The safe house was located in the middle of the woods, surrounded by tall, nearly impenetrable trees. No clear road actually led to the house, only an opening wide enough for the car to mow down the overgrown grass. A little barn sat on the right side with thick cords coming out of the roof. Your best guess was that it was a giant generator to power the lights and other modern conveniences. Giant gas barrels and an up-to-date well covered the remaining necessities. It was conpletely isolated and self-sufficient. 

“Well,” Yerin turned around to face everyone, still avoiding eye contact with Yixing, “this is home for now. Let’s go.” Throwing open the door, she shuffled to the back of the suburban, lifting up the hatch and grabbing the different bags stored there. A few of the boys came to help and they all cautiously walked behind her as she neared the front door. According to the last note in the directions, a key was hidden in the rocks on the left side of the door. It took a few tries, overturning the multicolored stones that were bigger than her hands, but eventually she found the one that was hollow and shook the key free.

The front foyer was dark, barely visible in the midday light. She had been driving for hours and all she wanted to do was find a place to lie down and be alone.

Junmyeon tested out the main light switch which thankfully had no problem in slowly flickering on the bulbs above. The house really was more like a cabin-themed mansion. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of a medium colored wood, not too bright but not depressingly dark either. Right across from the front door was a staircase that twisted up into the second floor.

“I think we should find places to rest for now,” Yerin suggested. No one protested, following her lead as she headed up the stairs. The second floor consisted of only one hallway with several doors on either side and one at the end. Letting out a deep breath, she turned around. “My guess is that almost all of these are bedrooms, maybe one or two a bathroom. It looks like there’ll have to be double bunking, so just kind of shift into the groups that you want to room with.”

“Is this where we’re staying for now on?” Sehun asked timidly.

“Just for now,” Yerin replied. “Soon, someone else is going to come and help us get you situated back into the world. So you can live a normal life.”

Minseok scoffed. “There’s no such thing as normal life for us.”

He stormed off, opening the first door he came to, and disappeared into the room, slamming the door behind him. Yerin flinched at the loud bang, trying to not let his attitude be the hit that broke the dam.

“Don’t worry about him,” Jongdae said, sliding up to her and throwing an arm around her shoulders. “He’ll loosen up. He just doesn’t like strangers.”

“She’s not exactly a stranger to us,” Junmyeon pointed out.

Jongdae shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll go make sure he doesn’t break anything.” He went into the same room as Minseok, shutting the door a bit more gently this time.

Shaking his head, Junmyeon turned to the rest. “If someone finds the master room, shout it out. Yerin should get that one.”

“What?” She looked at him, frowning. “No, that’s okay. I’ll take the smallest one. It wouldn’t be right for me to take the big room.”

“It wouldn’t be right for you to have to sleep in the same room with one of us or share a bathroom,” Kyungsoo countered. “You might get hurt. Besides, we’re use to a small room.”

In her peripheral, Yerin saw Jongin look down, ashamed. He still thought he’d hurt her from that session. Helping him get over that was going to take time. Time that she really didn’t want to spend right now. Seeing how it was seven against one, she gave in, throwing her hands up.

“Fine,” she sighed. She was too tired and jumbled up to argue.

“My best guess is that one is the master,” Junmyeon pointed to the single door that ended the hallway. “If it’s not, just let us know.”

Yerin nodded, adjusting the duffle bag on her shoulder before heading into the room.

It really was the master, running the entire length of the second story. The king size bed was pushed up against the opposite wall, a simple gray duvet laid across the mattress along with a toned down headboard. To the right was the bathroom which, on further exploration, lead into the walk-in closet. Across from there were two floor-to-ceiling windows complete with the metal crisscross framework.

Dropping the bag on the floor, Yerin walked over to one of the windows, staring out at the sun. While driving, she had been unable to decipher where exactly in the country they were – if they were even still in the same country. The sun was starting to go down, although it couldn’t have been any later than four in the afternoon. With a rumbling gurgling in her stomach, she began to worry a little.

There were ten of them here, ten mouths to feed three times a day. In a rush and forgetting about her exhaustion, Yerin headed down to the kitchen. Relief washed over as every cabinet was stuffed full of boxes and cans of fresh food. The overly large fridge was also packed with a separate deep freeze positioned off to the side. There would be enough to eat. At least for now. With nothing else to do and unable to fully rest on an empty stomach, she started pulling out ingredients, trying to come up with something cook.

That area wasn’t her strong suit. Yerin could make a few dishes without incident, but she was no gourmet chef. Living alone caused her to fall into a mundane routine of quick meals, only serving up a complicated recipe when she was particularly bored and needing a small, non-drastic change on a lame Thursday night.

It was only a matter of time before the kitchen began to slowly fill up with ravenous hybrids. The smell of the meat sizzling in the pan was making Yerin's own mouth water. Kyungsoo stood close by her, almost hovering as he watched her mix the vegetables in with the spices and sauce. The others simply stood around the island awkwardly as they waited, unsure of what else to do.

With the food finished, they found plates and cups in the other cabinet. Yerin set one of each in front of the boys as they sat on the stools surrounding the island. That’s when she realized that there were only eight boys in the room.

“Where’s Chanyeol?” Yerin asked.

Baekhyun shrugged. “He said he would be down in a minute. But that was about ten minutes ago.”

Concerned, Yerin laid everything out and told the boys to go ahead start eating. It didn’t occur to her until she was already halfway up the stairs that they might eat everything before either she or Chanyeol got a bite.

Upstairs, Yerin realized that she dind't know which room Chnayeol had chosen. Not seeing another option, she started opening doors, hoping to that he was just resting or got distracted and that it wasn't something more serious. When she came to the third room, she opened the door slowly upon hearing slight movement. Chanyeol was standing there near the large bed, shirtless. He had taken gauze from the first aid kit and seemed to be trying to wrap it around himself. At the sound of Yerin's entrance, he froze, those large round eyes meeting her own.

“What happened?” Yerin ran to him and started undoing his sloppy work.

“It’s nothing,” Chanyeol insisted as he tried to turn away from her. “I’m fine.”

Yerin swatted his hands away when he tried to take back the gauze. At the sight of four gnarled holes in his right side near his hip, her jaw dropped.

“Is this from the Taser?” She’d completely forgotten about Chanyeol taking the Taser hit for she. Sighing, she dug through the open kit on the bed. After pulling out some disinfectant, she shook her head, going to work on the wound. “You should have just came and got me. Simply wrapping it up isn’t enough.”

“I told you I’m fine,” Chanyeol argued, though his voice came out more as a pout than a snarl. “It’ll be scabbed over by tomorrow morning, gone by tomorrow night. My temperature would burn off any infection.”

He was right. Yerin's doctor instincts were fighting with her knowledge of their super cells. This treatment was technically useless with how fast these boys healed. There wasn’t even a trace of Sehun’s cut from a few weeks ago.

“I’ll still feel better with it patched up.” Yerin took out a thick, square patch of gauze from the kit and covered the holes completely. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but she taped up the edges anyway.

As she finished, Chanyeol placed his large hands over Yerin's, stopping them from leaving his scorching skin. Yerin peaked up at him, her breath hitching in when she noticed how close their faces were. His breath was warm against her nose and lips. She was frozen in place.

“Yerin….” His voice was low, barely audible with Yerin's heart pounding in her ears.

It was like she was back in the basement running from the guards. Her heart was on high alert, pounding against her sternum. One of Chanyeol’s hands softly crept up her arm until his palm was cupping her face. Centimeter by centimeter, his face came closer, his lips hovering above hers, achingly close. In the moment before they were about to touch, Yerin came to her senses, pulling out his embrace.

“I-I’m sorry.” She ran out of the room and back downstairs, stopping just outside the kitchen. Pressing against the wall, she put her hand over her heart as if that would get it to calm down. Yerin tried to concentrate on the chatter from the boys in the kitchen instead, but she couldn’t latch on to anything that was being said. Footsteps echoed off the top of the stairs. She pushed off the wall, trying to seem as casual as possible as she sat back down to try and get any food before it all disappeared.