Heechul ran through the halls of the dark maze. She couldn't remember where she was or even how she got there. The shadows lurked around her, chasing her and nipping at her heels, The faster she ran from the the quicker they seemed to catch up with her. She tried to scream but it was choked out by a thick feeling strangling her, blocking any air from reaching her lungs. She was jolted awake bu Hankyung shaking her furiously, a t-shirt over her nose and mouth muffling her screams.

The room was thick with smoke and a bright orange glow was coming from underneath the door. Heechul began to panic when she realized their apartment was on fire. Hankyung didn't say anything but kept his eyes on the steadily burning door when he felt the woman get off of the bed. Not bothering to grab any of their belongings other than their animals who were thankfully in the room with them, they ran down the fire escape and onto the cold street. Sirens could be heard as they approached the burning building. Heechul and Hankyung looked on in silence as the fire spread through each of the rooms, the rest of the building's occupants gathered around. Some sat on the sidewalk and cried as they watched their posession go up in flames. Others paced the asphault. One couple behind them started screaming at each other. Heechul cuddled Lola to her chest and buried her face in the soft fur, not wanting to watch what was going on. Hankyung put Ringer on the ground, commanding to obedient dog to stay, and pulled the now trembling woman into his arms.

"Hankyung, what are we going to do?" Heechul asked once she was finally able to calm herself enough to pull out of his arms. They now sat on the curb across from the burning building, watching the firemen do their job. Heechul looked up and saw Hankyung's thoughtful eyes reflecting the glow of the flames of what had been their home. But he wasn't paying any attention. His thoughts at the moment were occupied with many questions that arose from one observation. The fire had seemed to spread from their apartment. That meant that it had started there. And he had a theory as to who. This was no normal electrical fire. Not to mention the only thing that woke him up had been Ringer's barking. Their fire alarms had been tampered with. Someone had been in their home. That meant that either him or Heechul or both had been targeted. Had it just been them? Or was this arsonist now targeting someone else?

"Hankyung?" Heechul inquired again, trying to get the distracted man's attention. What happened next seemed to go in slow motion for the couple. Hankyung turned his head to look into Heechul's glowing eyes. As soon as their eyes met, a high pitched scream echoed through the air mixing with a loud explosion coming from down the road a ways. In the direction of the main office buildings... and Leeteuk's apartment.

The couple sprinted in the direction of the now blazing fire. Heechul's fear only grew the closer they got to the site. The familiar white building was now crumbling in on itself. People were running all over the place, screaming for their loved ones. Heechul and Hankyung stood in shock as one of the middle floors collapsed, taking the top half of the building with it. Hankyung moved in front of Heechul to block her from the heat that washed over them from the blazing flames. He ignored his own silent tears in favor of wiping hers away. She buried her face in the cat's fur and leaned into his strong arms. This wasn't happening. None of this was real. She was just going to wake up in morning and find out that this was nothing more than a bad dream. The grey furball in her arms started wriggling until she was finally able to snake her way out of her owner's arms and onto the ground.

Heechul broke away and shouted after the cat, running after her, not wanting to lose her too. She finally found Lola weaving between a man's legs, rubbing her head against his shins.

"Lola? What are you doing here?" Leeteuk bent down and picked the cat up into his arms. She purred softly into his chest. Leeteuk was the only other person Lola liked. She was still hesitant about her owner's boyfriend. "Where's your momma?"

As if understanding the man's words, she jumped out of his arms and walked a couple of feet to his left only to end up at Heechul's feet. Leeteuk looked up from his position on the ground to find the young woman staring at him in disbelief, a panting Hankyung behind her, just now catching up. The younger man looked away when Heechul ran the couple of steps to her leader and collapsed into his arms, sobbing into his shoulder. He her hair as he whispered comforting words to her, trying to get her to calm down. After she had stopped shaking enough to pull away, Heechul wiped her face and lifted Lola back into her arms, needing something to hold on to. Leeteuk stepped back to allow Hankyung the spot of comfort for the woman. She was his girlfriend after all.

"I sent a text to everyone to meet us at the cafe. We'll discuss what we need to do from there." Leeteuk said, leading the couple and the animals towards their headquarters, hoping the crowds around them would cover their trail should someone decide to follow them.

The basement cafe was occupied by twelve silent bodies. They each sat with their significant other or family member. The tension the room could be cut with a knife when Ryeowook finally spoke up, unable to handle the stress the silence imposed on everyone.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice timid and obviously on the verge of tears. Yesung’s arm tightened around her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Leeteuk leaned forward, rubbing his temples in an attempt to relieve his headache.

“Whoever is after us made their first attempt to get rid of us.” He explained as best as he knew how. In truth, he had no clue what was going on and had no better explanation than the next person.

“Then why has he only hit you three? The rest of us live closer together. It would have been easier to do away with us first.” Kangin asked, regarding the only three who had been directly affected by the attempt. “You two live together, yes, but Leeteuk lives a good ways down for you. He could have easily taken out everyone else instead of jumping around.”

“Yes but we’re the only ones that had insight to everything that was going on behind the scenes. We have information that you all didn’t have access to.” Hankyung explained. Heechul looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Well, not everything.” She muttered under her breath, still bitter about not knowing who Hankyung was. It was still hard for her to process all of the information she had come to know over the past week. This new incident did nothing to help with that stress.

“Leeteuk is our leader; Heechul is our second-in-command; and Hankyung is the liaison. There’s no reason for them not to be targeted first. Take out the pillars and the whole structure collapses.” Eunhyuk threw in.

“The questions we should be asking are: who is after us and who are they sending to do the dirty work. Once we know that we should be able to come up with a way to counter their attempts.” Siwon suggested.

“The first part should be obvious. We screwed up that assignment and they’re trying to do away with us to hide the evidence. There’s not enough time for us to figure out who is ‘doing the dirty work’ as you put it.” Kibum looked up at his boyfriend, expressionless.

“I have an idea who.” Hankyung said. Everyone turned to look at the liaison from the main branch. “When I was working in the profiling sector, I ran across a man we called The Dragon. He’s one of the lead arsonists in the cover branch. This looks like his work. Our alarms were tampered with before the fire started. And the first fire was timed perfectly and was slow enough that everyone would be focused on that one while he set off the explosion at another location.” He nodded towards Leeteuk who had been lucky enough to not be in his apartment at the time, having worked overtime at the publisher’s to make up for the loss of time he had suffered because of earlier moving activities. “Take out the liaison and the second-in-command slowly while you get rid of the leader in one strike and leave the rest of the unit in shambles. Though, I have no idea why they would have him on this job. He was kicked out two years ago. He must be back on the unit.”

 “Well then, let’s find out as much about him as we can about him.” Leeteuk said. “Sungmin, Kyuhyun, do you two still have access to the databases?” The couple nodded and stood up, knowing exactly where to go. They disappeared behind the door that led to their office. Leeteuk looked at the rest of the unit. Everyone was obviously still on edge and unwilling to go back to their own homes for fear of finding their homes meeting the same fate as their leaders’. Leeteuk understood this fear and didn’t say anything.

“At least we know the danger is real now.” Yesung said, unsure of what else would be appropriate. “It wasn’t just an empty threat.”

“Is that what you needed to realize that?” Heechul finally spoke. Her voice was tense and dry. “Three of us losing everything? Was the last time not enough to put you on edge or maybe make you assume that this was real?”

“Heechul, calm down. He’s just as much in shock about this as we are.” Hankyung tried to calm his now trembling girlfriend down. She glared at him for a moment before speaking again.

“No, Hankyung. I don’t think he is. He’s not the one that lost everything. Where are we going to go? If you haven’t noticed, there are three of us without a home now!”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Hankyung said.

“Well I’m glad.” Thick sarcasm dripped from her voice with the comment. Hankyung ignored it and looked at his leader.

“What if we left for the main branch?”

“What do you mean?” Leeteuk asked.

“If we infiltrate the main branch then we may be able to find out more about what’s going on.”

“So you just expect us to up and walk into the place where there are hundreds of people waiting to kill us?!”

“Precisely.”