“How did it happen? How did they find us?” Suho questioned, a troubled expression on his face.

“I think it was my fault,” Chen sighed. He rubbed his face with his palm. “I was setting up the encryption for your phones, and I may have accidentally dialled a number on Krystal’s phone before it was ready.”

Kai looked at Krystal’s unconscious figure and hung his head in guilt. “She keeps getting hurt, and it’s my fault. The only thing I’m good at is teleportation, and I couldn't even get it right enough to teleport to Lay’s room.”

Lay placed a hand on Kai’s shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly.

“You know her better than any of us, Lay,” Kai said with a sigh. “Don’t you think she doesn't really want to be here?”

“She definitely got dragged in against her will,” Lay began, and Kai groaned, “but Krystal’s tough. She understands what’s happening and the importance of being on the run with us; she’s adapting.”

“I wish we could give her her life back.”

Suho glanced at Krystal, then at Kai, and stood up. He ran a hand through his hair. “Well… there is a way…”

-

Krystal awoke to the sound of incessant beeping.

She forced her eyes open, and immediately closed them again as the white lights blinded her. Taking a deep breath, she tried again, but made it a point to look to the side rather than up at the lights. A quick look around told her that she was in a hospital room.

“Jung, you’re awake!” a familiar female face came into view, her head covering the blinding lights. The female’s eyes were wide and worried, and the straight, long hair and choppy bangs cut above her eyebrows telling Krystal who it was immediately.

“S… Sulli?” she rasped. Sulli immediately gave her glass of water, and she gulped it down immediately. Water… Suho… Suho controls water… “What happened?”

“I don’t know, a lady brought you in and called me because I’m apparently speed dial number 1?” Sulli grinned, helping Krystal sit up. “Aw, Jung, you’re such a sweetheart.”

Krystal rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Wait. Did you say a lady brought me in?”

“Mmhmm! She’s outside waiting for you to wake up, actually. Do you want me to bring her in?”

Krystal nodded with a small “yes please”, mind still whirling. She was utterly confused at the turn of events, and half her mind was even wondering if she had dreamt the whole encounter with Kai. That thought was tossed out of her mind in the next moment, however, as the door open and Agent freaking Lee stepped in.

She knew her face must look akin to a goldfish, because Sulli giggled from behind the agent. “Close your mouth, Jung. I’ll leave you guys alone!” Krystal wanted to shout “Don’t go! Don’t leave me with she-devil here!” but no sound left .

“I’m sure you’re really confused right now,” Agent Lee began, taking a seat on the chair by the bed. The brunette nodded dumbly. “We rescued you from a hostage situation.”

“A what?”

“Hostage situation,” Agent Lee stated matter-of-factly.

“W—wait, that can’t be true,” Krystal stuttered, digging through her mind for a moment that she had been actually kidnapped in the first place. “Who—who held me hostage?”

“Kai.”

Krystal’s jaw dropped even wider. “That’s impossible! Kai didn’t kidnap me—”

“Calm down, Miss Jung. You haven’t heard the whole story,” Agent Lee interrupted her, completely unphased by the sudden spike in her heartbeat, as reflected on the heartbeat monitor. Krystal settled back into the hospital bed, taking a deep breath to calm herself.

“Please continue.”

“We received an untraceable call from Kai himself, telling us that we shouldn’t storm their Daegu apartment because you were being held hostage there.”

“...That’s right… I remember Kai and I were followed when were at the Daegu City…”

Agent Lee nodded, “yes, that was one of our agents.”

“...and… and then when we went back to the apartment, the—the delivery man… he—he tased me?”

Agent Lee winced in response, catching Krystal by surprise. “That was a mistake on our part. The agent misunderstood you to be one of the targets.”

“Okay… but that still doesn’t explain how I ended up as a hostage.”

“We’re not sure about what happened in between, but they said they would release you if we gave them time to escape. Although you may seem to be their accomplice, you still are a civilian, so we had no choice but to agree in order to rescue you. When we burst into the apartment, they were gone; and you were tied up on a chair in the middle of the living room,” the agent explained. She then shook her head with a sigh. “It was the sloppiest hostage situation I’ve seen in my career.”

“...What do you mean?”

“Other than the fact that you were unconscious, there was no physical injury, and they barely even tied the ropes tight enough—I don’t think they wanted to hurt you with the ropes. And honestly, I don’t know if they think the NIS is stupid, but they really had no need to use you as a decoy, especially since Kai knows how to teleport, right?”

“Uh, yes,” Krystal replied eloquently. Her head was throbbing at the information, but she couldn’t ignore the painful twinge in her heart. “So… are you suggesting that they’re trying to get me out of their lives?”

Agent Lee shook her head. “I think they wanted to protect you, instead. They probably wanted to put you out of danger.”

Krystal could feel becoming dry. “What… what makes you say that?”

“The agent that tased you is dead.”

“...Excuse me?”

“They killed him. Quite brutally, I might add, if the screams coming from his microphone were any indication.” Agent Lee averted her eyes to the ground. “He was electrocuted—he was still smoking when we found him.”

Horrified,