“You seem to be taking this all quite well,” Irene began under her breath, one hand tapping away at the windowsill as if it were a piano. Her gaze was fixed out the window; Wendy faced the hallway. Irene had left quite a few feet of tangible space between them.

Wendy turned her head to look at the woman. She expected Irene to continue; when she didn't, Wendy turned her body towards her, took a step or two closer. Irene was not looking at her. “It’s just another job,” she murmured.

Irene’s dark eyes flicked behind her to the hall where Seulgi had disappeared. “I know you two were close.”

She hummed. Folded her arms. What were they, friends? She didn't know why Irene would feign concern. “We were.”

Irene’s hand briefly reached toward Wendy before it was pulled back--whatever Irene had on her mind, apparently she was not in the mood for sharing. Not as if this were anything new.

“Right on time,” she said instead, turning away from both Wendy and the window. Louder, she added, “Our ride is here,” and saw herself out the front door. A circle of condensation remained on the glass from Irene’s breath.

Ride?

Wendy peered through the curtains, eyebrows raising at the sleek black vehicle in the middle of the street. Tinted windows against the snow-coated street--the car looked like a rich man’s poor attempt at blending in with the masses.

Seulgi was by her side in a fraction of a second, hands pressed against the glass. “Wow,” she breathed, and Wendy laughed.

Seulgi’s breathing stilled for a moment. “I think I'm upset with you,” Seulgi said to her, eyes glued to the car, “but we will talk about this later.”

Wendy nodded, stomach twisting in guilt. “That seems fair,” she offered, not sure how to approach reconciling with Seulgi. For the record, she wasn't even entirely sure Seulgi had the capacity to be angry with her--not that Wendy wanted to test her theory, at any rate. There was one person in this room that was distinctly in the wrong, and it wasn’t Seulgi.

“Who's driving that beast of a vehicle?” Seulgi asked, squinting.

Despite the heavily tinted windows, a hint of red shone from the driver’s seat.

"Joy," she said, almost laughing again. "Come on."

Either Irene's neutral expression made her look unimpressed, or she was genuinely very unamused. “I thought I said to choose something subtle."

Joy got out of the car, waving Seulgi closer. “You didn't say to make it boring, though."

Irene tossed her hands in the air but slid into the passenger seat anyway. She got the impression that very few people were allowed to disregard Irene’s commands to the extent Joy did, and for some reason, Wendy enjoyed this fact.

"I was under the impression we would be working as a team of five," Wendy pointed out as she got in the back. The black leather was soft and cool beneath her hands. It was no ‘53 Chrysler, but Wendy wasn’t complaining.

“We are,” Irene stated. She looked extraordinarily elegant against the seat, and Wendy briefly thought she belonged on a fashion magazine spread far more than the dark underbelly of corrupt politics. "It's exam season for students," Irene added, and left it at that.

Wendy frowned. "It's like we're going to be babysitting! We can't afford to waste our time--"

"And which one of you is the baby?"

Wendy clamped shut. She seemed to be doing that a lot as of late.

Seulgi had hesitantly gotten in, running her hands over the wheel. "Wow," she said again, and looked over. "Is this yours?"

Joy slid in next to Wendy, pleased with her own work. "It’s yours now. Take us for a spin, Seulgi."

"No need to tell me twice," Seulgi noted, shifting the car to reverse. Wendy didn’t have to look to know there was a childish delight spanning her smile, despite the tumult of the past hour. Perhaps she should take a leaf from Seulgi’s book on life.

“Not without some tunes,” Joy added, leaning across the console to fiddle with the radio. “FM,” she added with some amount of pride. “It’s going to be the new big thing. AM radio is on its way out.”

Wendy closed her eyes as the women in the car made conversation--from amplitude modulated radio signals to the latest flick. If she thought hard enough, she could almost pretend nothing was out of the ordinary--as if her fake death had never been thwarted by the woman in the passenger seat, her friendship with Seulgi intact, her evenings accompanied by light hearted conversation.

Wendy opened her eyes, watching the trees whiz by. There was no point to thoughts of what could have been.

“Okay,” Irene said, fifteen minutes into the drive.

Wendy peeled her eyes from the window. The fields were flashing in and out of sight as more houses and buildings took their place--time between bumps in the road increased, wheels giving a smooth whirr against asphalt instead of crunching along gravel paths. They were headed toward the city, and Wendy had been dying to ask why.

Even the radio seemed to become subdued when she spoke.

“Okay,” Wendy echoed after a beat, to humor the other woman.

“Here’s the plan.” Irene locked eyes with Wendy through the rear-view mirror.

Wendy looked away.

Seulgi reached over to the volume dial, spinning it towards her. The car became silent but for the engine shooting them down the road at fifty miles per hour. “Wait—plan?”

Irene opened the glovebox, pulling out a series of roadmaps. “We need to start preparations now.” She unfolded the top one, smoothing it out against the dashboard and pulled a pen out from behind her ear. Wendy leaned forward in her seat to get a better view, feeling the seat shift beside her as Joy did the same.

Three buildings were circled in blue ink. Irene tapped the leftmost one with the tip of the cap. “We start here.”

Seulgi pushed the clutch, downshifting. The car slowed slightly. “Should I--”

“Keep driving,” Irene said. “Your role is to be on hand for a quick getaway at any moment. Don’t get out of the car. You won’t need to.”

“At all? Okay. Roger that,” Seulgi said with a shrug, accelerating again.

Silently, Wendy marveled at how calmly Seulgi accepted the instruction--as if this were just any casual drive around town. As if Seulgi had done this before.

She hadn’t, though.

Right?

“Wendy,” Irene was saying, which snapped her attention back to the crisp road map. “Joy will go in first and get you into this building from a balcony on the second floor, east side.” Another paper was pulled out from under the stack. Neat, perfect lines of graphite covered the page. Blueprints. Hand-made.

The older woman pointed to a small square near the top of the page. “Secure the perimeter of the fourth floor. Security won’t be terribly tight, but be on your guard. There’s a briefcase in this office on the north side of the building. At ten-thirty, I am going to walk out of these doors--” she pointed at a set of lines on the bottom edge of the page--”with that case in hand. Seulgi, be ready.”

At exactly 10:20, a light flashed twice from a second-floor window. I see you, Joy. Wendy left the safety of the shadows and tried the door to the balcony. The door swung towards her, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Joy was nowhere to be seen, but she supposed that meant all was well. No news was good news in this business.

A small brass object glinted in the light--on closer inspection, she found a key lodged in the dirt of the indoor plants framing the door. A gift from Sooyoung herself? Wendy pocketed it.

She needed to make her way up two more levels without causing a scene. Wendy crept around the dark corners of the building, avoiding the patrolling security guards with ease. She had to knock out a guard that nearly gave her the jump on the third floor, but by the time she reached the fourth, Seungwan was almost enjoying herself.

Secure the perimeter. A vague instruction. A swift blow to the temple sent the guard near the window to the ground. Wendy stepped over him gingerly. She methodically cleared the area of guards, pulling a few to darker corners. Out of sight, out of mind.

Wendy lingered in a hallway near the office at hand, staring blankly at a rotating gate. The gate hadn’t been on the blueprints, and Irene had said nothing about a direct barrier to the room. A dense chain kept the gate from turning—a hefty lock kept the chain from falling to the ground.

10:27.

“What are you waiting for?” came Irene’s voice from behind her shoulder. Right on cue.

Wendy pulled the key from her pocket, saying a brief prayer before sliding it in.

The latch clicked open and Wendy caught the chains before they clattered to the floor. Thank you, Park Sooyoung. She pushed the grates forward.

An alarm bell began to shriek.

“.” She shoved Irene through the gate, waving her off with haste. “Get the case, I’ll buy some time.”

A momentary glance and a nod, and the woman was off.

Wendy sighed, turning to face the gathering set of guns pointed in her direction. Only three men--inconvenient, but nothing she couldn't handle. “Hmm.”

“Hands in the air,” commanded the one to her right. Tall. Exuding confidence.

She eyeballed the heavy chain on the floor, painfully slowly raising her arms.

“Hurry it up, doll. I haven’t got all night.”

Time to ruin this ’s evening. “ Sorry, it’s just—“ Wendy made a show of bending over, rubbing her lower back. “My back is so…”

“Stand up,” the guard scowled, shoving the barrel of his rifle under Wendy’s chin.

The shorter guard to the left took a step forward. “Isn’t that too much? She’s…”

“Hey,” the tall one hissed, sparing the shorter one half a glare. “Don’t—“

That moment was all Wendy needed. She reached for the chain, shoving the barrel of the gun to the side with her head in the same fluid motion. In the time it took for the remaining guard to look alarmed, Wendy grunted and tugged on the chain, sending the end of it whipping around the ankles of all three men. She pulled, hard, hearing a few bullets miss their mark as the men crashed into each other on their way to the floor.

One—the leftmost one—was the first to try to stagger back onto his feet. Not fast enough. Wendy shifted her weight, leaning just enough to drive her elbow under the guard’s chin. He staggered backwards, beginning to shout before Wendy tore the rifle from his hands, shoving the of it into his face. He crumpled. That one is going to leave a mark.

Holding the barrel of the gun as if it were a baseball bat, she swung it into the stomach of the short one, watching him double over as she felt herself get grabbed from behind. 

With a deep exhale, she slammed her head back, feeling hard impact with the guard’s nose. Before the short one had recovered from the prior blow, Wendy shoved her feet into his chest, sending him into a pillar and the tall one staggering backwards. She swung her heel into the man’s shin and threw her head back. It was enough of an impact to the man’s face for him to loosen his grip—and enough for Wendy to rip free of his grasp. She threw a few punches to his gut for good measure, and grabbed the man in a tight headlock before he could call for backup.

Irene, Wendy thought, tightening her grip while he tried to throw her off. This case had better be worth it. When the man’s struggling stilled, she dropped the man. He collapsed unceremoniously, becoming another tripping hazard in the darkness of the fourth floor. 

She almost moved to leave, but turned back to check the guard for anything of use. It had been a while since she didn’t have access to her own tools, but she could make do.

Flashlight, baton, gun. The corner of pulled down. Was Irene certain this place had what they needed? Wendy was overwhelmingly underwhelmed by the supposed top-notch guard’s standard gear.

“Sorry,” she whispered, taking the pistol from its holster anyway. She patted the man’s head. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

No time to waste. She jumped the railing of the stairwell, skipping steps on her way down. She darted around a few corners, coming to a screeching halt at an intersection on the second floor. Someone else’s footsteps rang out in front of her, accompanying the rapidly approaching set of boots just behind her. Wendy clicked off the safety on her newly acquired gun, taking a breath. She whipped around the corner, crouched, gun aimed at the assailant’s head--only to find the barrel of another gun pointed directly back at her.

“Seungwan,” Irene breathed, lowering her weapon.

“Almost gave me a heart attack,” Wendy hissed, standing up. “What are you doing?”

She rested her hand over Wendy’s gun arm, pushing down. “Don’t ever point a gun at me again. I took the west stairs, and—just get to the car!”

Wendy took off running again, Irene hot on her heels. A few gunshots rang out behind them as they turned a corner. “The balcony!” Irene shouted, and Wendy took a sharp right turn. She threw open the door she had come through, vaulting over the railing and bracing for the impact of the jump. She hit the ground running, hearing a thud behind her after a few seconds. For her own sake, she hoped it was Irene, but didn’t take the time to glance back.

“Seulgi!” Wendy yelled, ducking when a bullet shattered a window behind her. The engine revved in response.

Joy threw the door open, pulling Wendy into the car as Irene flung herself into the passenger seat, with the case—thank god, she got the case— in hand. “What the hell happened in there?”

Wendy shook her head, breathing hard. “Later! Floor it!”

Before the doors had even closed, the car was speeding off—directly into oncoming police lights.

“Seulgi!” Joy yelled, bracing herself against the seat. “Ahead—“

“I see them! Hang on!” was all Seulgi offered before throwing the car into a screeching drift of a U-turn. The engine made a noise of complaint as it accelerated, speedometer shooting to the right. The world spun for a moment as the smell of burning rubber filled her senses.

Slightly breathless from the drifting, Irene murmured, “Lose them and take us home, Seulgi.”

This, Wendy thought, catching her breath, is not how normal people drive.

The ride back to the house was a quiet one. Irene made no motion to open the case, and no one asked her to. Wendy was beginning to learn how useless it was to ask questions, anyway. Irene would speak when she wanted, and it seemed like all she wanted to say were directions to get back. Even Seulgi kept mum for most of the trip.

They filed into the house, Wendy with the recently lifted guns in hand--Irene with the case. Joy led the way, saying a “I deserve an explanation for that ordeal!” with a vague wave. She tilted her head at Seulgi. “Come on. I’ll fill you in on how we work around here.”

Seulgi threw a glance back at Wendy, for once, unreadable, before disappearing into the house with Sooyoung.

“Hey, good work today.”

Wendy looked up, a second too late—Joohyun hadn’t stopped to talk. It wasn’t until the door to Joohyun’s room had closed that Wendy found her voice.

“Thanks,” she whispered to the empty hallway. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the wall. What have I gotten myself into this time?