“Hey Hyoyeon, you haven’t heard back from Tae, have you?” Sunny asked over the phone.

“Nope…hey I’m going to send Eunhyuk to pick you up and bring you to my place. I don’t want my phone bill running up.” Hyoyeon asked Sunny for her address before hanging up.

Sunny plopped down on the stairs as she waited for her ride. Taeyeon was still missing. Sunny wasn’t really sure what happened to the ZoNE members, but the news broadcasts were proof that they were physically unharmed. Mentally? Probably shocked out of their minds and scared to the point of paranoia, but they looked as pretty as always.

“Taaaee….” Sunny knew that like that wouldn’t bring Taeyeon back, but it was all Sunny could do to stay sane. “Taaaaeee…” Long, drawn out minutes passed by as Sunny waited outside in the dark for Eunhyuk to reach her door. A loud honking noise alerted Sunny that Eunhyuk had arrived. She grabbed her jacket as she dragged herself out of her home and shut the door behind her. With her hands stuffed in her pocket, Sunny made her way to Eunhyuk’s car.

“Thanks for picking me up.” Sunny said as she opened the car door. “Hyoyeon, okay, right?”

“Yeah, we’re both fine. We haven’t heard anything from Jessica or the others, but I can’t imagine they’re too badly off.” Eunhyuk took a sharp turn. “Oops, sorry about that.”

Sunny caught herself on the door. “No worries. This is a weird path, though. Do you always take this road home?”

“No, but I have my reasons.” Eunhyuk glanced at the rear-view mirror. “You trust me, right?”

“Huh?”

The sudden jerk of the car speeding up would have made Sunny scream if it weren’t for the fact that she found herself unable to say anything for a few seconds. “Eunhyuk, what are you doing?!”

A few more sharp turns and Eunhyuk quickly pulled to a stop. He turned off the car and pulled Sunny out and into a near-by building.

“Sorry about that.” Eunhyuk dragged Sunny through the hallways, constantly checking the windows for a strange shadow or suspicious figure. When Eunhyuk reached Hyoyeon’s room, he knocked quietly. “We’re here.”

After a moment, the door opened. “That was…fast?” Hyoyeon motioned for Sunny to enter her home. “Did you speed here or something?”

“He took a not-so pleasant path through the woods.” Sunny said, sounding slightly more irritated than expected. “What was that for, though?”

Eunhyuk closed the door behind him before answering. “Sorry, but it seemed like someone was following us. I noticed the same car behind us for a few blocks, and when I took the sharp turn it still was tailing me.”

Sunny and Hyoyeon stared at each other.

“I’m pretty sure I lost whoever it was in those last few turns, but I wasn’t sure.” Eunhyuk took a deep breath. “I’m sorry if I scared you, Sunny.”

Sunny shook her head, now realizing that Eunhyuk had her safety at heart. Hyoyeon offered Sunny a drink before the three of them collapsed on the floor to talk. Sunny stuffed her hand into her pocket. Something poked her fingers.

“Oh my gosh!” Sunny let out a small squeal. “I totally forgot.” She pulled out a small piece of paper. “Tae gave this to me, telling me to open it if she didn’t come back tonight.”

“What are you waiting for, then? Open it!”

“She told me to wit until-”

“Open it!”

Sunny took the note and quickly unfolded it. She looked over the note, but let out a frustrated grunt before throwing the paper at Hyoyeon. “Ugh! That…ugh!”

“Sunny, if you are reading this…” Hyoyeon started. She read the next few lines to herself before cracking up. “Oh my gosh! If the situation wasn’t like this, this would be utterly hilarious!”

Eunhyuk took the note from Hyoyeon’s hands. “Sunny, please make note of…buy me a gallon of…this is a to do list!” Eunhyuk couldn’t help but laugh along with Hyoyeon.

“You guys, this isn’t funny!” Sunny ripped the note from Eunhyuk’s hands. “What if she’s really in danger?”

“Sunny, even if she was in danger, we can’t do much by just sulking around.” Eunhyuk took the note back and carefully examined it. “I can’t imagine that this is just a to do list.”

Hyoyeon took the note once again. “I dunno…’buy eggs’ sounds like something to put on a to do list in my book.” Hyoyeon looked at the list. “Then again, the list is written kind of oddly.”

“How so?”

“Look here.” Hyoyeon held the paper out so that the three of them could see. “If you look at the words, don’t you notice she wrote them oddly. She even misspelled some of them!”

buy me a ggallon of ppink lemonade

take out the trassh

get 9 honey jars

get 8 eggs

get 7 candy bars

get 7 green apples

“She’s right.” Eunhyuk pointed to the words “ggallon”, “ppink”, and “trassh.”

Hyoyeon tried to figure out why Taeyeon threw in unnecessary double letters, when Sunny let out a squeal. “GPS! Her phone has a GPS tracker in it. If we go online, we can track it if we know her phone number and the pin number.”

Sunny immediately pulled out her phone to access the internet. She typed in the website to Taeyeon’s phone carrier and looked for a way to track her phone. “Okay, now I just need the pin number…four numbers?”

“9877!” Hyoyeon exclaimed.

Sunny quickly punched in the numbers. “Huh? That’s…wrong?”

“No way, try it again!”

Sunny tried putting in the four digits once again, only to receive an error message. “It says that the pin is wrong. I don’t get it…why would she put the wrong code?”

The three looked at the note again. “Maybe, just maybe, the words after the number matter.” Eunhyuk muttered. He motioned for Sunny to hand him her phone. He poked at the touchscreen and, in moments, had access to Taeyeon’s phone’s GPS.

“How did you do that?!” Sunny asked in awe. She took back her phone and turned it over as if looking for a secret button. “What did you do?”

“The words – if you alphabetize the list, the numbers line up to be 7879.”

“Well good job!” Sunny took back her phone. “What the…her phone is being traced to the industrial district? No, this street is too far to be there.” Sunny showed the map to Eunhyuk and Hyoyeon. “Do you guys know what’s there?”

“The hideout is there.”

“Hideout?”

Hyoyeon nodded. “There’s an abandoned hotel in the middle of what is now a ghost town. Boss Lady turned it into her base of operations.”

“Can you take us there?” Sunny asked.

“Of course. But we can’t go in unprepared. Boss Lady may be alone, but there’s a reason she’s the boss. The other two never dared go up against her, so I can only imagine that she’s strong.”

“We don’t have time to wait, though. Taeyeon is strong, too, but if she was captured then she must be at a disadvantage.”

Eunhyuk cut in. “We’ll leave tomorrow night.”

“Eunhyuk, that’s too soon!” Hyoyeon gave him a look of disbelief.

“Sunny is right. We can’t let time slip away. But we need a little time to get ready, so we wait for night to come.” Eunhyuk got up to stretch when he suddenly heard a knock at Hyoyeon’s door. He looked at Hyoyeon who gave him a confused look. They weren’t expecting any other guests.

Eunhyuk slowly made his way to the door. Peaking though the peephole, Eunhyuk saw a woman with long hair. He didn’t recognize her and motioned for Hyoyeon to quietly take a look. She couldn’t recognize the woman either.

“Yes?”

“Hyoyeon, are you in there?”

“Who is this? Do I know you?” Hyoyeon was confused. The voice sounded familiar, but the face was one Hyoyeon didn’t recall ever seeing before.

A beat of silence passed before the visitor answered. “I’m Seohyun. Number three.”

Hyoyeon’s eyes shot open. “I thought you were in jail.”

“I was released for being good. I…please, let me come in and talk with you.”

“Why should I trust you? How do I know you aren’t going to try and hurt me?”

“Because I can help you save Jungsu. No, more like…you don’t have to save him anymore.” Said the woman.

Hyoyeon was stuck. She wanted to believe Jungsu was safe, but did she want to trust someone who wanted someone else dead? Then again, Hyoyeon was almost like that to some extent. “Fine. You can come in. But put your hands on your head and keep them there.”

Seohyun complied and was let in as soon as her hands were on her head. When inside, Eunhyuk directed her to a chair by the table.

“So tell me more about Jungsu.” Hyoyeon pulled up a chair and sat in front of Seohyun.

“The truth is that I was in charge of watching Jungsu. After I was arrested, Boss sent someone to visit me to tell me that she was done dealing with Jungsu and to not bother tailing him anymore. I never caught the messenger’s name, but it appears thay didn’t know the entirety of the situation. He visited me a few times, actually.”

Hyoyeon wasn’t completely convinced. “I just can’t understand why it is that you want to help me.”

“Because I feel like I owe Taeyeon. If she didn’t talk to me, I would have regretted my whole life.” Seohyun opened her eyes. “I wanted to see her, but I couldn’t find her. Do you know where I could find her?”

“You tell me.” Sunny held up her phone. “Does this location look familiar to you?”

“That’s the hideout! That’s where we gathered so many times before.” Seohyun recognized the cross streets immediately. “Why is she there?”

Sunny explained the situation to Seohyun – everything from her arrest to Yuri’s death, to Taeyeon’s kidnapping – who in turn gasped in surprised. “We have to go get her!”

“We’re going tomorrow.” Eunhyuk said. “We need to get ready to find Taeyeon, but we don’t want to postpone our movement for long.

“No…we have to go now.” Seohyun said. “If we wait, Taeyeon is going to probably get herself killed. The boss…isn’t really the boss.”

“What do you mean?” Hyoyeon was confused. “You mean there’s someone else?”

Seohyun nodded. “She was receiving orders from someone else. I never mentioned that I knew – I found out on accident, you see. But the boss isn’t the one behind everything. There’s someone else.”

After more talking Seohyun convinced Eunhyuk and Sunny that leaving immediately would be best. Hyoyeon was still against it.

“We’re not ready. I don’t want to go in unready.”

“Hyoyeon, we’ll never be ready. We’ll never know what we’ll see. So you have trust yourself that you know what you’re doing.” Seohyun said.

“But-“

“We trained you. I trained you. I believe in you.” Seohyun continued to encourage Hyoyeon. Having trained her, Seohyun knew that Hyoyeon could be hesitant. But once in motion, Hyoyeon was a force to be reckoned with.

Eunhyuk and Sunny looked at Hyoyeon with pleading eyes.

“Alright, alright!” Hyoyeon got up and grabbed her jacket. “Well? Let’s go!”

~~~~

Taeyeon was confused when she woke up. She hardly remembered anything. The only thing Taeyeon was sure about was that Tiffany was the reason for her confusion. But right now, Taeyeon was laying on the floor of a bright room

“Morning sleepy head. Or should I say evening?”

“Uh…morning?” Taeyeon’s vision was still a little blurry, and the sounds around her muddled into a soft whisper.

“Oh dear. The sleep meds must still be affecting your brain.”

“Who…you…Fany?”

“Fany? Oh now, come on. You can’t recognize my voice? I’m hurt, sis.”

“Sis?” Taeyeon tried to focus her eyes on the being before her. It was hard. The room was bright, and the explosion of colors of the person’s clothes almost gave Taeyeon a headache. “Sis?”

“Yes. Sis.”

“Sis….Krys…tal?” Taeyeon kept trying to focus her eyes. Her vision cleared and her hearing started to comeback. “Krystal?”

The girl approached Taeyeon. “Bravo. I guess I didn’t fall for an idiot.”

“Krystal…”

“Ugh…Take care of her for me, will you?”

“I do believe that I'm the one who dishes out the orders. Not you.” There was another person. She was standing behind Taeyeon. “Go do something while I have a talk with this one.”

“Whatevs. If you need me, I’ll be in my room playing with the animal dolls.” Krystal skipped out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

The woman who remained with Taeyeon pulled up a seat. She waved a hand in front of Taeyeon’s eyes. “So, Tae, how you feeling?”

“Krystal…why are you…”

“Oh wow. Can’t even tell that I’m not Krystal. We don’t look alike at all, but the drug is really messing with your brain, isn’t it?” The woman continued to poke Taeyeon’s face in hopes that Taeyeon would finally come back to her sense. “You fully awake now?”

Taeyeon blinked a few more times before she could really see again. “Tiffany!”

“Bingo.”

“Why are you…what are you…huh?”

Tiffany stood up and walked around the room. “You see, Taeyeon, I didn’t want things to come to this, but they just had to.”

“What are you talking about? What did I do to you to make you want to do all this to me?” Taeyeon tried to stand up, only to find her legs weak and unable to support her weight.

“You. You had everything. You had Krystal. And you broke her.”

Taeyeon tried to process what Tiffany was saying. But nothing made sense. It was as if…

“I trusted you wouldn’t hurt her, but you did.”

“She was my sister. You know I would never do anything to hurt her!”

“No you aren’t.” Tiffany sharply pulled Taeyeon up by her hair. “She’s my sister.”

Taeyeon tried not to cry out against the physical strain Tiffany was putting on her head. The mental strain was more than enough frustration as it was. “Of course you are – she saw you and Sunny like sisters, too. Why are you acting so- ahh!”

“Get it through your bleached skull.” Tiffany pushed Taeyeon back down, hovered over her and grabbed her by the collar. “Krystal is my real sister.”

Taeyeon’s eyes burst open. “Her…real…she never…”

“Duh. She doesn’t remember.” Tiffany dropped Taeyeon; a thump rang through the room as Taeyeon’s head crashed back to the floor. “You don’t know the circumstances under which we were first separated, do you?”

“No. She never told me. I never asked.” Taeyeon tried to sit up. Her head was hurting, but the pain was starting to subside. “I don’t believe you when you say you’re her real sister. I’d believe Jessica over you.”

“Same dad, different mom.” Tiffany said. “Now, back to where we started.”

Taeyeon tried to get a better grasp of where she was exactly. She had concluded she was at the hideout, but she had never seen the room before. It was mostly empty, save for the seat that Tiffany had been sitting on moments before.

“Don’t think about doing anything stupid.” Tiffany flashed a devilish smile at Taeyeon.

That was when Taeyeon realized something was very off about the situation. Tiffany’s eye-smile wasn’t there. “Tiffany, please, just talk to me. Tell me what it was what I did wrong! I’m certain I can explain whatever misunderstanding you happen to have about what went on between Krystal and myself.”

“Maybe you need to understand what it was that happened with us.”

~~~~

“Tiffany~! Mommy and daddy are home!”

Tiffany walked to the front door with a young girl who clung to her arm like a magnet. “Hi mom! Hi dad!”

The two adults walked passed the girls, greeting them with a delayed hello. They sat in the kitchen in silence. Neither budged after they parked themselves in the seats.

“Krystal, go play in your room. I want to talk to mom and dad, okay?”

The doe-eyed girl nodded before skipping off to her room. Tiffany walked into the kitchen.

“Mom? Dad? Is everything okay?”

“It’s nothing Tiffany. Your mom is just being difficult again.” Her dad said as he tried to smile for Tiffany. Tiffany got her eye-smile from him, but day by day the sparkle that once lit up his eyes seemed to fade, and she could feel hers fade with it.

Tiffany’s mom – step-mom to be more exact – let out a huff. “I’m being difficult? You’re one to talk. And “again”? What are you trying to say about me?”

Tiffany knew that this wasn’t going to go anywhere nice. She wanted to slip out before either party tried to get her involved, but it was already too late.

“Tiffany, don’t you agree with me that your mom has been acting difficult lately?”

“Don't ask her! She’s your daughter. She’ll side with you over me any day.”

“When we got married, she became your daughter, just as Krystal became mine. Tiffany is an honest child. She would never say something she never meant, even to me.” Tiffany’s father got up from the table to pour himself a glass of water. “You know what, forget it.”

Tiffany took the chance to run out of the kitchen to the room she and Krystal shared.

“Tiffany! Come play doll with me!” Krystal held out one of her many dolls to Tiffany. While Tiffany wasn’t in the mood to play, she took a doll hoping to take her mind off of her parent’s fight.

They had been fighting a lot recently. They had remarried three years ago when Krystal was only a couple years old. Krystal barely remembered her biological father, so Tiffany’s dad was really Krystal’s only father figure. Tiffany, on the other hand, was very close to her biological mother. She had many fond memories she dreamed of now that her mother was no longer with her, and it made it a little difficult to get close to her new mom.

“Tiffany! You’re not playing doll right!” Krystal took the dolls from Tiffany’s hand. “You have to play it like this!”

Krystal continued to play on her own. Had Tiffany not been distracted by a sudden breaking sound and series of screams, she would have been able to enjoy the moment.

“Wah! Tiffany! What was that?”

“Just wait here. I’ll see what happened, okay? Don’t come downstairs unless I tell you to, okay?” Tiffany stood up and left Krystal to her dolls.

“Mom? Dad?” Tiffany carefully made her way to the kitchen, flinching when she heard another crash and shatter from around the corner. “Is everything okay, dad?”

“Everything is fine, sweetie. Just stay outside and keep you sister company, okay?”

Tiffany, against her better judgment, peaked around the corner to see what was happening. She gasped at the sight in front of her. Her father was standing on one side of the kitchen with shattered glass around his feet. Her step-mom was next to the cupboards holding two glasses.

Putting two and two together, Tiffany figured that her step-mom was flinging things at her dad. Very sharp things that easily break.

“Mom! Stop!” Tiffany was about to launch herself into the room when her dad yelled at her to not take another step. “But dad!”

“Tiffany, I said go play with your sister.” He dad was stern, despite being under attack from glass.

It was the one time that Tiffany disobeyed her father. Instead of leaving, she ran towards her step-mom and grabbed one of her arms. “Mom, stop it! You’re going to hurt dad!”

“Shut up, girl!” Tiffany’s step-mom yanked her arm away. Tiffany fell down, barely catching herself before her face hit the wood floor. “Your dad is so worthless! I never should have married you!”

Tiffany got up and tried to wrestle the tableware out of her step-mom’s hands. Tiffany’s father tried to recover and make his way to Tiffany to try and get her away from her step-mom.

It happened fast, and no one saw the end result coming. The back and forth pulling on the glass caused it to shatter in the step-mom’s hand. Blood dripped from her hand to the floor.

“You little-!” Tiffany’s step-mom had a glass in her off hand and threw it at Tiffany. Tiffany closed her eyes, waiting for the worst to happen.

“Kyaa!”

Tiffany felt something, but she knew it wasn’t glass. It was the wood floor she was a little too familiar with. When she finally looked up, Tiffany screamed. “Krystal!”

Krystal was on the floor with blood pouring from her head, her eyes flickering open and closed as the blood traced rivers down to her eyelashes. Krystal struggled to say something, but Tiffany could hardly make out the words her little sister was trying to mouth.

“Sister…is safe, right?”

The world stopped to Tiffany. She was about to lose her sister, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Her dad was bleeding and on the phone pleading for help, and all Tiffany could do was lay there watching Krystal bathe in her own blood.

~~~~

“After that, the police came, arrested my step-mother and took both my father and Krystal to the hospital.” Tiffany’s body tensed as she told her story. She clenched her fists as every dark memory intensified and came to life with her words. “My father came out fine, but Krystal’s body was in so much shock that the doctors weren’t sure she would make it.”

“But she clearly did.” Taeyeon said, noting that Krystal and she had been “sisters”.

Tiffany scoffed. “She may have physically made it through, but she wasn’t the Krystal I knew. She was always sad. The doe-eyed little girl who looked up to me with those big, curious eyes died that day. She doesn’t remember anything from before that day. Not even that I’m her sister.”

“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t know that such horrible things had happened to you.”

“She’s fragile. Her mind still acts like that of a young child, and Krystal gets whatever she wants. I promised to protect her from everything, but there was only so much I could do when we were separated. Dad couldn’t deal with both of us, and left Krystal up for adoption. That’s how she eventually met you. And how you ended up hurting her. So in return for everything…” Tiffany walked back to Taeyeon and gave her a quick kick to the side. “I’m going to hurt you. A lot.”

Taeyeon tried to catch her breath. “Tiffany, I never meant to hurt Krystal. Honest.”

“That’s what mom said as she was dragged off to prison.” Another kick to the side.

Every gasp of air sent a shooting pain to Taeyeon’s chest. She struggled to speak but knew that talking was the only thing she could do. “Tiffany, you have to…to listen to me. Hurting Krystal is the last thing I wanted to do. If I could have, I would have done everything to-“ Before Taeyeon could finish her sentence, Tiffany kicked her in the face. Taeyeon winced as she tasted her own blood on her tongue. “Tiffany!”

“Shut up!” Tiffany barraged Taeyeon’s body with her foot. “Just shut up shut up shut up!” Tiffany gave up and left Taeyeon to writhe in pain.

When Taeyeon finally thought she had a chance to get away, Tiffany stormed back in. She kicked Taeyeon before grabbing her by the hair once more. “Who did you call? Who?!”

“Wha…what? I didn’t call anyone?”

“Rahhh!” Tiffany screamed her frustrations out. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll do away with them, too.”

Taeyeon laid on the floor. She was too exhausted just breathing and staying awake to get up. But she knew she had to. Sunny was the only person who could possibly know where Taeyeon was. But even then, for Sunny to arrive as quickly as she did, she likely had help.

The door opened again. Taeyeon cringed as she expected Tiffany to run back over and kick her somewhere new.

Unexpectedly, Krystal walked into the room. “Hi, sis.”

“Krystal, please, you have listen to me.” Taeyeon said immediately. “You have to talk to me.”

“Hmph. You heartbreaker. Why should I listen to a single thing you say?” Krystal sat down in the chair as she fiddled with her hair.

Taeyeon tried to sit up. She managed to push herself upright as she spoke, “I don’t know why you blame me for hating you. Tiffany’s story…is it true? It is true that you two are sisters?”

“That’s what she told me once. She has pictures of me from when I was still little – with her, mom and dad. Why shouldn’t I believe her?”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t. But why go this far. You know I never meant to hurt you!”

“It wasn’t my idea. Tiffany said she’d do something to people who were bad to me. You hurt me, so Tiffany is doing her job. But maybe…”

“Maybe? Maybe what?” Taeyeon leaned in with eagerness pouring from her ears.

Krystal held out a doll. “Play doll with me and I’ll tell Tiffany no to hurt your friends!”

Taeyeon stared at Krystal. Such a simple request. Taeyeon recalled Tiffany saying something about Krystal mostly having a child’s mind. She wasn’t kidding. If this teenager was still playing with dolls, she was clearly not at the same mental level as her peers. “Okay. Which doll is mine?”

“You can be the giraffe!” Krystal held out a yellow doll. Its long neck was all that Taeyeon saw at first. When the doll was in her hands, Taeyeon realized the doll was giraffe from the neck up, and human from the chest down. “Um…Krystal…why does your doll have a giraffe head?”

“Because I like it like that!” Krystal sent Taeyeon a cursing glare that cause the Taeyeon to almost fall back to the floor. “I wanted a giraffe head on the doll so I ripped of the real head and put that one on! You got a problem? Maybe you want Tiffany to rip your friends apart and switch their heads around!”

“No no no! I was just…curious because the doll is so…interesting…” Taeyeon tried to hide her fear, but she wasn’t sure it worked.

Krystal’s face quickly turned to the doe-eyed expression Taeyeon had remembered from the good-old days. “Oh! Well if that’s the case, then okay. Look! Mine has a tiger head!”

----------
a/n
Double update~ Sorry, meant to update Saturday but I got caught up :P oops...

But!

Announcement~

Next chapter will be the last!!

After that, I'll be refocusing my efforts and attention to ~7 other fics.

One, my first priority, would be an angsty EXO betrayal "WTF WAE" type fic I'm writing for Buubuu's fic contest. Has some SuJu, but it is EXO focused. Started, so feel free to check it out here.
Two would be a SuhoOC fic I've put on a bit of a hold in order to focus on my first fic. Started, but at the moment it is only up on the EXO fanforum I'm on. I'll start posting it here soon.
Third would be my massive crossover SMFamBam fic focusing mostly on SuperEXOShidae. Started, and up on the EXO and SSND forums I'm on. Will also post on here soon.
Four-Six would be 2 fics I'm doing on request for a friend and an EXO love triange ship fic that I've fallen into a huge rut that I might just abandon if not totally revamp. I'll probably post them here eventually if I can get my but to write them X.x
Seven would be a series of EXO teaser oneshots I've been really wanting to write but unable to find full inspiration on....will post what I have soon (one have 3 so far...)

So yeah. Look forward to those ^^