Chen waited, counting the footsteps against the floor above him. It seemed hours until the room appeared empty, and even then they waited longer. They’d be sitting ducks if any officers were still around.

He worried about Xiumin. He couldn’t see properly in the hide, and he couldn’t move much either, but the gash on Xiumin's arm had been wide. Though it had stopped bleeding freely, he worried about the amount of blood he’d lost, and his friend still hadn’t woken up.

On the other side of Xiumin, Luhan’s breathing was becoming laboured, and Chen’s head was starting to ache as the oxygen content of their re-breathed air lowered. They’d have to move soon, despite the risk of being caught, or they’d suffocate.

“Luhan,” he whispered. “Open it. Wait –" he stopped Luhan just before the runner had pressed the inside mechanism that would slide the floor above them. “Don’t bolt, okay? Help me get Xiumin out of here. Come over to my side. I’ll protect you.”

Luhan’s whispered answer was trembling with fear. “He’ll come for me. He said he owns me now. He’s Gwangju’s son. I daren’t betray him. He’ll kill me.”

So Heechul was Gwangju's son. Chen had suspected this, but Luhan had confirmed it. Crossing Heechul would not be a smart move, but all the same, Chen couldn’t let this happen. He was done with turning his back. Too many things were breaking around him, and breaking inside him too. He couldn’t continue standing by while people got hurt any more. He wouldn’t become like Suho.

“Heechul hurt you,” he whispered. “Suho left you in his clutches knowing what would happen. Don’t give your loyalty to them. Stay by my side and I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

He waited, listening to Luhan's breath hitch and shake with repressed sobs. Finally, Luhan whispered, “Okay.”

Chen allowed him to open the hide and the floor above them slid silently aside. The air that hit him was shockingly fresh compared with the hot, suffocating atmosphere in the hide. He hadn’t realised just how bad it had gotten in there. He got to his feet and glanced around, and saw immediately that his fears had been right. A young male police officer was standing at the door, staring directly at him. Chen’s switchblade appeared in his hand as Luhan scrambled to his feet behind him, but the officer didn’t shout out, or make a move for his weapon or even his radio. Instead, he raised both his hands in a placating gesture.

“Chen,” he said in a low but clear voice.

Chen froze. “Who are you?” His knife was still balanced in his hand, and he could sense Luhan close behind him. He was acutely aware of Luhan's every motion. He’d agreed to join Chen, but that didn’t mean he could trust him blindly. Luhan was responsible for one of Chen’s many scars.

“I’m on your side,” the officer told him. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

On his side? On which side? The side of an undercover cop, or the side of a drug lord? His eyes flicked to the embroidered name badge on the officer’s uniform. Do Kyungsoo. He’d never heard of him. Jeongsu had never mentioned him.

“Who are you working for?”

“Someone who doesn’t want you arrested,” Do Kyungsoo said. “Someone whose goals match yours.”

“What goals would those be?”

Kyungsoo slowly reached towards his pocket. Chen watched his hand as he pulled out a business card and held it out. “Someone high up wants Gwangju taken down, and he thinks you can do it. He’ll support you if you make a move.”

Warily, Chen took the card. He had to fight to keep his face impassive as he recognized the five vertical blue columns of the logo for the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of Korea. The gold-embossed words read Park Seungjin, Chief of Criminal Justice Department. Park Seungjin. He’d heard that name before. Park Chanyeol talking on his phone outside the prison, when Chen had gone to pick up Irene. This was Chanyeol's father.

“You’re working for the prosecution?”

Kyungsoo nodded. Chen’s eyes narrowed as he considered the implications. A cop working for the prosecution was basically a mole, despite the fact that the two agencies, the police force and the prosecution, both came under the Ministry of Justice. Internal conflict between the agencies was rampant, as the police had to get approval from the prosecution before they could investigate anything, and they couldn’t make arrests without the prosecution providing them a warrant. Prosecutors could also independently investigate, though they usually left this to the police. If Suho truly was an undercover prosecutor, he was doing this kind of independent investigation, without police involvement.

“You’re telling me the Chief of Criminal Justice wants to use one drug lord to take down another?”

“You’re the only one who can do it,” Kyungsoo said. “Director Kim - Gwangju - has too many connections. He’s becoming a political threat. Chief Park is running for Prosecutor General, and he needs Gwangju out of the way. He’s willing to turn a blind eye to your activities in Seoul if you get Gwangju out of the political arena and take over.”

Corruption at its finest, Chen thought grimly. Did Park Chanyeol know his father was willing to work with a national drug distribution ring in return for political power? Thinking of what he’d seen of the officer, Chen doubted it.

“What about Kim Junmyeon?” he asked.

Kyungsoo shook his head. “Went rogue years ago. I guess he still carried his prosecutor’s ID around. He’s bought himself a bit of time by breaking cover, but Officer Park will find out pretty soon he’s a wanted man.”

Chen’s hand tightened around the card involuntarily, crumpling the hard edges. He hated this world. Nobody was ever what they seemed. Suho had betrayed him in so many ways he was losing count.

“Get us out of here,” he told Kyungsoo, “and I’ll consider contacting Park Seungjin.”

“I’m supposed to be guarding the back stairwell until they’re sure the building is clear. I’ll take you out that way.”

Chen turned and crouched down to check on Xiumin. With Luhan’s help he hauled his friend out of the shallow underfloor hide. At the movement, the gash on Xiumin’s arm broke open and started bleeding sluggishly again. Chen tore a strip off his shirt and tied it tightly around the wound, and Xiumin groaned, the first sign of life he’d shown since Chen had arrived.

“Xiumin?” he asked, then, realising his friend might respond better to his birth name, “Minseok? Are you waking up? Can you hear me?” His friend didn’t answer, but his eyelids flickered. He was starting to come around.

“We have to move,” Kyungsoo said. “I’ll be recalled at any moment.”

He led them out the back of the room and up a narrow stairwell, Chen and Luhan half-dragging, half-carrying Xiumin’s semi-conscious body with his arms over their shoulders. At the outside door Kyungsoo held up a hand and cracked it open to peer out at the back parking lot. Night had fallen while they were inside, and everything was dark and quiet, barely lit by the faint orange glow of the city night sky.

“All clear,” he said. “Go.”

---

Chanyeol dialled HQ and put his phone to his ear, never taking his eyes off the man leaning nonchalantly against the side of his patrol car. In the near-darkness of the advancing evening, his strong, lean face was illumined amber by the streetlights. It matched the photograph on the prosecutor’s ID Chanyeol held in his hand. The ID looked legitimate to Chanyeol, but there was something about Kim Junmyeon that had him on edge. Maybe he’d been too long undercover, or maybe there was something else going on that Chanyeol didn’t know about, but there was something off about the slight smirk that hovered at the corner of the lips, the mocking gleam in his eye. This was not the look of a trustworthy man.

He told the operator at HQ to confirm Kim Junmyeon was an active prosecutor and call him back urgently. He had no excuse to handcuff the man, but he was not just going to let him walk away. Prosecutor’s ID or not, he was found on the scene of a drug deal, accompanied by a man carrying an illegal firearm, and Kim Heechul, who according to Junmyeon was the son of the leader of the Gwangju drug cartel.

He glanced over at the ambulance. The man who’d pulled the gun on them and gotten himself shot in the shoulder was lying in the back, getting emergency treatment from a paramedic. Seulgi was asking him a series of questions, none of which was getting so much as a flicker of expression from their captive.

“Who’s that?” Chanyeol asked Junmyeon, jerking his head at the ambulance.

“One of Gwangju’s men. He goes by Kris. He's just a guard. He won’t know much.” Junmyeon gave the man a dark look. “Bastard nearly throttled me, but it was on Gwangju’s orders.”

“How long have you been undercover?”

Junmyeon flicked him an unreadable glance. “Longer than you’ve even been in the force, kid. How did your lot find out this was going down? Not many people knew about this meeting. Someone pretty high up must have split.”

Chanyeol hid his irritation at being called kid. “My boss received intel of a drug deal, and my squad is investigating the Seoul-Gwangju meth ring, so we were sent in. That’s all I know.”

Chanyeol’s phone rang. He kept his eyes on Junmyeon as he picked it up. “Yeah?”

“Word has come back from the prosecution,” the operator told him. “Kim Junmyeon was an undercover prosecutor but went rogue six years ago. Orders are to arrest him and bring him in for questioning.”

Chanyeol kept his face impassive as he nodded. His gaze slid to Sehun as he hung up, waiting nearby. They made eye contact, and Sehun began to turn as Chanyeol took a step towards Junmyeon.

It was all the warning Junmyeon needed. Chanyeol saw the expression on his face change, unguarded for just a split second. He saw shock, he saw anger, he saw betrayal. In the next instant, the face went blank, and Junmyeon bolted.

Sehun lunged, knocking Junmyeon to the ground in a flying tackle. There was a brief, intense struggle on the ground as Chanyeol covered the five or so paces between them. Sehun gasped and lost grip just as Chanyeol hurled himself onto his knees and wrenched Junmyeon’s arms up behind his back. The man was incredibly strong and fought like an animal despite the pain he had to be in from Chanyeol’s arm lock. He pushed all his weight down, forcing Junmyeon's face into the gravel. In his peripheral vision he could see Seulgi and Kyungsoo running over, but he knew he had mere seconds before Junmyeon got away from him. Sehun was still down.

“Sehun, a hand here,” Chanyeol barked. At Chanyeol’s words Sehun tried to get up, then made a strange choking noise and fell back again, curling onto his side.

Horror flooded Chanyeol, nearly blinding him. That sound. That sound was not right. Sehun had gone still. He wasn’t getting up.

No. The word, the emotion, eclipsed him. No. Fear flung him back. Baekhyun limp in his arms. Blood on his face. A bullet hole in the side of his head. No.

He let go of Junmyeon and scrambled on hands and knees to Sehun. Sehun’s teeth flashed, bared in a grimace of pain.

“Where - what -” Chanyeol could barely get the words out, couldn’t form coherent sentences. His voice sounded strange, distant. His hands fluttered uselessly. “Sehun -”

“Knife,” Sehun ground out. He had a hand pressed to his lower abdomen. Chanyeol looked and the shadowed darkness around his hand resolved into the black hilt of a knife, embedded into Sehun’s side near his hip bone, just below where the protection of his flak vest ended. Accurate. Damn it. Chanyeol tried to yell for the medics, but his voice was a croak. He felt like he was trapped in a nightmare, his body unable to respond the way he wanted it to despite the desperation pumping through him with every rapid beat of his heart.

“MEDIC!” someone else yelled for him. Someone else knelt beside him. Seulgi. She pressed both hands over the wound. Sehun's eyes rolled back. Then the paramedics were there, taking over. Chanyeol fell back, tried to scramble to his feet, failed, was on his knees in the gravel, staring at the backs of the paramedics clustered around Sehun. No. Not again. Not again...

“...yeol? Chanyeol, are you listening? Are you hurt?”

“Kim Junmyeon -” the words broke free in a gasp. He lurched to his feet, stared around wildly. “He - Seulgi, did you see -”

“Kyungsoo caught him.” Seulgi was still holding his arm. “We got him, Chanyeol. He didn’t get away.”

Chanyeol stared at her as the words sank in. Then he wrenched himself out of her grasp and looked towards the van. Kyungsoo was shoving Junmyeon up the steps, wrists handcuffed behind his back. Chanyeol didn’t remember covering the ground, didn’t hear Seulgi’s call behind him. He shoved Kyungsoo aside, grabbed Junmyeon’s handcuffed arms, hauled him out and slammed him up against the side of the van. His arm went across his throat, bearing down.

“You ing bastard!” he yelled into Junmyeon’s face. “You were a prosecutor! He was just doing his job!”

Junmyeon’s mocking smirk from earlier was gone. “Ten years I’ve been undercover,” he snarled. “I gave my youth, my life to them and they used me and tossed me away like garbage. Cops? Prosecutors?” He turned his head and spat, hard. “You’re all the same. You see undercovers as tools, not people. But we are people. Betray us, and we will betray you right back.”

“You’re no person.” Chanyeol leaned harder on his arm. Junmyeon’s eyes stretched wide as he began to choke. “You’re a traitor. If you’ve killed my officer, I swear I will get you the death penalty, Kim Junmyeon. I will see you hang.”

“Chanyeol, stop!” Seulgi’s voice again. He was hauled back, several people holding his arms so he couldn’t get back to Junmyeon. Kyungsoo took charge of him again, forcing him up into the police van. The moment he was out of sight, Chanyeol's whole body began to shake uncontrollably. He heard sirens, and spun around. The ambulance was leaving.

“Seulgi - Sehun - did you - is he -” his voice w