a/n: so sorry for this being late!!! there were unforsen circumstances which didn't allow me to post this earlier >< I'll try to post the next part in the next few days!

Stop the collision from happening

“Clear,” Leeteuk’s voice breathes over their communicator and Krystal locks eyes with Amber before giving the signal and sprinting out from behind the shadows of the building.

“Zone two clear,” Kangin’s voice says a moment later, and Krystal keeps running, Amber right behind her, crossing the grass field. From the corner of her eye, Amber can see Victoria running a little away to their right.

She knows Luna and Sulli will keep the plan flowing by being somewhere to their left, just out of their sights.

“Zone one coming back in five seconds,”

“A and K clear,”

“V clear,”

“L and S clear,”

“Zone one back on,” Leeteuk says, and he laughs softly. “You guys are more organized than us,”

“That’s because you have more members, oppa,” Krystal replies, smiling as they wait for the clear for the third zone of cameras.

“True,” Leeteuk says, and after a few more seconds he says, “Okay, zone three clear. Contact me on Alpha line when you’re ready,”

“Let’s go,” Krystal murmurs. Amber nods and follows her into the building.

Amber follows Krystal through corridors, ducking into doorways whenever they hear footsteps, until they reach the split, the right leading to holding cells and the left leading to storage units with Lights technology.

“Remember the exit plan?” Krystal asks as they stand at the fork. Amber nods, feeling her heart thudding in her chest.

Krystal shoots her a grin and punches her arm lightly. “Just remember your training, follow your instinct, and stay safe,” she steps towards the right corridor. “Don’t die on me, A,”

Amber tries for a smile. “Right back at you,” she says before she turns down the left corridor.

She follows it for a while, ducking into a doorway when a group of men in white coats walk past the corridor. The halls are eerily empty. The Lights don’t expect people to know this facility even exists.

She smirks. The Resistance knows, and they’re using that to their advantage.

There’s a circular room in the far east side of the building. Heechul had pointed it out to her when they were looking at the floor plans. “We can’t get access anything near this room. Whatever is in there is probably important.”

Amber grips the gun at her waist and forces herself to calm down as she looks at the rounded walls in front of her.

Amber listens out for footsteps again before following it around, trying to find a door. Every now and again, the walls give in to window-like slits, and as Amber runs around the outside of the room, she glances in and sees something bright - glowing almost. There seems to be a limp figure in the centre, but Amber can’t quite make it out.

She finds the door eventually, and following what Luna had told her, uses the phony ID card to gain access. The door slides upwards and Amber breathes a sigh of relief when no alarms go off.

But then the rest of her breath gets caught in as she sees the person slumped, but standing, in the middle of the circular room, a violin loosely in the grip of his left hand.

Henry.

Amber feels like she just got hit by a truck as she stands there trying to comprehend that it’s Henry, and he’s alive, and she’s found him.

She glances inside for guards and cameras, nerves still in overdrive, before running into the centre of the room, hands reaching for Henry’s face. His eyes are closed and his skin is cold. He’s much thinner and paler than Amber remembers, but she had seen him on the Lights’s announcement video. She still feels the well of tears in her eyes at just being able to see him again, of finding him.

Forcing herself to calm down, Amber turns away from Henry to find the controls, and when she sees them to the left, it takes her another moment to will herself to step away from her best friend.

The controls that keep all those cords connected to Henry are more complicated though, and Amber is in the middle of figuring out what they do, and what they’re for, when she hears a voice.

“You’re not Doctor Kang,”

Amber freezes, but doesn’t feel the press of a gun to her head or hear a step of someone coming closer and the voice sounded like -

She looks up, and Henry is looking at her, violin still in hand and body still attached to all his cords. His eyes are the same dark brown, but the way he’s looking at her….

“Who are you?”

Amber feels her chest sink, though she forces a soft laugh. “Ha ha, very funny, Henry,” she says, lifting her mask just slightly so he can see her face. “It’s me, stop joking around,” she waits for his childish grin to spread across his face. It doesn’t come. She drops the mask back onto her face, the snap of the elastic against her skin stinging a little, but not as much as his next words.

“What’s a joke?” he asks, “And who are you?”

Amber begins to feel panic in her chest, mind whirling with confusion, and she misses the sound of someone swiping their access card, only realising when the door slides open and a young girl in a white coat steps into the room.

For a split second, no one moves, but then Amber reaches for her gun at the same moment the girl raises her hands and says, “Wait! I can help!”

Amber’s gun is raised, barrel pointed at her. She’s got long dark hair, pulled into a high ponytail, looking much younger than the other white coats that Amber had seen. She’s probably the same age as them. Amber keeps her grip on her gun tight.

“The controls…. you need to disengage the electrical current in the cords before you can detach him,” the girl says, hands still raised. “I can help you disengage them,”

Henry is only looking at her - ignoring Amber completely. Amber feels jealousy mix with the sadness and confusion in her chest.

“Doctor Kang, what’s going on?”

Both girls ignore him. “Why would you do that?” Amber spits out, gripping her gun tighter. She tries to stop her hands from shaking. "Why would you help me?"

The girl’s expression doesn’t change, even when she says, “Because I was in the same position,”

“What are you - ”

“My sister, Irene. They changed her too. Then, when they deemed her no longer useful, they killed her."

Amber doesn’t know how to answer that. She wants to ask what the girl means by ‘changed’ but her hands are shaking again.

The girl glances at Henry. “I couldn’t help her, and I can’t help him,” she turns back to Amber, “but you can,”

“Why should I trust you?” Amber doesn’t let her aim waver.

The girl reaches into her pocket, and Amber keeps her finger on the trigger, ready to fire, but the girl just opens her hand and a necklace dangles down. A silver chain, with a simple cross pendant in the middle of it. It can’t be -

“Even when they were hurting him, he was holding onto this. He wouldn’t let go of it,” she says as Amber steps closer, gun by her side now, all her remaining energy focussed on the necklace dangling from the girl’s hands. “It’s his but,” she glances at Amber’s neck where the faint glint of metal can be seen peeking out of her loose shirt. “It’s the same as yours, isn’t it?”

Amber can’t even bring herself to take it back, but the girl reaches over with a tiny upturn of her lips, and places it gently in Amber’s hand. Amber stares at it, the cold metal of her own necklace feeling like it’s burning her skin, the same silver cross resting between her collarbones.

The young girl smiles softly, almost painfully. “Don’t let him forget why he was still holding onto that,”

Amber knows what Victoria would say. Or even doe-eyed Sulli. They’d say shoot her. They’d say she’s not trustworthy, not just by a necklace. But Amber in’t Victoria, or Sulli. Amber wants to trust her.

“How do I disengage the electric currents?” she asks and the girl smiles. She steps up to the controls and quickly types into the machine.

“When you leave, take the northern corridor, it’s the least guarded because it’s mostly storage units. From there you can take the ducting out,” Amber wants to ask how she knows they’re going to leave through the ducting, but the wires suddenly stop glowing, and Henry looks at his hands, confused.

“Henry, listen to me,” the doctor says and Amber stares, because her voice is so authoritative, even though she looks so young. “You’re going to leave the facility,”

Henry turns to her confused. “I don’t understand, Doctor.”

“You don’t remember things, but you’re not meant to be here. You’re being held hostage. You need to leave. This girl is going to help you, so follow what she says,” the girl says. She presses another button and the wires fall away from Henry’s body.

“But I don’t know her,”

Amber feels her heart clench painfully in her chest.

The doctor’s expression doesn’t change and Amber feels goosebumps along her arms. “Yes you do, you just can’t remember right now,”

She turns to Amber. “You don’t have long until the next patrol of guards come. You need to leave now,”

Amber falters, glancing at Henry. He’s stepped off the platform he was standing on, looking at both of them strangely. “What’s your name?” she asks.

The girl smiles a little. “Seulgi,”

Amber reaches for her hand and says, “Thank you, Seulgi,” then she grabs Henry’s arm and pulls him out the door.

“Where are we going?” Henry asks, totally obvious, standing behind Amber who’s crouched at a corner, checking if the coast is clear. She rolls her eyes and wonders if she can punch her best friend. She’ll have Sooyoung look at him when they get back to base. The Lights must have messed with his brain, or given him some sort of concussion that affected his memory.

“Just be quiet, okay?” Amber hisses, “I’ll explain later.” Henry glares at her like she just fed him something sour and she forces herself to take a deep breath. If he’s pretending to be this stupid, she is going to use him as her next punching bag.

“Come on,” she whispers, hand wrapped around his wrist as she pulls him down the corridor.

She almost collides with someone as they turn the next corner, and panics, but it’s just Krystal, with two young men, probably around her age, trailing behind her.

She breathes a sigh of relief too. “Unnie,” she looks at Henry. “Is this….?”

Amber hesitates for a moment. “He was in the circular room H wanted me to look at,” she says instead.

Krystal just nods and reaches for her communicator. “Heading to the ducts now. S?”

“North west corridor. Be at our ducts in a couple of minutes,” she replies and Krystal nods.

“Okay, let’s go,” and she leads them through a door and then, one by one, they climb into the ducting above. Henry hesitates after the two other boys, but Amber shoves him until he obediently climbs up too.

“Where are we going?” Henry asks again as they crawl along the ducting. Amber hushes him and continue along.

“Getting out of here,” she whispers when they’re almost out. “Keep going,”

“L it’s K,” Amber hears Krystal say ahead of them. “We’re in the ducting. Others are slightly behind.”

“Aye aye,” Leeteuk’s cheery voice returns. “Clearing all three zones. You don’t have long. Remember to head for the trees for cover,”

“Gotcha,”

“Alright, clear,”

“Where are we going though?” Henry says, as Krystal and the other two boys drop down and out of the ducting in front of them. “If the facility knows I left I’ll be in so much trouble, and - ”

“Oh my god Henry, listen to yourself! You sound like a kid! “In trouble”?! This whole world is in trouble! And they won’t know if you just shut up and get out of the ducting. We’re going to follow Krystal back to base.” Amber wants to jump down and storm off, fuming, but she has to make sure Henry goes first. She’s not going to lose him after all this time, no matter how annoying he’s being.

“But I don’t need to do anything,”

“Henry,” she sighs, ready to shove him out of the duct down to where Krystal is waiting.

“They can track me. I don’t need to tell them,” Henry says and Amber feels the blood drain from her face.

“Take those two back to base,” Amber says to Krystal as she drops out of the ducting.

“What?”

“He’s tagged,” she says, before grabbing her best friend and dragging him across the field, towards the hole in the fence that Donghae and Eunhyuk had made for them this morning. They stumble into the bushes before splitting from Krystal, heading towards the city, but away from base.

She pulls out her radio. “A to L, split from K, situation black,” she grimaces as her radio communicator fizzles back with Leeteuk’s choked out “What?”

“Situation black, situation black,” she repeats. She hesitates for a moment, glancing at Henry stumbling behind her, before she says, “On my target,”

“Damnit Ber,” the radio hisses back at her and Amber winces.

“I’ll head to the northern district; keep moving. When someone is ready I’ll move to one of the safehouses,” she says instead.

A sigh. “Gotcha. I’ll contact you later,”

Amber shoves her radio into the back pocket of her shorts and pulls off her mask. “Come on,” she says as she pulls Henry along.

“Where are we going?” he asks again and Amber sighs and slows down.

“Away from here,” she says.

“Why?”

She looks at him, and really, aside from some lost weight, he still looks the same. But she knows something inside has been altered. “They changed you,” she says softly and tries not to think about how much. Enough for him to not know who she is, even now. Henry definitely looks at her like she’s a stranger - untrusting and suspicious.

She sighs. “You were a hostage there, Henry. You weren’t meant to be there, and so we’re leaving. I’m taking you to a place where we’re going to be free, where we’ll be safe.”

“It was safe there,”

Amber looks at his brown eyes. Henry would never say something like that, Henry wouldn’t look at her like she might put a bullet through his head at any moment. This isn’t her Henry anymore. “No it wasn’t,” she says, “and the fact you think so shows how much they changed you,”

“I don’t understand. I don’t even know who you are,”

Amber forces a smile despite the pain. “My name’s Amber,” she says, and blinks a few times to make sure the tears don’t fall. “Come on. I’ll explain everything on the way,”

“Okay, we can rest here for a while,” Amber says, sinking against the alley wall, breathing heavily.

Henry stands next to her, barely looking out of breath, warm brown eyes staring at her curiously.

“Aren’t you tired?” Amber practically wheezes. She might be fit, but moving through the city and staying out of sight was difficult, especially alone. Amber didn’t have Krystal just around the corner, helping her keep an eye out for Lights solders.

“No,” Henry replies simply and Amber thinks how Henry would never answer questions so simply. Amber almost thinks this is someone else, who just looks like her best friend. Maybe she was so desperate to find him she mistook him. But she looks up at him again and knows she could never mistake Henry for someone else. This is Henry, but something’s changed.

“What did they do, make you run laps?” Amber tries to laugh, though it comes out more like the struggle for breath that it is. “You were never more fit than me,”

“How do you know that?” Henry asks, head tilting to the side. Amber stares at him for a moment before remembering that Henry has no memory of her, for whatever reason. She sighs and gets to her feet.

“Let’s get going,”

“Why does Doctor Kang trust you?” Henry asks the next time they stop, darting into an old materials shop to stay out of sight. Amber turns to look at him as they hide behind the counter.

“Because she wanted to get you out,” Amber answers, thinking about the young doctor they left behind. If the Lights found out what she did….

She shakes her head, she can’t think about it. Amber looks at Henry, at his dark hair covering his furrowed brows and how he keeps a safe distance from her.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” she murmurs.

Henry looks at her surprised, then says, bluntly, “No,”

Amber swallows and prays the hurt soothes with it. “So why are you here then?”

“Because Doctor Kang told me to follow you,” as grateful Amber is for Seulgi’s help, she still feels a little resentment at Henry’s trust in her.

“Why do you trust Doctor Kang, then?” she asks softly, partly to ensure they stay hidden, and partly because she feels burn from the words.

“Because she was nice to me,” Henry answers, “There were some other doctors, but they were weird.”

“Weird? What do you mean?”

Henry shrugs. “They would always ask me weird questions, and tell me how the Lights have helped me,”

“Helped you? How?”

“I don’t know, I’ve always been fine,” he says, but Amber bites her lip. They probably saw brainwashing, or whatever they did, as helping him. She feels the anger flow through her as she glances over the countertop. They need to start moving again, or she’ll break something.

“Come on, let’s go,”

“Why do you hate the Lights so much?” Henry asks as they walk along a small street.

Amber turns to look at him, and realises his question is genuine. He really doesn’t remember. She sighs.

“They took everything important to me,” she says, and she meets his eyes thinking how they took him too - the Henry she knew and loved is long gone.

“Oh,” he says softly and Amber forces herself to look away.

She’s about to find their next place to rest when her communicator vibrates in her back pocket. She flicks a switch and brings it to her ear.

She hears co-ordinates, not far from them, and murmurs a soft “Received,” before glancing at Henry and beckoning him to follow as she heads towards the co-ordinates.

Amber steps in through the side door, Henry following behind her, and sees Tiffany sitting on one of the empty crates of the warehouse, Jonghyun standing by her side as security. She smiles brightly and waves and Amber jogs over to her.

“Tagged?” Tiffany says, and Amber nods. She turns to Henry, who stands behind Amber, looking at them both curiously. “Any ideas where you’re tagged?”

“My upper arm,” he says, pointing to his left arm. Tiffany gets to her feet and Amber jumps.

“I hate all this…. blood thing, so I’ll go keep a lookout. Come out when you’re ready,” she says stiffly and Jonghyun chuckles as Amber jogs out, pulling her mask back over her face.

“Alright, sit down and let me see,” Tiffany says and Henry turns away from the door where Amber had left through. He hesitates for a moment before he steps back to a crate and sits down, lifting up his sleeve. Tiffany stares as she looks at the way his arm seems to made of parts, like a puppet, and it takes her until Henry speaks to realise.

“It’s in here,” he says and then he presses a point on his arm and a small door like contraption slides to the side to reveal wires and some buttons.

Tiffany turns to Jonghyun with wide eyes and the mechanic can only stare back, just as stunned.

Amber turns when Jonghyun steps out of the warehouse, Tiffany and Henry stepping out a moment later, Henry looking thoroughly unaffected. Maybe Tiffany didn’t use a strong sedative.

“That was quick,” she says, as Jonghyun reaches her.

“Amber,” Jonghyun looks solemn and Amber waits, “about Henry…. “

He pauses for some time and Amber gestures for him to continue, but he shakes his head. Tiffany reaches them and offers Amber a tight smile. Amber doesn’t understand what happened that made the two of them so wary around her now.

“Where’s the tracker?” Amber asks. Jonghyun holds up the small chip and Amber takes it with a nod.

“I’ll meet you back in base. I’ll try to get them off our trail,” she says. She glances at Henry. “I think they messed with his brain, so have Sooyoung-unnie look at him, okay?” and then she turns and runs off. Tiffany grimaces and pulls Henry towards one of the alleys, Jonghyun following. Henry keeps turning around to watch as Amber disappears through the streets.

Amber runs through the city, the chip tucked away in her pocket, mask over her face again. The way Tiffany had looked at her after they removed the tracker, and what Jonghyun had said…..

Amber wills herself to focus on the task ahead. She has to get somewhere else to deposit the chip.

She’s just decided on a building, climbing the stairs to hide the chip in one of the rooms, when she hears the trample of boots outside and Amber slowly edges towards the window. Looking down only sends the fear shooting through her bloodstream as she sees the Lights soldiers in the streets, walking down the street past her building.

She waits, holding her breath, as the soldiers begin to walk past the building, and then, they stop.

The moment the first soldier steps towards the building, Amber slowly moves to drop the chip behind a bunch of crates, ensuring there’s no sudden movement in the tracking. Then she turns and sprints out of the room and up the stairs. There’s no point going down anymore - the Lights will have control over a three block radius - her only chance is up.

Getting to the roof is easy, though she can hear the soldiers climbing up the stairs, the sound like a time ticking on a bomb. Amber keeps moving, running across the roof and jumping across to the next building. She hears a yell and panics, moving faster and sprinting across the next roof to jump. Gunshots ring out and Amber hisses when she feels a sting against her upper arm.

As she rolls to a stop on the next roof, she takes account. Looks like the bullet only grazed her, though the wound is bleeding. She’s lucky it wasn’t her leg.

Amber waits another few moments before sprinting and jumping over to the next building. More shouts follow her, but Amber keeps going, jumping from roof to roof until the sounds become faint.

“A? Report,”

Amber curses and reaches for her communicator. “Tracker is gone