The night swallowed them whole as they slipped through the winding back roads, the scent of damp earth and pine heavy in the air. Na-eun's cabin loomed ahead — a monolith of black stone tucked into the woods, silent, guarded, and pulsing with menace.
They ditched the car two blocks away, proceeding on foot.
Shadows clung to them like second skins.
At the door, Mr. Justin worked swiftly.
Click.
The lock surrendered with a soft hiss.
Inside, the air was unnaturally cold, smelling faintly of metal, ozone, and something worse — something like the stillness before a storm.
"No guards," Leo whispered, glancing uneasily around the gleaming black interior.
"Weird, right?" Carrie muttered, tightening her grip around the small device in her palm.
The walls inside were black stone, polished to a mirror's reflection, their own ghostly images flickering in and out as they moved.
Above, sleek security cameras swiveled silently — black, unblinking eyes.
"Cameras locked on," Jae-wook said coolly, tapping his wrist device. "Looping feed. Five-minute window."
"Move," Mr. Justin ordered, voice low and sharp.
They split up, gliding low across the marble floors like wraiths.
The house seemed to breathe around them — a slow, waiting exhale.
Minimalist furniture lined the halls, soulless and sterile. Every door looked the same. Every corridor whispered the same lie: Come closer.
Then —
Click.
Leo froze mid-step. Beneath his foot, a tile depressed, and a razor-thin red beam sliced through the air.
"Don't move!" Jae-wook snapped, sharp as a whip crack.
Lasers shimmered into existence around them — hundreds, webbing the hallway into a glowing death trap.
"Old-school tech meets new-school cruelty," Mr. Justin muttered grimly.
"What now?" Leo hissed, heart hammering.
Carrie knelt fast, slipping a small prism from her pocket. With practiced ease, she slipped it into the beam's path — the laser refracted harmlessly upward.
"Go! Now!" she barked.
They ducked and weaved through the deadly maze — Leo stumbling once, his breath hitching audibly.
When they finally tumbled out the other side, Mr. Justin growled under his breath, "Too easy. Way too easy."
"We need to find the security panel," Carrie said, already scanning the walls. "If I can hack it, I can shut this nightmare down."
They pressed deeper into the mansion, reaching a cavernous atrium crowned by a swirling black-glass dome. Beyond it, stars glittered faintly, cold and distant.
Click.
Panels slid open in the ceiling.
From the darkness, drones dropped — small, spherical, their crimson eyes blinking awake.
"Drones — military-grade," Jae-wook snapped. "Scatter!"
They moved, a coordinated storm.
Leo ducked behind a pillar.
Carrie rolled into the shadows beneath a sweeping staircase.
Mr. Justin slammed an EMP puck to the floor.
BOOM.
A pulse of invisible energy rippled outward — drones sparked violently and crumpled from the sky like dying insects.
"Nice shot, old man," Carrie muttered.
"Less talk, more run!" he barked back.
They bolted down a narrow hallway. Carrie yanked Leo into a side room —
A library. Or what might once have been one.
Now, metal shelves lined the walls, stuffed with black files. Server banks hummed, pulsing softly like hidden hearts.
Hovering in the center of the room:
A holographic map — flickering faintly, mapping every trap and drone in merciless detail.
"I can work with this," Carrie said, eyes gleaming.
She whipped out a sleek device and began hammering keys, her fingers a blur of motion.
Data poured into her screen, lines of code racing faster than thought.
Outside, the metallic whir of more drones echoed closer.
"Carrie... little faster would be awesome," Leo said, voice pitched high with panic.
"I'm working on it!" she hissed, not looking up.
Jae-wook and Mr. Justin prowled the room, weapons ready.
Every second stretched thin as wire.
Then —
A soft thunk.
The floor beneath Jae-wook sank slightly.
"...We've got a problem," he said grimly.
"Oh.. hell no," Mr. Justin cursed.
The walls shuddered — grinding inward, slow but inevitable.
"What kind of sick witch designed this place?" Carrie barked, sweat breaking across her forehead.
"Are you in yet?!" Jae-wook demanded, voice taut.
"Ten seconds!" Carrie gasped.
The walls inched closer. The library was shrinking, the air itself compressing.
Leo paled. "We're going to die here."
Jae-wook's glare was sharper than any blade. "Not today."
Meanwhile — elsewhere.
Ava sat across from Na-eun in the private lounge —
The room bathed in dim, surreal light, shadows sliding across their faces like silk.
Ava lifted her wine glass, the red liquid catching the light, her smile a blade sheathed in velvet.
"So tell me," she purred, voice honey-sweet, "how have you been? You look… frayed. Did I stress you that much?"
Na-eun chuckled, setting her glass down with a soft clink.
"You finally decided to crawl out of hiding. How much courage did that take?"
Ava's smirk sharpened.
"Courage?" she echoed, voice like silk dragged over glass. "Never needed it."
Na-eun's gaze narrowed. "What do you want?"
Ava leaned forward slightly, her perfume — jasmine and blood-orange — filling the air between them.
"I told you once. I want his head on a spike.
I want him gone."
She smiled again — too wide, too still.
"You didn't listen.
So I had to come find you myself."
She twirled the glass lazily, the wine inside dark as spilled blood.
"Do you know how tiresome it is, hunting a ghost like you?"
Na-eun's fingers drummed once against the table — a soft, threatening rhythm.
"And I told you," Na-eun said, voice dropping to a whisper, "you don't control me."
Ava's smile twisted into something unnatural, her eyes glinting with a dark, unsettling light.
"You have no idea what I am... do you?" she whispered, her voice a chilling hiss that slithered through the air.
A low, broken laugh clawed its way out of her throat, jagged and hollow.
"No one knows," she murmured, almost to herself, each word dripping with a dreadful certainty "no one knows" she repeated still chuckling.