It was a typical Saturday night, me and the gang just chilling out together. No worries, no hassle and no companies yelling at us for not pulling our weight or making enough sales or whatever hell madness that they wanted us to do. That was all in the past, long forgotten about and buried.

The world thought we were dead and gone, killed in some terrorist attack and by rights we should have been. All twelve of us agreed that we shouldn’t have still been alive, sitting around a roaring campfire in the middle of some tropical Island paradise drinking beers and goofing off as if we didn’t have a care in the world.

If it wasn’t for the Triple X program, we probably all would be dead and gone by now.

I cast my eyes lazily to the right, watching as Baekhyun and Kai wrestle openly on the floor and for a moment I nearly revert back to my old leader styles and tell them to pack it in before remembering that I’m no longer that guy. That guy is dead, killed trying to protect his brothers and fans so I don’t need to do that anymore. I just have to be ‘Nicks’, no more Yifan, no more Kris…just Nicks Zhou.

But when a table gets knocked by the pair and causes the drinks to go flying, I can’t help myself, “Hey! Watch it you two! You’re spilling the beer!”

“Oh stop being so prissy about it, baldly,” the sass will never leave Baekhyun no matter what name they give him and quite frankly I’ve forgotten what it is already. That brown-haired poodle will always be Baekhyun to me, even if they made him shave his head and taken martial arts lessons to try and at least look somewhat like he belongs in this program. Though there again, with his rather deadly knowledge of guns and other shooting equipment I doubt that he’ll need to worry too much. Just wish I’d known he was a sneaky ninja sniper a long while ago, it would have saved freaking hours of trying to calm Tao down when he was convinced that there was a ghost in the house.

Thankfully Kai takes the opportunity to pull Baekhyun into a strangle hold and pull him back to the floor, knocking the table once again and this time knocking everyone’s beer off which just causes an uproar of yells of complaints. If we weren’t on downtime right now I would be hissing at everyone to remain quiet but right now it’s easier to curse the two out for being little bloody brats.

However, a knife lands not too far from Kai’s head and a freezing glare is sent his way by none other than Kyungsoo. It took us no time in the slightest to realize that the little devil spawn was totally proficient in bladed weapons because hell the way he used to carve up the vegetables for dinner used to be close to terrifying. “Kai, behave yourself,” is all he said, leaning back against the window and casting his eyes out almost in a bored fashion.

Jongin lets Baekhyun go with a sheepish look but is swiftly out of Baekhyun’s grab range and disappearing from view. It’s almost funny to think that Kim Jongin would be best at hiding himself in a crowd, appearing to melt away and disappear. I wonder if some of the company lot were involved with the Triple X program but I’ll worry about that later.

Shaking my head, I move off because really I don’t need to boss them around anymore. It’s technically Suho’s job to do but he’s hiding upstairs in our little safe house once again and I think I may just take a moment to go and see him. Escape the madness of the kiddies because hell even though I love them to death I could quite happily murder each and every one of them right about now.

Especially since my mini ninja panda is currently watching our dozy unicorn with rapt attention as he brews up something vile that will probably kill slowly over time. Lay rather likes giving his victims the sweet joy of a prolonged death, despite being the biggest softy at heart but I wouldn’t want to mess around with him in the slightest. I’m pretty sure that he put something in those cookies he made earlier too and there’s no way in hell that I’m even going to think about touching them. Tao is just being a sneaky little sod, playing the dumb innocent kid who is fascinated by the whole process but in actuality he’s probably after a coating for his blades to make his assassinations easier.

Yes, the cute little panda whose afraid of bugs and ghosts will conduct the vilest murders and then slip away without being detected. Sometimes I wonder if I am the only sane one in this group or not.

Well excluding Xiumin and Chen, they’re still fairly normal but there again I suppose they have to be. Intelligence gathering whilst you’re off your meds is not easy in the slightest and it takes a steady mind to be able to drive a car at breakneck speeds without slamming into the nearest wall. I was surprised at how good Xiumin was at getting information, but I should have known it was him who leaked those private photos of mine online a long time ago because he may be all smiles and our baozi but he’s a sneaky little sod.

Chen’s been riding bikes, driving cars and doing all sorts of things he shouldn’t have done since he was little. Apparently, he even had a go at racing properly one time but gave it up to become an idol. I don’t think I could begin to put up with the troll’s comments if I ever asked him why but I’m sure he’ll be very happy covered in axel grease as he plays around with one of his new babies. Everyone tells me off for calling my plushi’s that but Chen calls his motorbike the same thing and no one complains at him.

There’s a small bang from the pier, making me jump in surprise before I turn my attention out of the nearest window to see what caused it. Of course, it’s Chanyeol and his fireworks, whoever told him where they were hidden is going to pay because no we will not get any sleep because the pyromaniac happy virus will be on for hours with those things. Not the best situation to have when you’re supposed to be laying low but no one is going to go near our little fire puppy now. Maybe to throw some water over him and the rest of the fireworks but to be honest the last time we tried that it ended rather badly.

Plus, I can see Kyungsoo lurking nearby so I ain’t going to wait around to see how that goes. Those two are just way too freaky together and I’m sure they’ll end up doing it on the dockside or something. Yes, they’re like that unfortunately and it’s rather complicated so I’m not going into any more details.

Walking around the corner of the corridor, I find myself in what has been dubbed the library and pull up short because there’s two girls in the room when there shouldn’t be. I mean, sure there’s been girl’s here before but only when someone throws a party and they’re usually gone by the next morning. Though a giggling snort comes from one of them, the hot blond on the right who’s wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top that are actually now rather familiar now that I take a moment to look at them because they have Donald Duck patterns on them. It only takes a deep chuckle from the spicy red head on the opposite side to make me realize what is going on.

Sehun is practicing his disguising skills, even though they’re nearly pure perfection anyway and Luhan’s either been roped in or is doing one of his crack downs through his laptop with some unsuspecting ert. Not even one of us realized that Sehun had the ability to basically make himself look so unrecognizable that even his own mother couldn’t have recognized him in a line up as he stayed way clear of anything to do with makeup or wigs or clothes outside of the stuff that we had to wear. I dread to think what would have happened if the company found out but thankfully that’s all in the past now.

“Ha, see, even old mister. Fridge is by you,” Sehun grinned wickedly towards Luhan who gives an eye roll in response before going back to playing on his laptop.

“Yeah just don’t let Kai catch you like that, Hunnie, or else you may not be able to sit down for a week,” I chide as I pass by, accidentally on purpose hitting the back of his head with the bottle of beer that I’m carrying with me. I ignore his complaints as I head to where I know Suho will be, smiling at the small man as he pours over documents in order to memorize them completely and then chucks them on the fire.

I smile and sit down next to him, offering him the bottle of beer but he shakes his head. “Distraction,” is all he says but there’s a soft little smile under it which makes me smile because he knows it’s what I’m best at doing. Distraction techniques.

It’s a shame that he has a perfect photographic memory, he remembers everything from every day of his life down to the most minute detail and I fear what that will do to him one day. He smiles again, throwing another document on the fire, “I can hear you thinking from here.”

I shrug, “Well that’s a good thing, ain’t it?”

“What are you worried about Kris?” Suho asked, his voice calm and collected

“You calling me that for a start,” I reply before sighing and leaning back, “Just wondering about all this you know. It seems like we’ve just been slotted in perfectly but we shouldn’t have been.”

Suho nods in response, casting his eyes down, “It does but we made the choice and without that choice we would have been dead by now.”

It’s the truth, we would have been but it still doesn’t make anything easier. We slip into a comfortable silence, me taking occasional swigs from the bottle of beer and Suho studying his papers before burning them. After a while my eyelids get heavy and I lay down on the sofa nearby. “Wake me up if they get too troublesome,” I tell Suho lightly.

“Will do,” Suho responds, though it’s heavier now, “Nicks.”

The next thing I know I’m tumbling off the sofa with black smoke choking my lungs and causing water to cascade from my eyes. Everywhere around me is blazing with flames and I don’t even have a clue as to where I should run or if the others are okay. I try calling out but there’s no response and I’m really beginning to choke now on the heavy smoke. Though suddenly the window on the far side of the room caves in and a man, tall, broad with a balding head and tattoo’s all over his arms comes in like some crazy hero.

He’s wearing a gasmask and as he turns he spots me, hurrying straight over to plant one over my face and says something vaguely sounding like, “You okay?” but my hearing isn’t what it used to be. Five minutes later I’m outside, breathing reasonably fresh air and feeling completely delirious because everything is just a mess.

The safe house we had is on fire, there is no sign of my brothers in arms and I’m suddenly faced with the prospect of being alone. The man who saved me kneels down next to me, after I’ve been given some water, and he blinks slowly, “Okay, kid, any idea what happened here?”

“Who the hell are you?” I ask in Mandarin, coughing harshly and expecting him to be confused.

“I’m Xander Cage,” the man replies, “I’m part of the Triple X Program, just like you.”

I stare in surprise, the Xander Cage is talking to me, wait the Xander Cage rescued me?

Suddenly my brain starts to work and I look back towards the burning house, “No! Where’s the others! Where’s Suho! Beak, Chen, Luhan, Tao, Sehun, Kai, Soo, Channie and Min! You have to get them out! They’re trapped in there too!”

“Whoa, easy kid,” Xander says softly, catching my arm and pulling me back down to the mud, “There was no one else but you in there.”

“No! That can’t be, they’re in there, I was talking to them not a...” I stop, realizing that I’m missing something important, “What day is it?”

“The twenty-third,” Xander replies, “Why?”

I stare at him blankly, “Three days? How...how did I sleep for...”

Slowly I turn to look back at the house, where I had last seen everyone and feel my heart break. They left me? For three days? No, that makes no sense, they wouldn’t do such a thing. Then where are, what is going on?

“I think we need to get you to a medical Centre,” Xander cuts in, having been speaking to someone else but I didn’t pay attention to them, “Come on, kid, we’ll figure this all out.”

“It’s not kid,” I reply, having swapped to English at the same time that Xander did, “It’s Nicks.”

Xander nods, “Right. Come on, Nicks, let’s get you out of here, huh?”