Luhan had just finished wiping up the blood off the floor when Tao came in the room, smelling like smoke and winter.

“I burnt them.” He said as he crossed the room and checked the surveillance cameras the two had set up on the cargo ship.

“Who were they?” Luhan picked up a lighter and entered the washroom, where he set the bloody dishrag on fire before dropping it in the toilet and flushing it down.

“No clue.” Tao shrugged, eyes trained on the screen ahead of him. “But whoever they were knew about us and our plans. I found this on them.” Tao held up his phone, where Luhan found pictures of the dead men. He grimaced a little at the bodies ahead of him, but shook it off as something caught his eye.

“Are those brand marks?” He asked, incredulous.

“Yeup. Whoever they work for branded them. They’re no regular men, they are someone’s property.” Tao finally met Luhan’s eyes. “And we just destroyed someone’s property. Luhan, do you know what this means?”

“What?” Luhan frowned as he handed Tao back his phone.

“We’re pretty close to whatever we need to find. Think about it, why else would someone send their henchmen, and not just any ordinary henchmen but really loyal henchmen-”

“Loyal enough to want to get branded by their mark for life.” Luhan mused.

“…loyal henchmen to kill someone.” Tao continued. “And I have a feeling we’re not dealing with just any smuggler. This seems pretty big.”

“Why do you say that?” Luhan moved forward to look over Tao’s shoulder and his eyebrows shot up as he saw what was going on.

“.” Tao muttered, feeling a little sick.

Luhan and Tao bit their tongues in disgust as they watched torture proceedings.

“That’s not just any cargo ship is it?” Luhan muttered. “What have we been assigned?”

“We’ll find out in a couple of hours, won’t we?” Tao shut the laptop computer before swiveling in his chair and coming face to face with Luhan. “Let’s go over the plan once more.”

“GODDAMIT TAO!” Luhan burst.

Yixing woke up with a massive headache. He had a vague feeling of being rocked, as if he were driving on a bumpy road. He groaned lowly as he cracked his eyes open. He his cracked lips and moved to a sitting position.

“Oh, you’re up.” The man driving the cart spoke up.

“Yeah. Where are we?” Yixing’s voice was dry and rough, his throat parched.

“Almost at the end of the road. Quite literally.” The man pointed ahead and Yixing saw that just past their buffalo, the dirt road gave away to pure sand, after which was the vast desert.

Yixing shut his eyes. He didn’t know where he was headed, he only knew that the man in front of him had somehow arrived on scene as Bobby’s henchmen had smashed Yixing’s head with a bat. He had saved Yixing’s life, and that was all Yixing was told. The man refused to divulge any more information on how he had come about saving Yixing, or even how he had come upon the scene. Yixing was thankful, but he was also weary of the stranger. He didn’t know who he could trust anymore, especially after Bobby’s betrayal.

“I need to relieve myself.” Yixing croaked.

“There’s a shack of sorts up ahead. You can use the washroom there.” The man smiled.

Yixing could only nod, his throat not working. The head injury had taken a lot out of him and it seemed as if all those years as a spy had finally all come crashing down. His body ached everywhere and he knew there were now new scars decorating his skin. What was Jongdae going to think of his even more imperfect body now?

Jongdae. The name was the only thing that kept Yixing going. Jongdae will find him. He had to.

So lost in thought was Yixing that he didn’t realise they had reached the shack until the man gently poked his cheek playfully.

“Hey, we’re here.” He said his eyes soft. “You can go in, I’ll wait out here.”

Yixing nodded thankfully before he slowly got off the cart, his muscles screaming in pain. He hobbled inside the shack and felt around before he found the piece of paper he had kept tucked into the waistband of his boxers ever since him and the stranger had stopped a little while back in a small town for supplies. Yixing knew he had to leave behind some clues for Jongdae. He knew Jongdae wouldn’t give up searching for him.  He couldn’t.  With what little hope he clung onto, Yixing poured words out onto the sheet of paper and stuck it into the washroom mirror.

Find me, Jongdae.

“That sounds brilliant, Chanyeol.” Jongin gushed as Chanyeol finished explaining his theory.

“Wait, you think so?” Chanyeol blushed. It was no secret that Jongin had been offered the mastermind position in the company before he chose to continue with his spy training.

“Yeah. I think so. I also think you should tell Kris. He needs to know.” Jongin got up from his seat and offered his hand to Chanyeol.

Chanyeol grinned as he grabbed Jongin’s hand and pulled him along as the two ran to Kris’ office.

“Was that Jongin, grinning like a schoolgirl in love that just ran by holding Chanyeol’s hand?” Kyungsoo asked as he entered Baekhyun’s office.

“Hmmm? Oh yeah. They’ve been kind of dancing around each other for a while now. Chanyeol has been claiming that Jongin is on legs. How did you not notice, Mr. Mastermind?” Baekhyun teased as he looked up from the metal contraption he was tinkering with.

“I don’t know, I think I was a little too busy noticing my own version of on legs.”

“That makes no sense, but I’ll let it go, because I know what you mean and that’s extremely flattering.” Baekhyun winked as he grabbed Kyungsoo by the waist and swung him around. “Now come help me with this robot I’m working on.”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes as he followed Baekhyun to his workbench. Leave it to his boyfriend to be so focused on his work that he forgets everything else.  He pouted as he threw out the bouquet he had hidden behind his back.

“Stop pouting and you better fish that bouquet out of my trash before I turn around Do Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun spoke up from his workbench, already tinkering with the robot. “I won’t let perhaps the only romantic gesture you have ever done for me to go to waste.”

OK, so maybe he wasn’t all that ignorant. Kyungsoo smiled to himself as he fished the bouquet out from the trash.

Kris looked up from his work to see a slightly out of breath Chanyeol and Jongin at his door, holding hands.

“Are you planning on telling me of your impending elopement or something?” Kris raised his eyebrow at their adjoined hands before raising his eyes to their faces.

The two blushed and immediately let go of their hands. “Chanyeol here has a theory, and I think you should hear it.” Jongin clarified.

“Sit.” Kris motioned.

“Ok, so basically, you remember how we think someone switched the SIM cards from Joonmyun hyung?” Chanyeol started.

“Yes, and we realised that Joonmyun was the one who was walking around the building, but someone else was outside, making the calls.” Kris continued.

“Yes, but we forgot that he hit Baek. See, I’ve been looking at the results the lab gave back, and they found fibers in Baekhyun’s would. Cotton to be exact. Now, Joonmyun hyung wears synthetic argyle socks. It’s just a personal preference of his. That clears him of the blame, relatively. Now, that leaves the unidentified person who was able to override the system and break into the building, swap SIM cards without a spy noticing, and attack a mastermind.” Chanyeol waited expectantly.

“It’s an inside job?” Kris asked, confused.

“KRIS!” Chanyeol screamed, jumping on his desk in excitement, “AS HYUK! HE IS THE MAIN DATABASE! HE WOULD KNOW!!!”

Jongin grinned as he bobbed his head in assent. “Our resident database could tell us who hacked him!”

Kris rubbed his forehead, a little upset at all the noise surrounding him. “Ok, Ok. Let’s ask Hyuk.”

“Great. NOW you remember me.” A voice spoke up right behind Kris, scaring him.

“Holy! HYUK! We talked about this!” Kris clutched his heart.

“Or what? You’re gonna tell mommy?” Hyuk cackled as Jongin and Chanyeol watched on.

“You two…talk?” Chanyeol asked.

“We’re besties, right Krissy-boo?” Hyuk began laughing again, much to Kris’ chagrin.

“The bestest.” Kris rolled his eyes. “Now will you please answer our questi