#stray kids mystery | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mintasa · 23 days

Text

CIRCUS ~ CHAPTER 18 (THE LAST CHAPTER)

Pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x OC

Genre: Circus AU, murder mystery, slowburn, enemies to lovers?

Warnings: Blood, injuries, mental problems

Word count: 3,7k

Synopsis: A series of murders in a successful circus disturbs the life of a young stylist. With no place to go, she is keen on saving the circus, even if that means risking her own life to do so. As if things cannot go worse, a group of newbies join the hawock, seemingly not knowing what they're getting themselves into. Can she figure out the motives of the murderer and keep her crew together? Can the circus survive under the growing pressure and distrust?

Note: This is the first story I am publicly sharing. It is a work of fiction, although it may not fit the criteria of a traditional fanfic (I physically cannot write in the second-person narrative). Therefore, English is not my first language, and while I'm pretty fluent, I still make grammar errors, so apologies in advance.

The story is vaguely inspired by Circus MV

Wattpad link

Nadya is thrown against the nearest wagon, then her mouth gets covered with a clotch. The girl tries her best to escape from the attacker, but in vain. She breathes in the liquid the cloth was dipped in, and she's gone. A great way to start the day.

Nadya wakes up upon the car making a sudden jump over a hole in the pavement. Hold up; she's in a car. She girls eyes go wide as she sits up. She can barely move. Shes tied up. Her hands and feet, as well as her mouth. Nadya licks at the table in an attempt to get it away.

"How did you sleep?" A voice rings through her ears, and Nadya looks at the front mirror to meet eyes with Amir. He glances at her briefly but soon realizes the girl cannot talk. "Get that tape off, will you?"

A guy sitting in a passenger seat turns towards Nadya, and she cannot hide her surprise. He rips the tape away and sends a wink in Nadya's direction. "I didn't mean to be that harsh this morning, but you left me no choice, sweetheart." Orions annoying voice rings through her ears.

She stays silent, unable to talk. Nadya had confided in Orion, thinking he may help, but she was so wrong. The trusted cop in charge of the case was an enemy all along. Amir was testing her, and she failed the test.

"Cat got your tongue, sweetheart," Orion smiles at her.

She would pay to punch him square in the face. In fact, she would if she wasn't tied up. "How long has this been going on?" She asks in disbelief.

Orion turns back to the road. Amir sighs. "Since you and your boyfriend caught the first guy I hired," he answers.

So Orion wasn't in Amir's plans always. A while ago, he was a cop. He actually tried to help, or maybe he was pretending. "Is he even a real cop?"

"As real as one can be," Orion answers, not even looking at the girl.

Nadya cannot believe her ears. She cannot believe how vile a person can be. "How could you do that? Didn't you give vows? Do you know the laws?"

"Sweetheart, anything can be compromised with the right amount of money," Orion turns towards her briefly. It is a statement. Statement she cannot agree with.

Nadya frowns. She still has multiple questions that are yet to be answered. "Where are we going?" Nadya questions seeing unfamiliar fields through the car windows.

"To the country side, where nobody will bother us and we will be a happy family," Amir answers.

Nadyas eyes dart to the guy in the front seat. Sure, he did the killing for her father, but she does not get what his purpose on this fieldtrip is. "Why is he coming with us?"

"Orion is a bright young man; I've grown to love him like my own son," Amir answers. Nadya feels sick; they really managed to become friends through murdering innocent people.

She cannot believe Amir's words, so she scoffs in pure disbelief. "You claim to care about me yet bring the man that has hurt me multiple times along?" Nadya confronts the man. One psychopath would be much easier to deal with than two.

"Nadya, people change; besides, he had shown genuine interest in you. You two could be a great match," Amir answers from the front seat.

"We will finally be together again without anyone getting in the way." Orion turns his head towards Nadya.

The girl's eyes are empty as she looks at the man she isn't proud to call her father. "You cannot force me into that," she protests.

Amir sighs. "I am not. When we get home, youll have plenty of time to get to know each other better and to work stuff out.”

Nadya cannot believe her ears. Her relationship with Orion is not something fixable. He's a maniac; they both are. "So what? You are just going to lock me up inside the house like some trophy?"

"Exactly, sweetheart, and trophies don't talk," Orion smiles wickedly before reaching out to glue the tape back on Nadya's mouth.

He twists his entire body closer to her, and she does the only thing she can manage in her position. She spits in his face. "Screw you both," Nadya utters. "Screw you!"

Orion barely reacts before taping her mouth and using his sleeve to wipe the spit away. "Well, that was not nice."

It's been hours since they arrived at some vacation house in the middle of nowhere. Nadya didn't even attempt to run just because she was cuffed to her bed. She had considered the idea of chewing off her hand, but it seemed too extreme. Maybe she could negotiate something out.

Orions drops by to check on her for what feels like the hundredth time. This time he walks in and sits down in front of the girl, who raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Look, I came to talk," he starts.

"About what exactly?"

"About us," he pauses, "I want us to be happy."

"Are you high right now? There's no us. Will never be!" Nadya practically spits the words in his face.

Orion reaches out to touch Nadya's face, but she moves away. She won't ever let his bloody hands touch her, even if he becomes the last man on earth. "Look, sooner or later you'll have to give into me," he abrubtly tugs at Nadya's tied-up hands, bringing her closer. He grips her neck, forcing his lips against hers.

Its discusting, its wile. Yet Nadya does not give up easily. She decides to give into it, and Orion releases his grip on her neck. Then Nadya abruptly moves away and smashes her head into his. It hurts like a bitch, but Orion jumps off of the bed, rubbing at his forehead. "Youre fucking crazy!"

Nadya lifts her arms up to wipe at her lips. "Want to try that again?" She smiles at him.

Orion runs out of the room and brushes shoulders with Amir. Great psycho number two came for her entertainment as well.

The man sits down on her bed and sighs. "A family cannot be built on lies, and I feel like I owe you some answers, so go on and ask anything."

Nadya is surprised, but momentarily. She's still a bit drowsy after headbutting the prince charming. "We will never be a family," Nadya claims pridefully.

"Never say never," Amir haunts the girl.

She cannot believe that the man she trusted to keep everyone in line could be so messed up himself. He took everything from Nadya, claiming he did the right thing. "The circus was my family. It was everything for me, and you destroyed it. You killed my friends," Nadya sneers at the older man.

"I did what the plan required me to do."

Excuses. "What plan exactly?"

"I only wanted the best for the circus," Amir claims and pauses, "You don't get it, Orlo, and we created the circus together. We were partners, friends. Then he got greedy; all he cared about was money, and I wanted fame. International recognision. With him, the change would have never happened."

Nadya struggles to put the story straight. He was wronged by Orlo, who didn't live up to expectations. "So you decided to take his place," Nadya concludes.

"No Allen was meant to," the man reveals. Now Nadya is confused by his motives. "Don't look too surprised. We were best friends, and of course I knew about the boy. He was a great guy but had no clue how to run a business."

"So you wanted to hand Allen the circus and take charge?"

Amir smiles wickedly. "Exactly. See, we are more similar than you think."

"I connected the dots; it isn't that big of a deal," Nadya huffs.

"Where was I?" Amir mumbles and pauses to think, "Right, the plan was all coming along, but then Melissa popped out of nowhere, Allen somehow got arrested, and I had to change the course. I had to scare away Melissa."

Now it all makes sense. The first crimes were barely crimes. They were immature and seemed like simple slip-ups. He changed direction:By on purpose hurting people and sacrificing the dreams they had worked endlessly for."

"You're reading my mind." The man rusfles Nadya's hair. "See, I told you we are similar—more similar than you admit. Although I can see your mother in you as well," he claims.

"I am nothing like my tyrant mother."

Amir shakes his head at the girls words."Your mother was a little girl forced into an arranged marriage. She was never the devil you make her out to be," Amir claims, and although Nadya hates to admit it, he is right. Her mother didn't know better; she was once a victim herself. "You never thought about it that way. That's why you need me. I can teach you a lot."

His words shake Nadya to talk back. Amir is the last man on earth she would take advice from. She may have been a bit ignorant about her mother, but it's not like she was the one to take revenge and kill her. She left the house to start a new life, not to leave her mother struggling. "My mother didn't have it easy, but that doesn't mean I deserved better. She may not have been a devil, but she was not a saint either."

"That's one way to put it," Amir shrugs.

Silence.

"Did you ever hesitate?" Nadya asks. That's the one thing that has been on her mind. How can a person bring themselves to do such horrible stuff?

Amir looks away in the night. His voice grows silent. "I did hesitate after what happened to Adele. The plan was to break a few bones, but it didn't work as I intended."

"You killed her."

"She was a sacrifice that was meant to be made."

A pure disbelief is written all over the girl's face. "A sacrifice? She was a person," she sneers.

"I know that, so after what happened, I was horrified. I was planning to stop, but people started to look into the incidents more; they started to suspect me." The man pauses, noticing all the attention he is getting from his daughter. Nadya is surprised to find out she was not the only one to suspect the incidents were faked right from the start. Amir smirks. "Yes, Nadya, you and Azara were the first ones to figure everything out."

"Then who did?" The girl asks before the answer can be provided to her.

Amir's eyes dart to the floor, and he sighs. "It was Dahlia. She noticed how I was always the first to act; I never hesitating."

"Almost as if you knew what would happen before it did," Nadya chimes bitterly.

"Exactly, so she confronted me one day, and I panicked. I killed her, and then I had to hide her remains, so I burned her entire wagon." Amir finishes his sentence.

Nadyas jaw is agape. Not because she didn't believe in Dahlia figuring it out before anyone else, but because Amir killed one of his oldest friends. Dahlia was one of the longest workers, yet he didn't spare her. "You killed her with your own hands?"

His smile crouched as he replied. "Yes, I choked her with my bare hands until the last breath left her lungs and enjoyed very much of it."

Nadya cannot bear the thought of the torture her friend went through. She did not just die. She died while looking at the persons whom she trusted with her life's eyes. "Get out," Nadya mutters. "Get out!"

Amir holds his hands in the air after the girls outburst. "If that's what you wish."

Another knock on her door. Orion had been persistent in getting the girl to like him. He had been dropping by every now and then to check wherever Nadya wanted food or water. Does she look like she wants anything besides getting out?

"Orion, I swear to good Ill fucking smack you if you poke your head inside once again." The girl groans, pulling covers over her.

The knocking stops, and for a second the girl is relieved, but then it gets suspicious. Orion is not the kind of guy she can scare off with meaningless threats.

The door slowly creaks open, making the girl sit up in the bed. She wants to cry upon seeing a familiar face. "Hyunjin!" Nadya immediately runs up to the guy; she is happy to see him, but the happiness fades in seconds. "What are you doing here? If they find you—"

He presses a finger against the girl's lips. "I snuck in, and they had just left. I saw the car driving away," he utters, still keeping his voice low.

"How did you find me?"

"It's going to sound creepy, but I have installed a tracker on the bottom of your shoe," Hyunjin admits.

Nadya huffs in disbelief. "For how long?"

"How do you think I noticed each time you left your wagon?" He answers and watches Nadya's scrunched favorite. "Look at first, I did that to keep others safe, but I kept it to keep you safe," he says, running a hand down his face.

Nadya isn't even mad. She was a threat at some point, but heads up after becoming allies would have been nice. "I get it. I can't believe Im glad to see you," Nadya mumbles.

"Are you getting soft on me?" Hyunjin grips, wrapping a hand around the girl and bringing her for a hug. Nadya cannot return it due to her tied hands, but Hyunjin doesn't mind that.

A sweet moment suddenly turns into a horror movie. She sees a shadow flicker. "Hyunjin, look out!" She manages to get out, but it is too late. Orion slams a gun into the guy's head, and he slumps into Nadya's arms.

Orion grips Hyunjin's shoulder, pulling him away from Nadya. "No, you can't." The girl rushes out only to reveive a hard push into a nearby cabinet. The girl's vision goes black.

She hears footsteps. "I didn't mean to, Nadya; it was an accident," Orion mumbles as he pulls the girls head into his lap.

Her mind goes blank.

"Welcome to the land of living; you took your time," Nadya hears Hyunjin's voice the first thing after attempting to open her eyes.

"Shut up," she mumhles, but then her eyes snap open. Hyunjin. With her sight still foggy, she sees Hyunjin on the other side of what looks like a basement. He's tied to the wall just like she is.

"Really? Thats what you say to me after I waited for you to wake up just so I can see you properly before being brutally murdered," Hyunjin comments. He's joking, but Nadya doesn't make an effort to react to his jokes. He shouldn't be joking at a time like this.

Orion walks down the stairs. "Oh, youre awake, great." He mumbles munching on something casually.

"I hope you choke," Nadya mumbles.

"That's not nice. Anyway, Amir was waiting for you to wake up so you could see the consequences of your actions," Orion announces, slowly walking towards Hyunjin.

Nadya knows exactly what to expect from them. They're going to hurt Hyunjin because of her. "I swear I will behave; just don't touvh him," the girl pleads.

Orion laughs. "Oh, I won't, but the barrel of my gun will," he comments before pulling a pistol out of his back pocket. "It's a shame it has to end this way."

Orion lifts the gun to Hyunjin's head, who closes his eyes and sighs. "No, please," Another desperate beg escapes the girl. Tears are pooling at the corners of her eyes.

Hyunjin locks his eyes with the girl. "Don't cry; I made you cry enough as it is," Hyunjin smiles.

They keep eye contact. Nadya shakes her head at his words. She couldn't care less; she would let him walk out on her, crying, if it meant he would be safe. "Orion, please, I will do whatever you ask me. Ill be the throphy. Just don't touch him."

Orion turns towards the girl. "I can't keep him alive; you know why?" He pauses. "Until he is alive, you will never truly be mine; he has to go."

"Please," Another desperate cry.

"You know what? I am feeling nice today. Say goodbye. I will wait," Orion mumbles, still holding a gun to Hyunjin's head.

Nadya is silent, refusing to say goodbye. For her, it is not the end. Hyunjin, however, looks defeated. He sighs. "Im sorry, I know this is horrible timing, but I have to get that off my chest," he mumbles. "I didn't plan on it, but at some point you started to draw me in like a magnet. I fell in love with everything about you.

"Now this is great," Orion mumbles. "Amir would love to hear it."

His words make Nadya wonder where the meandering man is, but she doesn't let her thoughts dwell on him too long. She's focused on Hyunjin. She wants to tell him how stupidly in love she is with him but cannot get a single word out.

Suddenly they hear footsteps. Mutiple ones. Then it sounds like struggle. Orion curses under his breath. "It looks like we will have to postpone this for another time," the guy mumbles before running upstairs.

For some time it's silent, and neither of them says a word. Theyre both focused on whatever is happening upstairs; there are gunshots. Suddenly the last shot ehoes and the chaos stops.

Strairs creak as a person is getting frightened. Breath catches in Nadya's lungs, but the person turns out to be nobody else but Han Jisung. The rest of the guys follow, and the squirell-looking one pulls out his phone, pushing it into Hyunjin's face.

"Just untie us," Hyunjin grumbles.

"Not before I take a picture," Han laughs.

The guys had followed after Hyunjin and stormed in. Amir was weaponless, and they overpowered him easily. Orion, however, as a trained cop, was a much harder task that they managed to do.

Nadya is sitting in the trunk of the police car with a blanket dropped around her shoulders. Taraji is talking something while Jun has a single arm around the girl's shoulders and is stroking her hair.

Nadya is shocked. It's like the time has stopped. She is resquired, the murderers are stopped, yet something is missing.

The guys are talking to the officers. Explain the situation. Hyunjin is there as well. He is talking; Nadya knew she couldn't lose hope. Hyunjin is fine; they didn't have to say goodbye.

The officer walks away, leaving Hyunjin with the guys who seem to be pestering him. "Go talk to him," Jun's voice brings the girl out of her thoughts.

"What?"

"Hyunjin," Jun motions towards the guy, "talk to him."

Nadya is scared to face the guy. She will cry. She doesn't know how to approach him after what he said in the basement; it all feels like a fever dream. "Fine," the girl mumbles, lifting herself to her feet.

She approaches the group and tugs on Hyunjin's shirt. He looks startled for a second before following the girl a bit further from the guys.

Suddenly she's too shy to talk under his stare. "Look. Im really glad youre fine, and I just wanted to say that I like you. Like a lot. I don't know when it happened, but I thought-"

Hyunjin cuts the girl off by hugging her; she for once doesn't hesitate before hugging him. "It's okay. I get it. It's difficult to comprehend. I had never felt this way either," he comments.

Nadya pulls away briefly. "Really?"

"Why would I lie to you?"

"I dont know."

Hyunjin stares at him for a bit too long. It's like the entire world has disappeared, and it's just them. "Can I? Can I kiss you?" Hyunjin mumbles.

Nadya sees the guys observing in the distance. "What about the guys?" Chan had previously made them stay away from each other. He will be mad, and it will be her fault.

"Let them watch."

Oh.

"What are you waiting for then?"

Hyunjin doesn't hesitate before pulling the girl for a kiss. He holds the girl as if she were fragile, letting her set the pace. The kiss is gentle, full of longing, yet they don't let it last for too long.

It is enough for the guys to start making kissy faces at them. Theyre litteral children.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us to Korea?" I will miss you." Hyunjin stands in the middle of a busy airport, but his eyes are on Nadya.

"I will miss you too, but you know it's not for me. Besides, who will watch after Jun?" Nadya jokes at the guy standing nearby and pouting.

She is planning to go to her sister with Jun. At least until they can get back on their feet. She had already parted ways and said goodbyes to others. Now its just the guys left. They're going back to Korea.

"Who will look after me?"

"You have seven bodyguards that are sulking because you are about to miss your plane," Nadya smiles.

"I need to say goodbye properly."

"Propertly?"

"Yes," he mumbles before pulling the girl for a kiss. "Propertly."

They pull apart, and Nadya hugs the guy as close to her body as possible. She needs to imbed him in her memory. Of course she's sad to let Hyunjin go, but she has ambitions, and he has responsibilities to attend to. It's not meant for them to be together, at least not yet.

"You know where to find me if you decide to visit," Nadya pushes Hyunjin towards the guys. "Now go; don't keep them waiting."

Nadya backs away slowly; she makes brief eye contact with the guys and waves them goodbye. Then she makes the last eye contact with Hyunjin before walking away. She approaches Jun, who hugs the girl tightly. Nadya doesn't cry; she had promised Hyunjin not to.

It's not the end of the world, but her last few months have been unforgettable. Partly, alright, maybe mostly because of Hyunjin. He brought out the parts of Nadya that she didn't know were there. She's thankful for getting to know him and the guys, but life goes on.

Losing people is hard, but what is even harder is having them just out of reach.

THE END

13 notes · View notes