint your eyes, it almost looks like some type of livable reality.”

Anna’s heart breaks. She’s standing in the hopeful grasp of a boy who’s every inch of skin has been marked and torn, who’s watched an unknown number of young girls die without rescue, and he’s holding on to their smiles.

He’s staring at her, pleading with her to open her arms and let the new girl in so that she has the same chance that the rest of them do. He’s waiting for her to assure him that she’ll do her part and lend some strength. “Anna?”

She gives him a smile, the first real one since she woke up on that filthy floor. “None of this works without you, Hannie.”

A gasp rasps down his throat and a trembling smile beams back at her.

pov : minho

“Her name is Josephine Brown. They call her Jo. She’s sixteen. If I can go talk to her friends and family, I might be able to figure out how and where she was taken from.” Officer Lee stands next to his partner in Captain Bang’s office with the latest report from Cass. “It sounds like she was abducted only last night—her parents probably don’t even know what’s happened yet.”

The captain looks between Minho and Seungmin, expression blank. “That’s not how this works, Lee.”

Seungmin glances to his partner, confused. “I’m sorry, sir, I was under the impression that this is exactly how this works.” You find a lead, you follow it, you learn everything you can. Basic template for casework.

Captain Bang leans forward in his chair and points between the two of them. “No, that’s not how this works. You chuckleheads are supposed to bring me the information you dig up, and I’m supposed to delegate the next steps. Not to you, put your hand down, Officer Kim. To the FBI. I have absolutely zero operational authority on this case, and if I allow you two to do anything beyond what you are already doing, I will be reprimanded. Harshly.”

When Minho’s eyes dare to roll, Captain Bang’s hand slams down loudly on his desk. “If I am reprimanded, that means that the two of you are reassigned—not with each other, by the way—and you will be forbidden—yes, forbidden—from ever contacting the unfortunate Miss Young ever again. So. I say again. That’s not how this works.”

He shuffles the latest round of notes into an envelope. “I will run this up the chain. If you two behave, I will do you the courtesy of updating you on the FBI’s decision. Please do not make me regret my kindness.”

Minho can’t hold his tongue any longer. “Sir—”

Bang holds up a staying hand. “Neither of you are necessary to this operation, Officer Lee. I would be more than happy to recommend that a gussied up federal agent be assigned to slosh around in the sewer and maintain contact with our victim instead of sitting here knowing that two of my patrol officers are not actually patrolling.”

Seungmin takes offense. “Sir—”

“For the love of god, both of you get out of my office.”

Minho: Do you need more painkillers?

Cass: Always. Do you have anything stronger?

Minho: Not at the moment but I’ll see what I can do.

He makes a note to talk to Bang about working out some way to get actual prescription medicine and antibiotics to treat the girl’s wounds. Immediately following the irritated dismissal from the boss’s office doesn’t seem like the best time to make such a difficult request.

“Does she want chocolate?” Seungmin tiptoes through the sewer tunnel behind him, holding three unopened Hershey bars. “Felix just gave these to me, and I hate milk chocolate, so if she wants them—I mean, how worried can she be about cavities at this point?”

Minho scowls at him but immediately begins affixing the chocolate bars to the twine. He lowers them carefully through the hole in the floor, along with a note reading, ‘from my friend Seungmin. You can send the wrappers back up.’

When the twine comes back up, the candy is gone, but there’s a response on the note. ‘This feels like Christmas. Thank Seungmin for me. Does he have five more?’

Seungmin says nothing, merely turns on his heel and bolts back up the ladder.

Minho: Chocolate on its way.

Cass: Thanks, Santa.

Minho: Seungmin’s Santa. I’m just a helper.

Cass: Do you have a red nose?

Minho: Only when I have hay fever.

Cass: What about when you don’t?

Minho: I don’t understand the question.

Cass: What do you look like when you don’t have hay fever?

She’s grasping at distractions from real life, but it’s the first time she’s asked him what he looks like. He knows she has dark brown hair and light brown eyes, and that people say her face looks like Katherine Hepburn. He knows she’s five-foot-three, and that she used to think she was kind of pretty but now she thinks she looks like a skeleton wrapped in skin. On top of everything he’s heard from her directly, he’s seen her missing persons photo.

He knows what she looks like, but she wouldn’t recognize him if he fell through the ceiling on top of her. She doesn’t even know he’s a cop.

Minho: I look like any sleep deprived college student.

Cass: A cute sleep deprived college student?

He can’t help a laugh at that. He hears Seungmin coming down the ladder and quickly scribbles back a response to send down before his partner can see.

Minho: I’d say my cats find me rather strapping.

Cass: I knew you’d be a cat person.

Minho tucks the piece of paper into his pocket and tears off a new one from his notepad just as Seungmin reaches him.

“Five more chocolate bars, as requested.” He produces the candy and helps Minho attach them to the twine, and then borrows the pen and paper and writes his own message for the first time.

Seungmin: Hope you like them. There’s always more. -S

Cass: You’re our hero, Santa.

Seungmin’s face breaks out in a huge smile and he chuckles as he reads the note. He’s already given the pen back, so he says, “Tell her I’ll bring them anything they want.”

Minho understands the feeling. After being prevented from doing anything that can actually help Cain Roberts’ victims, every little thing that they can do feels like the most achievable and desirable goal in the world. He pens the note as requested and sends it down, receiving an answer and a single chocolate wrapper in return.

Cass: The largest army you can find. Barring that, maybe some fruit.

Seungmin doesn’t need any convincing.

Minho: I have black hair, brown eyes, and I’ve been told that my features must have been carved by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Cass: Oh, and he’s humble, too.

Minho: I figure you can only take my word for it, so I might as well be my own wingman.

He doesn’t share these notes with Captain Bang. Some of the messages between himself and Cass are for himself and Cass alone, which is not something he ever saw coming the first time he lowered a piece of twine into that mysterious void.

When she has relatively good days, she’s flirty and inquisitive and desperate for human interaction, and he finds himself following every cue she sends. It’s the least he can do if he can’t free her from Cain’s trap.

As the days and weeks go by and he reads about the horrors she endures, he finds that his heart breaks for her. He no longer sympathizes as a police officer learning of an innocent civilian undergoing cruel hardship, but as someone who wishes to save a friend from suffering.

So when she’s well enough to write up topics of conversation that don’t revolve around captivity, he latches on and keeps it going as long as her time allows.

This time, it’s Captain Bang who calls Minho and Seungmin into his office. His expression is bleak as he beckons for them both to sit and offers them coffee to fight the chill of fall.

They both refuse, so he folds his hands atop his desk and settles in with a hefty sigh. “Alright, look. I don’t want to tell you this any more than either of you want to hear it.” His palm comes to rest on top of a pile of envelopes that Minho recognizes as the ones which hold all of his notes to and from Cass.

“The judge has placed a moratorium on the Cain Roberts case. It’s a cease and desist order.” Bang purses his lips as he anticipates the outrage that will surely come from his two most hotheaded officers.

It never comes.

He looks up, confused.

Minho is gritting his teeth at the floor, veins pulsing in his temples, and Seungmin is leaning back in his chair with a wry laugh on his lips. Neither of them are surprised at the news.

“You don’t even know why.” Bang mutters.

“Does it matter?” Seungmin grumbles. “We haven’t been allowed to do anything so far. All I’m hearing is ‘keep doing nothing’.”

Captain Bang sighs again. “There is more happening here than just a handful of kidnappings and the occasional murder. I don’t mean that the way it sounds. I am not discounting the severity of this situation, I am presenting this to you the way the judge presented it to me.”

Minho is moments away from throwing down his badge and marching out, but he just rolls his shoulders back and narrows his eyes.

“Cain Roberts is part of a larger syndicate that the FBI has been trying to track down and dismantle for a number of years. There isn’t much I’m allowed to tell you, except that it is imperative that he remain free to operate without suspicion so that their investigation can continue. He is a crucial piece of a much larger puzzle, and if we book him for crimes that he commits in his—quite frankly—downtime, we lose the biggest opportunity we have to stop a much larger danger.” Captain Bang sucks his teeth. “I’m sorry, boys. For now, all we can do is what we’re doing.”

Minho leaves without dismissal.

He doffs his uniform in the locker room and heads across town to campus, seeking the wisdom of his professors.