Narrow strips of light shone passed the blue curtains opening as the sun slowly rose up the sky. Tiffany yawned sleepily as she stretched and rolled about on the bed. She slowly opened her eyes, and stared at the ceilings, then blinking her eyes a few times she turned her head around to look at the unfamiliar surroundings.

 “Where am I?”Tiffany thought as she sat upright and surveyed the surroundings blankly.

A soft snoring coming from her left broke her chains of thought. Raising her eyebrows in curiosity, Tiffany inched her way towards the direction of the noise.

“Taeyeon?” Tiffany whispered in surprise when she saw the petite girl snoring away with opened.

“Oh!” Tiffany slapped her hand over her forehead as she remembered what happened yesterday.

A painful sigh escaped from Tiffany’s lips as she plopped back onto the bed.

“What am I going to do? I left US to start afresh, to leave the past and HIM behind.. but now.. he’s here.. in Korea..”Tiffany covered her face with both hands in agony.

And then a loud growling noise was heard. Tiffany immediately grabbed one of the pillows and covered her stomach.

“Aish... Luckily Tae is still asleep.”Tiffany thought as she rolled over to see that Taeyeon was still sleeping with hanging opened.

As quietly as possible, Tiffany made the bed and tip-toed out of Taeyeon’s room.

“Let’s see what I can find in the kitchen.” Tiffany thought as she slowly made her way towards the kitchen.

“Ti-fa-ny?” A high pitched suddenly broke the silence in the living room.

Tiffany stopped and turned around.

“Oh. Morning, Sooyoung-shi.” Tiffany made a small bow but Sooyoung was still standing there pointing her finger at her while her head turned from Taeyeon’s room and to her.

“What are you doing here, Tiffany?” Sooyoung asked and apparently was still very surprised at her presence.

“Oh.. I.. I..” Before Tiffany could explained further, Sooyoung cut her off.

“That was fast.” Sooyoung winked at Tiffany.

“Huh?”

“Wow I totally didn’t expect Taeyeon to act so fast. She must be so lonely since Sulli-“ Before Sooyoung could finished her sentence, a black shadow came out of nowhere and kicked Sooyoung in the stomach, causing her to fall flat on her .

“YAH!!!! KIM SHORTIE! WHAT WAS THAT FOR??!!” Sooyoung shouted as she rubbed her stomach in pain.

“For sprouting nonsense early in the morning.” Taeyeon narrowed her eyes as she spoke.

“Which part of what I said was nonsense huh?? Normally you couldn’t even let any of us to enter your room. And just earlier, I saw Tiffany walking out of your room this EARLY in the morning with a just woken up look. How do you expect me to think and react then?” Sooyoung retorted as she stood up.

“It’s not what you think. I’ll go prepare breakfast and explain to you what happened.” Taeyeon replied in a monotone as she walked towards the kitchen.

“So what exactly happened yesterday?” Sooyoung asked curiously, not wanting to wait for Taeyeon’s answer.

“Erm.. Yesterday.. I.. we..” Tiffany stammered, unsure of how to answer Sooyoung.

“Tiffany, if you don’t mind, I would need your help.” Taeyeon turned to Tiffany as she took out the ingredients in the fridge.

“Ah.. sure.” Tiffany silently let out a sigh of relief and made a small bow to Sooyoung before running to Taeyeon.

----Inton, one of the meeting rooms, 9.08am----

Taeyeon and her team sat silently and curiously as they waited for Mr Min to enter the room. Since they arrived for work, they were issued and told to attend an emergency meeting.

Hurried footsteps could be heard and then the meeting room’s door swing opened swiftly. Mr Min walked urgently to the front of the table before plugging in a device into the embedded computer on the meeting table.

“Ladies.. We have a situation here..” Mr Min spoke with a sense of urgency as he scrolled through the data in his device.

Everyone sat straighter then before as they affixed their sight onto Mr Min and the screen behind him. As soon as Mr Min spoke the first sentence, everyone in the room could feel the tense atmosphere slowly building up.

“Remember the unfortunate mission that Amber and Nicole did last month? We were going through Kim Shin Mo’s device, hoping to find some data regarding the trading of military-related data with the Russians. Instead of finding this data, we found something weird and strange that doesn’t make sense. However, after weeks of investigation, we suspected that something bigger and more terrifying is going on. Based on our investigation, we think that Kim Shin Mo is involved in some kind of research and experiment. We are not sure what kind of experiment yet. Worse of all, the way the investigation leads, we believe that some of the higher ups in the government are involved as well.” Mr Min’s face was dead serious as he spoke. Everyone just stared blankly at him as they processed the info into their brains.

“So ladies.. this is a very serious accusations if indeed the higher-ups are involved. That’s why I need you girls to focus on your attention on this mission from now on. All your follow-up missions will be passed over to the other teams. Remember this is highly classified. Whatever info we discussed here are to remain between us. You girls know the protocols. This mission codename is Silver Phoenix and it starts now. I’ll brief Taeyeon on all the details. The rest of you handover all the info on your existing missions to Narsha.” Mr Min ended the meeting as fast as his footsteps.

Everyone stood up and bow as they stepped out of the meeting room except for Amber who was still in a daze as her mind keep on circling around one question – “What exactly is Krystal’s part and connection to this experiment? Has it got something to do with her vampiric powers?”

Amber’s eyes widened as she suddenly stood up, causing her chair to fly and hit the wall with a loud thud. Everyone stopped and turned to look her direction.

“Sorry… I was too absorbed at what Mr Min said earlier.” Amber gave a small bow and a smile. But behind that smile, Amber’s mind was only thinking of one thing,“Krystal is in danger!”

---- Out of nowhere, at a secret lab ----

A man sat comfortably with his legs on a huge sturdy wooden desk, smoking an expensive cigar. His eyes looked lazily at 2 men in front of him.

“Status?” the man spoke softly but clearly with authority.

“The security cameras were all tampered with. We couldn’t find anything from it. Forensic team found nothing unusual except for a few strands of hair on the bed. The weird part is we got zero hits when we ran the DNA results with the system. However, we have identified the hairs belongs to a female between the age of 20 to 30. We’re expanding our search on the system, hoping to find a match somewhere. I’ve sent 5 teams of 20 to look for our subject. Currently, there’s still no trace of her.” Siwon laid the report on the wooden desk before giving a deep bow.

The man’s eyes darted from Siwon to the other man, Minho. Minho nervously fidgeted as he cleared his throat silently before beginning to speak.

“I-I’ve taken care of Kim Shin Mo and his bodyguards. Making his termination looks like a simple accident. All the info on his side is confiscated. All his connections with our project are erased.”

“Good but not good enough. I want this incident to be taken care of as soon as possible. Most importantly, I want the girl back alive. I’m sure you both knew about the loss we had a few years back. I do not want the same thing to happen again. Minho, Siwon, I want you both to focus on finding the girl as the priority and make sure nothing happens to her.” The man continued to speak softly but the urgency of the message was clear as the 2 men quickly left the room to arrange the necessary.

“Krystal..my Krystal.. you can run but you can’t hide. You’re mine and I’ll find you.” The man laughed softly as he took another puff at his cigar.

----------------------------------------------------

Finally updated!!! WOw.. I didnt realise my last update was in April :X I just dont have the time to sit down and write :(

Anyway thanks for the wonderful comments. Keep them coming~ :)

Stay tune to chap 28!! I'll try to update as soon as I can *fingers crossed*