Wendy's jaw dropped.

Soo Man's glasses fell to the floor.

The atmosphere around the cafe suddenly changed. The almost homey atmosphere that was present suddenly changed into something more fitting of the current state of the cafe. Dark, cold, and void of life. It was silent, so silent. All the noise of traffic outside was drowned out by the impact of the words that had just left Irene's mouth. 

"H-how... what...?"

Irene's hands were trembling. She suddenly reached into her bag and yanked out a bottle of pills, pouring them into and swallowing them whole, without even drinking water. She slammed the bottle of pills down on the table, the pills flying all over the place, some landing on Soo Man himself. He picked them up, looking at them closely. He crushed the white pill in his hand and knew exactly what it was.

"This... this pill is used to treat schizophrenia. Irene..."

Wendy's eyes went wide. Her heart had stopped beating. Schizophrenia? Irene? She picked up the bottle. It was unlabeled, yet strangely familiar. She examined it a little closer, raking her brain and trying to remember where she had seen this little bottle before. It was so familiar to her.

***

Taeyeon came out the door, holding a bag of pills in her hand. A lot of pills actually, but Wendy couldn't see what they were for. Her natural detective instinct told her to look in the bag. No labels.

"Are you sick?"

Taeyeon chuckled, nodding.

"Bad flu."

***

It was right there from the start. Wendy sat back even further in her chair, putting a hand on her forehead. She started blinking, many, many times. Her breath was inconsistent, quick and shallow. It looked as though as she was about to have a panic attack. She wasn't the only one, Soo Man was now passing Irene a bottle of water from his car outside, worried that she might have choked on some of the pills that she had just stuffed down earlier.

"This is... so much information for me to compute... I don't know if I can handle this..." 

Irene grabbed Wendy's arms, her eyes red and teary. Her lips, her beautiful lips that were normally always seen in that little smirk of hers, were now trembling like a leaf. Soo Man knew better, so he stood up and headed back to his car, leaving Irene and Wendy alone in the ruins of the place they spent the most time together. Wendy just stared at Irene, who looked so frail, so weak, like a little girl who was lost in the street.

Like how she looked when she reported Seulgi to the police.

"I'm sorry I kept it from you, Wendy...  I was scared, so scared. I tried to leave the life, I really did... but one day..."

***

Irene sat in a bar, drinking shot after shot after shot. She felt an arm wrap around her, an arm that belonged to her sister, who had just struck a deal with the feds. Seulgi said it was a way to discover how the police worked, so she purposely got herself caught but Irene knew that was bull. She took another shot, trying to drink the guilt of turning her sister to the police away.

Then, Seulgi grabbed Irene's shoulder, yanking the hood on her back and pulling it over her head. She leaned next to her ear and started whispering.

"Hey, that girl over there is pretty cute. I know you swing that way. Why don't you go talk to her?"

Irene, drunk out of her mind, agreed. She walked over to the girl, introducing herself in a drunken slur that seemed to amuse the other girl quite a bit. Seulgi, being a good sister and wingwoman, stayed right by her side, helping Irene chat up this chick that they had just met. 

"So, I know this may be a little quick, but you wanna head back to my place? I make some pretty good coffee."

The other girl giggled, a short 'Sure' leaving her lips as she followed Irene and Seulgi out of the bar. They headed out through the back since the entrance was so crowded, and they found themselves in an alleyway. It was a pretty cold night in New York, so Irene and Seulgi had pulled their hoods over their heads to try and fight the cold.

"Hey, I'm gonna go get the car real quick. I'll be back," Seulgi let out a drunken giggle, obviously in no state to drive but she never really cared. And neither did Irene, or the girl she was bringing home that night. Seulgi left, and that just left Irene and the girl by themselves.

"So, what do you do for a living?" The girl asked.

Irene titled her head, putting her finger on her lip before shrugging her shoulders, which made the girl start to giggle once more.

"You're really cute. I like you, a lot. But I think you should go to sleep. I'll tuck you into bed, turn you into a little stuffed teddy bear."

Irene giggled, gently punching the girl's shoulder, which sent the girl giggling.

"Or, I could handcuff you to my bed and make you my prisoner. Turn you to the police for being such a bad little girl, getting this drunk."

Irene didn't know what happened at that moment, but something snapped in her brain. As soon as she heard the girl mention the words 'turn you to the police', the guilt that had been eating away at her suddenly turned into a savage bloodlust. Her old instincts from her mafia days began to kick in. When a threat presents itself, kill it.

Her hands began to rise up, and she didn't remember a thing after that. 

She woke up the next morning in bed with a terrible hangover, and Seulgi standing by her bed, biting her fingernails very worriedly.

"Irene, we're taking you to a doctor."

***

"And from then on, Seulgi had been ordering her men to kill random women that matched the physical traits of the one I killed in order to turn it into something bigger. It was all a hoax, Wendy. The Alleyway Murders were all a lie. Seulgi just created something out of nothing in order to protect me, in order to make sure I didn't get thrown in jail..."

Irene watched as Wendy slowly rose up from her chair, her hand rubbing her forehead and eyes closed. She let out a shaky breath.

"This is... too much for me to handle right now."

"I'm sorry Irene. Goodbye."

And with those few words, Wendy left the Lady's Room, leaving behind the girl that she loved. The girl that had changed her life as she knew it the moment that they laid eyes upon each other. She walked past Soo Man, who was smoking a cigarette outside. She ignored the yells coming from behind her telling her to come back, she ignored hearing Irene start to tear up the further she walked away. Things were getting far too hectic for Wendy to handle, and she needed a breather.

"I thought I could handle anything... I guess not."

Wendy had a sad smile on her face. She started digging into her bag and pulling out her best friend, her lighter and a pack of cigarettes. She lit one up, taking a long, long breath as the toxin entered her lungs once again. She started to cough feeling the smoke enter her system once again, but instead of putting the stick out, she continued smoking it. She needed it, it was comfortable.

She let herself get lost in her trance. She walked wherever her feet took her. Down alleyways, over bridges, across junctions, wherever. She just wandered, floated through New York. She eventually found herself among in an area of abandoned warehouses, filled with empty shells of cars and old rotten boxes strewn over the place. It was a little nasty, but nice and quiet, exactly what Wendy needed at the moment. She sat down on an old box which immediately collapsed underneath her. Damn thing had been eaten by termites. She groaned, dusting the woodchips off her bottom and starting to look for another place to sit.

Instead, she heard several pairs of footsteps running up behind her and a familiar voice shouting her name. That high-pitched squeal that seemed to be able to infect all those around her with joy just by speaking.

"J-Joy?"

"Wendy!!"

The next thing Wendy knew, the girl she thought was dead was draped all over her, screaming incoherent yells of happiness and excitement. Wendy burst out laughing, feeling a tsunami of relief and joy washing over her entire being as she felt the grip around her get tighter and tighter. She didn't even care about why Joy was in the middle of nowhere, but she was just so happy that she was here.

"Joy! Joy! I thought you were dead! Oh my god, you have no idea how happy I am to see you!"

The tall girl was just laughing, pulling out the hug a little to squash Wendy's puffy cheeks, which the shorter woman normally would dislike very much but she was so happy that she decided to let it slide just this once.

"I sure as heck was nearly dead, but these people saved me," Joy stood aside to let Wendy see her old pals Jennie, Jisoo, Rosé, and Lisa all standing there, waving back at her with smiles just as wide as Joy's. It was now Jennie's turn to run over and hug Wendy, Wendy yelping a little from just how tightly Jennie was hugging her.

"Alright kiddo, can't breath, can't breath..."

Jennie pulled away, wiping tears away from her eyes.

"I was so worried when you didn't pick up your phone! Sooyoung said that Irene picked it up and just hung up real angry, then she tried to call you back but you didn't pick up! We were about to go and find you and your girl but then you showed up here!"

Wendy let out a laugh, though it wasn't as enthusiastic as she hoped it would have sounded. Upon hearing Irene's name again, Wendy's mood dampened a little bit.

Of course, Sooyoung noticed.

"Where is Irene, by the way?"

Wendy sighed.

"Take me to your hideout, I'll explain there."

***

"WHAT?!"

Wendy nodded, taking a sip of beer from the bottle that Jennie had passed to them when they got back to base. Joy just sat there, her jaw on the floor, and her arms dangling from her side. Her entire body had gone limp.

"So the murders, everything, was all a lie? Not real? Seulgi, who's apparently a mob boss by the way, just made the whole thing up to protect Irene?"

"Affirmative."

Joy just slumped in her chair, at a complete loss for words. Wendy sighed, chugging her 3/4 filled bottle of beer in one shot till it was empty. 

"I just feel conflicted right now. This whole time I thought Seulgi was the bad guy, but now she's suddenly come out as this sort of, sisterly figure who just wanted to protect her family? It has me thinking, who's side should I be on? I love Irene, love her so much, but this whole thing wouldn't have started if it wasn't for her. It was her fault."

Wendy put her head down and started ruffling up her own hair, letting out several grunts of frustration. Sooyoung sighed, putting a hand on Wendy's shoulder.

"Why did we start doing this, Wendy? Why did we start tracking down Seulgi?"

Wendy's head raised up.

"To avenge Taeyeon?"

Sooyoung shook her head.

"Revenge is a fool's game, Wendy. We're doing this for justice. That's why we even became police officers, to serve justice. What Irene did, selling out her sister like that, may seem like betrayal, but wasn't she serving justice too? She was doing what everyone should be doing, stopping crime. She did it, and she even paid the consequences for it. She developed a condition, from the guilt of selling out her own sister. She's just as conflicted about this as you, Wendy. Both of you want the same thing, justice. And a girlfriend, so why don't you make things right with her?"

Wendy smiled at Joy. A proud smile, a motherly smile that she hadn't had the chance to show in weeks.

"You should get shot more, it makes you wiser."

Joy nudged Wendy's shoulder, and the older girl giggled.

"I'll give her a call."

Wendy dug into her bag, but soon remembered that she left her phone at home in her rush to get out, and it was probably still at home since Irene had picked up earlier.

"Here, use my phone."

Wendy dialed Irene's number on Joy's phone. She picked up after five rings.

"Hey Irene, Wendy here. Look, I'm-"

She was cut off by the sound of Irene wailing on the other side of the phone. She sounded as though she was hyperventilating, and Wendy could hear Soo Man trying to calm her down on the other side.

"We-We-Wendy!! She, she took her!"

"Seulgi got Yeri!"

Joy's phone dropped to the floor.

Author Notes:

Ladies and gents... the endgame is nearing.

Hopefully this chapter didn't have too much information for you guys to handle, but I also hope it explains a lot about Irene. The Datahouse and why she almost never leaves it, and why she's always so ahead of Wendy on the murders. More will be explained in the next few chapters. But we are approaching the end, sadly enough.

How did Seulgi get Yeri? And why did she even go after Yeri? We'll find out soon ;)

Till next time~