- sixty five -

"I don't know, am I?"

Taeyong looked at the younger boy, wondering what he meant by his words.

Renjun knew what the plan was, so why was he trying to instill more fright into the collapsed woman?

Hendery attended to both Jeno and Jaemin, slowly healing the two to fully restored health as they watched what Renjun was going to do next.

"You've held me captive, for years, whether I was at the lab or not. Always had me under your thumb where I thought that I was safe. What kind of sick and twisted person would do that?" Renjun asked, looking down at the woman.

"You- you even created a false army to take down those who lived peacefully in the Outside. They were no threat, until you made them into a threat. What was the purpose of all of this? You've let others roam peacefully in the Outside, what was so hard letting us be? Because we were lab rats to you? The youngest one here is still a minor for goodness sake!" he ranted at her, her gaze not even daring to meet his own.

"Why couldn't you leave us alone? Can't you just answer that one question?" he urged, the raw emotion of vulnerableness displaying in his voice.

"Defects are and will always be a threat," she answered, her voice smaller in comparison.

"Under who's jurisdiction? Your own? You say that, even though you yourself tried to gain the abilities of a Defect?"

"I had to level the threat," she answered, braving to meet the young boy's eyes.

"You had to level the threat that didn't exist in the first place?"

"Yes."

Renjun paused, the silence weighing the air around them.

"Why?" his voice was small, almost innocent in the silence.

His anger started to grow once more when she didn't offer a response.

"Why? Abigail. It's such a simple question, so why can't you answer it?" he asked, anger dripping slightly through his words once more.

"They are considered the dominant species," she said, finally letting go of Renjun's pant leg.

Renjun was trying his best not to get any more angrier, but her words only seemed to piss him off that much more.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. If he were to burst out now, anything was bound to happen. And that scared Renjun a little.

He didn't know what he could do, but he'd sure as hell didn't want to find out now.

"The dominant species," he repeated, taking another deep breath.

"How stupefied of you," he said slowly, intensity in each articulation he made.

He felt someone lay a hand on his shoulder, but he simply shrugged it off.

Something caught Taeyong's eyes, and he looked at Renjun's fingertips.

"You felt threatened by the mere presence of someone who could do something out of the ordinary in your books, so you try and eliminate the threat?"

There was something off to Taeyong.

As Renjun continued to talk to Abigail, his fingertips looked like they were being burned. There was a dark black starting to rise on his skin, slowly traveling up until his hand was completely black.

"If anything, you were the threat," Renjun knew his anger was really getting to him, the amount of anger he was feeling towards this woman seemed unstoppable and completely endless.

The black aura that Abigail once held seemed to be coming out of Renjun, and that's when Taeyong realized.

Renjun didn't push Abigail's power back to her when she had them. He was taking it.

And now he was reflecting it with his anger.

Different from Jeno's, he was copying the power and creating it into a different intensity, he was merely letting her power punish her, but it was coming from Renjun.

Renjun didn't notice it, but when Taeyong grabbed his shoulder again, he also pulled the boy away from the woman, replacing his spot instead.

"What are you going to do?" The woman asked again, this time directing her attention to Taeyong.

"Nothing you'd do," he answered, grabbed her still outstretched hand, and pulled the limp woman up.

"We're going to have a chat," was all he told her before he started their journey back to Neo City.

Renjun was behind them, trying to calm himself down before Johnny went over to him, laying his hand onto his shoulder.

Renjun suddenly felt the strange tension lift off of him, making him turn his head and smile lightly at the older.

Johnny returned the smile, trying not to make it seem obvious that something was going on.

Taeyong helped Abigail, but not before glancing back at Renjun as the group followed his lead.

The younger's head was bent down as he walked, still trying to gain control over his feelings.

But the painfully obvious detail on the boy was that his hands still continued to be stained black.

Taeyong wasn't sure as of why, since the boy was calmed with Johnny's arm around his shoulder but the black still remained.

It was a wonder that the boy himself hadn't noticed it ye-

"Why are my hands black?"