My hands are rubbed raw, almost bleeding after having scrubbed at them with my now discarded overalls until I could get no more dried blood off. Zelo, already having bandaged most of my injuries, is sitting on a crate with an emergency medical kit in his lap. The Rat's knife hit deeper than I originally thought; on the bright side, it didn't hit any major blood vessels and as far as we can tell the knife wasn't tipped with anything. While he sits there rifling through the kit for thread and a needle, I fire up the comm.-link. Waiting to tell the others what happened was the last thing we need to do.

"I'm sorry Himchan, but you've lost Zelo."

"Why? And what happened to you? I just saw you an hour ago and now you're covered in blood. That better be someone else's!" he grumped jokingly, trying to lighten a dreadful atmosphere.

"That's the problem. It is someone else's."

He goes quiet and he pales. "You don't mean Zelo…"

"I mean that a Rat followed Zelo and got too close."

"… Are you okay? I mean relatively. What about him?"

"He'll be okay eventually, but he's never had to fight out in the field. I know we're building an exo suit for him too, but if I could I'd keep him out of this altogether. I wish he had stayed hidden, Himchan… I wish he hadn't watched."

"So what you're telling me is you've been a hell of a lot better."

"I guess. Look, I gotta try to get in touch with Daehyun now; when he gets back, you and Youngjae watch each other's backs. And have him send the geographic coordinates of the Shelter as well as its depth over to VIXX next time you talk to him. We're going to have to get creative with our exit strategies."

"Of course. Keep your head down." The little screen sitting on my knees goes black and I turn it off.

I sit back against the wall with a groan and I close my eyes, dropping my head back against the cool stone. "Junhong, have you found the stuff yet?"

"Yeah…" he says nervously, "but I don't know how to do this."

"I don't care how you do it, just close it up and don't sew yourself to me," I grumble. The pain is starting to over take the adrenaline and even my cleaned and bandaged wounds feel like they're on fire; all I want right now is for the stab wound to be closed up.

I reach over to change the frequency before turning the power back on; my screen slowly focuses as I hear N's voice float out. Whoever he's involved in a heated argument and whoever he's with mentions "central city," though which one is unclear – every district has a central city.

"If you're not about to kill each other, I have something I need to discuss with you, N."

I'm not planning on actually letting him ignore me in favour of the argument, but I figure I should at least humour him. N, not expecting to hear from me, jumps at the sound of my voice and turns to face his comm.-link. He looks distressed and irritated.

"Bree, where did Daehyun go?"

I'm stunned. "Excuse me?"

"Where did your younger brother disappear to?" he seems put out with me, like I was plotting against him.

"I – I really have no idea what you're talking about." Zelo looks up at me with a worried expression. Had Daehyun been caught? "N, should I be panicking? Did he disappear on a run?"

"In a sense." The bottom drops out of my stomach. Apparently horror is etched across my features because N is suddenly back-pedalling, his eyes wide at the realization of just how much he's scaring me. "No no no, it's not what you think. When he went to Bangtan to drop off the rookies he took Taylor with him, which is fine. Don't get me wrong. But afterwards he yelled at us over their comm.-link that they were headed to central city and then they kind of just… poof."

"Oh my – I'm going to kill him."

Zelo drops himself on the floor beside me, his hands full of supplies for fixing me up. "Actually, if he has Taylor with him then it might not be such a bad thing. It means he can't come directly back here. When he drops her off, they will have the chance to intercept him before the Rats do."

At the mention of Rats, N suddenly takes notice of my appearance and of Zelo washing blood off my left shoulder. "Bree, why are you bandaged up and bloody? And why are we talking about Rats again?"

"I'm sorry but this is going to hurt," Zelo mutters just loud enough for me to hear.

He pinches the wound on my shoulder together and sticks me with the needle, forcing a stream of profanities from my mouth and making me flinch, my knees jerking up towards my chest and knocking the comm.-link to the ground. I don't think he realizes going slowly makes it even more painful, but he's doing his best so I keep my mouth shut and let him work. Dabbing up any blood that beads up from the stitches as he's going, Zelo blows gently on the cut in the hopes that the cool air will make it feel better; it's not much, but it's a small comfort.

"Bree…" N complains after a couple of minutes, "all I can see is your bum, and it's upside-down!"

"Almost done."

"Gimme a minute, N. Zelo just has a couple more stitches left."

"It's okay, take your time," someone else half-shouts. "He's probably enjoying the view!"

"Hey!" Zelo has stopped and is giving the comm.-link a dirty look. "That's my sister, Hyuk!"

Giggling from the men.

"What?" I ask.

Everyone on the other end bursts out laughing as N starts yelling at them all to shut up though the laughter doesn't cease.

"What's funny? I don't get it, Junhong."

Zelo looks back at me and his face turns pink. Before anything else is said he goes back to focusing on my arm, finishing the last two stitches quickly and gathering his things to run away. N has gone back to arguing with the others and I'm frustrated by the waste of time.

"Everybody, just shut up!" I snap, gingerly picking up the comm.-link. Everyone stops and stares. "I didn't call to talk about butts. We've got a serious problem and I'm going to need your help getting out – literally."

"I'm guessing the problem is why you're all bandaged up?" N asks and I nod.

"One of my men informed me earlier today that he and the other foremen have been seeing people walking around in the mines who don't look or act like they belong. Newbies never look like it either, but these people are sniffing around the south-eastern quarter. It's only a matter of time before they follow the central shaft all the way down and find the Shelter, especially if we keep moving things up and through the main tunnel."

"What do you need us to do?"

"I'm going to have a tunnel started straight out from under the Shelter but digging it from one end will take too long, even though our machine does take a fraction of the time. If I remember correctly, you had Jongup over there a few years ago to build one for you as well. Set it up – Youngjae is going to send over the information you need and you all will start digging from both ends.

"In the mean time, we need to make ourselves scarce. Maybe head to BTS or LC9. There was an issue with a Rat today; Zelo was followed and I didn't make it out unscathed when the tunnel was found. I have to find Yongguk still, but unless something changes, he'll be the one contacting you from now on."

Worry flashes across N's face. "Do I need to bring down the main tunnel?"

"No. If I thought word of its existence had gotten out, I would have destroyed it myself."

There is an oddly sad silence that passes between us. I have been in contact with him for a long time now and there is something comforting about him; even if it was always business, talking with him has always been easy and the knowledge that I won't be able to contact him again leaves a feeling like I've been punched. I'm losing a friend.

"Bree, I –"

"Sorry, I should go," I interrupt, not able to look at the screen. "Tell Daehyun he can't come home. Goodbye, N."

"Oh. Yeah… Bye."

I try to ignore the saddened tone in his voice as I flick the power off and adjust the frequency. Zelo comes to sit down beside me again and puts an arm around me – I exhale suddenly, not realizing I had been holding my breath. The call to Youngjae is quick. He asks me why I'm bandaged up but I dodge his questions, only giving him my final orders before asking to speak with Yongguk. I almost flinch when he tells me Yongguk has already left. The last thing either Zelo or I need right now is to go back out into the tunnels to search for someone, but it doesn't look like we'll have much of a choice. On the other hand, I have a good idea of his general whereabouts.

*****

Half an hour later, my hair is hidden in a hat I'd taken from someone on the way down and I'm trailing behind Zero as we make our way west. There are new shafts being opened up for mining that branch off from the main south-western corridors, but that still leaves the question of which level. The western half goes deeper than anywhere else, below even the level of the Shelter. Those levels though, are not all connected to any one specific shaft and it isn't difficult to get turned around in there. All in all, it's not a climbing adventure I'm looking forward to considering my present condition – truthfully, I don't know if I can even do it. We're rounding the last corner leading to the south-western quarter when someone comes running around the corner and crashes directly into me, knocking me clean off my feet.

I don't even have the time to look to see who it is when I'm being hauled up and dragged away. I immediately recognize the hand on my forearm.

"Yongguk? What –"

"Shut up and run!" There's an unmistakable edge of panic in his voice. "We have to run!"

Zelo is making sure to stay behind me as I struggle to keep up with the man pulling my arm; I can't even keep up with the turns we're making as I'm practically being dragged along. We skid to a halt at one of the lesser shafts and Yongguk practically throws himself around the ladder, shouting out orders for the shaft to be cleared before grabbing the sides and sliding down to the very bottom. If he's this worried about speed then…

I immediately understand when I finally listen and hear boots pounding the ground behind us.

"Go!"

Zelo practically pushes me onto the ladder and I follow Yongguk's lead. Once the three of us are on the bottom, we're off running again.

I can feel my fresh wounds begin to bleed again as we wind our way through the tunnels when I notice the moving tunnel is up ahead.

"Yongguk!"

"I see it!"

I pull a flare from my bag and slam the -end against the wall, setting it off.

"Zelo, get ahead of me and don't stop!" I shout, slowing to let him taking at pass.

I grab a foreman's bag from his shoulder as I run towards the tunnel, accidentally knocking him over as it's ripped away. Every foreman is Matoki and every Matoki keeps charges in their bag. Even with mine added to them all, I don't know if it will be enough to close it off. I run into the tunnel and drop all of the charges, scattering them across the floor to create something like a chain reaction. Our pursuers are getting close and I light a new flare.

As my improvised detonator sails almost gracefully towards the charges I turn my back to keep going, but the explosion created was more than enough. The tunnel was brought down easily and it's starting to crack and cave in above me. I push myself harder to outrun the falling stone when I hear Yongguk and Zelo shouting something.

I hear the cracking directly above me and I throw my arms up to shield myself.