“Where are they?!” the guard yelled from the attic.

“Who, sir? I live alone.” Aron said calmly, but truthfully he wanted to scream and yell and just get over with it. The storm in his soul had left his heart and mind so scrambled that later on even when he tried to remember with all his might, what he had said and done, he couldn't, he hadn't been himself back during this time he was just a shadow of this thoughts.

Some of the guards had come upstairs, as others stayed down, and were now pushing past Aron, one of them made Aron loose his balance and bump against the wall and no one cared about Sehun, who was crying in pain, to their mind he could have died and they wouldn't even bat an eye, they didn't feel pity or even slightly out of place. They weren't human, rather animals in human bodies.

The attic was completely empty when the guards got there, not a living soul was found. That of course infuriated the Rotten's men, because they were hoping for some big pay numbers when they brought back the prince and the princess and few others, who were considered so insignificant that merely a number was placed on the paper of the order Lucras had signed instead of their names.

But the guards didn't find anyone to be brought back to the palace. They had already forgotten about Baekho and Chinsun and honestly they might have left them in the dungeons to rot if there weren't certain others to worry about their wellbeing.

Thus there actually weren't no one left, who the Rotten could torture and blame for their obvious misfortune, because the prince and the princess just weren't here. Lucras could only blame his lazy army, but that quilt was actually on him, because he has never been good at choosing people to posts like this, he never knew who was good to be in the army and who wasn't – obviously he accepted everyone, who would do his dirty work for some money. Well, maybe he knew how to choose, but he definitely mixed up the love of well done work with the love of money and slacking off.

“I ask you one last time: where are they?!” the leader of the troops yelled ravaging Aron's house.

“I'm sorry, sir. I don't know who you're talking about.” Aron said feeling that this wasn't going to end well for him either.

“Oh, really?” the guard asked and pulled out his gun. Pointing it right between Aron's eyes he asked again: “Where are they?”

So where were they? Where were the wanted renegades? In the attic? No, we know they weren't there. Up on the roof? Fools! How could they be up on the roof – it's slippery and it's cold out there! But that was the place where they were: up on the neighboring house's roof. They were all there in the cold and wet snow.

When Minhyun and Ren had managed to get JR up the stairs they saw that the girls where already climbing on the next door house's roof, Sunhi thought it was a good idea in case something went wrong. And she was right. Something went terribly wrong.

For starters the guards came in much earlier than they should have had – the ones upstairs didn't have time to watch each other's backs and that's why Sehun got left behind. Then JR's stitches ripped and he made others aware of that a bit louder than he should have had, but luckily with all the ruckus going on downstairs people who shouldn't have heard them didn't. And because the roof was slippery Haeran and HyunAe fell and did not only bruise themselves badly, they also got cut by the sharp drainpipe edges and those weren't little cuts.

The thick rain and snow were ice cold and the wind cut through the clothes of the young. They weren't wearing anything that could have protected them from the heartless weather, they were wearing simple summer outfits, because the house was warm, but now... now it wasn't going to help them, seems that no one would.

Minhyun and Ren were tensed up to the very ends of their nerves: will they be quick enough to move JR? What if they will be seen? Will the guards open fire? They didn't want to die, they didn't want to live if they would be taken back to the castle, they didn't want to wish their own death, but they were confused... And with all those thoughts they tripped and all three fell down on the other house's roof just when Sunhi closed the balcony's door and hopped on the other roof also tripping in the process, just when...

Just when they heard the shooting and Sehun's screams, just when their world shattered into million pieces, just when they realized that the war Lucras had created became real and it was just a few steps away from them, just when they realized that people are going to die and they have no power to stop it, just when they realized that they were just children against monsters.

And with one solemn shot ringing in their ears their worst fear became reality.