"Mum," Seungwan says as she opens the cell door. She squints a little at the bright lights overhead and casts a perfunctory glance around the room. It's small and typical of a holding cell. In fact, Seungwan thinks it's quite reminiscent to the rooms occupied by the candidates of her parents' human trials. Karma's a like that, Seungwan muses.

"Seungwan," Taeyeon mutters, without an ounce of suprise in her voice. She doesn't look up from the book cradled in her hands, wetting a finger with her tongue to turn a page. "Does anyone know you're here?"

"What did you tell Joohyun?" Seungwan grunts out and her mother simply raises a delicate, curious brow. "I know she talked to you. What did you say to her?"

"Oh," Taeyeon coos with a sympathetic frown, "she broke your heart, didn't she? I'm sorry, sweetie."

She approaches her mother in long strides and rips the book out of her hands, throwing it angrily behind her. "What did you tell her?!" Seungwan yells.

"The truth about her friend Jennie," Taeyeon grumbles, displeased by her daughter's rash actions. She was on the book's last chapter. "She didn't tell you?"

"Where's Seunghee?"

"So many questions, Wan-ah," Taeyeon sighs. "Joohyun this, Seunghee that. You don't want to ask how your mother is? The food here is terrible and I miss your father. They're keeping us separate."

"What. Did. You. Say?" Seungwan repeats.

Taeyeon all but ignores the question and casually reveals, "I found out who really murdered your grandmother by the way."

"What?"

"It was an honest mistake on your father and I'd part. We sincerely apologise," Taeyeon says softly. "That poor man, he was really innocent. I will never be able to make up for it."

"You can't make up for anything, mother," Seungwan huffs.

"Yes, I've gotten myself a one-way ticket straight to hell, haven't I?" Taeyeon chuckles bitterly. "But it'll all be worth it in the end, you'll see. And...Despite Captain Kim's attempts to ensure this case remains uncompromised, fortunately, we do have one officer working for us. Oh, he was so easy to convince. I'm good with my words. You get that from me."

"Shut up."

"Do you want me to talk, or not?" Taeyeon retorts. "In short, he's been a sort of pigeon for me and your father to communicate. Turns out, the man we thought was the killer has a twin brother. What a plot twist."

Seungwan blinks. She was really only here to find out what kind of bull her mother poured into Joohyun's ear. She'd asked Seulgi about it right after their conversation earlier that day and well, Seulgi only spent a minute or two trying to stall before she blurted it out. Of course, Seungwan then proceeded to track Seulgi's location to this holding facility. And now, the only thought possessing her is that her mother knows who actually killed her grandmother. 

"Who is it?" 

Taeyeon's quick to reply, "Bring me to your father and we'll tell you."

"Not a chance."

"Well," Taeyeon shrugs lightly, glancing at the small window of her room, "Regardless, we're breaking out of here soon."

"No, you're not," Seungwan scoffs and creases her brows. "I'm going to find whoever you convinced to turn against us, arrest them and then make sure you and Dad end up in prisons on opposite sides of the country."

Taeyeon rolls her eyes fondly at her daughter. She thinks it's quite adorable how Seungwan thinks she has the power to do that. "Wannie, do you really think your father and I would let that happen? Don't you want to know the identity of the man who killed her? You'd be surprised."

"You're lying. How could you figure that out so easily in here when you couldn't all this time?"

"We made a mistake, alright?" Taeyeon dips her chin, playing with the rough ends of her bedsheet. "We were so sure we were right and when I found out we weren't... Well, we don't really have anything else to do here. Your father knew more about the lives of the candidates in the trials, I assumed he would know something and we pieced it together."

"...Who is it?"

Taeyeon chuckles. "Bring me to your father first."

Seungwan shakes her head. "I'll just find out myself."

"You have no leads, Seungwan," Taeyeon calls out as her daughter turns back to the door. "Our men eliminated every trace of it all. Even in captivity, we have control over everything."

"You're ing evil," Seungwans spits over her shoulder.

"Maybe," Taeyeon nods with a terse smile. "But I love you and I'm doing this for our family."

"Bull," Seungwan snarls, spinning around on her heel. "You're doing this because you're selfish. You want power over the entire world. A bland villain with no heart."

She finds herself holding eye contact with her mother for a heated moment before Taeyeon mutters out a simple, "Five."

"What?" Seungwan blinks.

"Four."

"What are you doing?"

"Counting down," Taeyeon says casually. "When I finish, you'll take off my cuffs and let me go."

"That's..." Seungwan steps back a bit--confused, "--not going to happen."

"Three."

"Stop it."

"Two."

"ing hell," Seungwan mutters and turns around one last time. "I hope you rot in here."

The door is only half-way closing behind her when she hears: "One."

Suddenly, Seungwan stops in her spot. Her eyes blur, and her vision leaves her. But her body does not. It moves on its own. 

The next work day starts as it always does--

"Detective Son late again?" Jackson asks, appearing by Joohyun's desk.

"I guess," Joohyun mutters. "I'm not her keeper."

"Right," Jackson nods. "Where're the others? I hear they've been working on some super secret case, any deets you can spill?"

"Do I look like Park Sooyoung?" Joohyun snarks. "Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you."

"Aw," Jackson pouts. "Noona, you wound me."

"We're not close enough for you to call me that," Joohyun says with a frown.

"What? We've worked together for three years!"

"Exactly."

Suddenly, Seulgi bolts into the bullpen and pants out, "Code red! They escaped!"

"What?"

"Who escaped?" Jackson asks but his question falls on deaf ears as Seulgi grabs Joohyun and pulls her down the hall.

"They have Seungwan," Seulgi hisses. "They must've chipped her when she was unconscious at the penthouse weeks ago! I can't believe we didn't check her! Crap!"

Joohyun shakes her head, panicked. "A team's been hacking into the microchip used on me, haven't they? Can't they--"

"It's different," Seulgi interrupts. "She let them out and her parents gave her a new one. It's--It's too advanced for anyone to crack without getting an actual look at it."

"What the hell? How did they even get out? What happened to security?"

"An officer turned. He looped the security feed and helped them escape, but--" Seulgi pants, swallowing as she catches her breath. "Yeri has a plan."

Turns out, the genius Captain Kim Yerim's plan is to use Joohyun as bait.

"Ah!" Joohyun yells out dramatically. "Help!"

"Seriously, can't you act better than that?" Seulgi mutters through the communications in her ear.

"Like you can," Joohyun whispers back and continues screaming.

She's tied around a concrete pillar, sitting on the cold, hard ground in an abandoned warehouse. Yeri told her to 'walk into the gang's hideout, pretend to arrest them and accidentally-on-purpose drop your gun and shoot yourself in the foot.'

No, she didn't actually shoot herself but she didn't put up much of a fight when the gang grabbed her and er-punched her in the stomach.

This better ing work.

"Alright, your name's all over the news," Yeri says. "We're saying they want to trade you for ten million won."

"That's it?" Joohyun hisses. "I'm surely worth more than that."

"Well, it's chump change for the Sons, work with it okay?"

"Are you sure this is going to work?" she hears Seulgi ask.

"...No," Yeri replies gruffly.

"Hey, I can still hear you," Joohyun whispers.

"Oh, ."

The line goes dead for a moment before she hears Seulgi speak up again. "It's gonna work, unnie. If her parents really care about Seungwan, they'd let her save you."

"They're gonna know this is fake," Joohyun replies quietly.

"Maybe," Yeri says. "But they wouldn't risk ing up Seungwan's happiness even further than they already have."

"You know..." Seulgi starts and Joohyun can just hear the smile. "Because you're Wannie's happiness."

"Whatever," Joohyun mutters but she can't help the upturn of her lips. She decides now that when they get out of this, she'll kiss the younger and damn everything else she's let get in the way. She can't believe she was this close to actually kissing her for real and she just let her out of her grasp. Was what didn't happen the cause of Seungwan going to visit her parents? Did she somehow find out that Joohyun talked to Taeyeon?

Joohyun sits there, tied up for a while. She manages through some beatings while Seulgi and Yeri try to occupy her by singing some songs. She definitely looks like she went to hell and back if the amount of blood she's spitting up says anything, but the two women in her ear make it seem a little better.

"Unnie, when you get out of there, I'll give you a raise," Yeri says.

" you," Joohyun mutters but the guy standing in front of her thinks she's talking to him and gives her another punch to her jaw.

"Quiet or I'll rip out your tongue, ," the guy growls. The place she's tied up in is small and dark. There are puddles of water from leaks in the ceiling and it gives the room a more sinister atmosphere. Truly, it looks like the typical place for a mediocre gang.

Joohyun couldn't be less scared. This gang member clearly thinks he's the .

"Rookie, rookie, my super rookie, rookie, rookie--"

"Shut up," Joohyun groans and the gang member mistakes it for her talking to him again and grabs a fistful of her hair. She gasps out when she feels a sharp blade pressing against her neck. "When I get out of here, I'm going to kill you both," Joohyun grunts out.

"Sorry."

"Stop talking to us, unnie!"

"Both?" the man chuckles, digging his knife until it draws blood. "It's just me and you here, darling. The others are outside dealing with your negotiation. But until then... I can do whatever I want to you," he grins devilishly and dips his knife to cut the top of her shirt.

Joohyun could literally break out of the ropes around her. She has a pocket knife in her hand and if things really do go sideways before Seungwan shows up, she can easily ge