Hope you enjoy the chapter!

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"How in the world were you able to get away?" I asked Eli as he casually walked into the parking garage.
"I'm a ninja." He joked.

That wouldn't completely surprise me >,>

"... But really: What happened?" Tiffany appeared in the garage.

"I figured that I wouldn't be able to outrun that guy, so I just stopped and waited for him to pass by."

"That's it...?" I was dumbfounded that such a simple idea worked.

"Well it wasn't too hard since I can hide my presence pretty well. The guy was so worried about catching up to me that I was able to slip right past him... Things worked out pretty well if you ask me."

"Yeah, they did." Tiffany said with a sigh of relief.

Tiffany and Eli both seemed to be okay, but I could see them slightly shaken up – the same way I was when my life became this way.

They're new to this type of thing.

"Good job on keeping your presence concealed." Eli turned to congratulate me.

That reminds me...

"They knew I was there!" I blurted out without a second thought.

"What?!" The other two people in the garage exclaimed.

"Once you got that head start, the man in the suit took some time and was able to dissect the workings of your plan. He mentioned that there had to have been at least three people for it to have gone as smoothly as it did."

"Did he approach you?" Tiffany asked.

"No, they didn't know my position, but his instincts told him that someone was listening."

"I expected one of them to figure it out... just not so quickly." Eli stated.

"What does that mean?" I wondered.

"It means that we need to get out of town as soon as possible; before they find us..."

 

...

 

The three of us were able to make our way back across town – where Tiffany had parked the car.

"Wait, what about your car?" I asked Eli as he got in the backseat.  

"I'll come back for it later – I don't want to risk being seen."

With that, we all got in the car and drove towards the outskirts of town.

 

"Why am I driving again?"

"You're driving because they've seen mine and Eli's faces." Tiffany replied as she ducked down in her seat. "We'll have to stay down until we leave the area."

"That looks comfortable." I joked.

Tiffany responded with a mean glare before tucking her head back down.

 

The traffic was heavy as we slowly approached one of the exits out of the town.

Walking up and down the rows of cars, I spotted the female demon from earlier in the day.

"What do we do?!" I became flustered at the current state of things.

"What do you mean?" Eli said as he poked his head upwards, and then immediately dropped back down. "Umm... This is bad."

"Is she headed this way?" Tiffany's voice was muffled due to her awkward position.

As she said this, the demon start moving down another row of cars – directly headed for ours.

"Yes... yes she is..." I responded in a dull flat voice; trying my best to keep calm.

 

We all paused as everyone thought of what to do.

 

"I've got nothing." Tiffany said from her hunched position.

The demon approached closer.

"Eli? Have any bright ideas?"

"I'm drawing a blank." He responded. "Our best bet would be to try and get out of here, but it seems like we're stuck in this traffic."

"... And we can't make a run for it" Tiffany continued. "We would get caught almost immediately."

 

An idea suddenly dawned on me.

"Tiffany, can you hand me the bag that we brought."

"Sure... what for?" Tiffany responded as she reached down in the car seat and brought up the bag.

"You'll see..."

 

I reached in the bag and pulled out a large blanket.

"Cover yourself with this." I tossed the blanket at Eli."

Reaching into the bag for a second time; I was able to find the surgical mask that Mr. Hwang had randomly thrown in there.

"Put this on." I spoke towards Tiffany

"You really think this will work?" she responded.

"We don't have very many options, so it has to work."

 

...

 

It was mere moments before the demon finally reached our car.

She scanned the car over and was taken aback by seeing a girl wearing a surgical mask. As she looked in, Tiffany faked a violent cough.

"Gross..." The girl covered her face with the collar of her shirt in attempt to prevent the presumed sickness.

 

The demon looked away, but appeared to have realized something and started turning to look again.

Out of nowhere, a cell phone rang and she answered it.

"Yeah..." She seemed frustrated by whatever was said on the other end. "...but what about those kids?" The inaudible words from the phone were against taken with disappointment as the female her teeth before responding.

"Fine... whatever you say... I'm on my way."

She glanced back at our car as she ran down the sidewalk, and shook her head.

 

...

 

"Well that was close!" Eli tossed the blanket that was covering him.

"Yeah... That was really quick thinking, Tae." Tiffany added.

My heartbeat slowed down as the immediate threat passed.

"I'm just ready to get out of this town."

As I spoke, the traffic began to move along

 

...

 

***

 

"So... tired... can't... walk..."

"You're walking right now." Tiffany responded to my griping.

"Meh..." I groaned as if words were lost to me.

"... But I agree: we've been on the move for the past two days – we really need to get some rest."

"I blame Eli." I said as I turned towards the foreigner walking behind me and Tiffany. "You're the one who told us to keep going."

"Would you really feel safe any closer to those demons? Plus, we already cut it a bit close too close with that whole bounty hunter situation..."

"That whole ordeal was a weird nightmare." Tiffany stated.

"Ugh... I'm just glad we can finally get some sleep. Picking this fancy hotel was a great idea."

"I just figured we deserved to sleep in a nice place after the task we accomplished." Tiffany smiled as we finally arrived at our room.

 

We opened the door to a luxurious, pink hotel room.

"Why is everything so... pink?" Eli asked out of curiosity.

"You asked for this room specifically, didn't you?" I turned to Tiffany.

She ignored me with a sheepish grin on her face as she walked into the room and immediately plopped onto the large bed in the middle.

I followed suit, and within a few seconds, the two of us had fallen fast asleep.

 

...

 

"zzzzzZZZZZZZzzz"

"Mmmmm... Huh?" I woke up to the sound of Tiffany snoring.

The room was in the same condition as it was when we entered; except a water bottle was missing from the top of the fridge, and there was a note on one of the tables.

I stretched as I climbed out of the bed and walked over to the table

"Hmm... I wonder where Eli is..."

I lifted up the note to read it, but the handwriting was in English...

 

"Wake up, sleepy head." I nudged the sleeping girl.

"Ugh..." Tiffany groaned as she opened her eyes and sat up. "What?"

"Can you read this?" I shoved the note into her line of sight.

 

Tiffany yawned and rubbed her eyes before reading the note out loud:

 

Had to run...
I decided to write this because I didn't want to wake you guys up...
I took a picture of that note, so you can have the actual copy...
We'll probably meet up again soon...

Good luck!

 

Oh yeah, I also took a bottle of water from the fridge...
These things are so expensive!!!
Drink them at your own risk...

 

Such a strange guy

"That was sudden." Tiffany stated as she put down the sheet of paper. "What do you think we should do?"

"I don't know... We should probably look at whatever the engineer wrote on that paper before we decide anything else."

"That's right: We've had the note for the past few days, and have yet to actually look at it."

 

...

...

 

"I have no idea what this means..."

"It literally makes zero sense." I responded. Utterly confused; I decided to take another look at the note – in hopes that I would have an epiphany.

 

Look for the badger.

 

"What the hell!" I shouted in frustration. "What does that even mean?!"

"My brain hurts." Tiffany spoke while she stared at the ceiling.

"I can't believe we went through all of that for a sheet of paper with four words on it!"

"It must mean something." Tiffany reasoned.

"Who would know...?"

 

Tiffany and I turned to look at each other in shock as we both came to the same realization.

 

"We completely forgot about my dad!" Tiffany exclaimed.

"It's been three days since we've contacted him... he has to be worried." I responded.

"He's going to kill us once we tell him about the demons..." Tiffany said worriedly as she turned her bracer.

 

...

 

Once the call started, I asked to speak to my sister because I wanted to talk to her before we got to business.

"Unnie!" she shouted from the other side of the screen.

"Hey, how are things with Tiffany's dad?"

"Everything's going well. I've been spending a lot of time with my friends, and he's been teaching me cool stuff when he has spare time."

No doubt it's Liner stuff.

"How are things like on your end?" She asked, excited to hear of my adventures.

"Pretty hectic" I responded. "... but we're that much closer to our goal. I can't go into much detail now, but you'll get the full story once we get back."

"You better bring me back something cool." Haeyeon sounded sincerely happy for the first time in a while.

"I'll try to find something." I laughed.

"Alright, well I've got to go Unnie; school is in half-an-hour."

"Bye, Hae."

"Bye Unnie."

She then passed the equipment to Mr. Hwang, so he could speak to us.

 

 

"YOU DID WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Umm... we followed them..."

There was silence on the other end.

"Hello?"

"OMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Mr. Hwang yelled. "What on earth made you think that was a good idea?!" His voice started to calm towards the end.

"It was more instinctive than anything..." Taeyeon added herself into the conversation.

 

Mr. Hwang didn't speak up for some time; causing me and Tiffany to look at each other nervously... until he eventually sighed.

"The important thing is that you two are okay." He finally said. "... Fill me in on what happened."

 

...

 

Without skipping a single detail, Tiffany and I retold the events of the past few days to her father.

"I can't believe you pulled that off." Tiffany's father said in awe.  

"We were pretty surprised too." I added.

"I'm very curious about this Eli person who helped you."

 

We told Tiffany's father everything we knew about the foreigner who helped us – including the earlier run-in he had with Taeyeon at the convenience store.

 

"It couldn't be him..." Mr. Hwang said to himself.

"You know Eli?" Tiffany asked curiously.

"Well when we found the Origon in Africa, one of our allies was a Liner from the region. I had only met him a few times, but he was known for being very sneaky and untraceable. This person you described has similar traits, and wears the same bracer, but..."

"What is it?" I asked.

"We were around the same age when I met him, and you said Eli was a bit younger than you. All of these events took place while you were children, so it's impossible that they're the same person."

"It must be his son then." I added; having already concluded such.

"Those were my exact thoughts. They seem to be very similar, yet different, at the same time. Question: did you see a family crest on him?"

"He mentioned one, but we didn't see it." Tiffany stated." ... but we weren't exactly looking for it either. Why?"

"Hmm... it's safe to assume that he's the son of this Liner, so he probably has it. The reason I bring it up is because his crest is a part of the set that we used to lock the Origon."

Something dawned on me.

"So we're basically carrying around the keys to something invaluable."

"That's the gist of it." Mr. Hwang replied with a laugh. "That's why it's sort of a good thing that Eli left the two of you."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Think about it: If all of you were together, and someone realized what you were carrying, all three of you would become targets. With him gone, it's less likely that any of you will draw too much attention."

"You think he took that into account when he left?" Tiffany asked.

"I'm not sure, but it's possible... Let's talk about that note, though."

"Oh, yeah" I picked up the note and looked at it one more time. "I don't think you're going to get much from it."

"What does it say?" Mr. Hwang asked.

Tiffany and I looked at each other, and spoke in unison. "Look for the badger..."

 

Tiffany's father was quiet for a while.

"Dad? Are you still there?" Tiffany asked, worriedly.

"Yes..." He said with dread in his voice – as if he had just seen a ghost. "... I know where he is."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine; the location just brings back... memories..."

"What kind of memories?"

 

"Umm... I'm sending you the coordinates right now. It's a small house that isn't visible from the road, so you'll have to walk over the hill that you see once you arrive." He responded without answering the question

"Huh...?" Tiffany and I were confuzelled. (This isn't actually a word by the way.)

"You can take today off if you so choose – I know the past few days must have been draining for the two of you. Be careful, and do your best to stay out of sight. Hwaiting!"

 

And with that, he ended the call.

 

"He was acting pretty strangely." Tiffany said as she lowered her arm

"Yeah... he probably just had to rush to the bathroom or something. I wouldn't read too much into it – your dad's weird like that." I tried to reassure her."

"True" She responded. "... Do you think we should leave now, or take the day off? I feel like we deserve a short break."

 "I agree. We should relax for a bit – I'm still tired from all of that driving."

 

...

 

The two of us lounged around for a bit before realizing that we were extremely hungry.

"Let's go to the dining room." Tiffany suggested.

"The diner seemed pretty fancy: aren't we a bit underdressed?" Still tired, I was pretty reluctant to leave the room.

"This entire hotel is fancy – quit being lazy." Tiffany smiled as she threw a pillow at my face.

"Ugh..." I groaned as I sluggishly raised myself from the bed.

 

...

 

"How is your soup?" Tiffany asked me as I took a sip.

"It's really good." I replied as the steamy liquid warmed my body up. "What about your pizza: Is it anything the pizza in the states?"

"Not as tasty, but it's definitely a lot healthier... which is probably a good thing."

 

The two of us sat there; eating and enjoying each other's company, for some time. I noticed us drawing some attention from the servers and other random customers, but I just figured it was because we looked a bit out of place.

 

"I'm ready to leave whenever you are." I said after we had been sitting for some time.

"Alright, they should bring out our check out soon."

Moments later, our waiter came back to the table without anything in his hands.

 

"The manager would like to speak with you." He said with an uncertain look in his eyes before turning around and walking away.

"Umm... okay..." Tiffany respond – her body language shifted from relaxed to uncomfortable.

"Do you know him or something?" I asked; not really sure of what was going on.

"I don't think so..."

Tiffany's voice trailed off as a tall man wearing a white t-shirt approached the table: He was followed by a group of younger men who were dressed in suits.

 

"Isn't this something..." The man in the t-shirt said with a wide smile lining his face. "Are you girls aware of whom this hotel belongs to?"

"No idea." I responded.

"Well let's just say this: You've saved us the trouble of looking for you."

As he spoke, my vision started to blur. A sudden drowsiness swept over me, causing my head to slowly lower itself onto the table.

The last thing I noticed before passing out was Tiffany staring at me worriedly.

 

Uh oh

 

...

 

Why is it so difficult for me to remain conscious for an entire day?

 

When I opened my eyes, I found myself sitting upright in a moving vehicle.

 The seat under me, and everything around, was made of cold metal. There were handcuffs on my wrists, and shackles connected my ankles to the floor. I looked up to see Tiffany staring at me with the same worried look from earlier.

 

"What's going on?" I asked; still drowsy from whatever drug was in my body.

"Well it turns out that the hotel we were staying at belonged to the family that currently has control over the Liners – the same people who were after your family."

A sweeping feeling of despair caused my head to feel light and my breath to shorten.

"How are you feeling?" Tiffany asked as she leaned in to get a look at my lowered face.

"I think I'm going to be alright – I'm just a bit dizzy for now... Why do you appear completely fine?"

"When my father was training me, I had to grow immunities to certain chemicals and drugs, so whatever they used didn't affect me. I wanted to get us out of there, but we were surrounded... and they took our stuff."

 

When Tiffany said that, my ears caught some noise from the front of the vehicle.

 

"So this is what one of those bracers looks like up close; boss never lets us see his."

"I wouldn't even want to be that close to the boss – he scares me sometimes."

"Sometimes?! He seems out of it most of the time."

Two men in the front of the vehicle were having a conversation.

"Yah! Don't put that thing on!" One of them said to the other.

"You can't tell me you haven't wanted to try one on..." The curious man responded

"You're not supposed to wear one that already belongs to somebody – it messes with your brain or something."

"Really?!" He carelessly tossed the bracer to the side as if touching it would give him some incurable disease.

 

...

 

"They've been going through our stuff for a bit." Tiffany finally said after the talking near the front of the truck died down.

"Can they hear us?"

"Nope" Tiffany shook her head. "This crate we're in is supposed to be soundproof... but I guess that doesn't apply to us." A small smile crept on her face."

 

The talking in the front of the truck started once more.

 

"So we're just talking these girls to the boss?"

"Boss wasn't even the one who called for the search?"

"Who did?"

"His wife..." The man responded with nervousness in his voice.

A sigh came from the guy he was speaking to. "Now, I feel bad for them: the bosses wife makes him look like saint."

"You're telling me. Did you hear about Kyung? Nobody has seen him in weeks since having that talk with her."

"Yahh....."

 

...

 

"I just wish there was a way out of here." Tiffany sighed as she looked towards the floor.

"They probably made sure that we wouldn't be able to get out very easily. We should just try to make a plan for when they stop the truck"

 

Suddenly, the truck we were in stopped. Tiffany and I stopped speaking so we could hear what was going on.

One of the men from the truck now stood at the back of it and was having a conversation on the phone.

"We've finally caught up to the guy that was with the girls at the hotel." He spoke into the phone. "...Yeah, he's held up in the restroom; my guys are going to get him out now."

 

Tiffany and I looked at each other as he hung up the phone.

"You think its Eli?" She asked me.

"It has to be... but there's no way these guys could follow him without his knowing."

"Maybe he got complacent..." Tiffany responded.

 

 

 

There was silence outside of the truck for a bit before hearing the sound of a door being kicked open.

"Well that was easy." The same voice from before could be heard as the back of the truck opened up. "He didn't even put up a fight." The man spoke into the phone.

 

Eli hopped into the back of the truck with handcuffs on his wrists. Moments later, he was in the same position as us.

"Hi"

 

 

...

 

 

"So how did you end up getting caught?" I asked Eli after the truck began moving again.

He looked back at me with the same quizzical look that he did when I first spoke to him in the parking garage.

"Oh." I looked at his wrist and realized that Eli's bracer had been confiscated, so he couldn't understand me.

With the language barrier, I looked at Tiffany so she would translate what I was saying.

After a reluctant sigh, Tiffany relayed my message to Eli.

 

I decided to look around the truck as Tiffany and Eli conversed in English for a bit.

There doesn't seem to be anyway out... If only we could break these chains...

I stuck my arms out in front of me and tried to spread them out to test the strength of the chains. Even after using a decent amount of force, the chains didn't strain in the slightest, so it was obvious that they would hold.

"Did you think of anything?" Tiffany asked as she finished her conversation with Eli.

"Not really. What did he tell you?" I nodded towards the foreigner

"He noticed that he was being followed the moment he left the hotel, but didn't try to lose them because he figured they wanted us too. Once he realized that we were in trouble, he got caught to try and help us... but he didn't think it through too well, so now he's in the same position as us."

Eli let out a playful laugh and shrugged his shoulders in an attempt to make light of the predicament... but we each knew that our situation was pretty grim.

 

...

 

"zzzzzZZZZZzzzzz" Tiffany had fallen asleep during the long ride and begun snoring.

Things were pretty silent for the past few hours – minus the random loud conversations from the men in the front of the truck.

Eli had kept to himself; staring at random spots for minutes on end. My guess was that he was trying to keep his mind occupied instead of focusing on the current situation.

I tried my best to do the same, but my mind kept trailing back to what was going to become of us.

The lull in everything caused me to feel tired, and my eyes began to randomly shut. Regardless of how many times I tried to wake myself up, it was a struggle for me to keep my eyes ajar. In mere minutes, my body finally succumbed to its drowsiness.

 

...

 

*thud*

A random jolt from behind knocked me out of my slumber.

What was that?

I clearly wasn't the only one who felt the sudden movement: Eli was looking around curiously, and Tiffany rubbed her eyes open as she was woken up.

*thud*

The car was struck from the side once more; causing me to be knocked forward a bit.

 

"What the hell is your problem?!" One of the men in the front yelled.

 

"Are we being attacked or something?" Tiffany asked lethargically.

"I'm not exactly sure..." I respond as I adjusted myself to a more stable position.

The three of us became quiet and braced ourselves for what was next. Any noise or movement was followed very carefully as all of our senses were heightened due to the uncertainty of the moment.

After a while, there was nothing.

The men towards the front of the truck had stopped yelling, and we could hear nothing outside.

"Do you think it's–?"

Tiffany's sentence was cut off by an extreme collision on her side of the truck. This hit was exponentially stronger than the last few; prying everyone, including the drivers, from their seats.

The truck swerved back and forth for a bit before eventually losing traction completely. Within mere seconds, our transport vehicle was sent flying off the road.

For a moment, everything appeared weightless. We all looked at each other with worry as the chains that held us rippled freely in the air.

With all of my senses on alert, it felt like we were in freefall for a while despite it only lasting for a split second. We were then sent on a tumble down a hill.

The impact from the truck connecting with the ground forced me towards one direction; making me reactively put my hands behind me neck, which happened to protect it from the loose chain that flew in my direction.

After a few more tumbles, the truck finally landed on flat ground... but we were upside down.

 

 

The first thing I felt was dizziness. Pain soon followed as I noticed that the chain that whipped across my hand had created a small gash where it hit. 

 

"Are you okay?" Tiffany asked me from her awkward position. She was a bit shaken, but I could tell she was fine.

I nodded slowly. "A little beat up, but good..."

Tiffany looked at my hand and noticed the laceration.

"That doesn't look too bad... I'll check it out once we're out of here."

Tiffany then turned to Eli to see if he was okay as well. He responded jokingly, and pretended to climb the chain that tied his ankles to what was now the roof in the truck's upturned state.

She's definitely like the mother of this "group".

 

We sat around for some time waiting for whatever was next. I turned to look at Tiffany the moment the door opened. Shock flooded her face as she saw whoever it was. I slowly turned my head to see two dark figures standing outside of the door...