word count: 2205

They file into the room, one after another. Each takes his spot in the room; Luhan sits closest to the Dealer by the window; Chen sits comfortably on the worn, leather sofa; Lay reclines lazily beside him while Tao perches on the very edge of the last available seat. The King is the last to enter to the room. His stance is tall, long strides and with a hint of dominance as he finishes buttoning up the front of his blazer. He sits in the darkest of chairs; a rich looking arm chair with real leather. They sit in silence for a moment while a butler serves them each their respected drinks.

Chen takes a sip of his bubbly beer, “You know, I don’t even understand why we’re here in the first place.” He looks around the room, avoiding eye contact with the glaring Boss, “I mean, Rose still hasn’t cracked and all we’ve done is had Tao kill the rat and Xiumin put away the idiot’s best friend.” With a nervous chuckle, he takes another swig of his cold drink, “We should just go for it.”

Xiumin swirls his cocktail before taking out the olive and studying it carefully, “Chen, we’ve been over this. We can’t do that unless we want to be caught.”

The smiling man shakes his head in exasperation, “I know, I know. I’m just saying—”

The Lover’s purr cuts him off, “It doesn’t make sense. We should attack from the inside out.” He leans forward, his eyes glinting with excitement, “I found out that Mr. Jeon has a daughter named Amanda.”

“Amanda?” Lay quietly repeats, his Mud Slide rocks slowly has he stretches, “That sounds American.”

“Her mother is white.”

“Amanda Jeon?” Kris mumbles, “Interesting.”

“Yeah and get this,” Luhan pauses for effect, “She’s Roses best friend.”

The King chuckles darkly, “Very interesting. Good work, Luhan.”

This causes a honey slow smile to come across a proud deer’s face. He takes a victorious sip of his Shirley Temple before nudging Tao to speak up. Tao looks down at his fruity alcohol before speaking, “Luhan and I were talking, and we think it would be a good idea to use Amanda as a way to get Rose to talk.”

Lay speaks up, “How? Rose refuses to say a thing even though we’ve beat her, threatened her, starved her…what else could we do?”

“We could say that we’d hurt Amanda if she didn’t talk?” Xiumin suggests with a hint of hesitation.

Lay sighs loudly, “By what? Kidnapping her again?”

“No, I got it,” Chen leans forward, his empty beer bottle nosily clinking as he places it excitedly on the table, “We could make it seem like we have Amanda by using only pieces of information that only those two could know!”

“Spying?” Tao whines loudly, “I don’t want to spy on her; it’s boring!”

Luhan chuckles lightly, “I learned a couple of things while I was with my Customer.”

Kris tilts his head slightly, only an observer in the debate, “Like what?”

“Well, Amanda is half-Korean, half-American. Her and Rose have been friends since grade school. A lot of things like that,” He shrugs, “Maybe if we say enough, Rose will crack. Except something was bothering me about that girl.”

Xiumin gulps down the rest of his own drink before taking Luhan’s out of his hand, “Amanda?”

“Yeah,” He shakes his head, not able to quite put a finger on it, “She had a really piercing gaze. Like it could see right through me.” The man waves a hand in front of his face for effect.

“Yah, you’re just a wimp!” Chen exclaims noisily, “You’ve always hated direct eye contact.”

“I know but it was too intelligent for a girl in her first year of university.”

“So? She could just be one of those kiss--students.”

Lay bursts into laughter, tears welling up in his eyes as he struggles to get out his next sentence, “You would know!”

Chen growls, “What do you mean?”

“You bought a cake for our English teacher in second year of high school!”

“She was pretty!”

“She was forty!”

He grumbles loudly before getting up, “Aish, this is so annoying.”

“You’re annoying.”

“What did you say?”

“I see you also have bad hearing.”

“Do you wanna die!?”

Lay and Chen now stand face to face, sizing each other up and invading personal space. “Shut up, both of you.” Kris uses an assertive stop-this-bull kind of tone with the two children. The wolves back down but their fur is still spiked and ready for a fight, “This is what will do.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at each of his fellow pack members before continuing, “We should take this slowly, we don’t want to get cocky. It would be easy for us to send in Tao to assassinate this man but then we wouldn’t get the secrets he has plus the secrets he stole from us.”

Torturing wouldn’t work either,” He continues, “This man will die with his secrets if he could so instead, we have to use something to get to him. His daughter doesn’t seem to know anything and if she does, then she’s not saying anything.”

“Then what do you propose?” Drawls the Lover.

As Kris moves to answer, a knocking sounds on their fancy wooden door. Every single wolf freezes in his spot, not a single one breathes. The knocking rings out once more, bouncing off the walls of their hidden room. Wolves exchange glances and move into defensive positions. Kris stands, his hand moving to the gun halter on his belt, “Who’s there?” He calls.

“Delivery for Huang Zi Tao!” Sounds a feminine voice from the other side.

Kris turns an angry glare to a confused Tao, “Did you order anything?” He keeps his voice low.

Tao shakes his head, “Not that I can remember.”

“You’ve got the wrong apartment!” Kris says once more, trying to keep a leveled voice. He’s shaken up from the idea that someone knows Tao’s real name.

“No, I didn’t.” The female voice begins to darken, “Let me in Wu Yi Fan.” Another name she knows has Kris gesturing to the back door. The members begin to slowly file out of the room, keeping as quiet as possible. Everyone leaves until Kris is the only one that remains. He drags one of the plush chairs to one side of the coffee table and another to the other side. The wolf leaves the room before quietly brining in his chess board. As he’s setting up the pieces, the woman finally finishes pick locking her way into the room. She says nothing as she looks at Kris expectantly. He’s never seen this woman somewhere before; her long dark hair is pulled into a tight pony tail that falls softly over her pale shoulders. She would be pretty but her face is covered with a smiling mask; the very same that Chen wore that day.

Another girl enters the room, wearing the exact same mask. This girl Kris has no memory of. Her hair is pixie cut and as sharp as the look Kris is getting. Her milky brown skin tenses around tone muscles as she stands just behind the first girl’s leaner body. A third walks in, this girl does not wear a smiling mask but instead wears a frowning mask with a tattoo across her collar bone. Kris reads ‘Do or Die’ written in a majestic letters with careful precision.

Kris sits down in one of the chairs, gesturing for the Frown to do the same. The girl does not hesitate in taking a seat across from him. Her curvy body is accented nicely in a leather jacket and tight jeans. She sits across from him before moving one of her pawns a couple spaces forward; going for an offensive position. With a tilt of her head, Kris watches her shoulder length brown hair falls softly to one side.

“I suspect you’re here for Rose.” Kris states, moving a pawn forward; a defensive position.

Frown says nothing but the two Smiles standing on either side of her pull out a couple of calibers. The metal gleams brightly in the sun streaming through the large window. Frown takes out her Queen and moves it into a risky position.

Kris chuckles darkly, “that was risky.”

Frown says nothing.

Kris moves again; another defensive move laced with tactics and a back-up rook.

Frown begins taking out the pawns; one by one. She continues to destroy his front lines with both her knights backing her up. Kris suddenly moves in a hasty manner causing Frown to stand quickly and pull out her own caliber. “Rose.”

Kris shakes his head, “You know we can’t do that.”

The leaner Smiley all of a sudden walks towards Kris, raising her gun and swiftly bringing it down across his jaw. The strike sends jolts of pain to the Boss and blood wells up under his skin to produce an already bruising wound. Before he can recover, Frown is squatting on the coffee table in front of him, holding her gun to his forward with a relaxed stance. “Where. Is. She.” Her voice is dark and melting; would be a soothing voice in a different situation.

Kris spits blood, “You know I can’t tell you that. Her father stole secrets from us!”

The pixie Smiley puts the man in a head lock, squeezing angrily, “We’re about to steal more than secrets from you if you don’t start talking.”

Kris coughs, not much air being able to reach his lungs, “I dare you.”

Even though he can’t see her face, he can feel a glare of anger radiating from behind the smiling façade. He chuckles when he hears the click of a customized gun; Chen has re-entered the room. “Back away slowly.” His voice is dark and menacing causing the Masks to move quickly into defensive positions. The moment the girl’s grip loosens from around his neck, he easily throws her over his shoulder and into the Frown. Both girls roll away, surprised by the sudden attack but easily get up to their feet. Now all three stand with guns pointed to Chen and Kris.

“Leave now.” Kris growls, wiping the blood from his mouth.

“You know we can’t do that.” Frown replies ironically.

Kris shrugs, rolling back his shoulders with dominance radiating off of him, “The die.”

Chen is the first one to pull the trigger but it’s the Smileys that get the first hit in. Chen’s hand drops the gun as brilliantly red blood drips from a wound onto the floor, splattering in an abstract way. “You !” He spits angrily at the girls who continue to shoot, forcing Kris and Chen to take cover behind the couch. The moment they take shelter, he hears one of the girls scream in pain as a bullet pierces her upper right shoulder; curtesy of none other than Tao.

Tao has hit frown who angrily continues to shoot at the new wolves who have entered the room. Xiumin, Tao, Luhan and Lay have all come in for backup after hearing shouts of distress. The girls know they are outnumbered and back up towards the open door—the way they had come in. Frown continues to hold her shoulder wound, making sure no blood drops onto the carpet for hidden identity purposes. As they reach the door, the Pixie Smiley slams it closed but the wolves move fast and open the door to find an empty hallway. No trace of the Smileys anywhere.

Chen shakes slightly, wincing in pain at the bullet wound. Lay comes over with thick bandages, stiches and disinfectant. The wolf takes Chen’s hand and expertly assesses the wound as a clean bullet shot; it went in and out. “Hold him down.” He orders Xiumin and Luhan who hold each of the wounded wolf’s shoulders while Lay unscrews the top of the disinfectant. “This is going to hurt.”

“A little?” Chen winces as he sweats in pain.

Lay pours the liquid onto Chen, causing him to scream loudly and curse God, himself. “A lot.” He replies once the cleaning has been finished. Carefully looping string into the needle, Lay begins to stitch up the wound quickly on one side and then move to the other wound before Chen loses more blood. “Done.” He says a few moments later after he finishes wrapping it in gauze.

“I’m going to kill those things!” Chen shouts loudly, pulling his hand towards his chest, “And you!” He says accusingly to Lay.

The man shrugs, “I saved your life.”

Xiumin nods in agreement, “He’s right, stop being such a hardass and just say thank you man.”

Chen refuses to look at them as he gets up and stumbles out of the room, light headed and angry. Kris is standing at the window, watching the streets carefully for any sign of the women.

“Besides shooting Chen, did they take anything?” Luhan asks the leader, coming up beside him to watch the streets.

Kris looks back to the chess board to find the white queen missing. He sighs, turning back to the window and the busy streets below, “No.”