han aehra.

she couldn't shoot him. although he had commited heinous crimes, he was still human too her.

instead of shooting him, aehra shot the bullet beside taeyong's head. it passed dangerously close to his forehead, but it hit the wall behind him.

"aehra!" taeil yelled.

"I-I'm sorry. I really can't kill anyone!" aehra said. taeil roughly yanked the gun out of aehra's hands and reloaded it, aiming at taeyong. "if you can't do it, I will."

"don't!" aehra shouted.

"this is our mission, damn it," taeil snapped back. a sick smirk formed on his face.

"wait," kun spoke up. everyone turned to look at kun, surprised. he rarely spoke, and much less to taeil himself. kun always accepted commands and instructions without question.

"if aehra can't kill him, that means clearly, she thinks he deserves to live. and I think that's enough for us to keep him alive, since aehra is one of his victims," he said slowly. everyone else exchanged glances, and taeil lowered his gun.

"kun's right," lucas put plainly. aehra smiled at both of them, mouthing a thanks.

"you're an interesting bunch," taeyong quipped. taeil raised his gun once again. "shut up," taeil snarled.

"just ignore him. I say we take him hostage. after all, if we kill him, we can't take his money. if we have him, we can probably torture his money out of him, then give it back to the victims," yuta suggested.

"you really did think this through, didn't you?" taeil said sarcastically.

"yep. all in favour of not killing lee taeyong?" yuta asked, raising his hand. kun's hand shot into the air, while aehra slowly put hers up. jungwoo and lucas put their hands up normally.

"let's just say I'm raising a hand," taeyong jokingly said, gesturing, with his head, to his bound hands.

"fine. blindfold him, and let's take him back," taeil sighed.

lee taeyong.

he had payed close attention to them while they had argued. aehra was interesting to him, though.

he had acted confident throughout the whole thing, but he was quite worried for his life. the innocent child - jungwoo? - was putting a blindfold over taeyong's eyes to make sure he didn't know the location of their base.

they had untied the ropes around his feet, and two people were beside him, ready to guide him down. even without sight, he could sense a lot of things.

they had silently led him to one of the broken windows, the cool night air blowing against him. he shivered. it had snowed, and since the windows were broken, cold air had counteracted his heating system. the only thing between him and the cold was a thin dress shirt and pants.

"I'm assuming you have heaters in your 'base'?" taeyong taunted. his company was the only one that sold decent heaters, and they were extremely expensive. and everyone knew that.

"shut up," aehra said, somewhere to his left. "don't make me regret not shooting you."

"okay, yuta and kun, get down first." it was taeil.

"wait. my house has stairs and elevators. must we get out like this?" taeyong asked nervously.

"it's faster like this," taeil said, an edge of annoyance in his voice.

without any warning, someone below grabbed taeyong's bound hands and pulled him down to another ledge. "oOH MY G-" taeyong screeched. he land roughly on the ledge, teetering over the edge.

"relax," the person next to him said. yuta, was it?

"I am relaxed," taeyong said, his voice shaking.

"sure," yuta said, sarcasm practically dripping from his voice.

once again, without warning, someone else pulled him down onto the snow coated ground. "nOT AGAIN!" taeyong yelled. the drop from the ledge to the ground was a much higher one, but the soft snow made it easier for him to land. "c-cold," he whispered. he heard a few others land around him, and they began to escort him somewhere.

han aehra.

she watched as taeil roughly pushed taeyong along. she counted their steps, remembered every turn and every slight change of direction. it was difficult for a normal person with no knowledge of them to find their base, and there was a complicated set of instructions
to get to it.

it took a while, but they finally reached the exact middle of the woods. there, a tall birch tree stood, almost identical to the ones around it. a certain part of the snowy floor was actually a large mat that resembled real snow. it concealed the trapdoor to their base.

taeil roughly kicked aside the mat, keyed in the password on the number pad and opened up the trapdoor, revealing a tunnel downwards with a metal ladder along the side. taeil and kun brought taeyong down and aehra, with jungwoo, followed them. yuta stayed up at the surface for a while, making sure they weren't followed, before hopping in and pulling the mat over the trapdoor and closing it.

they climbed down slowly, about thirty meters down when they encountered another trapdoor. it was made of titanium. taeil did the same, quickly pressing the numbers and unlocking it.

it was another climb down, but they finally landed in the base. it was brightly lit and had an area of roughly an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

jungwoo took off taeyong's blindfold. "what's the point of the blindfold again?" taeyong taunted.

"so you can't see where our base is," taeil replied snarkily.

"sure, but isn't this just the middle of the woods?" taeyong asked, smiling sickeningly. taeil exchanged nervous glances with everyone else.

"nevermind that," aehra said after an uncomfortable period of silence.

lee taeyong.

he looked around the room. in one corner, there were eleven bunk beds, clearly for twenty-two people, but there were only seven of them.

"ah, the others are off in other countries," jungwoo said kindly. taeyong nodded. in another corner, there were weapons. daggers, knives, guns, rifles, etcetera. around half of the base was just for training, and a lot was for storage. surprisingly, there was an air filtering system and a heating system too.

on the far left wall, there was a gigantic board with pictures of people, connected with red string. in the center was him, with his face circled in red.

"I look good in that picture!" taeyong said cheerfully. taeil rolled his eyes. "right, that's enough. pass us your credit card," he demanded.

aehra looked at taeil, with a "what the fuck" face. "do you really think he'll just hand it over?" she asked.

"he probably doesn't even have it on him," jungwoo guessed.

"do I look that easy?" taeyong said smugly. "I don't carry my cards with me. I lock them in a safe, back in my mansion."

"shit. we should've asked that first," lucas sighed, putting both hands on his head. kun sighed.

"wait, so you're saying we basically left taeyong's mansion open to anyone?" yuta asked. taeil looked at him, and for the first time, both of them seemed nervous.

"what what what we can just go back right?" aehra asked, getting nervous too.

"there's a possibility other people are there already," yuta sighed.

"yeah sure and?" jungwoo prodded.

"it's probably the Umbra, our rivals."