Yixing zipped up the backpack in a flourish before swinging it onto his back and retreating back a few steps. Sunghwan narrowed his eyes at the youth and advanced. His gaze shifted from the scattered papers to his ransacked desk to Yixing's backpack. He stepped forward slowly and Yixing continued to retreat until his back had reached the wall.

"What are you doing in here?" Sunghwan asked with a low voice. Yixing swallowed and tried to summon his courage. 

"Don't come any closer," Yixing warned and the scientist suddenly halted.

"I could charge you with breaking and entering, boy," Sunghwan warned in return. Yixing narrowed his eyes and looked at the papers on the desk.

"I could charge you with much more serious offenses," Yixing threatened. Sunghwan smirked.

"My, you've certainly found your way around my office," he said. 

Yixing tightened his jaw, staring down the tall scientist and scanning the room for a way out. "It's stolen technology, isn't it?" Yixing asked. "Sonars, submersibles, stolen from military bases."

Sunghwan laughed. "Stolen?" he said. "You're mistaken. You can find anything on the black market these days. I bought this tehcnology with my own... well, with someone else's own money."

"All the same," Yixing said. "You weren't authorized to use it. You knew of the risks."

Sunghwan's face turned dark. "Everything I did," he growled. "I did in the name of science, and for the greater good of human intelligence."

Yixing clenched his fists. "I'm stealing it back, then," he said. "In the name of justice."

"And what does a boy like you know about justice?" Sunghwan asked, stepping closer and Yixing tried to circle the room, but the scientist still blocked the way to the door, the only way out. 

"How old are you, 18? 19?" Sunghwan continued in a low voice. "You know nothing of injustice. You've yet to experience the gritty, ugly, cruel side of life. You don't know what it's like to consecrate yourself to one thing, and one thing only, and pursue it with all the grueling zeal of a dying man pursuing water. You don't know what it's like to be ridiculed for something you've spent your entire life chasing. You're just a child; you haven't tasted desperation like I have. You don't know the anguish, or the thirst. If you did, you'd know exactly why I did what I did, why I stole what I stole. And why I will keep on doing it in spite of ignorant people like you." 

Yixing's breathing slowed to a brooding manner. He kept his eyes on Sunghwan and clumsily tried to think of a way out. The alarm still blared, and panic still ran amok throughout the buildign as well as in his body. Sunghwan stretched out his hands.

"Now give me the laptop," he said. 

Yixing slowed his breathing down once more and let his arms fall to his side. The scientist stepped forward and Yixing counted the steps.

1... 2... 3... Now!

Yixing ran back behind the desk. Sunghwan lunged for him with a grunt. The man chased him to the back of the office and grabbed a fistful of his backpack, swinging him against a nearby bookshelf. Yixing let out a grunt as his shoulder slammed against the hard wood of a neighboring breakfront. Sunghwan lunged at him again, and Yixing dodged him. 

A wrinkle of the rug caused him to trip and land on his front. Sunghwan once again shot straight for the bag where the laptop with the confidential data was. Yixing's arm ached and he got rug-burn when the scientist's grip made his chin scrape against the floor. But once he was able to get a grip, he rolled over, putting himself between the backpack and the angry doctor. Sunghwan's face was twisted up in an expression of white-hot rage; he grabbed handfuls of Yixing's shirt as he picked him off the floor.

"Give me that computer!" he screamed. Yixing wrapped his hands around the older man's wrists. Using the man's own weight against him, Yixing fell backwards onto the floor, bringing Suunghwan down with him. Once on the floor, Yixing shoved Sunghwan to the side, hitting the back of his head against the front of the desk and making him let go of his shirt. There was a ringing in his ears and he was slightly stunned, but Yixing managed to stand up and make a break for the door.

"NO!" Sunghwan yelled, immediately jumping up and chasing after Yixing. 

Thinking fast, Yixing stopped by the door and kicked twice at the doorknob until the inside knob fell away. Sunghwan was on him again, snarling and cursing. Yixing gaved out a battle cry before using his knee to kick the scientist away. When Sunghwan fell back onto the floor, Yixing pulled the door shut, and stumbled backwards.

Sunghwan yelled and pounded on the door, but it wouldn't budge; with the inside knob gone and the door locked from the outside, Yixing had successfully trapped him inside. He paused a moment to stare at the door and listen to the profanities and threats from the inside. But he couldn't stop to catch his breath for long. Yixing turned and ran back to the stairwell. The office door wouldn't hold the angry scientist for long. He still had to catch up with Jinyu and the rest of the boys. 

He'd figure out what to do with the stolen laptop later.

In Lab 2, Jinyu continued to press her face closer to the air pockets. Less and less oxygen was coming through. She was trying to take deep breaths. The air in the holding tank was quickly running out. She was beginning to feel light-headed. Her breaths became sharper and more shallow. Her rib cage felt heavy. The water felt colder. The oxygen tank on the outer side of the holding tank was still misaligned. There was no oxygen pumping into the tank. 

Jinyu felt weak. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't make a sound. She was pressing against the thin wall, gulping for what little oxygen passed through there. But the movements were becoming dizzying and difficult. Her eyes closed and she felt as though her body were shrinking, compressing on itself.

Luhan ran down the hall of labs in a frenzy, searching for Lab 2 as Chanyeol instructed him via phone call. The layout of the building was strange, with chemical labs, experimental labs, and technology labs being built close to each other and yet not numbered accordingly. Sweat was dripping down his temples and the soles of his shoes sqeaked as he ran. He was hyperventilating by the time he found Lab 2.

He shook the door knob, but it wouldn't open. He scoured his pockets for the ID Chanyeol had given them. Dropping it once, Luhan was finally able to enter after three attempts at scanning the card. He burst into the white room, knocking over a tool table and sending files of unfinished paperwork flying. He stopped in the middle of the floor and took a moment to orient himself. 

Lab 2 wasn't set up like the other experiment labs. It was a very large room with white walls and white tiles and metal counters lined with tools and papers. And then, there was a tank. It was huge acrylic tank, like the kind used in aquariums, and it took up the entire North wall. Luhan run up to the tank and ran across the length of it. But it was completely empty. 

"You're ting me," Luhan said to himself. He ran out the door and checked the number; he was indeed in Lab 2, but if he was, then where was Jinyu? He checked his watch; five minutes remaining. 

"Please tell me you've had some luck," said a voice, and Luhan turned to see Yixing running in from the opposite end of the corridor.

"This is where Chanyeol led me," Luhan said, leading Yixing into the lab and pointing at the tank. "But it's empty, look."

Yixing beheld the large tank and scanned every water of the glass, searching for movement, or color, or anything at all. He noticed the shelf near the top edge of it. 

"Up there," Yixing said. "She might be up there. Where's the card? Give it to me."

"You alright?" Luhan asked, passing the card to Yixing and noticing him cradling his left arm. 

"Fine," Yixing assured him and ran toward the door. He scanned the card against the lock and it beeped. When he opened it, he ran up the stairs and entered the area. Yixing looked across the surface of the water. The shelf was abandoned; there was absolutely no movement whatsoever. His heart beat kicked up.

"They might have moved her to another lab," Yixing called down the stairs. 

"What?" Luhan said. "But we spent all our energy looking through here!"

"We have to hurry," Yixing said, coming back down the stairs. "Come on."

Luhan let Yixing run past him while he lingered behind a moment; he felt a little hesitant to leave Lab 2 just yet. He took heavy footsteps in the direction the exit, not feeling quite right about this. That was when he heard it, the slightly heavy yet soft soft of something striking a hollow surface. Luhan stopped and turned in the direction of the noise. He found himself looking at a rectangular shaped, metal water tank about as tall as he was and as long as a small car. He saw an oxygen tank, a filtration system, and realization dropped on him like a bomb.

"Yixing, in here!" he yelled, running toward the tank. "I found her! She's in here!"

Yixing ran back into the room and was by Luhan's side in a second. He pressed his hands against the side of the metallic tank and felt the slight vibration of the filtration system. "Jinyu!" he yelled. There was no response.

"The hatch is locked," Luhan said, pointing at the lock on the top of the tank. 

"Look around, there must be a key somewhere!" Yixing said. The two boys scrambled around the desks and counters, scattering papers and tools in search of a key, anything that could unlock the tank.

"Jinyu!" Yixing yelled again to the tank. "Hang in there!"

Yixing scoured every cabinet and cupboard, but there was nothing. He was beginning to panic so much that he almost cried. That was when Luhan appeared with something long and dangerous in his hands: an axe that he pulled from the nearby fire emergency kit in the wall. 

"I found this," Luhan suggested. Without thinking about how ridiculous their last resort was, Yixing followed Luhan to the hatch and stood back as he started to hack away at the lock.

Inside, Jinyu's eyes began to close and her head dipped beneathe the water. She was tired to fighting, now. The loud clangs that echoed against the top of the tank sounded like knocking, and as her body started to sink to the bottom of the tank, the noise faltered. After one more swing, the axe blade was starting to go dull, but the lock finally snapped in half, and Luhan and Yixing lifted the hatch up. 

Without thinking, Luhan jumped up and pushed himself up. Through the water, he could see Jinyu at the bottom of the tank. Without any consideration for his clothing, he jumped into the tank and grabbed her. Through the haze, Jinyu felt something latching itself around her toroso and pulling her upward. Luhan emerged from the water, his hair and clothing soaking wet. But he stepped over the edge of the tank and lowered Jinyu into Yixing's waiting arms.

Yixing fell to his knees and sunk to the tiles under the added weight of Jinyu's mermaid tail. But, minding her head, he carefully laid her down on the floor. His eyes were wide with worry and his heartbeat was in his ears. At first, he was shocked at how different she could look after three weeks: she was thinner than before and her skin paler. There were banadages around her neck and a few exposed stitches on the dorsal side of her back. Dark circles ringed her eyes. Nevermind the fact that her hair, which used to hang by her waist, was now barely longer than his. 

"Jinyu," he said, softly at first, but when she wouldn't answer, he called out to her in a louder voice.

"Is she breathing? Is she awake?" Luhan asked in a panicked tone, pushing his wet hair out of his face and wringing his shirt. Yixing ignored him, turning all of his attention on the mermaid. 

Yixing shook her gently and then lightly patted her cheeks in attempts to wake her. "Jinyu, wake up!" he said. But her eyes remained shut and her body motionless. The blood drained from Yixing's face and he started to shake, too.

"No," he said. "Come on, wake up! Come on, I did not break into a federal building to watch you die."

The boys stood still a moment, watching to see if she'd wake. But after seconds without a response, Luhan hung his head and turned away. Water dripped from his hair to the tiles.

"I'm sorry," Luhan whispered, guilt weighing down on his shoulders. But Yixing shook his head.

"No no no no," Yixing said quickly and quietly. "Come on, please wake up." Yixing cradled her head in his hands, watching and waiting for any sign. He moved his head and hovered his ear over . There was a slight warmth hitting his ear and neck. She could still be saved. 

"Luhan, she's alive," Yixing said, and he sat up. Pressing the heel of his hands against her chest, Yixing started to administer CPR. With every against her heart, he chanted a short prayer in his mind. He tilted her chin up, pinched her nose, and started to deliver slow breaths. Luhan watched her chest rise and fall as Yixing delivered CPR, and he started to hope again. After a few more s and a few more breaths, Jinyu suddenly coughed into Yixing's mouth.

Yixing moved away to give her room to breathe, and Jinyu suddenly gasped, breathing in a huge intake of air before she finally came back to her senses. Luhan smiled, and Yixing watched her intently. Jinyu laid back against the tiles, still gasping but now fully awake. She still felt a little dizzy, but the effects were wearing off as she started to breathe oxygen again. She looked up and saw Yixing and Luhan hovering over her.

Unable to find her voice just yet, Jinyu lay still a moment and let the image impritn itself in her mind. She wanted to cry with joy seeing Yixing again. Emotion washed over like a wave on the sand, and a sob escaped and she felt incandescently happy despite the pain she was in. Yixing let out the breaths he'd be holding, and behind him, Luhan clapped him on the shoulder and laughed in happiness. 

The happy moment was short-lived however, as the sound of a swinging door called their attentions once more. Lee Sunghwan stood there, no longer wearing his lab coat. Another assistant stood behind him. The color drained from Yixing's face again, and Luhan widened his eyes.

"Luhan," Lee Sunghwan said. "I should have know you'd be involved."

"What does he mean, Luhan?" Yixing asked. Luhan shook his head.

"I'll tell you later," he said. 

"You've had more than enough time to learn what you can from her," Yixing barked. "You almost killed her, just let her go!"

"Are you kidding me?" Sunghwan asked, stepping further into the room, the assistant following behind him. "After the little stunt you pulled in my office? Maybe I might have considered your demands, but you march in here and dare take my life's work away from me? She's not going anywhere."

Jinyu's hand landed on Yixing's and he turned to face her, fear aparent in both their eyes. 

"Sunghwan," Luhan said. "If you're doing this because of the quareel you and I had, I assure you that — "

"I couldn't care less about our talks, Luhan," Sunghwan said. The scientist turned to his assistant. "Put her back in the tank — "

"Over my dead body," Luhan said, his eyes growing cold. Sunghwan laughed.

"Come now, Luhan," he said. "It would be too much trouble to kill such an important person over the matter of a silly fish girl. Especially after you walked in here begging me to help you find her only months ago."

"Well, things are different now," Luhan said in a low voice. "And I can't let you take her."

Sunghwan's eyes narrowed. "So you've chosen this," he said. "Very well then." He turned back to the assistant, who went ahead and walked toward them, preparing to drag Jinyu away. He was almost to them when Luhan suddenly stepped in front of him and shoved the assiatnt backwards with enough force to topple him over. Sunghwan ran to where the scuffle was and tried to pry Luhan away. Yixing jumped up and threw himself on Sunghwan, in turn trying to get the scientist off his friend. 

The fight continued, the boys working to keep both the scientists away from the mermaid. The pain in Yixing's arm came back when he was pushed into the acrylic of the tank. The assistant had Luhan in a headlock, and just when it seemed that they had lost, there was a loud battle cry coming from the door.

"YAAAH!" Kyungsoo yelled, running at high speed toward where the scuffle was, pushing a gurney in front of him. The gurney hit the assistant in the hips with enough force to make him release Luhan and he fell against the counter and was dazed enough to stay there for a few seconds. Luhan rushed to help Yixing.

"Kyungsoo!" Jinyu yelled, and Kyungsoo turned to face her.

"Hey," he said, and then furrowed his brows at her. "Did you get a haircut?"

Before Jinyu had time to reply, she let out a scream when she was suddenly yanked backwards by her tail. The man behind her had a cut on his forehead, and the blood running down the side of his face made the situation all the scarier. Kyungsoo jumped into action, trying to stop the man from dragging her away. But the assiatnt let go of Jinyu in time to shove Kyungsoo away and then put him in a headlock, as well. 

He kicked the back of Kyungsoo's knees, forcing him down. Jinyu felt rage returning to her bones.

"Let him go!" she screamed. That was when she noticed the assistant standing over the end of her tail, and she clenched her teeth and swung her tail upward. Both the assistant and Kyungsoo let out a grunt when the blunt end of her mermaid tail hit them both between the legs. But taking the opportunity, Kyungsoo fell backwards against the man, who hit the back of his head against the counter, effectively knocking him out.

"Uggh," Kyungsoo groaned, still grabbing his balls as he slumped forward, victorious.

"Are you alright?" Jinyu asked him. Kyungsoo tried to smile and gave a weak thumbs-up.

"I think you got him," Kyungsoo said. 

Meanwhile, Luhan and Yixing were both caught in a scuffle with Lee Sunghwan, the head scientist himself. Sunghwan had his arms around the front of Yixing's neck, who used his arms to keep from getting strangled. Luhan, in turn, wrestled Sunghwan from behind, but found difficulty in trying to fight Sunghwan without hurting Yixing as well. Yixing's arm began to throb, and he was growing tired of struggling against the scientist. That was when he opened his eyes and saw a syringe on the counter in front of him.

Gathering the last of his strength, Yixing stood up with Sunghwan's weight against him. Luhan pushed forward, launching the three of them toward the counter. Yixing's chest hit the edge of the table, knocking the wind out of him. But with what strenght he could manage, he took his arms off Sunghwan's arm. Almost immediately, Sunghwan began to strangle him. But Yixing used his arm to knock the syringes to the floor.

"Luhan, get the syringe!" he yelled before Sunghwan's arm rammed into his windpipe, cutting off his voice. Luhan looked down at the floor and saw exactly what he meant. Luhan let go of Sunghwan and lunged for the syringe. But when he turned again, Sunghwan's elbow hit him in the face. Yixing had fallen to the floor and was gasping for breath. Sunghwan lunged for Luhan this time, grabbing his shirt and slamming his back against the glass tank.

"I won't let you take this from me —" he said, but in the middle of his statement, he let out a loud grunt, let go of Luhan's shirt and let him slump to the ground. Behind him, Yixing had stabbed the needle into Sunghwan's back, a syringe filled with a powerful sedative. Sunghwan turned his fiery glare on Yixing before his senses began to give out. Soon, he toppled over Luhan, who pushed the scientist aside, as heavy and sedated as one of the dead whales on the beach. 

Yixing and Luhan sat on the tile for a second or two, catching their breaths. Yixing looked at Luhan.

"You'd been looking for her," Yixing said between breaths. Luhan hung his head again.

"Aye!" Kyungsoo called. Luhan and Yixing turned to him to see that Kyungsoo had lifted Jinyu onto the gurney. "Come on! The fire brigade will be here any second!"

Yixing and Luhan exhcanged one more look before heeding Kyungsoo's warning. They rallied by the gurney and began wheeling it out into the hallway. The alarm had stopped blaring, menaing that the fire department had arrived. They'd over-stayed their welcome by about four minutes thanks to the scuffle in Lab 2. They burst out the exit they had entered in.

"Where's Chanyeol?" Luhan screamed. 

"He's getting the van!" Kyungsoo said. As if on cue, the honking of a car horn called their attention, but instead of a van pulling up in front of them, Chanyeol was driving Kyungsoo's new car. 

"Wait wait wait, that's my car!" Kyungsoo said.. Chanyeol unlocked the door and put his hands up in surrender.

"I had to!" Chanyeol said. "You parked the van on a red zone and they towed it! I had no choice!"

Luhan and Yixing were already loading Jinyu into the backseat. Kyungsoo continued to complain.

"Wait, no! We can't take my car as the getaway vehicle! Do you know what they'd do? They'd take her away from me! No no no! Chanyeol, I just got this car! I can't be doing illegal stuff with it this early in my ownership!"

"Who cares?!" Chanyeol yelled. "It's an ugly car anyway! Buy a new one when it gets taken away!" Chanyeol began to slowly drive away and Kyungsoo chased it until Chanyeol braked suddenly.

"My car!" Kyungsoo yelled.

"Kyungsoo, would you get in the damn car, please!" Yixing yelled, opening the door. Kyungsoo groaned, but when he heard the sirens, he climbed in and squeezed himself next to Luhan and Jinyu. 

"Where are we even going?" Kyungsoo asked, and Chanyeol sped away.

"North shore," Yixing said.

"Yixing, they've implanted a microchip under her skin," Chanyeol said, dodging cars as he pulled onto the street. "They'll track her down no matter where we go."

"Not anywhere we go," Luhan said. "My family has a boat on a dock at North shore. The navigation system will override the tracking device."

"So we're going on a boat?"

"Precisely."

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and fell against the seat, running his hands over the cloth seats of his beloved car. "The only place we're going precisely after this is prison."