“Babe, are you sure you will be fine?” Kris asks for the nth time as Sooyoung prepares, dabbing powder on her face.

The woman sighed, “Kris, we had gone through this yesterday. Why are you so paranoid? I am just going to the shopping mall to buy some groceries. This is not the first time I will be going out with Summer and Kyungsoo.”

“I don’t know. Can we just postpone that for tomorrow?” Kris moved to stand beside her.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, she turned and silenced her husband with a kiss.

“Now, don’t spoil your daughter’s mood. She had been expecting this,” then she grabbed her purse. Before going out their bedroom door, she turned around, “Get Lay to follow us when he gets home okay? If that will make you feel better,” then blew her husband a kiss.

It’s actually normal to have Lay not around for a night or two, but not answering his calls and messages is new. Xiumin even lost track of the tracking device placed on his phone. It alarmed Kris and the rest of the boys, but they have to wait for another day before setting on searching for him.

“He could be anywhere nursing his broken heart,” Baekhyun had once stated since all them were aware about what had happened between him and Hyoyeon.  And they even know he can deactivate his tracking device.

**********

Summer had been jumping on her steps as they return to their car after three hours of shopping. Sooyoung is holding her with a handful of paper bags on her other hand while Kyungsoo pushes a cart full of groceries.

“I’ll arrange that on the compartment. Check the hood after securing Summer inside, okay?” Sooyoung smiled as Kyungsoo nods back, letting her push the cart behind the car.

Sooyoung hums as she arranges the paper bags and the plastic bags behind the compartment. She did a check on the receipt and count the bags. Suddenly, she could not hear movements from the head of the car. After securing the bags, she closed the compartment and moved to check her daughter but the backseat is empty, except for the bunny stuffed toy that Summer was holding a while ago. The hood of the car is still up so she checked it, hoping that her daughter is getting curious about what Kyungsoo is doing, but when she saw no one, she grabbed her phone.

Kris had picked up after the first ring, “Need a help?”

“Kris, Kyungsoo and Summer are missing. They are not in here,” she frantically replied as she tries to scan the whole deserted parking lot.

“They might have returned the cart and decided to sneak up away from you. You probably know how playful your daughter can be.”

“I am the one who arranged the groceries on the compartment,” she hissed, moving away from the car after closing the hood. She searched for the whole ground, peeking over the parked cars where the two might hide.

“They might have went off to buy some ice cream.”

“Kyungsoo will never leave me without asking permission and you know that,” she spats back, fear creeping all over her heart already.

Getting too occupied with the call, she was not able to hear two men approach her from behind. She was just startled to feel their strong hold on both her arms.

She started to wriggle and squirms off their hold, fighting them off and she yells, “Let me go!” and tries to free herself.

“What do you want? Let me go you freaks!” she yelled again, trying to free herself from their grasp as they started to drag her down.

With all her will to free herself, she is still holding her phone with the ongoing call that Kris heard all the ongoing commotion. She was not able to hear his shouts on the other line as she tries to free herself. When they managed to drag her a few feet away from her car, the phone slips off her hand. They placed a handkerchief on her nose and the pungent smell made her world go blurry as she finally loses consciousness.

**********

 Kris heard the loud thud from the other line and his wife’s voice fading. There were footsteps and shuffling and a roar of a car’s engine. The line went dead. He did not saw how one of those men dropped a large stone on Sooyoung’s phone as it breaks into pieces.

Sooner, the black van left the parking lot, leaving Sooyoung’s car full of groceries.

**********

Kris was so appalled and literally froze when the line went dead. He started to call her again, but the line cannot connect. He tried for Kyungsoo and had to curse when the phone rang beside him since the said guy decided to leave his phone to get it fully charged.

The present boys was just left to wonder what could be happening on Kris that he had been going all over his phone, trembling and all.

“Hey, you okay?” Luhan placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Damn these connections! Xiumin, get me Sooyoung’s location right now!” he bellowed startling the pretty boy beside him.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Luhan asked as the others scamper to get to the living room.

“Someone kidnapped my wife and my daughter and Kyungsoo. Damn! Where is that Yixing?” he bellowed and grabbed his car keys.

The lines barely registered on the remaining boys.

“Did he just say kidnapped?” Baekhyun whispered.

They all exchanged looks and when the fearful thought finally sinks in to them gets on to follow the Chinese blond.

Chen, Baekhyun, Kai and Tao went to chase after the frantic Chinese blonde who went over the place where Sooyoung usually parks their car when they go shopping.

They found him beside the car, holding her broken phone and looking lost as ever.

“Hyung, do you think of anyone who might get them?” Kai asked as they approach him.

“Let me go and check my bastard of a father, if he is still in here,” then with the broken phone in his clutch, he went over to Tao’s black motorcycle and puts on the helmet, ignoring the said guy’s protest.

**********

He barges on his father’s office, slamming the door.

“Where are they?” he hissed, stopping by the door from the pointed gun on him.

His father waved off his guards and they lowered their guns as he storms past them to slam on the old man’s desk.

“Speak up, where are they?” he growled.

“Who?” his father casually asks.

“You know who I am referring. Now spill the beans or I will plant a bullet in your head,” the he pulls a gun behind him and points it to his father, disregarding the movements behind him. He is aware of the guns pointed at him right now, but he doesn’t care. They shoot and he shoots too, fair.

“Brave enough to have me at gunpoint. Now, who are these people you are asking from me?” Zhangyin casually leaned on his swivel chair. 

“ YOU! JUST TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!” he bellowed, pressing the gun on Zhangyin’s forehead.

“Give me a name because I am not a mind reader,” Zhangyin calmly replied, which all the more arouse his son’s suspicion.

Kris pointed the gun on one of Zhangyin’s man and it surprised his father how he was able to hit the said bodyguard precisely in the forehead, just between his eyebrows without even looking at the target.

He pointed again the gun on his father, “Now tell me where you kept them,” he hissed.

“Should I act scared now?” his father grinned and it frustrated him all the more.

He lowered his gun, giving up but still glowering at his so-called biological father. “If I learn that you are the one behind these things, then better pray for your soul, father.”

“Might as well do the same on your soul, son,” then Zhangyin watched his son leave his office.

On his way out, he caught the sight of a stuffed bunny lying aimlessly on the carpeted floor. But he dismissed it, too worried on where to start looking for his wife, daughter and Kyungsoo.

**********

Hyoyeon had been tossing on her bed, feeling too tired and all from doing all her hunt yesterday to narrow down her list of sixteen members. She was startled to see his panic-stricken brother barge inside her room.

“Hyo, bad news!” he exclaimed.

She pulled herself up, “Bad news?”

“Sooro and Kibum are missing,” Kyoung Jae exclaimed.

Hyoyeon let out a small laugh, “Come on brother, you can do better than that,” then she lay on her bed again.

She was just startled when Kyoung Jae pulled her up, “I am dead serious! The last time they were sighted was on one of the secluded ports for an exchange. One of our men managed to escape after the assault. There’s even a letter sent on us,” then he shoved it on her palms.

When he opened the letter, there are only few sentences. It goes like this:

IF YOU WANT THEM ALIVE THEN SURRENDER THE GROUP AND ITS ENTIRE SAVINGS. YOU HAVE FIVE DAYS TO HAND IT OVER.

There were no signatures or the likes. But there were no names mentioned.

She turned to her brother, “Are you sure these were all that is provided? There were no names given.”

Then Kyoung Jae remembers a brown envelope given earlier before the letter. He went down and fetched it.

The two of them stared wide-eyed at the pictures inside. They were captions of people bounded which the two of them knew. On one picture are a gagged and blindfolded Sooyoung and Kyungsoo tied up back to back on a chair. The other one is a small girl blindfolded and tied on a separate chair, back-to-back with another girl but years older. The next pictures were captions of Sooro on a steel chair, blindfolded and securely tied from the waist up to his chest with silver ropes which she recognizes as steel wires, same with Kibum. There’s also a picture of an old lady, although they cannot pinpoint who is the woman since the caption had been blurry.

“I thought it’s just Sooro and Kibum,” Kyoung Jae whispered.

“Keep this, don’t let Kris saw it,” Hyoyeon handed her brother the picture of the old woman.

After exchanging looks, they scampered away from her room to get to the Wu’s mansion and inform those people.