The hospital emptied slowly, as if even the walls exhaled after Amal's shift. Night pressed up against the glass doors, carrying the hum of a resting city — sirens in the distance, street vendors closing shop, the usual chorus of Neo‑Seoul's never‑ending insomnia.
She walked the hallway toward the back exit, sketchpad tucked under her arm, heart still soft from that morning's drive. The smell of rain and blooded sunlight lingered in her memory — Min‑jun's laugh, the way the steering wheel caught glints of his pale hands. An ordinary moment made dangerous by who they were.
A sound snapped her from the thought — the faint click of a shoe on linoleum. Amal pivoted, pulse leaping. From under the flickering corridor light emerged **Dr. Zara Naseer** , a transfer she barely knew. The woman's smile was professional, but her eyes held appraisal.
"You left early from Radiology, Doctor Devi."
"Finishing notes," Amal said lightly.
"Or hiding?"
The challenge slipped like silk. Amal recognized it: someone testing allegiance.
Zara stepped closer. A glint of a gold pin caught the light, an emblem Amal had once seen on Min‑jun's desk: the sigil of the *Redeemed Collective*. Her mind whirled.
"You're one of them?"
"I'm one of the sane ones," Zara murmured.
"And so are you, if he trusts you. They'll come for him soon — the Queen's broadcast won't be subtle."
Before questions could form, Zara pressed a folded scrap into Amal's palm. *'Garage B – 11 p.m. Don't be alone.'* Then she was gone, shoes whispering across the tiles.
Amal reached the staff exit ten minutes later, drizzle misting her coat. Neo‑Seoul's towers glowed through fog, promising everything and revealing nothing. A lone figure leaned against the hospital wall — broad‑shouldered, head lowered.
"Hae‑jin," she breathed. The ex‑soldier's grin appeared like a crack in stone. His knuckles were split, the way they always were after a fight.
"Your vampire said you'd need an escort," he explained. "Collectors have eyes near every ambulance bay."
She exhaled. "He doesn't know when to quit protecting me."
"Maybe that's his curse," Hae‑jin replied, opening his jacket to reveal a sidearm. "And yours is caring whether he survives it."
They slid into the dim parking structure. Water dripped from the overhead pipes. Every echo carried threat. At her car's shadowed corner stood two more—**Daehyun Seo** and **Prisha Devi**, arguing in sharp whispers.
"Prish," Amal said, relieved. The younger woman turned, brandishing a tranquilizer dart gun next to a paper bag of take‑away dumplings.
"I multitask," Prisha chirped. "Food and firepower."
Daehyun's voice was low. "She shouldn't be here. Vampires attract storms."
Amal shot back, "Then let's learn to build umbrellas."
It wasn't bravado. She was tired of being breakable art in someone else's frame.
They reached **Garage B** at 11:04. Static cracked in the air — cell signals jammed, lamps blinking like dying fireflies. Two figures waited beside a dark sedan: **Rowan Hale**, Min‑jun's rival turned reluctant ally, and **Jisoo Han**, stoic as ever, fingers gloved, physician's eyes turned soldier‑cold.
Everyone froze when engines roared overhead. Headlights spilled down the ramp — collectors' van, matte black, their insignia spraying gold through grime. "Cover!" Daehyun barked.
Gunfire shredded silence. Bullets pinged across concrete, sparks fanning out like fireworks. Jisoo dragged Amal behind a pillar; Hae‑jin returned fire, each shot thunderous. Amal's heart hammered — not fear exactly, but awareness, the vivid sense of being alive.
Out of the smoke, three collectors charged. Rowan met them head‑on, blade glinting crimson in the emergency light. Prisha hurled her dumpling bag aside and unleashed her tranq gun with cheerful profanity. Zara Naseer's message hadn't been a warning; it was choreography. Every ally moved like notes in a composition only Min‑jun could have written.
Then he appeared.
From the far ramp descended Min‑jun — black coat wet from the rain, eyes catching the emergency red glow like twin cuts of garnet. He crossed the chaos soundlessly, predator grace wrapped in heartbreak. When he tore a thug off Hae‑jin, his fangs sank and withdrew in one ripple; the man crumpled blinking, hypnotized, not dead. Amal could tell Min‑jun was restraining himself — his promise from that morning buried beneath instinct.
"Hospital grounds," she reminded through the din.
He smiled, blood at the corner of his mouth. "Underground technically doesn't count."
The absurd humor, amid shrapnel and screams, lodged in her chest like warmth.
***
When the last collector fell, the garage echoed with panting, rain, and far‑away alarms. Zollner lights flickered, outlining bodies that were bruised but breathing.
Min‑jun approached Amal, his hands trembling — still stained red despite the rain washing lines down his wrists. She cupped them gently.
"Red again," she whispered.
"Couldn't keep them clean."
"None of us can," she murmured, lifting his hand to her cheek. "But we can draw something beautiful out of it."
Her sketchpad lay open nearby, pages fluttering in the draft. Min‑jun glanced down: rough portraits of everyone — Hae‑jin's scowl, Daehyun mid‑turn, Rowan glaring through smoke, Prisha laughing even as bullets flew. Each stroke alive. Each smear of graphite a heartbeat trapped in paper.
"This," Amal said, tapping the page, "is proof that what we are isn't just hunters and victims. We're *alive*."
Min‑jun looked around: nine allies, wounded but smiling; Zara re‑entering from the stairwell with a med‑kit; Jisoo tending to Daehyun's shoulder; Prisha feeding half‑cold dumplings to a stray cat that had somehow survived the firefight. Scenes both ridiculous and sacred.
He touched the corner of Amal's mouth with a trembling thumb. "You make monsters want to be painted in daylight."
She smiled, tears cutting clean lines through soot. "Then let's find more light."
***
Outside, dawn crept between skyscrapers — the faint gray before real morning. They climbed into the battered sedan, Amal squeezed between Min‑jun and Prisha, sketchpad balanced on her knees. The tires hissed through puddles as they sped toward the Old Gallery district, where Saira waited with intel and new faces would join their growing circle.
Amal drew as they drove: headlights carving white streaks across the paper, Min‑jun's reflection in the window superimposed over her own. Two beings framed by night, daring the world to call them impossible.
The rain let up just as rooftops flamed with first sunlight. She shaded the last line on her sketch, a caption bleeding beneath it in quick graphite:
"Every masterpiece begins in the dark."
Min‑jun glanced down, reading, and his fangs flashed in a smile caught between wonder and devotion. A strange peace, fragile as wet paper, filled the car; readers could feel it — hope woven through danger, love sketched into eternity one heartbeat at a time.