Chapter 10 - The Scattered Vanguard
"The port police are arriving," Dr. Han wheezed, stumbling out the back door of the clinic with a portable oxygen cylinder strapped to his back, wheeling the mother on a squeaking gurney. "They aren't Song's men, Min-hyuk! The harbor precinct heard the automatic fire! If they find us here, none of us are leaving!"
Min-hyuk looked down the alley where Song had crawled into a drainage ditch, escaping into the darkness like the sewer rat he was. Min-hyuk’s jaw clenched so hard a tooth cracked, but he knew the priority. Killing Song tonight meant dying or rotting in prison, leaving Dae-hyun’s children completely defenceless.
"Load her into the backup van behind the fish market," Min-hyuk ordered, his voice raw. He grabbed Su-ah, scooping her up as she dropped the scalpel, and threw her into the cab of an unmarked delivery truck parked in the shadows.
Dr. Han and the surviving lieutenant slid the gurney into the refrigerated cargo hold, securing the infants in a padded crate. Min-hyuk climbed into the driver’s seat, hot wiring the ignition with trembling, bloody fingers. The engine roared to life just as three police cruisers screeched to a halt at the front of the dry cleaners, their headlights blindingly bright in the downpour.
Min-hyuk slammed the truck into reverse, smashing through a wooden barricade and tearing away into the maze of coastal back alleys.
For two hours, they drove through the torrential storm, switching vehicles twice at predetermined covert safehouses until they were far outside the city limits, climbing into the dense, fog-choked forests of Gangwon Province.
When the sun finally began to rise, it cast a sickly grey light over an isolated mountain cabin hidden beneath ancient pine trees. Min-hyuk killed the engine. The silence was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic tick of the cooling engine block and the quiet, steady breathing of the children in the back.
Dr. Han stumbled out of the cargo hold, his face ashen, peeling off his blood-soaked latex gloves.
"Min-hyuk," the doctor whispered, leaning against the cabin's wooden porch railing.
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Min-hyuk stepped out, his suit stiff with dried blood, bracing his injured ribs. "Is she dead?"
"No," Dr. Han replied, looking up with genuine awe. "The fever broke an hour ago. She’s awake. And she’s asking for her daughter."
