“Do it,” Tiffany said calmly.

Taeyeon was staring at her in disbelieve. She couldn’t believe this girl is actually determined to die. “That’s it, I’m calling a police,” she said and took a step backwards to get her phone. Tiffany knew this is her chance, but the dagger was still too damn close to her neck. Then something really unexpected happened.

 It all happened really fast, but Tiffany saw it in a slow motion. Taeyeon took another step backwards because she couldn’t reach the phone, but then she tripped over her own foot and lost her balance. She fell on the floor, hitting her shoulder on the edge of the table. She dropped the dagger and it fell somewhere behind the table. It took a second for Tiffany to realize what actually just happened. She winked and quickly tore the ropes to free herself. Then she ran towards the opened window and jumped out.

“Yah!” Taeyeon yelled while trying to stand up and rubbing her hurt shoulder. “You!”

She looked at the messy room. She picked up the dagger and examined it. Then she took the black shawl that Tiffany girl used as a mask. She wrapped the dagger in it and then hid it in a cupboard. “What the hell just happened?”

Sunny may have promised Taeyeon that she will help her if anything happens, but she sure didn’t expect Taeyeon to call for real. It surprised her and knowing Taeyeon, it startled her.

“Taeyeon-ah, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing much,” Taeyeon said. Her voice was shaking a bit. “I burnt my dinner, hurt my elbow, somebody tried to kill me and I broke my bowl.”

“What?!” Sunny barked.

“Yeah, that pretty one you gave me,” Taeyeon said, sulky.

“I mean the killing part, not the bowl!”

“Oh, right of course… I don’t know, should I call police or not?”

“Of course you should!” Sunny said. She put the phone between her cheek and her shoulder so she could change her clothes and get to Taeyeon’s as soon as possible.

“Well, there’s something really weird about that attempted murder. That girl was supernaturally fast and strong. And she jumped out of the window.”

“That’s…. weird… You live on the seventh floor,” Sunny said, frowning. “Just wait, I’ll be there in a few minutes. You’ll tell me more once I arrive.”

“Okay, come here, but Sunny, be careful,” Taeyeon warned. “She still might be out there. She left her dagger here, but like I said, she’s really fast and strong.”

“Dagger? Weird… But yeah, sure,” Sunny nodded and hung up.

“Siwon!” Tiffany angrily entered Siwon’s room without even bothering to knock. She was boiling with anger. She didn’t even care about the punishment anymore and she was sure there will be some.

“Tiffany? Why are you being like this?” he asked, obviously shocked.

“Who is that girl, Siwon?” she asked, still enraged. “Is she one of us? Tell me, Siwon, is she a vampire?”

Siwon sighed. “She’s not a vampire.”

“I’ve seen the mark on her wrist,” Tiffany opposed and dramatically showed Siwon her own wrist with her wolf-shaped scar. “So don’t lie to me. Plus, she somehow managed to knock me down, I don’t understand how she did that, but damn, I’ve never been so humiliated in my life so far,” she continued to complain still waving her wrist in front of Siwon’s face.

“No need to be so dramatic, Tiffany, I’ve seen the mark zillion times before, I have the same one, remember?” he reminded. “But I’m not lying, she’s really not a vampire. Or at least not yet. Wasn’t her mark a bit different?”

Tiffany frowned as she tried to recall details. “Well… the wolf looked slimmer and somehow… graceful.”

“That’s because it wasn’t a wolf. It was a fox,” Siwon sighed.

“A fox? I thought there aren’t any other clans left!”

“So did I. But obviously, she’s their descendant.”

“How she’s not a vampire yet?” Tiffany asked.

“She’s apparently half human and that’s why we missed her. And that’s also why she has no powers. Yet. I assume she will get them sooner or later.”

“Half human? Interesting…” Tiffany mumbled.

Siwon nodded. “It’s not very usual, I know.”

“She doesn’t know about it?” Tiffany suddenly asked.

“I don’t think so. But she’s still dangerous. Once she reproduces she can possibly renew the whole Fox clan. We don’t want that. So we need to get rid of her.”

Tiffany hesitated for a second, before she firmly nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“You have the second and the last chance. Don’t fail this time.”

“This is really weird, are you sure?” Sunny said, obviously not really willing to believe Taeyeon’s story.

“One hundred percent,” Taeyeon answered nodding.

“Didn’t you… I don’t know, overdosed yourself with some pills?”

“I’m not taking any,” Taeyeon said, irritated.

“Who was she?” Sunny wondered aloud.

“Good question, but honestly… I have absolutely no idea. Oh, and here’s the dagger!” Taeyeon said and handed Sunny the weapon, wrapper in the shawl. Sunny took it and carefully took it out.

“What a weird dagger,” she said as she looked at it. “And what’s this?” she asked as she pointed at a logo at the hilt.

“How am I supposed to know? A dog, maybe. Is it important?”

“No idea. But it’s a very detailed and precise engraving. This doesn’t look like a mass product. This looks really old,” Sunny shrugged. “That’s the mask?”

“Yeah… It’s just a black shawl, nothing interesting about it.”

Sunny looked at it and then sniffed it. “It smells… like a blood,” she said dramatically and looked at Taeyeon.

“Well, I wiped some blood with it yesterday, but it wasn’t a lot…”  The taller girl frowned a bit and took the shaft to smell it herself. “It doesn’t smell like a blood. It’s just a strawberry lip gloss, you idiot,” she said and Sunny laughed.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t joke about this, please,” Taeyeon frowned.

“I know I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t resist, really, sorry.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Well, it’s not like I don’t want to and you have proofs,” Sunny said, pointing at the dagger, “but come on. Some super beautiful girl entered your house through your window on the seventh floor, tried to kill you with this really weird dagger, was incredibly strong and fast, you knocked her down with a bowl, tied her to the chair, but she tore the ropes and ran away, again using the window on the seventh floor I repeat. Admit it, this sounds really weird, I’m sorry,” Sunny said and grinned apologetically.

“Uhh… never mind, but… could you stay here over night please? I don’t think she’s gonna come back tonight, but… still.”

Sunny nodded. “Okay, I’m gonna stay here. I’m not going to school tomorrow anyways.”

“You’re not?”

“Saturday. We don’t go on weekends.”

“Oh, Saturday already?”

“Yup… let’s get some sleep.”

“Not that I will be able to, but… sure.”

 The following morning, the two best friends ended up having their breakfast at Yuri’s cafe. They had to go out to get some food simply because Taeyeon found out she only has cereals.  Sunny hated milk, so she said she just wouldn’t eat that morning and told Taeyeon to have breakfast by herself, but then the older girl spilled the milk all over the kitchen. So no cereals for her either.

As every morning, the owner of the cafe was there. She was tall, dark and handsome as hell.

“Hey girls, what are you doing here? I thought it’s your day off today…” she said surprised as she greeted them.

“That’s right. Can’t we just come for breakfast here?” Sunny asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Yuri shrugged. “Anything new?” she asked while pouring them a coffee.

“Not at my place,” Sunny answered. “But Taeyeon almost got murdered last night,” she added casually.

“What?” Yuri gasped. She dropped the cup and the sound of a glass breaking filled the room. “H-how?” she asked, shocked.

Taeyeon smiled at her reaction. “Are you that scared to lose your one and only singer?”

Yuri frowned. “That’s serious, Taeyeon!” she said and she started to clean up the broken cup and the spilled coffee.

“Yeah, I know…” Taeyeon sighed. “I don’t know what happened. Some weird, really strong and really fast black-haired girl wearing black clothes and a mask tried to kill me with a dagger.”

Yuri’s eyes widened. “For real? Outside? Or at your place?” she asked with her voice shaking.

“At my place… she said somebody had sent her,” Taeyeon said.

“Do you know something more? And how did you manage to escape?”

“Let’s say I was lucky,” Taeyeon smiled. “I don’t know much… she was incredibly strong and fast and jumped out of the window. Oh, and she said her name was Tiffany,” Taeyeon added randomly. Yuri gasped and ran out of the cafe.

“Why is she freaking out so much?” Sunny asked.

“I don’t know,” Taeyeon shrugged. “But she’s freaking out even more than I am.”

“You’re not really freaking out,” Sunny stated.

“I am,” Taeyeon said and looked at her. “Hell yeah, I am! You’re sleeping over at my place today again, okay?”

“Of course I am,” Sunny said seriously. “I wouldn’t let you be alone over night after this anyways.”

“Thanks, Sunny-yah… But what’s up with her?” Taeyeon said and pointed outside the window at Yuri. Their boss was standing there, yelling something into her cell phone.

“Weirdo…”

They were slowly eating their breakfast, discussing what they should do.

“Do you think it’s safe to stay at your place tonight?” Sunny asked. “Shouldn’t we go to my place?”

“You live in a dorm and you have a roommate.”

“Yenny is fine, she wouldn’t mind,” Sunny shrugged. “But we would have to sneak you inside, the rules are strict, we can’t have guests over night at our dorm…”

“Nah, don’t make it complicated, just come to my place,” Taeyeon disagreed.

“Okay then,” Sunny agreed.

Suddenly, Yuri walked in and quickly went to the dressing room.

“Yuri, what’s going on?” Taeyeon asked.

“I need to do something important,” Yuri said as she took her jacket.

“Can we borrow your lap top?” Taeyeon asked.

“Sure, whatever,” Yuri stormed out of the restaurant, leaving Taeyeon, Sunny and also the waitress, Gain, shocked.

“Wow. That was… Never mind, why do you want her lap top?”

“Well, I just realized I may try to look up some things online, maybe I wasn’t the only one attacked,” Taeyeon explained.

“Oh, right…”

They went to Yuri’s office. And as far as Taeyeon and Sunny knew, Yuri basically lived there. It’s not like she didn’t have a family, but she spends most of the time here. Except for her weird disappearing like every afternoon and evening. Nobody knows where she’s going. She always spends mornings in her cafe, around 2PM she disappears and then she comes back in the evening, sometimes very late. That’s the mysterious life of Kwon Yuri, Taeyeon’s and Sunny’s employer.

Taeyeon took Yuri’s lap top and they returned back to restaurant with it.

“So, what do you want to search?” Sunny asked.

“Uh… I’m not sure…” Taeyeon admitted, but then she typed something in.

‘A dagger with a weird doggie engraving’

“Are you kidding me?” Sunny gave her a WTF look right when she read that.

“Yeah, I know…” Taeyeon admitted and edited it.

‘A dagger with a dog engraving’

“That’s better,” Sunny nodded in an approval.

They searched for a while but with absolutely no results.

“Let’s try something different.”

‘Supernatural beings’

This time a bunch of useless pages about some random fantasy crap popped out.

“I guess we need to be more specific,” Sunny said and typed: ‘Fast, strong killers using daggers.’

This time only a few tens of articles popped out. It was still quite a lot though. Sunny just randomly scrolled down the browser and clicked one of the articles.

“On the November the fifth 2008 a teenage boy was found dead in his apartment. He was stabbed several times into the chest by his best friend, after they took several types of drugs that affected their sanity. Another two people were present in the situation and they both testified, that the murderer was very aggressive and strong due to the drug effect…”

“That’s useless, Sunny-yah…”

“You’re right…” Sunny sighed. “What about this one?” she asked and clicked another article.

“It looks like twenty years old news, but… we can read it if you want to,” Taeyeon shrugged and looked at the article. Then she started to read:

“Yesterday, it was exactly fifteen years ever since one of the most mysterious murders happened. On the 13^th of December 1994 in the early morning, president and co-founder of the biggest scientific company in the South Korea, HJ Institute, was found dead in his family house along with his wife. They were both found with their throats precisely cut. Their children, an older son and a younger daughter, escaped. The ten years old son later contacted police and testified that the murderers had been incredibly fast and strong, worn masks and killed the parents with a dagger. He said he had run away during the attack so he didn’t know anything more. Even though he was included in a witness protection program, he was murdered the same way his parents had only a two days after. Their daughter has never been found… Ugh, seriously, internet is useless,” Taeyeon complained. “What a crap.”

“Well, it sounds really similar to your case,” Sunny said. “Dagger, fast, strong, masks…”

“Yeah, but think about it. I was attacked by a young girl. She had to be just a kid fifteen years ago. Plus… This guy was some kind of scientist and people may have actually a reason to kill him. Why would anybody kill me? And the only thing that we have from his article is a testimony of a ten years old boy who’s no longer alive. Maybe he exaggerated, you don’t know,” Taeyeon explained.

“True,” Sunny admitted. “I guess it’s nothing then,” she added with a sigh.

“Yeah, I guess it’s useless…” Taeyeon mumbled and closed the lap top.

Sunny got up from the chair and extended her hand to help Taeyeon as well. Taeyeon accepted the help, but she still somehow managed to knock her knee against the table.

“Ouchie~!” she whined cutely and rubbed the red spot.

Sunny rolled her eyes. “Stupid.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“I’ll cook you some lunch you clutz, let’s go get some groceries and be careful please.”

“Okay…”

Later that day, after they ate lunch, Sunny had to go back to school for a while. To the library to be exact, because of an essay she had to write.

Taeyeon didn’t want to be alone, but she eventually ended up sleeping. Well, she didn’t want to sleep, but she couldn’t really win this fight, since she hadn’t slept at all the previous night. She slept for like three hours or so, when Sunny returned and woke her up.

“Homework done?” Taeyeon asked sleepily.

“Almost,” Sunny yawned. She didn’t really get any sleep either. “For you,” she said and threw a really huge book on the table.

“What do you mean ‘for me’?” Taeyeon asked, confused.

“Well…” Sunny pushed the book towards Taeyeon. The older girl almost caught it, but… almost. The book slid in between her fingers and fell over the edge of the table right on Taeyeon’s toe.

“Damn it!” she cursed and picked up the book. She stared at the title. “Experiments on humans? Huh? What’s that?”

“A book about humans with supernatural abilities. You know, scientists are trying to develop a way how to increase humans’ strength and other stuff. And they’re experimenting. On people. And some experiments have gone wrong. Try to go through it, maybe you’ll find something out. There are many names in the book, maybe you will know somebody.”

Taeyeon mumbled something incoherent. “How nice of you…” she said and yawned.

“Oh right, that’s for you too,” Sunny remembered and took out of her bag a can of a Red Bull. “I need to get some sleep, Taeyeon-ah,” she added then.

“Okay,” Taeyeon answered. She was about to go back to sleep as well.

“If anything happens, wake me up immediately, okay?”

“Okay.”

Sunny fell asleep almost immediately. Taeyeon went to her room and took a nap as well, but she couldn’t really fell asleep. She kept waking up every few minutes and eventually she gave up. The sun slowly set and the darkness filled her bedroom. She the lamp and went to living room. She checked on Sunny, who was sleeping deeply on the couch and then she looked at the huge book on the table. She sighed. Maybe there really is something in it… Well, she doubted it, but she had nothing to do anyways, so why not at least check it.

She returned back to her room to read. She didn’t want to disturb her friend in her sleep. She was already thankful that Sunny was willing to sleep on her couch just because of her, no need to be inconsiderate even more.

Taeyeon lied on her bad on the stomach and opened the book. She briefly checked introduction and read the first chapter dedicated to beginnings of experiments on humans. Then she skipped a few pages. Too useless.

She was getting a little bit sleepy again. She shifted her body a bit, because the position was getting a bit uncomfortable and felt like somebody sat on the bed right next to her. She froze for a moment, but then she concluded it was probably just some weird movement she made herself. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was kind of scared to look. Too bad she couldn’t really ignore the warm breath tickling her earlobe and a raspy voice sending a shiver down her spine as well.

“So… you think I’m some kind of a lab rat, huh?”