Cold Steel

Chang was unable to fight back or resist the force that suddenly surrounded her, dragging her away. Panicking, Chang feared it was the night she had reunited with Jian happening all over again.

She wanted to fight back or do something, but it felt like there were hands all over her at once.

One on her arm up near her shoulder, with one gripping the opposite wrist. One around her waist, one on her head, another grabbing a fistful over her hair through the fabric; and one tightly clamped over her nose and mouth, preventing her from breathing.

Once the hands had taken her where they desired, she was slammed into a wall causing the back of her head to crack against it sickeningly. After the hit, even if she still wanted to struggle she could not now. Woozy and disoriented, Chang was immobilized, unable to string two thoughts together under the pain.

Blinking hard, Chang tried to manage the pain and get her vision to align to one picture, instead of three drifting ones. As she slumped against the wall she was pressed against, Chang felt something cold and sharp against her neck.

The hand still gripping her face, wrenched it up to bring to her sight several floating men dressed entirely in black. Only their cold, menacing eyes shown looking a twin to the ones she remembered. She tried to take a deep inhale from her nose but was unable to. Panicking, Chang tried to fight against the suffocating force as black spots started to dot her sight, not caring for what was on her neck.

The hand tightened on her, painfully squeezing her face.

"Stop struggling. You don't, you die. Scream and you die." Chang nodded as best she could, her eyes filled with tears. The hand released her face, along with the others, and she gratefully took in lung fulls of air, trembling. As she inhaled she started to be able to focus and see that she was cornered by three men. Pushing herself up against the wall, trying to avoid the pressure at her neck and raise to her full height, Chang's heart raced.

Able to see her surroundings now, the full severity of her situation hit her, and that her only option was to do as they said if she wanted to live.

'If they wanted to just kill me or hurt me they would have just done so...They must want something from me, but what?' Biting her lower lip, she tried to think of what that might be.

"What do you want from me?" After taking a few breaths, Chang fearfully asked the man in front of her in a low voice.

"Heh. We do not anything from you. We are merely here to deliver a warning." The man who held the knife to her throat on her left chuckled menacingly. "You have become an eyesore to someone. You are to leave this place before we have to give you further 'encouragement.'"

"What do you mean?"

The man in front of her scoffed at her question. "You have been warned once already before this and you still claim to not understand. Woman, you are not a match to the family you are attempting to ingratiate yourself into. Leave before you embarrass yourself or them further."

Chang felt prickly hearing the man's sentence, understanding that the men were here on Jian's father's behalf.

"No, I left my husband before, I will not do so voluntarily again. You can say what you want, and so can he, the one who paid you. I already know I am not an embarrassment to Jian, and I'm not ashamed of who I am. I will not be so easily driven away ever again."

In answer to her, the man shoved her, causing her to stumble and collapse to the ground. As she looked up at him a stack of photographs hit her and scattered around her.

"Know your place. You are unworthy and you will leave. You will not be warned again."

'Or else' was left out of the sentence but Chang still heard it as she stayed on the ground. Like shadows the men disappeared silently, leaving Chang alone.

Pushing herself into a sitting position, Chang grabbed her knees, burrowing her face in them. Absentmindedly running a hand over her unmarked neck, she could not help but think of what could have happened.

'What is with my luck in alleys? From now on I'm going to avoid them like the plague.' Scoffing, Chang let herself cry for a while in her knees, settling her swirling emotions. After calming, Chang thought about what the men had said and whatever they had thrown at her.

Grabbing the closest one, Chang turned it over to see what it contained. Looking at the image, her breath stopped, and it felt like her blood froze and started to flow backward in her veins.

'No, this can't be real.'