Panicking, he shoved the letter back inside the envelope, set it down with fumbling fingers and looked desperately for a place to hide. The only place that he could possibly fit into was the space between the desk and the back wall. Carefully he squirmed into the hiding spot, trying not to make any noise. He grimaced at the thick layer of dust down there, but it was his best chance of survival. Who knew what would happen if Mr Evans discovered him down here?

His heart was pounding so loudly he feared whoever was coming would hear it, and he started sweating, and the moment he remembered that his heart racing might set off his hormone implant and give him away, it started beating even faster.

Now he was nearly hyperventilating too, and whoever was on the other side of that door was opening it. He covered his mouth with his hand to try and stifle his breathing, and pulled his knees to hischest, resting his cheek on them and hoping he wouldn't be found.

More footsteps across the floor, heading in his direction. A screeching noise as the chair was dragged across the floor, and sat on.

After a moment, the sounds of fingers skittering across the keyboard, and then the usual computer start-up noises. If he was preoccupied then that meant he wasn't looking for him, so he let himself relax a little. He was probably too focused on his work to be looking for him.

He wasn't looking for him. Yet.

Unfortunately, he suspected that he would be there for a long time. He had no idea how long he normally spent in there. Hell he didn’t even know if it was actually Mr Evans; he couldn’t see him at all from there. Since it was his computer, it would make sense that it was him, however.

Feeling relatively safe in the knowledge that Mr Evans probably wouldn't find him here, he let his mind dwell on the contents of the letter and what it could mean. If Isla was the one who kidnapped Tao, and they were communicating, then that would mean Mr Evans was behind the whole thing? Or maybe someone else? What could he possibly hope to gain by causing so much stress and pain?  He stewed in the dark corner, going round in circles with not enough information to figure out any answers.

After maybe ten minutes, his was getting numb from sitting on the hard floor, and his back hurt from being in this hunched over position, but he couldn’t move.

Mr Evans’ phone rang, a preset melody, and he answered it quickly,

“Y'ello? I’m kind of in the middle of something right now, what do you want?” That was not Mr Evans voice. It wasn’t even the guy he was talking to earlier. Who was this guy.

“Yeah? , ok. I’ll get going then.”

That was definitely not Mr Evans’ voice. This was someone he'd never met before. He wanted to try glancing around the edge of the desk to see his face, but the position he was in prevented him doing that without attracting attention. The sound of the computer shutting down reverberated through the desk, and the chair noise indicates that he had just stood up,

“Mm, but I think I may’ve found some evidence we can use to hold him down…yeah we might be able to help these poor kids after all…no, no I’m going now. Yeah.”

By kids did he mean him? Help how? Who was this guy? Judging by the way he was trying to escape, that probably meant he isn’t supposed to be here either. He slipped out of the room hastily, but only after he was certain he’d gone did Sehun stretch his legs. He rose to his feet, legs muscles protesting fiercely, and his back aching. He grunted, stretching out his backmuscles, and dusted himself off.

He then hobbled over to the door and peeked out through the gap to make sure there wasn’t anyone around. When nobody came running down the hallway to do him in for trespassing, he slid through, and ambled back the way he came, hugging the walls in the hope of being stealthy.

Sehun realise he must look suspicious, but there was no way he was going to be able to force his face into a more natural expression after that bombshell.

Who was that guy anyway? He didn’t get to see his face, so he wouldn’t be able to recognise him if he ever saw him again, and he doubted that just having heard his voice would help in any way. What was he even doing in there? Evidence? Evidence of what? And then there was the fact that Mr Evans unquestionably had something to do with Tao's kidnapping.

Sehun's head was starting to spin from information overload; he needed to talk to Tao to get this all straight in his mind.

He turned and began his ascent, but he wasn't looking where he was going and bumped into something,

“Sehun! Nice to see you’ve left your room.” Mr Evans exclaimed falsely. Sehun glared at him; after everything, he didn’t think there would be anyone that he would ever hate more than this man,

“Yes,” he replied, unwilling to give him anything more than one word answers.

“What are you doing down here?” He said jovially, but he could see in his suspicious eyes that he wasn’t happy with him being so far from his quarters, and so close to the research wing of the building,

“Nothing,” he spat, in a way that he hoped will be construed simply as 'grumpy teenager' rather than ‘I hate your guts’.

Skirting around him, he continued back upstairs, leaving as big a distance between them as he could. He look over his shoulder to check that he was gone, and he was so he started to sprint the rest of the way. With luck, he’d just assume that he went to visit his parents, but not actually clarify it with them. It occured to him that he hadn’t spoken to them properly in nearly two days, and he missed them a little.

When he got back to his room, he flopped onto the bed and lay still, willing himself not to explode. At this point he wasn't sure calling Tao was a good idea until he was sure which parts of the information he just learned corresponded to what. So, Mr Evans and Tao's kidnapping were related, and there was a guy who just hacked Mr Evans’ computer, and found something possibly important on there, and who wanted to 'help the poor kids'.

It seemed to him that Mr Evans was basically an all-round bad guy, which was what he'd thought growing up, but never for real. The coil of tension inside him was twisting itself tight and tighter, and he knew that if it snapped, he was going to go crazy. He grabbed his phone, selected Tao's number, and waited for him to pick up. He hoped he wasn’t busy, because he desperately needed him right now,

“Sehun? Are you ok?” Tao answered, and some of the rigidity he'd been forcing upon himself melted away at his voice,

“Tao,” he curled up on his side and wished he wasn’t there, he wish he could just be with him.

“Sehun? Something’s wrong isn’t it? What happened?”

"Yeah," he paused before trying to explain, “d-do you remember that woman? You said she had a mask on? Did anyone ever say her name?”

“No, I already said they didn’t,” Tao replied, sounding impatient. They'd been over this a few times, and Tao had already repeated about a thousand times that he couldn't identify her.

“Well she’s called Isla, and she and Mr Evans apparently know each other,”

“…What?” Sehun hated that he was the one to make him sound like that; vulnerable and quiet. But he pressed on,

“Yeah, I just went through some of his stuff-”

“But-”

“I know you told me not to, let me finish, ok? So I looked at one of his letters and it had the logo from the building you were in on it, and it was signed by ‘Isla’, who they were talking about earlier, and then Mr Evans came in, so I hid behind the desk,” Tao hummed disapprovingly, “and he logged on and stuff. Then his phone rang, and it wasn’t him; it was some other guy I’ve never met before, and I think he was talking about us, he said about ‘helping the kids’ and ‘finding evidence’ about him.”

Tao was silent for a while as he took in all of this, Sehun could imagine the gears turning in his head as he bit his lip.

“So…what you’re saying is that they’re all on the same side?” 

“Yes. But maybe, if I can find this other guy, we have someone on our side too.”