Gwiboon wasn’t appreciating the rationing of her formula very much, but Jinki didn’t know how much longer they would be stuck here and there was only so much left. It hurt him to have to pull her from the diaper bag, little hands moving to pull out the now empty bottle. She could sit up on her own and was beginning to roll and crawl, but he still had to hold her secure so she didn’t tumble off his lap looking for more milk. Her nose was scrunched up and her face was beginning to turn red in frustration, and all he could do was give her his finger to chew on and hope Jonghyun finished soon. Hunger gnawed at his stomach still, but he was fine with the water bottle tossed at him every couple hours by Kyuchul. He could last without food for longer than he could without water.

He could take a guess that the timer was close to 24 hours gone by the position of the sunlight coming from the window. If he learned enough he could look past the furniture pieces and see out of the window at the bright blue sky. Right now he should be putting Gwiboon down for her nap in her new pajamas that Jonghyun had been so happy to buy her. He should be sitting on the couch and taking a breath before going to make him a sandwich while he called Jonghyun at work because he missed him or because he was running so quickly to get to work he didn’t get to talk to him that morning besides a quick kiss and a call of goodbye. He shouldn’t be sitting in a rundown cottage in hell knows where appreciating all the time he has with his baby girl and living off memories of the man he may never get to tell he loves again.

It wasn’t hard accepting death, but it was hard to accept never seeing Jonghyun again.

                                ------

Jonghyun was going to lose his mind. When he closed his eyes he saw code. His thoughts were just code and numbers and letters. His body was shaking and he was pretty sure his stomach was growling with hunger, but his mind was so busy he didn’t take notice of it. He was just past the 24 hour mark and his adrenaline was starting to fade. Exhaustion was tugging at his eyelids, but each time they almost won he fought them open again. He would sleep when Jinki was next to him and Gwiboon was between them. Safe.

He screamed when he finally made it through firewall 7 and moved from his seat so hard and fast his bottle of water fell on the floor.  He groaned as his back cracked as he straightened and his wrists popped as they moved where they were supposed to be.  He scrambled for the haphazard notes full of the virus he had designed waiting for the program to hack through the last few firewalls. He wrote the page number on the top right hand corner and it took him a moment to gather them all to put them in the right order. His good laptop was sitting in the locked desk at his work, and this old one couldn’t handle much than it was already, so he waited to create the virus until he was done. He had no idea how long the virus would take to go through the network and delete everything having to do with the project. He wanted to make sure there was enough time for it to do it’s job and for him to shred everything he had at home. He knew for a fact there wasn’t much in print for the department hadn’t managed to switch to hard copies just yet.

    He cracked his fingers a couple times before sitting back down and working on putting in the virus. He made it this far. He’d make it to the end. When the virus was finished and functioning, he pushed enter and the virus was sent through the open firewalls and into the mainframe of his department. A little loading bar appeared to the right of his screen and slowly it began to fill up. It was way too slow for Jonghyun’s liking, so he pushed from the table to go find his files he had hidden from Jinki. The virus didn’t need him. That’s what he liked about viruses. They were silent if constructed right, and lethal with the right creator.

    He found the box under the bed behind the wood barrier. When he had unscrewed the wood paneling and pushed the box under there in the first place he had felt guilty for hiding it from Jinki, but he knew now more than ever that it was a good thing that he had. He tried so hard to keep his family life away from his professional life, but he failed and his family was in trouble. He figured that if Jinki had known anything other than he worked for the government and with computers that there wouldn’t be a chance to get him back. He shimmied a little to reach as far as he could to pull the box out. The shredder in the smaller bedroom they had turned into an office for him. Jinki didn’t do much work at home, so he didn’t need a space of his own.

Jonghyun took a moment to take a breath as he sat in the big office chair before picking up the first section of the paper to send through the shredder. He had no idea how the man would know he had done this, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Plus at this point, he had no intention of returning to work. If it was this dangerous to his family the government could themselves.  When he was finished he dumped the paper pieces in a garbage bag and tied it off before heading back into the dining room. The bar was only 14 percent full and time was ticking away.

    15 hours left.

                                -------

Jinki pushed up Gwiboon’s shirt to gently rub her tummy. She was half asleep, little eyes fighting to keep open, but as his hand kept moving over her skin she was slowly losing the battle. If there was a bright side to all of this Jinki knew how much she loved being held and here she was being held for going on 30 hours. His jaw was aching more and more, his right eye’s vision a little blurred with the swelling he knew was happening. His back was starting to hurt from sitting against the wall for so long, and his legs were beginning to fall asleep, but he wouldn’t move. Gwiboon was asleep, and the longer she slept the less she could sense something was wrong.

He was told that close to midnight they would be moved from this location to the switch site. On one side he was happy that it was getting close because he could get Gwiboon out of here. He was running out of formula and only had a couple diapers left. On the other side, he knew what was waiting for him at the end of this time and he wasn’t completely sure he was ready to say goodbye to his family the closer he got to the switch time. The leader hadn’t been in the room for some time and Jinki wondered where he was. He seemed to like to torment him. Eating food in front of him, drinking cold water when he knew he needed some, and talking about Gwiboon like he wasn’t harming her by threatening him. Kyuchul was asleep against the wall, but Jinki wasn’t going to do anything. Maybe if he was alone, but not with his almost 6 month daughter.  He hoped all this didn’t stay with her even if she was too young to actively remember.

                        -------

Jonghyun felt like screaming as the bar kept slowly filling up. He never thought there was so much on the project in the department’s database, but apparently, there was. It was taking a lot more than he could have ever estimated. He had 4 hours left and 20 percent of the bar to fill up. He had never been confident that he would finish in the time allotted, but this was getting way too close for comfort. If only he knew who was behind all this to tell the police because there was no guarantee they would be left alone after this was all over. And that’s when he got the idea.

There wasn’t any paper that wasn’t used around him and if he didn’t start writing the code running through his head he’d forget it. So he grabbed the marker and pushed up his sleeve and began to write on his arm. He didn’t want to risk doing two things at once on the computer and it crash, making him start all over on the virus.  When he was done both his arms were covered in writing, one messier than the other, but it was legible.

    It took another hour to finish deleting everything in his department’s database, and he quickly sent the virus again to make sure everything was covered. When it was done he quickly switched to revising the program he had stolen from the database before the virus was sent out. If his idea was going to work he needed to change a line of code in multiple places throughout the program and he only had a few hours left. Jinki and Gwiboon didn’t have time for him to make a mistake.

    3 hours left.

                        -------

“It’s almost time to see if your husband came through with his end of the bargain.” Jinki didn’t look at the other man as he talked. He focused on how Gwiboon was holding her own bottle and smiled proud at her. He heard footsteps coming closer and he looked up just in time to see the leader leaning down to him. “Am I not interesting enough for you to pay attention to?”

    “I wouldn’t say you aren’t interesting. I’m just tired of this place. You, him. The guns pointed at my child and I. Would you find this interesting if you were in my place?”

    The man hummed, “You have a point. Good thing I don’t have a family.”  Jinki thunked his head back against the wall as the man started to walk away, but then his hair was being gripped tightly in the leader’s fist, and his head was being tugged from the wall so his face was so close he could feel the other man’s breath on his nose. “When we go to the switch point, you will be quiet and follow what I tell you to do down to the period at the end of my orders. Do you understand?”

    Jinki sneered at him. “Perfectly.”

    His head was thrown against the wall and his vision blurred for a second. He squeezed his eyes shut and put pressure on his eyes, taking turns with his one hand that wasn’t around Gwiboon. He was too busy trying to stop the buzz in his ears to notice the leader dialing a number on the cell phone until he heard him say his husband’s name. “I’m so glad you answered Jonghyun. I do hope you are done with my requirements. Time’s up.”

                        ------

    “I am. All papers shredded, files deleted, and program on an empty laptop expect the project. Where am I meeting you to switch?”

“Top of the mall parking lot downtown. Any sign of police or law enforcement and I’ll shoot him. Understood?”

    Jonghyun’s fingers curled in his sweatshirt as he said, “Completely.”

    “Good. You have 15 minutes. You can guess what will happen if you’re late.”

    The call was cut off a moment later. Jonghyun took a breath before grabbing his keys and the laptop before heading out of the door and running to the car. He probably looked like , but he couldn’t care less.

14 minutes and 15 seconds left.

                        -----

Kyuchul was ordered to tug him to his feet and push him toward the door by a big hand on his back. His legs were so numb he stumbled a bit, but he caught himself as he held to Gwiboon tight. The diaper bag had been over his body already, packed and zipped earlier because he knew they’d be leaving. He was shoved into the back of an almost windowless white van and not even a minute after the door slammed closed the car was speeding off the gravel.

    He heard the leader’s voice directed at him a couple minutes into the ride, “When we get there I’m going to send someone for the laptop, and once we get it, you’ll both be released. Understood?”

Jinki panicked. If they did the man’s plan than Jonghyun would see one of them, and if he saw one of them they had more reason to shoot him and Gwiboon to be without both of her parents. “No wait. Let me do the trading. The baby for the laptop.”

    The leader squinted at him, “How can I trust you?”

    “I haven’t done anything to risk harm to her. Trust I won’t start now.”

    The man seemed to think about it for a moment before agreeing. “Fine, but know there are guns on you if you do not do as planned. You step out with the baby and you bring that laptop right back. No funny business.”

    “There, switch, right back.” Jinki let out a breath when the man turned away from him.

                        -----

The parking lot was eery this late at night. It was completely empty as Jonghyun drove up to the top. He still had about 5 minutes according to the clock on the radio, but his stomach was still in knots. When he pulled up he turned the car off but kept the lights on. A few minutes later a white van zoomed up the ramp and stopped across the parking lot. Jonghyun thought about driving closer, but then the doors were opening and someone was being pushed out of the vehicle. It took him a moment to realize it was Jinki.

    He quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed the laptop. The keys were left in the ignition. He walked around the car and held the laptop in both arms as if he was hugging it, but his eyes were on Jinki walking toward him. In his arms was Gwiboon, fast asleep and curled against his chest. As Jinki got closer Jonghyun’s heart dropped. His eye was almost swollen shut, jaw bruises and bottom lip obviously swollen and cut. He still smiled when he finally got in front of him. Jonghyun reached up with a shaking hand to gently touch his eye. “You lied to me. They did hurt you.”

“If I had told you the truth you wouldn’t have been able to focus to get us home.” Jinki kissed his forehead before pulling away. “    There’s guns pointed at me right now so I don’t have much time. I’m here to trade Gwiboon for the laptop.”

    “But what about-”

    “Don’t worry about me. Take Gwi, get in the car and drive away. Don’t look toward the van okay.”

    “I’m not leaving you!” His voice rose a little, but JInki quickly shushed him.

    “I love you. Please.” Jinki took the laptop from him and pushed Gwiboon into his arms. He kissed him once more before pushing him toward the car. “Go.”

    Jonghyun reluctantly turned from him and did as he was told. Jinki didn’t leave his spot until Jonghyun was in the front seat, then he quickly turned around and moved toward the van. He didn’t hear the car move against the pavement, but he didn’t look back. He hoped and hoped Jonghyun would do as he was asked. When he finally made it to the van the leader stepped out of the shadows of the vehicle and took the offered laptop away. He has a smile on his face. “You really were a great dad. Your baby girl is beautiful.”

    Two shots rang out into the cool night air and Jonghyun’s world stopped.

                        -----