“Baekhyun and Chanyeol are going to videoconference with us on Saturday,” I tell Annabelle as we’re walking to Calculus. “That way, we can work with Baekhyun without going to the actual X.E. building.”

She swallows. “We’re video conferencing with them? So they’ll see our faces?”

“It’ll be okay,” I tell her reassuringly. “We’re working with them. They’re not going to try to kill us.”

“They’re still gang members,” Annabelle says worriedly. “What if they decide to turn on us? They'll know our identities! Who we are!”

I twist my lips to the side. “That’s a risk we’ll have to take, I guess. I don’t know what else we could do.”

“So how exactly is Baekhyun going to track Camille Rosenquist if you couldn’t? You’re, like, a computer wizard.”

“See, here's the problem. There are two parts to the Internet.” I hold up my right hand horizontally. “10% of the web is just the surface level, or the part that most people use. It includes Facebook and Twitter and all those sites. I’m really good at working with that 10%.”

“Okay. What’s the other 90%?”

I put my left hand under my right hand. “The deep web. It’s where all the super secret government databases are located, along with the classified materials of business and other important organizations. The 4 Flames website was in the deep web.”

“Hey, but you cracked that.”

I give her a wry smile. “Yeah, and then what happened?”

“We got hunted down by- oh. Gotcha.”

“The deep web is also where a bunch of illegal stuff happens, too,” I explain. “Human trafficking sites, ography, social security numbers and passports shops, illegal organ selling hubs.”

Annabelle’s jaw drops. “What? You can find that stuff on the Internet?!”

“Only if you know how to find it. All the major hackers operate in the deep web. See, about a year ago, I tried entering the deep web just to see how it was like. Within minutes, my computer screen started flickering. Someone was trying to get into my computer. I literally shut it down and factory reset my laptop.” I shudder. “God, I was terrified. I don't know how to mask my presence there, even with a Tor browser. I don't stand a chance.”

“That’s scary,” Annabelle whispers. “So you think Baekhyun can get into the deep web?”

“Yeah. He’s as good as Marge with computers, I think. But... I can’t exactly ask Marge.”

“Hm. So we’ll have to rely on Baekhyun.”

“Yeah. Hopefully we figure this out quickly. This is stressing me- whoa!”

Annabelle has yanked me behind a corner. “Look there,” she murmurs, pointing towards a side hallway.

I peek my head around the corner. Lina is leaning against a row of lockers as Yoongi looms over her, an arm placed above her head. Judging by the furious look on her face and his malevolent smirk, it’s obvious that Yoongi is harassing Lina again.

Annabelle and I watch as Lina attempts to stalk away- but he grabs her wrist and violently yanks her towards him. Yoongi whispers something in her ear, and Lina shoves him away from her. He catches her hands and pins them up beside her in an oddly possessive move. The malice abates from his eyes; he looks at Lina with an unreadable expression. She stays still, simply looking back at him.

And then she rips her arms out of his and storms away.

Annabelle and I slowly turn to each other, utterly lost. Yoongi is standing frozen in the same place, looking straight ahead of himself.

“What the hell was that?” I whisper.

“There’s something stupid we have to do a few weeks from now,” Marge tells me after I arrive at Floor 21. “It’s annoying, and totally ridiculous, but we all have to go.”

“What is it?”

“A Christmas Ball.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, I know.” Marge rolls her eyes. “But it’s actually really important. The higher-ups from nearly all our rival gangs are going to be there. This is the only time of the year that our gangs cooperate- it’s supposed to be a sign of good will. Ha!”  

Honestly, I’m more surprised about the fact that it’s already December. The first semester of junior year has flown by in the blink of an eye. But at the same time, it feels like I’ve already experienced a life’s worth of stress, panic, fear, and frustration in these past 4 months.

“I swear, if Baekhyun tries pulling some stupid stunt again this year, I’m going to slaughter him,” Marge grumbles. I look at her in surprise.

“What did he do?”

She buries her face in her hands. “He turned the ball into a goddamn disco. I’m not even joking. We were all standing there in our stiff dresses and suits, and then suddenly, these stupid strobe lights turn on and “Stayin’ Alive” is blasting full volume.”

I burst out laughing. “That actually sounds hilarious,” I snort.

“It was an idiotic move!” Marge exclaims. “Everyone got pissed at each other and some dude from the Seven Stars laughed at this one guy from X.E. so they almost had a brawl and-,”

“I can’t wait to go to this ball,” I grin, rubbing my hands together gleefully. “Just for Baekhyun. That’s it.”

“I’ll kill you both,” Marge says, holding up her stapler. “Don’t do anything dumb.”

I plop down in front of my laptop and begin working. However, a few minutes later, I finally voice the question that’s been niggling at my brain for weeks now.

“Marge, does Yoongi hate a lot of people?”

She lets out a loud guffaw. “That’s an understatement.”

“So I’m not the only one he despises with a burning passion? Great.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Marge sighs. “He’s just not very trusting of people. And he’s really overprotective- especially of Jungkook.”

“Ah.”

“It took months for us to become friends. I socked him once, when he was being really rude. That was pretty nice.”

“Lucky.” My mind flashes back to the scene between Lina and Yoongi that Annabelle and I witnessed. “He was just acting extra weird today.”

“That kid always acts weird.”

I let out a bark of laughter. “Ain’t that the truth."

Chanyeol is sitting in a cluttered, extremely disorganized room when he picks up my video call that Saturday. Thick paperback books with titles like "C++ for Dummies" and "Advanced Java Programming" sit amongst broken keyboards, NutriGrain bar wrappers, and empty water bottles. A thin cot sits in the corner, covered with a few pillows and blankets.

"Was there a hurricane that passed through your room that I didn't know about?" I ask snarkily.

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. "Ha ha. Very funny. This is Baekhyun's office. Where are you guys?"

“We’re not telling,” I say, just as Preet’s mom shouts from downstairs, “Preet! If you don’t take your things out of the living room, I’m going to throw it all away!”

Preet buries his face in his hands as I blush in second-hand embarrassment. Chanyeol sniggers.

“No explanation needed,” he says. Then, he moves the camera to the left, so that a blond man with framed glasses is visible. "You must be Ami Hwang," Baekhyun says, his lips curling into a smile. "I finally get to meet Marge's protegee face to face."

"Hi. Let me introduce my friends: Preet, Annabelle, Marcus, and-,” I turn around. Where’s Lina? She is uncharacteristically absent. Weird.

“Okay, great, I don’t care. Let’s get started.” Baekhyun rubs his hands together. “What’s the name of the person you want to track?”

Wow. Rude. “Camille Rosenquist,” I say, crossing my arms.  

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

Preet narrows his eyes. “How exactly are we going to ‘do this’?”

“Have you ever heard of bitcoins?” Baekhyun asks him smugly.

Preet knits his eyebrows together. “Not really.”

“Aren’t they a type of cryptocurrency?” I say. Baekhyun nods.

“Bitcoins are basically money that’s stored online,” he says. “I won’t go into the specifics, but you can basically buy things on the Internet and even in actual stores using bitcoins. They give you the product, you pay them bitcoins in return.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Preet says, a quizzical look on his face.

Baekhyun smiles widely. “Glad you asked. Did you know that all bitcoin transactions are recorded publicly online?”

Marcus frowns. “Okay... so?”

    Baekhyun looks at us exasperatedly. “It means that we can use a bit of data mining to first obtain the block chains that were assigned to Yohan’s transactions, match those up to the dates that Camille was last heard from, and see if they have any hits on any database across the Internet.”

    Preet, Annabelle, Marcus, and I all look at each other.

    Then we all look back at Baekhyun.

    “That makes perfect sense,” Annabelle says seriously, nodding her head. “We should totally deep web the bitcoin in the data mine. I definitely know what I’m talking about.”

    “Wow, this is the first time that someone has talked about computers and I have no idea what the hell they’re saying,” I say ruefully.

    “Imagine having to spend all of your time with someone like this,” Chanyeol huffs. “This bastard thinks he’s better than everyone just because he knows how to program a damn computer.”

    Baekhyun an eyebrow. “I would’ve thought that you were at least at this level, Ami. You are working with Marge.”

    “I’m not that terrible,” I say, rather sulkily. “I specialize in straight coding, not data mining-,”

    Suddenly, the door to Preet’s room flies open. “Hey, Marcus, get your car out of the driveway!” Lina complains. “I had to park-,”

    She takes one look at Chanyeol and Baekhyun on Preet’s laptop screen and blanches.

    Lina whips her head around so that her back is to the camera, but it is too late; judging by the surprised expressions on Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s faces, they have already seen her.

    Marcus stands up and places a hand on Lina’s shoulder, looking at her in puzzlement. “What’s up, Lina?”

    “I didn’t know that you guys would still be talking to them,” she mutters through clenched teeth.

    I look back at the screen. A sly smile has replaced Baekhyun’s previously taken aback look.

    “We don’t bite, Lina,” he chuckles in a low voice. “Why don’t you take a seat? We’re almost done, anyway.”

    “Wait, we are?” I narrow my eyes. “We haven’t found anything about Camille Rosenquist.”

    “You think data mining can happen like that?” He snaps his fingers. “Even with my upgraded data mining software, this could take days. Weeks, probably.”

    “What?!”

    “Calm down. I’ll get back to you in a few weeks." Baekhyun pauses, a strange smile on his face. "You know, I could get some more people to work on this. Maybe involve the IT departments from other gangs, like the Seven Stars. We're all fighting against a common enemy, right?”

    “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Annabelle immediately interjects, biting her lip in concern. “No offense, but I think just working with you guys is kind of risky. I don’t want Ami to be put even more at risk by working with another gang. Sorry.”

    “I agree,” Marcus says firmly. “Thanks for the help, but let's keep this between us.”

    “Mmm.” Baekhyun’s smile grows wider. “I see.”

    “Thanks for the info on Project Cotton, by the way.” Chanyeol presses his lips together. “It was disgusting. Nothing less than what I’d expect from the 4 Flames.”

    “You can say that again,” Preet says under his breath.

    “Hopefully, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on after figuring out who this Camille girl is.” Chanyeol shrugs. “Not really sure how she’s pertinent to any of this, but whatever.”

    “We’ll keep trying to get intel,” I say. “Well, bye. Thanks again, guys.”

    “See you soon,” Baekhyun says, and the screen goes black.     

    I turn around to face Lina. “Hey, what’s wrong? Lately, you seem kind of... tense.” Annabelle and I exchange a glance, and I know we're both thinking about Lina and Yoongi's secret confrontation in the hallway that we witnessed earlier that week.

“Nothing,” she murmurs. “It’s just... Chanyeol and Baekhyun actual gang members. They seem so normal and chill, but we know what they actually do. I'm scared.”

“Yeah, BTS is the same way,” Marcus adds. “I'm so used to looking them as nothing more than people our age. I know how you feel.”

“Yeah.”

I sigh, leaning back in my chair. “Guess we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to find out more about Project Cotton."

A/N: Everything said about the Internet/bitcoins and stuff in this chapter is actually real! 90% of the web is the "Deep Web", which basically means that it isn't indexed by search engines like Google and Bing. A lot of illegal activity happens in the deep web- along with the things mentioned, there are rumors that companies trade stock on the down-low on the deep web, too.

I researched a ton about bitcoins; they're really interesting! I was about to make Baekhyun go on and on about them but I was like wait this is unnecessary LOL. 1 bitcoin is currently equal to about $240 (as of June 26, 2015), but their exchange rate highly fluctuates (in October 2014 1 bitcoin was equal to over $600). There's also this thing where people work in pools to "mine bitcoins"- they solve really complicated math problems, basically, which helps process the bitcoin transactions and you're supposed to use ASCI miners and hightech software to do this and WOW I'M RAMBLING LMFAO 

BTW IM SORRY THERE WAS NO JUNGKOOK IN THIS CHAPTER LOL