8. Chapter Eight #4
That finally breaks through.
Ryowoon stops fighting, his body going rigid in my arms. His chest heaves, his breathing ragged, and his eyes stay on his father as I drag him back toward the gate.
His body trembles with rage, muscles pulled tight, fists still clenched, I can feel the way he wants to lunge back in, wants to finish this.
But I hold on, pulling him back step by step until we’re through the gate. His father is still on the ground, muttering, reaching blindly for the bottle that rolled away from him.
“Come on,” I say, tugging at Ryowoon’s arm. “We have to go.”
Ryowoon finally spins around, tearing away from me.
He drops to his knees beside Nuri where I left her on the curb, his hands shaking as he scoops her up carefully, cradling her against his chest. She whimpers, her body going limp in his arms, and Ryowoon’s face crumples for a second before he forces it back into something harder.
He turns to follow me as I take off running back toward the main roadway, my lungs burning, legs pumping.
“Come on!” I yell over my shoulder. “We have to get her help.”
We run.
My sneakers slap the pavement and Ryowoon’s right beside me, Nuri pressed against his chest, her body curled into him.
She whines thin, high-pitched sounds that make my stomach turn inside out.
Ryowoon’s breathing hard, his face pale and streaked with dirt and his dad’s blood, and he keeps his head ducked low over her, shielding her with his body as we tear down the hill.
“We have to get her out of here,” Ryowoon says between breaths, his voice hoarse. “If I take her back, he’ll kill her. You understand? He’ll fucking kill her, Seyeon.”
“I know.” My lungs burn. The street blurs past us, dark houses, closed gates, parked cars with no one inside them. “She needs a vet, Ryowoon. She’s hurt bad.”
Nuri makes a different sound, a wet, labored wheeze, her ribs expanding in stuttered movements against Ryowoon’s arms. I can see the dark patches on her fur where the bottle hit, matted and slick.
“There’s a vet in Yeonsan,” I say, thinking out loud, my brain scrambling.
“That’s forty minutes.”
“It’s the closest one.”
Ryowoon’s jaw clenches. He looks down at Nuri, then back at me, and I can see him thinking the same thing I’m thinking. No car. No buses running this late. No one on these streets who’s going to help us.
Mrs. Nam’s store comes into view at the bottom of the hill and we slow just enough to not trip over the curb. The roll-down doors are shut, the lights off, Mrs. Nam asleep in the back.
“Hold her,” Ryowoon says, transferring Nuri into my arms. She’s warm and trembling, lighter than she should be, and when I cradle her against my chest she lets out a thin cry that makes my throat close up.
I hush her, adjusting my grip so I’m supporting her body without pressing on the places where the blood is.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, my voice unsteady. “You’re okay, girl. Shh.”
Ryowoon doesn’t explain. He turns and scales the courtyard wall in three movements, hand over hand, hauling himself up and dropping over the other side. I hear him land, hear his footsteps cross the courtyard at a run, and then the creak of the outbuilding door opening.
I stand there on the curb holding Nuri, feeling her breathing get shallower against my ribs.
Her nose is cold where it presses into the crook of my arm.
I stroke the top of her head with my thumb, the fur between her ears soft.
I’ve known this dog since she was a puppy, since Ryowoon first unchained her in his yard when we were eight and she bowled both of us over trying to lick our faces.
The truck’s engine turns over on the other side of the wall, coughing once, then roaring to life. I hear the gears grind as Ryowoon backs it out, and then headlights sweep down the street as the truck comes rumbling around the corner toward me.
I run up to the driver’s side. “Move over. I’m driving.”
Ryowoon opens his mouth to argue.
“Get out and hold her. Move.”
He stares at me for a half second, then shifts across to the passenger seat without another word. I hand Nuri up to him carefully, her body going limp as she settles into his lap. He wraps both arms around her, tucking her head beneath his chin.
I climb in and slam the door, adjusting the seat because my legs are shorter than his. Clutch, gas, check the mirror. My hands know the motions now, drilled into muscle memory by weeks of Mrs. Nam barking instructions at me on back roads.
I put the truck in gear and pull out, turning hard onto the main road.
The back roads out of Haemok are dark and winding, no streetlights once you pass the last row of houses.
The headlights carve through the black, catching the edges of ditches and low stone walls, scrub pines whipping past. I keep my foot pressed down on the gas, the speedometer creeping higher than I’ve ever taken this truck, Mrs. Nam’s old engine rattling in protest.
The road dips and curves and I grip the wheel tighter, my knuckles white, my jaw set. Beside me I can hear Nuri’s breathing shallowly with thin hurt sounds, and Ryowoon’s voice.
“You’re alright,” he’s saying, barely above a murmur.
I glance sideways and see him bent over her, one hand cradling her head, the other stroking down the length of her back, avoiding the worst of the wounds.
His face is close to hers, his forehead nearly touching her muzzle.
“You’re gonna be fine, Nuri. You hear me?
You’re tough, you’re the toughest girl I know. ”
Nuri whines, a thin warble that trails off.
“I know,” Ryowoon whispers. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I stare at the road and drive faster.
The vet clinic in Yeonsan is a small, single-story building with a painted sign out front that I almost miss in the dark. I pull the truck up onto the sidewalk, not caring, and kill the engine. The windows are dark.
“Shit,” I mutter, staring at the locked front door.
Ryowoon doesn’t panic. He adjusts Nuri in his arms, gets out of the truck slowly, and walks up to the door. He studies the lock for a few seconds, then looks at me.
“You got a pen? Or a bobby pin? Anything thin and metal.”
I dig through the glove compartment with shaking hands, find a bent paperclip mixed in with receipts and napkins. I hold it up.
“That’ll work. Come here.”
I walk over and Ryowoon shifts Nuri to one arm, takes the paperclip from me with the other, and bends it with his teeth. Then he hands it back and nods at the lock.
“Straighten it halfway, hook the end. Slide it in beneath the keyhole and push up while you turn. You feel the pins, wiggle them until they click.”
I stare at him. “You want me to do it?”
“I’m holding her.”
“Ryowoon, I don’t know how to pick a lock.”
“I just told you how. Seyeon, we don’t have all night.”
My hands shake when I crouch down in front of the lock. I slide the bent paperclip in the way he described, feeling for the pins, and it takes me four tries, my fingers slipping, Ryowoon coaching me in a strained low voice above my head, before I hear the click and the door swings open.
I don’t hesitate. I push through into the dark clinic, fumbling along the wall for a light switch.
They stutter on overhead, bathing the room in cold blue-white light.
Exam tables, cabinets full of supplies, the faint smell of antiseptic.
I scan the room and spot a stack of clean towels on a shelf by the far wall.
“Here,” I say, grabbing an armful and spreading them out on the floor, layering them into a flat padded surface.
Ryowoon lowers Nuri onto the towels, going slow, supporting her head as he sets her down.
She barely reacts, just a faint twitch of her tail, her eyes half-closed and glassy.
The light shows me what I couldn’t see in the dark.
Cuts along her side where the glass broke skin, the mottled patches where the bruising is already spreading beneath her fur, the way her ribs move unevenly when she breathes.
I find a notepad and a pen on the front desk and start writing. My hand trembles as I form the words, sloppy and rushed.