Xiáo jíe: miss/young lady (in Mandarin/Chinese)

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The action isn't over. This loss won't be the end of her.

Yanking open a blue taxi's back-door, Ece shrinks herself, taking moments to gather her breath. The driver's brows raise a bit, and it reflects through the rearview mirror over his graying head.

"The city's northern outskirts. Half an hour."

"Half an hour?" How his incredulity triggers utter scorn from Ece. "But, xiáo jíe—"

"Half an hour, I said. No buts. Now get out of here." The screams from outside blast through the windows and an army uniformed mass are glancing around near the trunk.

They're looking for her.

The driver says nothing as he kicks the gas and thrusts the vehicle forward. The air conditioner does little to fan Ece's sweat. Her stomach groans at the heavy scent of a Chinese takeaway, but it isn't her priority now.

Her priority is her temporary hideout, where she also places her soul-hostages.

As the crowd distances from the taxi, she regains her composure. Her previous encounter with Hadassah loops in her head like a cycle.

"I don't have a name." Hadassah's expression remained stoic. There weren't any signs that she bore weapon. Neither did she attempt to arm herself. "I have nothing to tell."

Exhaustion and anger nudge Ece's drained patience, and she pinned Hadassah's neck onto the wall. "Who told you I'd be there?"

"Even if you cracked this into a half," Hadassah glanced to her strangled neck, "I won't tell you. CSI protects its informants." There was an unnatural force behind that sentence.

Ece could sense Hadassah's radiating impatience through her posture. Unmoving like a coral. She had to remain calm, or this older woman would take advantage and pounce at her like an untamed beast.

"You shouldn't even be here. What have you done to your guards, Ece?"

"You'll find out later if you're lucky. Second question, where is Raiden?"

"Raiden who?" Her expression gradually transpired into acknowledgment. "Oh, that Raiden. Palchuk's observed subject."

"Where is he? Where have you taken him? If I ever find you're protecting him from—"

Ece swallows hard as Hadassah's next sentence hits her like Thor's hammer.

"Someone took over him from CSI last night. He wasn't anywhere. He's gone. And for your information, CSI's inspectors are climbing through our emergency entrance."

Clutching her purse, which she has retrieved from Hadassah's rack without her consent, Ece tries to soothe her mind. It's thinking of all the impossible things that may occur.

What will Tayana think of her after all of this? Should she be grateful that her phone is barren of any notifications from Tayana?

Preventing her withdrawn sobs from affecting her, Ece fishes the wizard's journal, staring at its ashen skin with gloom. Her pointer proceeds to flip the page she visits most when it traces upon a strand of hair, sitting amidst the page she used to visit during the first hours of her ownership of the onyx.

The scrawled title is 'How to Use the Onyx to Heal'. The last time she read this chapter was before she healed Tayana, to memorize the Lithuanian incantation.

And how Ece's gut almost tosses in fright at the crushed anemone petal underneath the sole platinum strand. Its red is waning off. Pallid brown borders its outline.

She has never placed any petals here. Nor does she possess a platinum hair, which switches from silver to hazel under the window's lighting.

There are only two people known to her that have those hair dyes. One is Saikoji Kraus, silver-haired, whose grandfather she healed several days ago. Then the next one is Tayana, hazel-haired, who she healed earlier this week.

She left anemone petals on both their residences after restoring one's health.

Pain spikes on Ece's temples and rouses her other injuries. Her internal self can't block the poisonous suspicions from polluting her optimistic ones.

After deciding Hadassah had wasted her precious time and concluded that her foundation resembled a rhino's horn than chalk, Ece lost her temper.

She swore she wouldn't use the onyx on these scientists. Her strength was at its verge, and by donating it to the onyx so it could attack Hadassah, she wouldn't survive the incoming CSI officials.

But now Hadassah struggled to live outside of the special canyons, with half her soul stolen, and wouldn't recover for a certain amount of time. How she must've preferred being asleep like Palchuk than losing her precious memories as a senior.

It was the punishment Hadassah deserved after refusing Ece's treaty offerings.

"Are you alright, xiáo jíe? Are you hungry?" The meatless and gray-bearded driver asks, eyeing Ece with worry radiating from his eyes. "You don't seem well."

Ece's stomach agrees to that statement wholeheartedly, as the next thing it does is stating it aloud, blushing Ece's sallow and constantly-bitten cheeks.

"I'm fine. I don't have time to eat." She shoves the journal back into her purse, swearing to let her mind wander off the topic for a while. But she can't sense peace, not even when her purse's zip separates her vision from the journal.

She always brings the journal everywhere. Even during her healing sessions with the clients, or the exclusives, as Raiden likes to put it.

Who has gained access to the journal, which is supposed to be her eyes only? Who has risked of being stung by the dark artifact for reading it without the onyx's company?

Three main questions begging to be solved inside her head. Not even the street's hustle, or the roads' traffic, can distract her mind from that. Not even the driver's statements of 'resting up' and 'bear the traffic'. When those words are usually sensitive to Ece.

The first is Raiden. Where is he, and who has taken him?

After that, there's the traitor to contemplate about. Chills penetrate her mental barrier at the realization of the two names. Saikoji and Tayana. Both who she has treated like her own older siblings.

Which one of the two played dirty behind my back?

Thirdly and lastly, will she ever survive this cycle? Hunting both Raiden and the traitor while being tailed by the furious CSI agents?

Her muse pops like a bubble once the taxi brakes within a millisecond, rousing her irked self to unleash the lowest insults in Mandarin. The driver, however, is too engaged with the sight ahead of him than heeding Ece's animalistic nicknames for him.

"Xiáo jíe, the main street is barricaded. We have to turn around." The driver trembles as he puts the car into 'reverse' mode, mimicking the other vehicles alongside them.

"Barricaded?" Ece pokes her head next to the driver's headrest to view what's happening ahead. Terror grips her nerves once plaques in orange, along with multiple police cars, have secured the street. Those adults are engaged with their own heated discussions.

Discussions about an underage fugitive named Ece, certainly.

"T-Turn around. Hurry." Even she can't hide the quakes within her voice. She returns to her original position and shuts her eyes. Things are too overwhelming nowadays.

The sirens of the police cars, along with their motorcycles send intimidations to Ece. And she has no better choice than fervently hoping that no officials shall notice her presence in that taxi. Her disguise is made for precaution—nest-like hair, childlike facial expressions...

"Uh-oh. We have trouble, xiáo jíe. The policemen are coming to ask—"

And Ece's heart leaps like a terrified bullfrog. "Get away from them!"

"But they will shoot—"

"This taxi has insurance! I don't have one! Now go," she grits her teeth, clearing her threat for the sweaty and shaky driver, "and no more questions along the way."

"I'm not sure your payment will make up for the bullets—"

"You will be rewarded, and I assure you that." With your death, her mind whispers menacingly. Promises escape her mouth like carbon dioxide. Her climbing fatigue allows that to occur.

Less than a second later, the wheels skid, throwing gravels off the asphalt. Stern protests exclaim from the outside. Demands to stop, too, coming from megaphones. "Every vehicle shall stop for further inspection—"

Ece muffles her ears with her shaking hands and dives her head between her knees. The taxi advances in an ostrich's speed. Sirens press tight into the taxi's interiors. Grunts and exclamations in Mandarin are also there to join the calamity.

She can only hope this taxi still has a professional brake.

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The devastated terrains come to her sight less than an hour later. The ten-o'-clock sun casts an ethereal glow on the puddles and dew scattered around the landscape.

But instead of feeling normal relief while noticing the land's monotony, she feels anticipation clinging her insides like an adhesive.

Has Raiden passed this place and discovered the faceless creatures she put within?

"That was a hellish trip, xiáo jíe. I'll ask for a higher price than usual." Apparently, this old driver isn't as meek as her first impression. He's broken several rules in this past hour, yet no guilt crosses his face.

Aside from his stammers and slumping-inward shoulders, he shows nothing else.

"How much?" She pretends to ransack her purse, when in fact, money's chemical scent has long left it. She has cashed them all back in the bank two days ago, after healing Saikoji's grandfather.

Saikoji. What a spicy name that is now on my tongue.

"The normal ride costs five thousand. But the stunt I performed back then costs ten thousand. The fuel and the brakes' renewal may cost three. So eighteen thousand total."

Typical ungrateful and advantage-seeking Chinese grandpa.

"Oh, and also the cost for keeping myself silent during the ride. Twenty thousand total."

Ece fishes her worn-out wallet out of her purse. Tracing over the various fake cards she possesses, she hands one to the driver. The best-colored and newest one she's received. "Try it. There must be enough."

The driver stares in awe but says nothing as he slots the card over his payment machine, humming a lighthearted tone.

Before the announcement of her incapableness to pay arrives, Ece knocks the driver's head forward, bashing his forehead against the steer. His arms attempt to lurch back, seizing Ece's arms away from his temples. With one last bash, he loses his awareness.

Turning a blind eye at the trickling blood is harder than inhaling.

With her heart thrashing in her ribcage, she unlocks her door and exits from the taxi. Shortly, she finds herself entering the driver's seat, which has been unoccupied since she kicks the man to the passenger's seat. She rubs the blood stains off the leather steel with disgust and complaints.

After steeling her heart, she unlocks the wizard's journal once more, searching for the page she hasn't ever read in that book. Or rather, sidetracked on while reading.

The final page is titled 'Acknowledgements'. There are three names, and they hit Ece hard, like Captain America's shield.

• Oh Quartz: mom. Always loves flowers (and finance) more than my discovery of the onyx. Supports me relentlessly, even when I'm this near to my own demise.

• Trixy: my best friend. Always pranking people though being blind. Supports me relentlessly, even accepting to be the first subject to the onyx's healing ability.

• Cupid: if you didn't cut Venus' fingernails, or send that humongous Minokawa down, my miner ancestor wouldn't have discovered an onyx. Dad wouldn't have inherited it.

I, Rubeus, wouldn't have altered its functions—equipping it with a deadly curse. That it would obey the greedy bearer's wills, but consuming their strength like an infectious parasite.

I wouldn't have cursed the greed-driven onyx and its bearer until their demise, and hid it in Kirminai. Mankind would've solved their trials without relying on the onyx too often. Even during the occasional plague's seasons.

And I, Rubeus Oniksas, wouldn't have meddled with the dark arts and die with a thick vengeance to mankind.