CHAPTER 43: A SINGLE, DELIBERATE DROP OF BLOOD.

When Maxim saw Taras walking down the hallway, his brows furrowed, and he quickly pulled his hands away from those of the guide who was with him. "One second, please, hey, Tar!"

Taras shot him a glance from the corner of his eye and kept walking toward the exit, his long strides unfaltering. And just like that, the representative popped up right next to him again, matching Taras’s pace with hurried steps echoing in the hallway. "Taras, did... did something go wrong in there?

"No," Taras said curtly, brushing him off. Maxim, hands clasped behind his back, walked alongside him with a more relaxed gait, studying his face. He knew that expression. It was the same look his friend always wore when he couldn’t stand something but couldn’t admit it either.

"Did the guide try something?" Maxim whispered in his ear.

The representative jumped in immediately. "If you’d like, we can arrange another one right away, Tar," the man said, scratching his cheek. "The guide we assigned today is one of our most capabl-"

"I don’t need guiding today," Taras cut him off again. "Maybe later," he added, just to get rid of the man.

By the time the two of them reached the off-road vehicle they’d parked in front of the center, they were already soaked. Taras sat behind the wheel, staring straight ahead as if his gaze had locked onto some distant point or thought, water dripping from his hair.

Maxim pulled back his own wet hair and wrung out the excess water, wiping his hands on his pants. Then, unable to stay quiet any longer in the face of Taras’s recent behavior, he crossed his arms. "You’re acting weird," he said, saying the first thing that came to mind.

"I don’t know what’s been going on in your head lately, but I do know it has something to do with Treasure. And it’s..."

Was Taras even listening? That wasn’t clear. He was no longer staring out the windshield; now he was looking at his clenched fist, silent.

"It’s clouding your judgment, man," Maxim said, unable to bear seeing Taras this tangled up.

For the sake of their friendship that had lasted since childhood, and especially with the outskirt affairs growing more chaotic these days, mostly because of that bloodthirsty Awakening movement, Maxim felt he had to say more. Even if he knew this arrogant guy rarely listened to anyone.

"You said you wanted revenge on him. I supported you. When you went to the capital in shadow form, you kept it from me for months, and you stalked Treasure all that time. Your shadow form hadn’t even fully developed yet at that time; you must’ve been out of your mind to take that risk! Look, I don’t know what you’re doing now, but I need to know, at least me, alright?"

"I’m not done with him yet," Taras said flatly.

"Well, seeing as Treasure is still healthy enough to guide eight hundred people a day, I guess you won’t be done with him for a few decades," Maxim said dryly. Then he muttered, "And hah, he’s so damn stupid, saving the life of someone who wants him dead..."

Taras turned to Maxim, trying to keep his anger in check, but Maxim only looked at him like, What?, and then shook his head. "Ah, right... That same line again, death would be too easy."

Even though Taras often fantasized about killing Le An in the past, and even though he knew deep down that this was the ending he wanted most, it stirred a senseless fury in him to speak about it. He should’ve snapped that thin, pale neck the very first day he broke into that room, then sat back and watched the public’s reaction to the nation’s darling dying.

Hadn’t Le An done exactly that?

After becoming a guide, Treasure handed over the names of everyone who knew he was an omega -including Taras’s father- to the GAC, and turned his back on the people who died because of it.

The veins on Taras’s neck and wrists bulged as Maxim let out a long sigh. "If killing him is off the table, then find a way to use him to bring down the rest of those bastards and get it over with," he said at last, his eyes drifting toward Taras’s phone, motioning to it with a tilt of his head.

"I know you’ve got some photos of documents and other crap from his room on your phone."

Taras almost laughed at how casually Maxim mentioned snooping through his phone. Yes, he had photos of everything from the serum injections to the experiment records, plenty of evidence.

Treasure must’ve been a fool not to lock those files away, even after Taras started coming and going from his room. Then again, wasn’t he the one who left the door wide open for him? The only door that could’ve kept Taras out? Almost like... he was ready to face whatever came next. Like he was accepting his fate, letting Taras do whatever he pleased.

"There are a few things that’ll be useful," Taras said thoughtfully. "An inhumane experiment funded by the ministry and hidden from the public." His eyes gleamed with dark ambition.

The names of the wealthy donors and government officials involved in this experiment -one designed specifically for Treasure- topped Taras’s hit list. But more proof was still needed; exposing what he had now would create little more than a scandal.

"You took a photo of him, too," Maxim said suddenly, his omega eyes studying his alpha friend carefully. "A photo of Treasure... while he was sleeping."

The moment that photo flashed in Taras’s mind, Maxim caught a flicker of emotion in his eyes, something troubled.

"He looked... pathetic," Taras said blankly, but that flicker danced behind his irises in a way that said much more.

Maxim slowly lowered his hands from his hair to his lap. That look wasn’t.... And the close-up shot of Treasure didn’t seem like it was taken to humiliate him either.

Maxim swallowed as he remembered the photo: Treasure wearing a white robe, the soft yellow light highlighting the curves of his body, his face slick with what looked like sweat and a pained expression. Honestly, it was too aesthetic of a photo for someone like Taras, someone so cold, so aggressive, to have taken.

But the moment Maxim saw that photo, even though he’d seen Treasure in person on the night he saved Taras, he’d realized it then, Le An was really an omega. A beautiful one.

Maxim looked at Taras carefully; no matter how cold-blooded and driven by vengeance he seemed, Maxim hoped he wasn’t the kind of person who took pleasure in tormenting an omega, someone so much lower than him in both gender and power. If vengeance is inevitable, death was a clean cut. If Taras let himself be consumed by revenge, would he make mistakes so big he couldn’t live with them later on? Had he perhaps... already committed such things?

"What happened to his shoulders and arms?" Maxim asked quietly as he remembered the bruises on the insides of Le An’s arms and the scratches on his shoulder in the photo. Then, after a pause, he asked another question, hesitantly. "Was it... you?"

"Don’t be ridiculous."

When Taras finally looked at him, eyes brimming with denial, Maxim’s doubt only deepened.

As Taras turned forward and started the vehicle, steering with a dismissive air, he still answered the question. "Believe it or not, he was attacked by a shugoren."

Three slashes... Le An’s whispered sleep talk echoed in Taras’s mind.

"No way!" Maxim stared at him, mouth agape in disbelief. "You’re joking."

Taras only nodded, expecting that exact reaction.

"And his arms?"

"Work of the people who try to clone him," he replied flatly. "They’ve been drawing blood way too often."

"Huh..." Maxim watched the windshield being wiped clean, only to be splattered again by rain. "So those bastards don’t give a damn about Treasure either!"

Taras nodded again, as the image of Le An’s pheromone room filled his mind. "Apparently."

He hadn’t visited Treasure in two days. What could he be doing now? As Taras arrived at the unit center and walked through his men, the image of Le An curled up in bed rose in his mind.

And the news that Le An might not be home came from a source he couldn’t have expected.

"Tar, the Awakening movement sent their final invitation to you. This is their last call for you to join them."

"But this time, the invitation arrived... like this, and..." The agent handed Taras a gilded invitation, stained with dry blood, and continued. "It’s for an event tonight, in the capital."

"A major event where GAC gathers guides and espers."

Taras studied the invitation carefully.

Right above the words Surprise Guest of Honor, a single, deliberate drop of blood had been placed.

Taras slammed the invitation on the table and lifted his head.

"This is my final answer. I won’t join." His cold tone sent a shiver through everyone in the room. That refusal was sure to shake things up in the outskirts.