“Where did oppa go?” Yael realised Hyunbin was no longer in the office.

The two officers glanced at each other. They almost ran out to search for him when Yael called them back.

“Don’t waste time looking for him, Moonhee’s in trouble now.”

She suddenly pushed him away from him and rushed towards the whiteboard. The line of alphabets Yael received before were written on the board, in huge red letters. JB and Jinyoung ran up behind her.

“What are you doing?”

“Did anything else happen? Any messages in my name or Moonhee’s?” She asked, staring at the letters, focused on her theory.

“Nothing…”

“Are you sure?” She whipped around, glaring at the two officers. “What did Moonhee see? To make her that worried the unsub was after me? Other than the letter on the desk.”

Jinyoung let out a breath, “Fine, ‘I will get her’ was written on the pantry wall and Angel was written below.”

Yael grabbed the marker off the holder and scribbled the word in huge font on the board, beside the line. She took a step backwards so that she could capture the entire board in one glance.

MBUR SEROW XIAK

“It’s a cipher,” she muttered, grabbing a laptop nearby and typed something.

“A cipher?”

“A code that can only be solved with a key to reveal the actual sentence,” she glanced up. “A Vigenère cipher.”

She turned the laptop to the officers, revealing a table on the screen. She capped her marker and paused in front of the whiteboard.

“The weird line of alphabets is the ciphertext,” she explained. “The unsub used Angel as the key to decipher his code. You repeat the key until the ciphertext ends.”

Jaebum turned the laptop towards Yael, she squinted her eyes to focus on the letters she was looking for.

“To start, you have to start with the leftmost column of alphabets.”

She glanced up and saw the lost looks on their faces. She snapped her fingers and asked, “The first letter of the key?”

She pointed her finger at Row A on the laptop screen and dragged it along the row until her finger stopped at ‘Y’, the first letter of the ciphertext.

“The topmost row represents the decoded answers.”

Yael then shifted her finger one notch up, to ‘Y’. She turned to the board, grabbing a different coloured marker and writing the answer under the ciphertext.

“The decoded text is called the plaintext,” she faced her colleagues with her hands on her hips. “Got it?”

JB and Jinyoung nodded their head dumbly. The girl clapped her hands twice and her attention returned to the board.

“Next letter.”

-

The trio felt their hearts drop when the message was decoded. Jaebum rubbed his face in frustration.

“The answer has always been there,” he muttered.

MOONHEE IS MINE

“I’m so sorry,” Yael broke down. “I should have seen this earlier. I should have deciphered the code earlier.” She wiped her face.

“It’s not your fault,” Jinyoung knelt that in front of her and held her hand. “You didn’t know what code it was until now. It’s not your mistake.”

Jaebum scanned the words again and again and again, the letters gripping his mind so tight he couldn’t breathe. The answer was right there in front of him but he didn’t know. He just let the unsub snatch Moonhee away from right before his eyes.

His landline started ringing but he tuned the shrill tone of the ring to background noise.

Moonhee’s obnoxious, bratty, think-she’s-the-smartest but yet still charming and beautiful face kept appearing in his head. He couldn’t shake away the thought that she was in absolute danger and he wasn’t there to help her.

“Yo!” Another officer’s voice piped up, making JB jump.

“What?!” He yelled back. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Sorry, sir. Your phone’s been ringing, it might be important.”

JB rubbed his face and reached for the phone, “Hello, this is Im Jaebum.”

“Hello.”

The voice ran shivers down his spine. He knew something was up. Tapping lightly on the table, he got Jinyoung and Yael’s attention. She knew what was going on, swiftly preparing herself for call tracing.

“Who are you?”

“I thought you guys would know who I am by now.”

“I won't ask again.”

“I’m the one you guys call The Silencer.”

“Where is Moonhee?” He huffed agitatedly into the phone. Yael looked up.

“Now, now. Don’t get all pissy.” The voice chuckled. “She’s safe with me. I’m going to save her. She’ll be my prettiest angel.”

She gave the heads up to continue, try to get the call to drag longer.

“You, a saviour? Who are you kidding?”

“Come on, you have to admit, my angels are all pretty awesome.”

Another breathy chuckle.

“Maybe I should do the same to Moonhee. Since she’s the prettiest of them all.”

“Shut the up!” It struck a nerve in Jaebum. “No matter who you are and where you are, I will kill you myself if you dare hurt her.”

“Uh, uh-uh.” He taunted. “Piss me off and you’ll be getting her head.”

The officer calmed down and clucked his tongue, “You won’t kill her.”

“And how sure are you of that assumption?”

“Because you have been trying to get to her. Now that you have her, you’ll not get rid of your prized possession that easily.”

“Woah, you’re as good as they say you are.”

“I also know that you are a sick bastard that gets off killing girls and sewing their mouths shut.”

Jaebum glanced at his team, Yael signed 30 seconds, signalling they needed half a minute more to get the location.

“Oooh, you are good~! Tell your friends listening in to this conversation to sto