“People can still smile even when they’ve gotten each other’s names wrong. Mr. Alex Howard.”
A man like a big puppy. Unlike him, Eden was stingy with smiles.
“Do you want to know? About the kind of person I am.”
“No.”
Eden hurriedly refused before Jay could leave any opening. If he learned more than necessary about him, he might end up getting dragged in. Though perhaps it was already too late to turn back.
Before long, they arrived in front of a building. The place, which looked like a warehouse, gave off an eerie atmosphere all on its own, and the desolate scenery doubled it. There was not a single sign of human presence. Most New Yorkers probably had no idea such an area even existed in New York.
He hoped he could shackle whatever happened here with oblivion. Eden got out of the car, forcefully shaking off the bad premonition that he was stepping into a swamp he would never be able to escape.
“Haa.”
Just as he let out a sigh into the silent night air and moved his heavy feet—
Bang!
An explosion swallowed Eden. It was a sound that could never be heard in everyday life. The shock made his ears feel as if they were about to split, muffled and ringing. His head went blank.
Like a broken doll, he stood frozen, then creakily turned his head. His mouth fell open at a sight he could only doubt with his own eyes. The car he had been riding in just moments ago was burning. Flames illuminating the darkness soared high.
“Jay? Jay!”
He called his name, but he couldn’t tell whether sound was leaving his mouth or not. His mind was in chaos, as if his brain itself had gone through the explosion. He couldn’t breathe and his chest tightened, but he couldn’t properly register what was wrong. His vision blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again. His ears were still filled with the remnants of the blast.
His body leaned forward. He thought he was running toward the car, but in reality, his feet wouldn’t leave the ground. It felt as though his mind and body had separated. He called Jay again. Had he failed to make a sound, or had Jay not heard him? There was no response from him. No, in the first place, he couldn’t even see him.
Smoke pouring from the burning car obscured his vision. In a scene where nothing held a clear outline, someone soon rushed in. It was his mother, Serena. Only then did Eden’s eyes focus.
“……!……!”
Serena screamed, but since he couldn’t hear her voice, he had to read her lips.
Eden.
“…!”
Even at the repeated calls, Eden couldn’t respond. Serena grabbed him and dragged him away as he stood rooted to the ground like a tree. Only when her firm strength pulled him did his feet finally move. His body staggered as if he were about to collapse, and his eyes slowly closed.
It seemed he had lost consciousness. It felt like only a minute at most had passed, but when he opened his eyes, everything around him was white and bright. He felt dazed, as if the burning car and everything that had happened today had all been a dream.
Eden moved his head and looked around. After realizing he was lying in a hospital bed, he slowly sat up. His head hurt, but not unbearably.
Just then, while he was rubbing his forehead with the hand pierced by an IV needle, the hospital room door opened quietly. Henry appeared, looking haggard, and rushed straight over to hug Eden.
“Eden. You’re awake. You’re awake.”
He hurriedly called the medical staff. Soon, a doctor in plain clothes entered the room with a stethoscope around his neck. He did not look like an ordinary doctor.
“Luke. If you stay like that, I can’t examine him.”
Sure enough, he called Henry by his codename.
“This much is fine, right? If we leave him alone, the kid will be scared.”
Eden let the arm wrapped around his shoulders remain there. Not because, as Henry feared, he was scared of the situation, but because if he shrugged him off, his father would probably make an even bigger fuss.
Annoyed by the excessive protection, the doctor asked Eden a few questions. They were about the state of his health as far as he could assess it himself, and Eden explained that aside from a mild headache and discomfort in his ears, there was nothing particularly wrong. The doctor’s opinion was similar.
“It’s from the shock earlier, so it should get better with time. Tell me if it keeps bothering you.”
Since he had not been directly harmed by the explosion, he had avoided serious injury.
“Is Jay okay?”
Eden asked as he stretched his hand forward, wanting the IV needle removed. He was more curious about that than his own condition.
“It’s a therapeutic IV. Wait until it’s all infused. And Jay is…”
After hesitating, the doctor exchanged glances with Henry and continued.
“In surgery.”
Eden looked at Henry to determine whether that was true.
“Theodore—Jay—is okay. One of the installed explosives failed to detonate, so the damage was minor.”
“He wouldn’t have gotten out of the car when it exploded.”
“He really is okay. One of the explosives installed under Jay’s seat failed to detonate, so the damage was minor. So you should focus on taking care of yourself—”
“Eden!”
His rambling words were cut off by a fierce cry. Serena burst into the hospital room as if throwing herself inside and collapsed to her knees in front of the bed. The middle-aged man standing behind her clicked his tongue.
“You two lose all reason whenever the kid gets involved. Pathetic.”
Judging by the voice, it was Duke. While Henry helped Serena up, Duke spoke with the doctor.
“His condition?”
“He’s fine. Maybe because he’s in his prime, he’s sturdy.”
“No impact to the head?”
“Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.”
Between the couple clinging to him and the two men communicating in a businesslike manner, Eden organized his thoughts. The only comfort was the fact that Jay was safe. The incident he had witnessed had not been resolved.
The tension he had put down while asleep settled back onto his shoulders. It was heavy enough to crush and flatten his body. Eden searched inside himself for his tendency to avoid things. He wanted to think he should just sleep. And when he woke again, he wanted to be at home, not in a hospital room.
But he knew that possibility was slim.
People had died in the house. Three, just counting the ones he had confirmed. There might actually have been more. The killer had escaped, and the situation was bad.
“Eden Reed.”
The moment Duke put Eden’s name in his mouth, Henry and Serena’s gazes snapped toward him. Eden himself, however, was looking down and glaring at the innocent IV catheter.
“Is there anything more you can tell us? Besides what you said over the call.”
“Duke, can’t you see the kid’s condition? It’s too early to make him go over those painful memories.”
“We need to find out anything we can before he forgets.”
Duke met Serena’s concern with a firm attitude. Eden agreed with Duke’s opinion.
“What else should I say? The only thing that comes to mind right now is Leslie’s vehicle.”
Everyone held their breath and waited as Eden pieced together the afterimages he had pursued during the chase. What broke the silence was not Eden’s mouth, but the sound of the door. A man with long hair hanging below his shoulders came in and closed the door.
“So you were all gathered here. Nobody contacted me, so I was running around in circles by myself.”
The man grumbled, then glanced at Eden over Duke’s shoulder.
“Hi. It’s been so long you might’ve forgotten me.”
Eden recognized him immediately. It was Jim. As if it were advice, he had once told a mere ten-year-old not to leave traces of his life behind.
“Stop getting in the way and move.”
When Duke shook off Jim, who was loitering behind him, the doctor grabbed him by the back of the neck as if taking the baton and shoved him into a corner. Jim, dumped onto the sofa, also joined the gazes surrounding Eden.
In the meantime, Eden pulled out the memories he had organized.
“You’ve already looked up the license plate, right? What about the van that cut in halfway?”
“The van?”
“Yes.”
After giving the plate number and model of the vehicle he had seen while Jay memorized it, he described Leslie’s car.
“What stood out were the modified parts. The rear bumper was designed to lower downward. The tires weren’t ordinary either. If you give me a list of tires handled by repair shops, I can pick it out. I can also roughly draw what the car looked like.”
Duke pulled a notebook and pen from inside his clothes and handed them over, and Eden continued speaking as he sketched.
“Ah, the knife Leslie used. It’s probably old. I remember Leslie peeling an orange for me with that knife when I was little. It could be another knife of the same model, though.”
Even while rummaging through distant memories, his hand moved diligently, completing the sketch. He drew a thin, short line like a tail at the back of the car and added the note, “Looked like it came out of the trunk.” Since he had not seen the stopped car up close, he could not identify exactly what it was.
Duke took back the notebook and pen and tossed them to Jim. Jim immediately called somewhere.
“Looks like we need to put out alerts for two cars…”
Feeling as though he had been of some help, Eden squeezed his brain even harder. There was only one reason he was doing his best. To solve this damn problem and get out of it. He struggled with everything he had to achieve that goal.
“How much longer until Jay’s surgery is over? The necklace. Because I couldn’t trust him right away because of Leslie, he showed me the necklace. It was the one Father always takes with him whenever he goes on business trips.”
Henry looked at Eden with eyes that seemed to ask, how do you even know that too—eyes filled with regret and self-reproach—and shook his head.
“You must have seen wrong. My necklace is at home. Jay wouldn’t have had time to take it. All he did was briefly go in to scout before Green barged in. He probably tried to convince you with a similar necklace—”
“No, I’m sure. It was Father’s. The design was identical, and it had a scratch in the same place.”
Duke, who had come to trust Eden’s memory through everything he had said before, jerked his chin toward the doctor.
“We’ll have to check that guy’s belongings again.”
“There was a necklace. I naturally assumed it was Jay’s, so I left it.”
The doctor left the room, and in the meantime, perhaps because there had been progress, Jim scribbled the name of a repair shop in the notebook and held it out.
“It’s closed down. The van is presumed to belong to its owner. Running the repair shop seems to have been a cover identity. Looks like those guys operate on a system similar to ours.”
Serena shot a glare at him as he snickered, claiming it was imitation. It was a warning for him to read the room. After withdrawing her sharp gaze, she checked Eden’s complexion. Since the past they had buried together had been dug up, her attitude was cautious. Beside her, Henry wore the same troubled expression as he said,
“Jay knew what Green was after. Part of the agent list and the password to my account.”
“The full list must be in there. Jay’s judgment was right. We avoided the worst.”
Duke let out a short sigh and began making calls here and there. While his surveillance loosened, Jim sauntered closer to the bed.
“Your genes have really caused an accident. To think something like this was created. As expected, my eyes weren’t wrong. I recognized it from the start.”
“Eden—Eden isn’t like that. He’s an ordinary child.”
Jim sneered at Henry, who immediately denied it.
“You’re saying that level of observation and memory is ordinary? Don’t joke around. They say his brain’s extraordinary too, don’t they? Was it Yale Law? When he talked to Duke earlier, it was honestly incredible. There’s no way you taught him lip-reading, so he must’ve picked it up on his own, and even if Green showed an opening, he still survived a former agent’s threat. On top of that, his detached attitude in the middle of all this is almost unbelievable.”
“Terry, shut up!”
Serena sharply scolded him. As she raised her voice, she looked similar to the time she had once frightened a child in pitch-black darkness. Eden was reminded anew of her past. She was someone who killed on command without blinking an eye. Perhaps her true nature was closer to that.
“Let’s move somewhere else. So the kid can rest.”
An attitude of caring for Eden and an emotionless gaze coexisted in Serena. At that alien mismatch, like water and oil that would never mix, Jim sneered again.
“Since you keep calling him a ‘kid,’ where exactly is there a kid here? Don’t tell me you mean that big guy?”
When he pointed at Eden, Serena and Henry flared up.
“Watch your mouth!”
“Terry!”
Eden, on the contrary, felt exhausted by their overprotection. Did they still see him as a child who wet himself in his sleep and shrank timidly from everything? The incident they had buried together had already been dug up and put on display. It was too late to pretend ignorance now.
