After a lazy morning make out session with Wonshik, I finally roll myself out of bed, into some clothing that had belonged to Jean’s daughter before she got married and moved out, (which she had given me permission to wear yesterday) (and also thankfully included a lovely collection of scarves to inconspicuously cover my neck), and into the dining room to see Hakyeon and Rod sitting at the dining table. The wonderful aroma of coffee drifts over to me and I sigh pleasantly. Noticing my entrance, Rod remarks,

    “Well good morning, sleepy. Or should I say good afternoon?”

    “Oh my gosh… is it really that late?” I checked the time, and sure enough, the hour hand was sliding after 1 o’clock. Rod and Hakyeon both chuckle.

    “Don’t worry, Hakyeon here also just woke up, hence the fresh coffee. Jean went out to get some groceries, but she’ll be back soon. Where’s Wonshik?” Rod inquired.

    “He’ll be down in just a moment.” I inform, since Wonshik had been even more reluctant than I to leave the bed this morning. I sit down at the table next to Hakyeon, and Rod gets up to start brewing some more coffee.

    “How did you sleep?” I ask Hakyeon.

    “Surprisingly well, considering I slept on an armchair the entire night.” He responds.

    “You did?? I was going to wake you up so you could sleep in one of the bedrooms, but Wonshik said to leave you be…” I reply guiltily.

    “Ah, it’s probably for the best. I usually have a horrid time falling asleep.” I simply nod, and Hakyeon continues, “What about you, how did you sle…” His voice drops off, and I realize that he’s staring at me. No… he’s staring at my neck. He lifts his hand to pull gently at the top of my scarf, surely revealing the intimate bruises from last night. His hand lingers, and I’m not sure how to interpret the look in his eyes, before I quickly tug the scarf back up to cover my neck better.

My face is heating up rapidly, and I clear my throat, checking to make sure that Rod hadn’t seen the exchange, and smile graciously when he hands me a cup of hot coffee. Hakyeon blinks a couple times, then reverts back to normal. Thankfully Wonshik walks down the stairs just then, and his presence is enough to calm my thoughts.

    “Want some coffee?” Rod offers. Wonshik politely declines.

    “Jean will be back any moment with food for lunch, since you all missed breakfast,” Rod says lightheartedly, “and in the meantime you can hang out, watch TV, or whatever your generation does to pass the time. I’m going to go do some work on my car.”

    “Care if I lend a hand?” Wonshik asks.
    “You any good with cars?” Rod asks back.

    “I know a little bit.” Wonshik smiles, and Rod allows him to accompany him to the garage, leaving Hakyeon and I alone at the table. There’s an extremely awkwardly long silence, then Hakyeon starts to speak, but I interrupt him.

    “Where are we headed next, Hakyeon? We need to leave before they find us.” I don’t look at him as I speak, my gaze concentrated on the swirls of heat coming from my coffee. After a moment of thought, he replies quietly.

    “I’m not sure, but we need to find someone we can trust with this information. Someone who can help us live safely, and maybe even have semi-normal lives.”

I have to stop myself from scoffing, amused at his optimism. Normal? While being in hiding for the rest of our lives? I can’t help but be skeptical about the possibility.

“Alright, so who could that be? The president?” I say, with only a tad bit of sarcasm.

“I doubt we could get an audience with the president on short notice...but maybe if we could get in contact with somebody from the FBI, they could take the matters into their hands. Specifically the head of the FBI.”

“You’re going to try to talk to the head of the FBI?” I say incredulously, finally looking at Hakyeon and raising my eyebrow.

“I think it’s our best bet.” He shrugs. I just slowly shake my head and turn my attention back to my slightly cooling coffee.

“Alright, then. It looks like we’re back to plan A. I’ve always wanted to go to DC.”

“Rose, wh...why-” Hakyeon is interrupted by the sound of Jean opening the front door. We jump up from the table and walk to the living room to shout our good afternoons, and she smiles when she sees us, asking how we slept. We are about to take the bags of groceries from her arms when she stops moving.

She stands there in the open doorway for a moment, immobile. Her wrinkled and kind face looks slighty confused, and ours match the expression, until we notice the horrific stain forming on her shirt. Everything is slowing down, and I feel myself screaming as her body hits the floor, paper bags full of groceries scattering across the floor. I try to run forward, to stop her from falling and hold her in my arms, maybe by some miracle I could save her, but Hakyeon stops me.

He grabs my arms and as I try to wrestle out of his grip, confused and angry at how he could be so heartless to stop me from running to Jean, somewhere in the back of my head I can hear him speaking. Slowly I stop trying so hard to pull away from him, and I let him pull me back into the corner of the living room, my wide eyes never moving from the awful sight. Hakyeon was saying something about the windows, about staying away from them. He tells me that there’s nothing I can do to help her. That it’s too late.

The whole moment, over in seconds, seems to take hours. I try to convince myself that it’s all a dream, that I’m still asleep next to Wonshik and he’ll wake me up any moment from the nightmare with a kiss on the cheek. I close my eyes and wish with all my might, but I snap back into the moment when I hear a window shatter.

Wonshik.

I have to get to him, to warn him and make sure he’s alright.

I look at Hakyeon, still holding onto one of my arms, as though afraid I would try to run back to Jean, into the line of whomever was sniping us. I motion for us to make a break for the kitchen, where we can run to the garage and see if Wonshik is alright. Hakyeon nods in understanding, and on the count of three we dash across the living room, keeping our heads down. I can hear an innocent porcelain angel being blown to pieces by a bullet that’s just a millisecond too slow.

One we finally fling open the door to the garage, the first thing we see is Rod’s body lying on the cement floor, blood pooling in a circle around him. I gasp involuntarily, and force myself not to break down, now isn’t the time to go into shock or let myself be reduced to a sobbing heap.

“Wonshik??” I call into the garage, unable to see anyone else in the room.

“Get down!” Wonshik shouts, and I realize he’s hiding between the car and and an old motorcycle. Hakyeon and I use the car as a shield to move around it and reach Wonshik.

His face is relieved to see the both of us unharmed.

“We have to act fast.” Hakyeon says, as we all crouch in momentary safety, “They’ll come through the doors any second. We need to create a diversion or we’ll never get out of here alive.” My heart is pounding as I realize just how dire the situation is. We need a solution, and fast. Glancing up at the car, I notice that the windows are deeply tinted, and it is almost impossible to see inside.

“I have an idea. One of us can take the car, they won’t be able to see through the windows to know how many of us are inside, more than likely they’ll pursue the car instead of searching the house. The remaining two can take the motorcycle when the coast seems clear, and then we can meet up at the closest airport.” The other two agree quickly to my plan, seeing that we don’t have many options at this point.

“I’ll drive the distraction car.” Hakyeon says, and moves to open the car door.

“No, you won’t.” Wonshik says, blocking his path.

“I can always drive -” I start saying, but I’m rudely interrupted.

“No.” The two say in unison, which is kind of annoying, not gonna lie. I decide not to argue however, but I press them to hurry.

    “Fine then. Wonshik, let Hakyeon drive, we can take the motorcycle.” I try to urge him to come with me, not wanting to be separated, but he just sighs.

    “I’m not trying to compete with him, Rose. The car is a manual transmission.” Hakyeon realizes the point Wonshik is trying to make, and he defeatedly removes his hand from the door.

    “You can’t drive stick shift?” I ask Hakyeon in surprise.

    “Shut up,” he grumbles.

    “Well I can-”

    “NO.” They both say again, and I fold my arms in annoyance.

    “Alright, well I assume that since Hakyeon can’t drive stick then he can’t drive a motorcycle either, correct?” Hakyeon looks embarrassed, and Wonshik momentarily panics until I grab the helmets from the shelf near us and stick one in Hakyeon’s hands.

    “Well at least one of us knows how to do something.” I say, sitting comfortably on the bike. Hakyeon and Wonshik look at me with worry for a moment before I remind them that we do not, in fact, have unlimited time. Hakyeon swings his leg over the bike to sit behind me, but just before Wonshik take his place in the car, he hands me the bag he carried with him since the hotel. “Keep this safe.” He tells me. Slinging the bag over my shoulders, I nod, but make him promise that he’ll also be safe, and meet us at the airport as soon as he can.

    “Ready?” Wonshik asks, and I nod. Simultaneously we start the engines, and he takes a deep breath.

    Wonshik slams the reverse and shoots like a bullet out of the garage, splintering the wooden garage door to pieces. Immediately I can hear guns firing, some bullets hitting the car, others missing and ricocheting back into the garage, startling Hakyeon and I, but none coming close enough to cause harm.

    Luckily the garage door splintered in such a way that it was still mostly hanging on, covering our position. We sit there on the bike as we hear the car receding, finally reaching the highway and taking off down the road. Thankfully the shooting fades with the sound of the car, and I’m not sure whether to sigh in relief, or hold my breath in fear for Wonshik. We wait until the sounds are only distant, then Hakyeon says through his helmet,

    “Alright, let’s go.” Just as I’m about to pull out of the broken garage, we hear shouting from the kitchen behind us.

    “Hey you! Stop!” A man yells, but I’m already gunning the engine by the time I hear a shot glance off a tree, and we race through the forest. When we reach the road Wonshik is nowhere in sight, and I can only pray for the best. We take off, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before they call some of their resources back to track us.

    “We need to get rid of the bike as soon as possible.” Hakyeon yells through the wind.

    As soon as we reach a town, we ditch the bike behind a gas station and Hakyeon hotwires the first unmonitored car we find. Safely back on a populated road, I allow myself to breathe a little easier. I think about the first time Hakyeon hotwired a car for our escape, and suddenly something doesn’t make sense.

    “Hold on…” I say, trying to figure things out.

    “What is it, Rose?” Hakyeon says as he drives.

“Hakyeon, you know how to drive a stick, don’t you?”

Hakyeon is silent, which confirms my suspicions.

“So then, why did you let Wonshik drive the car??” I ask, unintentionally raising my voice.

“I wasn’t going to let him, honest. But Ravi gave me a look when he mentioned the car was a manual, and I realized why he wanted to drive.

He knows that I’m more valuable to Onyx, to the Red Order, to all of them. My death is more of a priority than his. He also knows that you never would have let him put himself in that much danger unless there was no other choice...” Hakyeon says, with a hint of...bitterness? I can’t blame his reasoning for the last part, but I’m still upset and I don’t understand why Hakyeon’s death is so much more paramount.

“Why? Why are you so important?” I demand in frustration.

“Partially because of my father, and partially because...I kind of sort of may have possibly memorized the list.”

“...Oh.”

“Just in case, you know, it fell into their hands.”

“You’re an idiot, Cha Hakyeon.”

“I thought it was a pretty good id-”

“That’s not what I mean. I meant, now they’re not going to rest until you’re dead.”

“Oh.”

I sigh, and lean my head back on the headrest. I don’t blame Wonshik for tricking me, and he was right, I never would have let him be the one to make the distraction if it didn’t have to be. Which causes a flutter of guilt, knowing that I would willing choose to put Hakyeon in danger over Wonshik. Not that I don’t care immensely about Hakyeon, but… I don’t think I could live without Wonshik.

He’d better be okay.

I think about Rod and Jean, and the guilt expands. It’s our fault they’re dead. No, our fault they were killed. Our fault their children and grandchildren are suddenly missing parents and grandparents. They were so kind and helpful, and we caused only pain to them and their family. Suddenly, I have more drive than ever to stop these people and see them brought to justice. I decide that I’ll do whatever it takes to bring down the people responsible for this. For all of this.

Whatever it takes.