Dead silence was her answer. No one dared to breathe in the slightest.
"I mean, we've got two of the lovebirds, so where's the third?" she asked, turning around to gesture at Jaemin and Jeno, before turning once more to face the rest of boys.
They all glared at the woman. Faces stern against her posture.
She stood as if she had already won. And Taeyong didn't like that.
. . .
Renjun was still in Yuta's hold, the tears stopped to form streaks on his face.
He didn't like that the others were out there, with her, because he knew they'd be in trouble.
One thing he's learned about Abigail is the fact that she was unpredictable. One of his many talents that he had learned from her when he was younger.
He was disgusted with himself that he had so easily trusted that woman, even learned from her.
He hated that she had such influence in his life.
It was his fault for the whole situation.
If he hadn't of met Jeno and Jaemin that night.
He should've left earlier, or stayed later. Anything from gaining their attention.
He should've stood further away from the balcony that led others to notice his existence.
Why was he so dumb?
He even had the audacity to gain feelings. Not for one boy, but two.
Which seemed to irk Abigail's attention and then this whole fiasco began.
The older boy could sense the inner turmoil that Renjun was putting himself through.
"Renjun," he started, gaining the younger's attention.
"Whatever you are thinking, none of this is your fault. We agreed to do this, all of us. We knew there would be conflict in between the Inside and the Outside. It was bound to happen eventually," he paused making sure that Renjun was breathing normally now after his quick realization, "we knew what she was doing on the Inside, where do you think we came from?"
Renjun furrowed his eye brows, looking up at the man talking to him.
"You came from the Inside?"
Yuta smiled at the boy's confusion.
"Yes, although not all of us were in the same situation as you, or the rest of the Dreamies. Some of us were Defects that Abigail tested on, or even pretended to be cared for by the woman. Some of us hid under her radar like Jeno did. It was tough for us all, but we made a way of life here on the Outside. And we're not going to let her stop us."
"So, how did you come to be part of Neo City?" Renjun asked tentatively, not too sure if he could ask such a personal question.
Yuta smiled once more, and at this point Renjun felt like it was a part of him.
"I was a known Defect in Abigail's book. One of the ones that were on the unlucky side when it came to experiences with her."
"How did you get out?"
"Funnily enough," Yuta paused, looking down at Renjun once more, "Taeil."
. . .
Yuta's breathing was ragged, lain out across the table, bright lights shining in his face.
He wasn't sure just how long he had been in this operating room, but he did know that he was going to die soon if the people continued their actions.
They were continuously dragging their scalpels against his skin, where blood would seep until they healed once more.
Usually a cut wouldn't mean much to a Defect, but such repetitive actions and no force to stop it, he would eventually die from blood loss.
He could feel the toll of losing too much blood.
He was sweating profusely, his gaze blurry as he tried to plea with the silent men in their white lab coats.
He hated them.
They wanted him to use his power, but at this rate, he couldn't even if he tried.
His mouth was dry, throat threatening to close up from the lack of saliva, almost cutting off his airway.
The men continued their actions, not paying any attention to the Defect seeping blood on the cold metal table.
The wounds began to heal slower and slower, allowing Yuta to brush against the brink of unconsciousness before jerking him back with the feeling of another sharp blade against his skin.
He just wanted to go to sleep.
He was already drowsy, and at this point his life seemed like nothing but hell, so he wouldn't mind it if he died.
If this was all that his life would add up to, then he didn't want to live in it.
To be tested on, then thrown into a metal room all by himself?
No appeal at all.
He'd be happy to die on the surgical table under the hands of the strange doctors.
Although he'd miss the fury of Abigail at the news of his passing, it seemed to be worth it anyways.
And so, he couldn't help but let his radiant smile adorn his face as he felt his consciousness slip away once more.
He wasn't going to let this opportunity slip by just a cut against him.
Right as he was getting to the edge once more, a shrill scream echoed around him.
Jarring himself back to the real world, Yuta couldn't help but feel the wounds he sustained flare up in pain once again, grimacing at the cuts that slowly but surely started to heal once more.
He was calming himself once more before the doors busted open and someone bursted in.
Yuta didn't open his eyes, until he felt hands grabbing his own, and a shock seemed to roll through his body.
His eyes burst open, only to see a dad pair of eyes look back at him.
Confusion flooded him and he stared back, until he realized the clothes the other man was wearing.
Black.
He's a Defect like me. But what is he doing here.
"Wha-?"
"Don't slip," was all the other had said to him, before the men started grabbing him and trying to force him out of the room.
"Don't slip, Yuta!" He continued to yell.
Yuta was now laying on the bed still, but propped up on his elbows a little.
The other man's voice was still ringing through the halls as the surgical men dragged him through the door and down it.
"Yuta! Don't slip! Neo needs you!"
Most would think as to where and who the man was. But the only thought Yuta could have was:
How in the world did he know my name?
. . .
Abigail didn't let Yuta die, well, Yuta didn't let Yuta die. He needed to find out who exactly this other Defect was.
Sure, every so often Defects were allowed a bit of socialization between each other.
Abigail didn't want the Defects to deteriorate from loneliness. Which had happened before.
That and it's extra research for her to look into.
But Yuta had never met this one before or else he'd surely would've remembered it.
So he found himself searching for the other man in the next "group study" and try to figure what exactly he meant by his words.
They were all pretty much smooshed into an old room with high security locks on the doors and cameras everywhere.
He scanned through the crowd, looking for the not-so-familiar brown hair of the strange man.
He spotted it, in the furthest corner from the observation window, picking at his fingernails.
The other had a warm aura wrapping around him, seemingly easy to approach until you notice his shaking hands.
He held a kind face with slightly smiling eyes as he seemed to talk with someone else.
As Yuta watched, the other seemed to notice, and finished his conversation with the person, before they stood up and walked away.
"You're off Japanese descent, correct?" The strange man asked, pointing his question towards Yuta, who wasn't standing too far away from him.
Yuta furrowed his eye brows, wondering how the man could've sensed him being there since they were surrounded by other people.
"Come here, I won't bite," he said, now turning to face him, a warm smile on his face.
"I would say I wasn't expecting you, but the truth is quite opposite."
Yuta could only continue being confused.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked, making him way to sit in front of the other.
"How about formalities and then I'll explain from there," he continued, his voice holding a wise tone that made the other seem like one of the oldest men alive.
"You clearly seem to already know my name," Yuta grumbled slightly, looking around them to see if there were any lingering eyes.
"It just makes it that much more fun," the older reassured, not looking away from Yuta.
"I'm Taeil, and let's just say I can predict the future."
"What? Like a psychic?"
Taeil laughed softly at that.
"Almost, but more of a third eye kind of sight," he answered.
"Doesn't explain how you figured out my name."
"Well let's just say, we'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on."
. . .
And they did.
Meeting up and discussing the inner workings of Abigail's design, as well as becoming a little more than mere acquaintances in the process.
That was until Taeyong showed up one day in their "group study," bringing news.
"Do you want to escape?" He had asked.
"We were meant to," Taeil simply answered.
"Really?" Yuta couldn't help but ask, looking at the other boy.
"Don't slip," he repeated the words he had first told Yuta.
"I won't slip," Yuta responded.
. . .
"Then we came here, and haven't seen Abigail since," Yuta finished, looking at the shocked young boy.
All this trouble that he had thought he'd caused, only to realize that he was actually the catalyst.
A mere explosion waiting for the right time to occur. And he was the snap of the finger, the perfect environment.
He had always wondered why Abigail was so obsessed with the idea of Defects, even willingly becoming the main subject in her own experiment, and although this didn't answer the question, he knew she had to have something of weakness to tie her down.
Again something of her own creation.
That's when something clicked in his head.
He was of her own creation.
The reason she wanted him wasn't only because of his blood or DNA to study, it was also because she wasn't completely sure as to what he could do.
And he had the slight inkling that Taeyong knew himself that there was something else brewing inside of Renjun.
Renjun didn't know himself, he had always thought that he was simply normal, and was even surprised when he was told that he was partly Defect.
But he knew, that there was something else.
Something that Abigail wanted him for, more than the materialistic worth of his body, but he could accomplish something that she could never.
He became a successful Defect, where she was still flawed, so that meant that he had something that she wanted.
Something that could defeat her.
Drawing in a sudden gasp, he quickly stood up, escaping Yuta's arms, as tears from earlier finished their trail on his face.
The gravity of it made them flow quickly, so he hastily wiped them away, trying to think.
"What's wrong?" Yuta asked, quickly standing up behind the frantic boy.
"Abigail," he started, trying to think and talk at the same time, "she," he moved to the basement stairs, "I have something she needs," he said quickly, running down the stairs.
"What are you saying?" Yuta asked behind him, his footsteps rapid while he ran down the stairs after the younger boy.
"She, she created what I am," Renjun paused again, still looking in the familiar lab room for the certain object, "but she still wants me for something."
"Yeah," Yuta replied, leaning his arms against the lab table, watching the younger searching through all of his codes, the mass of lines and dashes that only the younger could understand, "your body. That's what she wants you for."
Renjun simply shook his head, still rummaging through the papers, looking for a specific one that he couldn't quite understand until now, "She wants more than that. I was her first successful project, until it seemed unlikely. After looking over her files, she," he paused his actions, looking up at Yuta, "she found something. New information, old research and observation papers, I don't know, but it was something to irk her interest, something to change her mind. Why do you think she's so adamant for my retrieval? She let all of you go, free. But with me, she causes a commotion. It doesn't make sense unless she found something."
Yuta furrowed her brows, processing the boy's words.
Renjun went back to skimming through the papers once more, until he saw the wrinkled paper.
When he had first tried to translate it, he had gotten frustrated and balled the paper into a ball and later threw it across the room.
It was a short message, but it was something.
He unraveled the paper, looking at the translation he scribbled underneath.
The Creator.
Renjun looked up at Yuta, who was holding urgent look.
This was the something.
. . .
"Aw, no answer?" the woman asked, looking at Jaemin and Jeno.
"Hm," she said softly, "too bad for you then," she then flicked her wrist once more.
The men that a hold of the two boys suddenly grasped harder, one wrapping a hand around Jeno's throat, the other raising his knife to Jaemin's face.
Jaemin felt the cut, feeling the blood run down his face, hissing at the pain of his cheek.
Jeno's throat was tightened, the grasp on it firm, blocking his breathing.
Abigail waved her hand again, the men loosening their grip on them slightly.
Jeno choked, the sudden flow of oxygen flowing back into his lungs.
They still gave the woman no answer, making her frown slightly.
"Oh huns," she cooed, standing close to the boys once more, "I can do this all night."
The others couldn't stand seeing her do this to the innocent boys.
Taeyong growled, "Stop! They won't tell you!"
She turned to face the older boy, a sick and sinister smile on her face for the nth time.
"There's only a few places he could be, but trust me, nothing feels better than harming the ones he loves beforehand. He'll come out sooner or later. But it seems like it's going to be later, and that's all the more fun."
Taeyong tried to rip out the man's arms, but gaining nothing in return.
Abigail turned towards Jeno and Jaemin again, smiling.
"It'll be fun."
Then the men started again.
. . .
"What are you even going to do?" Yuta asked as the boy took the paper with him, rushing back towards the stairs.
"Give her what she wants," Renjun said, making his way up the steps again.
"No, no you aren't I said that I'd keep you here, and that's what I'm going to d-"
"You said, but I sure as hell didn't," Renjun responded ahead of the older.
In a last resort, Yuta put an illusion of himself in front of Renjun, hoping to distract him.
The younger simply stared at it, until walking straight through it.
Yuta sighed, before finally running after the boy.
"Stop!" he said, his hands resting on Renjun's shoulders, facing the younger towards him, "what do you even plan to do? Rush out there without a solid plan," Yuta reasoned, trying to slow the younger down once more.
"Oh, what makes you think I don't have a plan?" Renjun countered, before escaping Yuta, the real one, this time.
He sprinted to the door, Yuta not far behind, and ran through the grass, the texture of it almost not registering under his feet as he raced to where he hoped they be.
In a clearing not too far ahead of him, a strike of lightning flashed, signalling where Abigail was.
Renjun grinned, knowing that she didn't have complete control of her powers yet.
That information gave him a boost of adrenaline, making him run harder towards the area of the lightning strike.
He slowed down as he got closer, the silence eerie, until Abigail's voice rang out.
"Where is he?"
He knew she was talking about him.
He smirked as he passed by a tree leading into the clearing the others were in.
"You rang?" he asked, everyone's eyes widening at his presence, before darting over his shoulder to see the exasperated Yuta, before two men got a hold of them.
Renjun looked back at his attacker, before smirking at Abigail once more, and lifted one of the man's fingers off of his body.
"You really think this would work?" he asked, the man standing behind him now in standby mode, with no intention to move.
Abigail frowned, before quickly covering it up with a smile.
"Renjun! What a delight to see you!"
He frowned, looking at the woman in front of him.
"Too bad I can't say the same," he now glared at the woman.
"Awe, what a shame. I've been trying to convince these two to let me see you!" she gestured towards Jeno and Jaemin.
Renjun finally looked at the two, taking in their predicament.
Jaemin had scattered cuts across his face, some seeming to start healing already.
Jeno had a red print across his neck, looking painful.
Renjun's heart fell, before anger engulfed his body.
How dare she.
His emotions ran wild, as he let himself slip out of his cold exterior, his emotions slipping through the veil he so carefully set up, letting Abigail see his raw side.
"You don't know what goes on in this brain," Abigail said, pointing to her own brain.
"The secrets, the plans, the information. You couldn't even guess the things I know."
"What makes you think I don't know what you're planning?" Renjun asked, before bringing out the crumpled paper.
Abigail ripped it out of his hands, reading the writing scribbled underneath the computer language.
"The Creator," her voice was soft, eyes drifting from the page and onto Renjun's figure.
Taeyong's eyes were wide.
He had only heard of such a power from his father himself.
Well, what his father had whispered into his head before he had died.
The Creator.
Those words being Taeyong's biological father's last words, he had obviously tried to look into what it was, but got sparse information, and the little bit he did receive only made it seem like folklore.
Turns out, The Creator was an ability that only a rare few have, and it's not exactly tangible power but instead more of an instinct of when to be used. Almost like an aura of sorts that would surround oneself.
A basic instinct to protect the host, or in this case, Renjun, from danger under any and all situations. An adaptation, one would call it.
It made sense as to why Taeyong hadn't noticed before, the preconceived notion of the younger boy to initially be an M.C.M. turned into the thought that he had a sort of inclination towards electronics. But this was a new sense of transformation of the younger.
Renjun might not even know it himself, but he basically had the power of good.
It wasn't something that could be explained, but it made sense to Taeyong, as Renjun had clearly survived the trials Abigail put him through.
Through all the surgical experiments, that would almost kill him and had every potential chance of doing so, to the emotional attacks she had placed on the boy.
He always had a solution, conscious or not.
His instinct had pointed towards M.C.M. for Abigail which protected him from her scalpel and tests, and only a slight show of power towards electronics to Taeyong's own tests, it was all protection from finding out what the boy really was.
An anomaly, and a great one at that.
But this title did not mean that he was the strongest Defect there would ever be, but that he, with proper training in the art, would definitely make him a cunning and intelligent one.
Abigail's fist crumpled the paper once more, dropping the paper onto the ground, she waved her hand quickly, all the men holding the Neo City boys started attacking them.
Donghyuck cried out at the feeling of a knife plunging into his side.
Mark felt the continuous shock as if lightning was striking through his body.
Jungwoo started tearing up, watching a man kick Lucas' knee harshly, the loud 'crack' of it distracting him from the blade cutting his own skin.
The cries from the others weren't only heartbreaking to Renjun, but also churned a pit of rage inside him.
All those years of betrayal by Abigail at him, taking him away from the little bit of society the country had left, hurting Jaemin and Jeno, and having the audacity of hurting those could now call family.
"Stop! They have nothing to do with this!" he yells, tears only a distant feeling as his rage kept going towards Abigail. He slowly approached her.
She only snarls at the young boy.
"Don't even try to get defiant with me Renjun. I basically raised you! Them taking away what's mine, they deserve this."
Renjun scoffs loudly, the rage boiling inside him as he continued to make his way to her.
"What a lousy parent to have a child that only looks down on you," he said, standing almost in front of the woman.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. You've gone completely off the grid of parenting 101, plus you created such ludacris advances scientifically, only to tear yourself apart with your experiments," he answered, the malice not hidden from his eyes.
"You think you've gotten somewhere with all of this," he said, waving his hands at the others, looking her dead in the eye.
She waved her hand, the men stopped.
"And you think I haven't? Did you forget that I made you what you are, so I can destroy you," she answered.
"All of these experiments, some more brutal than others, you are killing people-"
"I am simply liberating the Defects from their ailment, nothing personal," she interrupted him, lightning striking near the two.
"Liberating? Really, liberating? That's what you tell yourself? I hope it makes you feel better when you go to sleep at night. You are killing them for your own expense. They are human beings, whose lives you stole." Lightning flashed again, striking closer.
"Renjun! Stop!" Jaemin hollered, the lightning getting too close to Renjun.
"And? It all worked out for me in the end, so does that matter?" she asked, another flash striking just beside Renjun's form.
"What matters is that you're stealing people's lives from them, using them and throwing them away like trash. That is not O.K." Renjun's voice was getting louder, his chest moving rapidly as he shouted his words at the woman.
"So? I'm the one in power, I make the shots. This isn't a morality check, Renjun, this is life. Someone leads, the others follow. That's the way it works," she fired back.
The sky was darkening with her words, her eyes flashing an ominous color as wind started to pick up around them.
"What could you possibly gain from all of this oppression?" Renjun yelled, his hair whipping around his face.
"What else? Power," she smirked, anger flashing in her eyes.
"By hurting others? The people I love? What makes you think you can't be stopped?"
"What are you going to do? You aren't special. Your friends can't help you now," she told him, gesturing towards the others, the condescending tone only bringing the memories back to Renjun, rage overflowing his mind, "you don't have abilities like me."
"I can't say that you're all that great," Renjun answered, barely noticing the dark sky above him.
The others could only watch, the seriousness of the situation looming over them.
Abigail stretched her hand out towards Renjun, black swallowing her palm.
There was nothing except doom in her eyes, as she stared down at the young boy.
Jaemin and Jeno couldn't look at the sight, but were forced to by the men's hands holding their chins. The other boys couldn't rip their eyes away from the scene.
It seemed like something big was going to happen.
Renjun gasped in pain as his lungs tried to breathe, but they were restrained.
As he continued gasping, he knelt to the ground, his lungs not fully letting him breathe correctly.
Abigail smiled sinisterly at Renjun's choking for air.
"Such a waste of a son," she let out, "funnily enough, you weren't the only one I basically raised," turning to look at Taeyong, right when the vision of rage clouded Renjun's eyes.
Taeyong was disgusted at her attempt of a jab to anger the young boy, until he looked at Renjun once more. Renjun began to rise.
Staggering as he stood up, his level of pure anger filled his chest, the constraint slowly disappearing from the deathly grip on his lungs.
Pressure points pricked behind his eyes, before he outstretched his own hand, and aiming it at Abigail.
"Go to hell."
Wind started to blow around the boy, white blinding light spinning in a circle around his body, slowly collecting to his own palm.
Abigail saw the boy's eyes turn to a light brown, before his hair turned into a sandy blonde.
Karma's a bitch.