The silent communication is being exchanged between Yebin and Hyomin for one last time before the hired nurse leaves the room led by Uee. The faint noise behind the door confirms that the door is being locked from the outside again, and Hyomin can only sigh. After a night full of thinking, she isn’t sure if the plan they secretly discussed these last couple days when they were left alone would work, but she couldn’t be like this forever, and the longer they stay, it’s like more they are about to face hidden harm, Hyomin feels bad that she has to put Yebin in great danger too but as far as Yebin is concerned, she starts to feel weird around her former teacher Uee, and she doubts whether Uee is in her right mind to help her friend who is suffering from mental disorder to do this , and every word Uee talks to Yebin, it sounds more like threatening than instructing now so the sooner they could escape, the better it would be.

“Mom and dad, please stay by my side and help me through this”

Hyomin silently prays, she is weak but at the same time feels encouraged thinking of the faces she missed so bad. The past week and so has been bitter time for her, but she knows those who love her would feel no difference, Jessica must be worried sick and Jiyeon might be having her sleepless nights being restless, and she is confident they are trying to find her too but sometimes God chooses to answer your prayer in a different way. Hyomin can’t lie but she was greatly surprised to see Yebin here, a person she ran into once, in a different country and now in this hopeless place, a girl who as soon as Hyomibin stares back at her, is not difficult to tell she has a crush on her. Hyomin knew it from the start, but she pretended not to know because she believed it was for the best.

According to Yebin, this place is quite far from the main road which is surrounded by thick forest and she is locked away in basement of a two-story house which makes it harder for them to escape.

Hyomin recalled her conversation with Yebin from the other day

“Didn’t she know that you worked for Jessica?”

“I don’t think so, and you know I worked only for a very short period”

“I’m sorry about that”

“Nah, I was happy though it was just for a short time”

Yebin gave Hyomin a sad smile before quietly sharing her possible plan to help Hyomin escape

“I don’t know exactly where we are, and it would be a week before Uee-ssi let me go back to town for getting some personal stuff” Yebin explained.

“That would be to long” Hyomin said

“I know. Oh, I called the police in the middle of the night last night but he wasn’t convinced and thought it was a prank” Yebin sighed, “I had to hang up because I sensed someone walking outside my room”

“Oh, be careful” Hyomin said with her worried tone.

“I am, and I make sure I hide my phone well” Yebin said

“That’s good thinking” Hyomin gave Yebin a proud grin, “ Yebin?”

“Yes, Hyomin unnie”

“Can you try to contact someone for me please?” Hyomin asked, Yebin nodded

“You will need to memorize the number though”

Hyomin wished they had something to write down, but unfortunately nothing was available right here right now. Somehow she was thankful to her good memory. In time like this, she realized that memory was something she could depend on, when she lost the device that memorized everything for her by default.

The nightfall comes, Yebin waits and waits until she is sure that the pills work its way through their systems, as a well-trained nurse, she knows how to help some patients sleep but this is the first time she has ever used it for a different purpose. She can’t hold back her excitement, her heart is beating fast and she finds herself sweating profoundly with every step she takes, she gently closes the door and tries her best to make the least noise possible and at the same time fast tiptoeing from the second floor to the basement with bunches of keys in her hand. With limit source of light from flashlight of her phone, Yebin picks the key which looks like it can open the padlock that chained up the door, after a second try, the click of the metal key sounds like a heaven to her.

“Yebin?” Hyomin looks alerted, she stands up

“Let’s go, unnie” Yebin rushes

“How are they?” Hyomin looks alerted

“They fall asleep” She quickly responds

“For how long?” Hyomin gets up but still watches out, she can’t be sure.

“May be not too long, I didn’t want to overdose them” Yebin explains and Hyomin understands.

Yebin grabs Hyomin’s hand and leads her to the ground floor level carefully, Hyomin has to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She is greeted with the lighter air when they reach the first floor, something nicer to breathe and then the fresher air when they are out in the front yard.

Everything goes pitch-black, but Hyomin spots a shadow of the car parked in front of the house.

“Did you bring the car key?” Hyomin asks as soon as she notices a car.

“Ommo!” Yebin mentally smacks herself in the head, it took her a great effort to drug Uee and Jung Ah sleeping pills in other to tiptoe into their room and steal keys but she forgot the car key

“I think we still have time, I’ll go and get it” Yebin turns to walk back inside the house but Hyomin pulls her back

“It’s ok we will go there together” Hyomin tells, Yebin nods in the dark.

As they turn around and is about to go back inside the house, Hyomin hears a strange noise, she looks above and is going to say something but swallows it down the moment she sees the light on the second floor on, followed by the sound of scream.

“Oh no” Yebin stops breathing, she stands frozen, not expecting they would wake up this soon, she was so scared and could put way too little or they perhaps got used to it that it didn’t work well on them. Yebin’s head goes frenzy.

“No time Yebin, run” Hyomin’s heartbeat is fast as her feet, she grabs Yebin’s hand and drags her along.

They run without knowing where to go, all they know they have to go as far as possible.

********************************************

Eyes focus on the road, Jiyeon is getting impatient when all she can see ahead of her is nothing resembling the area where human being exists, and she is doubting if the location shared by a famous chatting application is precise, and her obvious irritation doesn’t go unnoticed by a company sitting beside passenger seat, the silence engulfed for a whole hour.

“Hey, can I drive, you’ve been driving for several hours?” Eunjung offers and her voice break the silence

“It’s okay, I’m totally fine” Jiyeon denies an offer, she is already grateful that Eunjung offered to come along without being sure if they would really find her.

“You’re stressing” Eunjung points out

“I just want to make sure we don’t take any wrong turn somewhere otherwise it would be a disaster” Jiyeon inwardly sighs

“I think we almost get there” Eunjung peeks at the settle lite map showing their movement on small screen.

“I hope” Jiyeon adds

“I still can’t get through the number” Eunjung tries again.

“ I hope they are alright” Jiyeon tells herself

“Jiyeon, I don’t understand why…” Eunjung hasn’t finished her sentence when she is cut off

“It’s okay, because I don’t understand what I’m doing too” Jiyeon still focuses on the road, she steals a glance at Eunjung who decides to drop the conversation and she is thankful to that.

Speaking of which, Jiyeon didn’t really have exact answer to give Eunjung when she told the latter that she was going to find Hyomin. It suddenly happened from an unexpected rush and short phone call Jiyeon received that led them here

“Hello?”

“Jiyeon ssi?”

“Who’s that?

“Thank God, I finally got it right”

“Hey, who are you?” Jiyeon got impatient, she felt asleep for few hours after having not slept for days

“Oh, I’m Yebin, remember we met at the island in Philippines” Yebin introduced, she heard nothing in response, “Well, that’s not important, all you need to know is you have to rescue Hyomin unnie”

“You know where she is?” Jiyeon kicked off her drowsiness as soon as she heard the mention of Hyomin’s name

“Is she alright? Tell me where she is? She breathlessly questioned

“Ok, just listen, I’m with her, and she is safe but need to be rescued as soon as possible, I’ll share you the location of where we are, and text you more details of our escape plan, I have limit excess to my phone, it will be useless if you call but I can’t pick up and I need to save my battery as much as possible for emergency call” Yebin explained in rush and low tone.

“I got it” Jiyeon answered, “Yebin, right?”

“Yes” Yebin replied

“Can I possibly talk to Hyomin for a second, I need to hear her voice?” Jiyeon begged

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid you can’t, I can’t risk having my phone with me when I go to meet her” Yebin feels sorry, she knows how desperate Jiyeon was

“I understand” Jiyeon gave in

“By the way, she asked me to tell you that she missed you” Yebin felt her heart tighten up

“Please tell her for me I missed her too” Jiyeon’s voice became broken
 

“Jiyeon, watch out!” Eunjung’s voice brings Jiyeon back, and she hastily swerves away from a car that drives dangerously from the opposite lane of a small road. Thanks to Jiyeon’s swift action, they were just few inches away from crashing, and now that car passes them by carelessly

“What the h…” Jiyeon pulls a car into a stop on the side road. She tries to calms herself down

“Are they on drunk or something?” Eunjung complains madly

“I think you’re tired now” Eunjung notices that Jiyeon looks suddenly pale, “Maybe it’s better if I drive”

Jiyeon doesn’t respond, her gaze seems to be on something ahead, Eunjung wonders what she sees

“Hyomin” Jiyeon mumbles, Eunjung doesn’t understand at first but then her eyes follow where Jiyeon keeps staring, she finds a woman standing not very far from the car, the front light is flashing at her, and Eunjung can recognize her right away.

The next thing she knows, Jiyeon dashes out of the car, and runs to her, and Eunjung thinks that must be the tightest hug she has ever seen Jiyeon giving to someone. It’s Eunjung’s real happy smile for the very first time.

********************************************

Jessica is on her phone, walking down from her bedroom toward a dining room for coffee before going to work, she is returning few missed calls, one of them was from her lawyer which she regards as most expected person she needs to talk to right now. As she expected, they seemed to have some update news of suspect whereabouts, and while she is busy speaking with him, all of sudden his words become fading, when a person he is mentioning about is right here standing in front of her, Jessica couldn’t careless of what he is talking about, it’s not important anymore.

Hyomin, though looks tired with few scars here and there, smile is plastered on her face, but then her smile turns into frown when she seems to realize something, her eyes narrows with shock expression written all over her face, her gaze drops to Jessica’s legs, and question pops up in her mind.

Jessica’s hand holding her phone drops to her side, she is equally shocked and glad, and she quickly walks toward Hyomin and gives her a hug.

“Thank God, you’re safe” Jessica has never been so glad to see her sister coming home like this before. All frustration and worry are washed away and replaced by a huge wave of relief at once. And without her knowing it, her eyes are glistered with tears.

“Jess” Hyomin tries to form her word, “You can walk?”

“I can explain” Jessica struggles to speak, then she realizes it.

After a short moment of reunion with her sister, Hyomin told Jessica a long story short, and it wasn’t surprised to see Jessica tremble with anger, all along Jessica always protected her and she wouldn’t let someone get away with messing around with her. Hyomin must admit she was so happy to see Jessica being able to walk again, but it would be too simple to believe that she suddenly could walk, it looked way too normal.

There was nowhere for Jessica to run anymore, and it was time to sit down to talk to her sister. Jessica started explaining everything to Hyomin, from the car accident many years ago which it was clearly not an accident but a criminal scheme which was unbelievably plotted by Hyomin’s childhood nanny who was none other than Jung Ah,whose traumatized past led her to delusion mind to make her believe that Hyomin was her daughter, and all the reason why she tried to put Hyomin into her position at the company. Not only all the truth and reason resulting from unfortunate accident, Jessica opened up about her feeling, how she foolishly hoped for Yuri to come back to her, by using her condition seeking for pity from her ex-lover, but it didn’t work, and by the time she knew it she was already drown in her rock bottom of sadness, suffering from mental despair. One thing led to another, and for the price of it, Hyomin lost the love of her life, Eunjung for being busy taking care of her. By the time she knew it, Jessica developed her deepest fear of losing people she loved, afraid to be hated by only person left in her life, Jessica didn’t know why but then she chose to hide a truth she could actually walk from Hyomin.

“I know I was selfish” Jessica has no way to hide, “I’m sorry”

It was like Jessica expected, Hyomin listened calmly, no word of expressing her opinion, all Jessica could see was the cold aura, the same one they shared among sisters emitted around Hyomin, but what broke her heart the most