The only good thing I’ve gotten out of Training is Chanyeol’s number.

Not because I’m into him or anything. I mean, he’s a cute guy, sure. But I’m not interested in dating a chatterbox like that. Seriously, the kid never shuts up. But if I can sift through the garbage that comes out of his mouth, I might be able to obtain some useful information.

I head up to Floor 21 after Training. “Jeez, you stink,” Marge says, wrinkling her nose. “Go take a shower."

After I wash up, I return to my laptop. “Okay, what do I work on?”

Marge looks at me strangely. “Ami, go do your homework.”

“I did it during lunch. Now what do I need to work on?”

“Go to sleep!”

“No!”

Marge huffs. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll give you something easy.” She sends a video file to me, along with a file attachment. I open the file.

My stomach drops.

“I need you to ID this girl, Mira Sim, along with 4 other individuals in this video.” Marge sighs. “Should be fairly easy.”

Annabelle Lim. Preet Chopra. Marcus Johnson. Lina Nguyen.

And Ami Hwang.

Yes, it is easy.

Because that’s us.

Marge notices the look on my face. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I breathe. “It’s just the first time I’ve done this. Don’t worry, I got this. Gonna run some face recognition software and get the names.”

What would’ve happened if someone other than I had been tasked with this? And what am I going to do now? It’s obvious that if I give Yohan fake names, they’ll find out I’m lying. If I frame someone else for the crimes, Yohan will kill them. They have a clear shot of Annabelle’s face, too.

Damn it. I have no choice.

    “Hey, you were right,” I tell Marge tiredly. “I should sleep. But don’t worry, I’ll handle the project. Just give me a day.”

    “Alright. I’ll call Jungkook and ask him to pick you up.”

    “Ugh.” I groan. “He’s the last person I want to see right now. He was being so obnoxious during Training.”

    “Oh yeah, how was it?”

    “Terrible. I feel like dying.”

    “That’s Training for you.”

    Jungkook meets me in the parking lot. The moment he sees me, he bursts into laughter.

    “Ami Hwang hates reading,” he says, wiping away tears of mirth. “Wow, what a plot twist.”

    “Shut up! I don’t even get why I have to do this. Who am I going to fight? I don’t even know any other gangs in the area.”

    “The X.E. Mob, the Seven Stars, even the Pirus and Crips, if you want to bring in the street gangs-,”

    “Of course.” I roll my eyes. “I forgot we’re near Los Angeles, the gang capital of America.”

    “Exactly. You need to learn how to defend yourself.”

    “Like I’ll need to do that in front of a computer screen.”  

Jungkook pulls up next to my house.

“See you at Training tomorrow,” he smirks.

“Bye!” I respond in a chipper voice, and slam the door shut.

The moment I get inside, I grab my laptop and a cup of instant coffee.

The only way I can erase the evidence is if I create a virus that’ll destroy the video of us on the Yohan database. I can’t make it selectively delete that one file, though- that’ll look too suspicious. I need to wipe out an entire portion of the files.

But the hardest part of this is making this attack look like it came from another source.

“The X.E. Mob, the Seven Stars, even the Pirus and Crips,” I mutter under my breath. “Which gang should I frame for this virus?”

After a little digging around, I learn that the X.E. already have a past of launching network attacks on the 4 Flames. Their cover company is a cybersecurity firm, Cyntel. Perfect.

It takes me several hours. The virus is complex and destructive. I latch it onto a set of signals transmitted from miles away- I can say that the Cyntel employee worked from there- and direct them towards the Yohan network.

Done. The virus should be in progress now.

I look over at the clock hanging on my wall. 4:39 AM. Wonderful.

    “You look like a zombie,” Lina remarks the next morning during 1st period.

    I don’t respond; instead, I rest my head on the table. A few moments later, I feel her prodding my side.

    “Get up,” she hisses. “You can’t feel asleep in the middle of class.”

    “What were you even doing last night?” Preet demands. “I thought Training ended at 10.”

    “I’ll explain later,” I yawn.  

    “Okay, this is ridiculous.” Suddenly, I feel myself grabbed by the hand by Lina and dragged up. “Mr. Brown, Ami feels sick. Can I take her to the nurse?”

    Mr. Brown, my stern, ancient Economics teacher, gives her a tight nod. The next thing I know, Lina is dragging me down to the library. Preet is hot on our tails.

“Why are we here?” I moan. Lina plops me down in a couch.

“Go to sleep,” she commands. “We’ll keep watch.”

“We ran out of class for this?” Preet mutters. Lina shoots him a look.

“Thank you,” I sigh, and nod off.

When I wake up, Lina is the only one sitting in front of me. She smiles as she sees me blink open my eyes.

“It’s 5th period,” she tells me. “Preet and Marcus were here a while ago, and Annabelle just left. She has a test this period. She got you lunch before she left, though.” Lina nods over to a tray of pizza sitting on a table nearby.

“Thanks,” I utter, sitting up. “Have you stayed the whole time?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Lina gives me a long look. “It’s the least I could do. Actually, I should be the one asking you that question.”

“What?”

“Why are you still helping us?” she asks. “You never asked for any of this. We dragged you into this whole 4 Flames mess. Why are you risking your life by infiltrating Yohan?”

I stare at her with a blank look on my face.

Why am I helping them? It makes no sense from a logical perspective. I don’t have a personal interest in finding out why Kyle Johnson was killed.

“I... at first, it’s because I felt like I didn’t really have a choice,” I admit. “If Jungkook hadn’t told me that I would be safe if I joined the 4 Flames, then I wouldn’t have done it. I didn’t really care about finding out the truth about Marcus’ brother.”

“Do you care now?”

“Yeah.” I exhale. “Because... I care about Marcus. I care about all of you guys. You’re my friends now. I mean, you wouldn’t skip a school day just to watch me sleep.” I chuckle.

“How touching,” Lina laughs, but I can see that she is genuinely affected. “For the record, I counted us as friends way before you hacked into the 4 Flames site for me.”

“I guess running away twice from thugs who want to murder you is a true bonding experience,” I joke.

“No kidding.” She sighs, and leans back on the couch. “You think we’ll be able to take ‘em down? A bunch of teenagers with a laptop?”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

“Ami?”

I open my eyes in surprise. Jungkook is hovering above me and Lina, peering down at us in surprise.

“What are you doing here?” I snap irritatedly.

“Babe...,” he says pointedly, side-eying Lina. I sigh and plaster a wide smile on my face.

“Sorry, honey, I’m exhausted.” I pull him down to sit next to me. “Lina snuck me out of Econ so I could sleep. I was super tired.”

“Oh.” Jungkook looks over at Lina with a peculiar expression. “Thanks. I’m, uh, Jungkook. I don’t think we’ve... met.”

“Yeah...,” Lina responds awkwardly. She and I exchange a look, and we both burst out laughing.

“I can’t believe this is the first time you’re meeting my best friend,” I scoff.

Jungkook chuckles. “I thought I was your best friend.”

“Hey, no way,” Lina says. “Well, I’m just going to leave you two.” Before she goes, she whispers, “You’re incredible.”

“Training really wore you out, huh,” Jungkook murmurs to me.

“Yeah.” That and the virus I was up creating. “I’m sore as hell. Don’t make fun of me again.”

“I’m not going to.” He leans his head against my shoulder. I look at him in confusion.

“Get off.”

“Make me,” he murmurs. “You’re not the only one who’s tired.”

“Let me guess, another mission. That you’re not going to tell me about.”

“Yup.”

I shove him off in exasperation. “Whatever. Get up. We have to go back to class.”

    “Five more minutes,” he moans. “I’ll let you skip Training. Deal?”

    “Fine. Deal.”

    He buries his head in the crook of my neck and lets out a long, deep sigh. I peer at him from the corner of my eye. Jungkook Jeon is very attractive- especially when his mouth’s shut and he’s not conscious. Whoa, that sounds weird.

    “I know you’re consumed with an insatiable desire for me, but stop staring,” he murmurs.

    “I’m not staring, you moron.”

    “You can go to sleep, too.”

    “One of us has to keep a lookout for teachers who come by to look for us.”

    “Alright, you can take care of that. Good night!”

    “It’s not even night, idiot.”

    He smiles and closes his eyes again, while I try and suppress the heat rising up in my cheeks.

    Damn you, Jungkook Jeon.

    “We have a problem,” Marge tells me in a panicked voice the instant I arrive on Floor 21. I had shown up to Training- although Jungkook told me I could skip today- but a somber woman in a black suit had immediately pulled me away to take me to Floor 21 (Chanyeol begged me to take me with him, but she didn’t let me).  

    “What is it?” I ask concernedly, hurrying over to her laptop.

    “A virus,” she responds, typing away on her keyboard. Lines and lines of white code line the screen. “This is insane. I don’t know how it was able to infiltrate all of our firewalls and protection, but I traced it, and it came from Los Angeles. My bets are on another gang sending this to us. I’m guessing X.E. You know who X.E. is, right?”

    A warm feeling of relief blossoms through my chest. It worked. “No, I don’t. What’s X.E.?”

    “Another gang in the area. They run Cyntel. Damn them.” Marge massages her temples- and then freezes. “Wait a minute. This can’t be a coincidence.”

    “What?” I question nervously.

    “Someone goes to Jae- one of our associates on Saturday and tries to question her about us. Then, when we’re about to discover the identities of those who tried to interrogate her, a mysterious virus wipes out a chunk of our data- including the security footage with their faces in it. That’s it. X.E. was behind the incident on Saturday.”

    I let out the breath I had been holding. “That’s genius, Marge,” I tell her faintly. “Really smart. What do we do now?”

    “We launch an immediate attack to obtain their motives.” Marge grabs the phone. “We’re  going to need all 7 BTS members to suit up and get ready to hit the field.”

    “Wait, do I get to watch them on their mission?” I ask excitedly.

    Marge gives me a grim look. “We’re going to be doing more than that. I’d been requested not to let you help out on missions, but this is an emergency situation.” She picks up the phone again. “Rhea, put every computer on lockdown. We’re not taking the network offline yet, but worst case scenario, that’s what happens. I don’t know how far this breach goes. I’m sending a mobile unit to X.E. HQ right now.”

    I’m starting to get more and more antsy. I didn’t think that the virus I implanted would be such a huge deal. If they keep investigating further and further, they’ll realize that the virus didn’t come from Los Angeles- it came from Brookhaven.

My house.