Kyungsoo and Kris stand in the middle of the living room, their eyes spitting fire at each other. Joshua and I warily stand between them, our arms outstretched.

    “What is he talking about, Kris?” I ask slowly. “You were a part of X.E.?”

    A muscle in Kris’ jaw twitches. “This isn’t the time or place to be talking about this. We need to find your friends and run before a gang gets us-,”

    “We’re not going anywhere with you,” Kyungsoo hisses. “How are we supposed to trust you?”

    “Kyungsoo... it’s not what you think it is.”

    “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Your actions were plain and simple: you were supposed to be on a solo op and then all of a sudden you just disappeared. You never contacted us. You just left.”

    “I had a reason!” Kris exclaims.

    Kyungsoo scoffs. “Oh, yeah? What is it?”

    Kris opens his mouth to say something- and then quickly closes it. “We need to get out of here,” he finally repeats in a low murmur.

    “Not until we figure out what’s going on,” Joshua cuts in. “Mimi. What happened? How do you know this guy?”

    “Kris works at Sentrix with me,” I say quietly. “And the party we were attending was hosted by... Yohan.”

    “What?!” Kyungsoo and Joshua exclaim at the same time.

    “That’s impossible!” Joshua shouts. “You- Marge and Baekhyun made sure-,”

    “Why did you go to the party if you knew it was hosted by Yohan? Are you out of your mind?” Kyungsoo yells. “What if something had happened there? What if someone had found out-,”

    “They did find out,” Kris snaps. “I saw Mihae walking inside, and I noticed that someone was following her. Turns out that it was Jungkook Jeon. Mihae was about to die. My hunch was right. I knew Mihae was involved with all of you.”

    “Of course you’d know,” Kyungsoo spits. “Maybe because you’d been in a gang for years yourself?”

    Joshua turns to me with a look of horror on his face. “What? Mimi, what the hell?! You saw Jungkook? What-,”

    “You blew your cover,” Kyungsoo whispers. He is seething. I swallow in nervous anticipation. An angry, shouting Kyungsoo is much easier to deal with than quiet, furious Kyungsoo.

    Oh, god.

    “I only did it,” I say, “because I found out that the 4 Flames was working with the Seven Stars and X.E.”

    There is utter silence in the room.

    Kyungsoo’s ire has slowly faded away, replaced by blank disbelief.

    “What are you talking about?” he says, carefully enunciating every word.

    “The 4 Flames just launched a new line of products- presumably weapons. The Seven Stars and X.E. sponsored them. They’re working together, Kyungsoo.”

    He whips around to face Joshua.

    “Do you know about this?” he asks in bewilderment. Joshua slowly shakes his head.

    “All 3 gangs are against us,” Kris states, breaking the silence. “Do you understand why we need to leave immediately? We’ve wasted enough time. The 4 Flames has already tipped everyone off about Mihae and they’ve probably started the hunt already.”

    Suddenly, my doorbell rings. The four of us look at each other with alternating looks of fear, anger, and shock. Joshua slowly creeps towards the eyeglass near the door, the gun in his back pocket.

“One boy and one girl in their late teens or early twenties,” he says. “The girl has fair skin and long dark hair and bangs- probably Korean-,”

    “It must be Anna and Preet,” I exhale, pushing him aside. Quickly unlocking the door, I yank them inside my apartment before they can react.

    “Who are they?” Kyungsoo asks, narrowing his eyes.

    “Meet Annabelle Lim and Preet Chopra,” I mutter. “Contact your handlers, you two. We need to leave. I’ll brief you in on the way.”

    “And while we’re driving,” I add, looking straight at Kris, “he can tell me how he knew that I was involved with a gang.”

    Suddenly, there is another knock on the door.

    Joshua and Kyungsoo take out their guns again, aiming them straight at the door. Kyungsoo peers through the eyehole.

    His face blanches.

    “Mim-,” he begins to shout but suddenly the door slams open of its own accord and Kyungsoo topples backwards, his hands over his face and I scream “Kyungsoo!” but I cannot run to his side as tens of tall agents, their faces covered in black masks, their backs carrying the Seven Stars insignia, swarm towards us and I let out a shriek and try to run away but 3 of them pounce on me and slap a cloth on my face and suddenly everything starts to get blurry and the last thing I can see is Kris’ face melting into a haze as a swarm of agents tackle him to the floor.

    When I awake, Lina is standing in front of me, her arms crossed.

    Preet, Annabelle, Kyungsoo, Joshua, and Kris are nowhere in sight.

    “Don’t,” she says softly when I begin to gasp. “We should’ve never been in this situation.”

    I bite my lip, slightly hurt that she would say nothing after seeing me for the first time in 4 years.

    “You knew about it,” I say dully. “You knew that the gangs were working together and you never contacted me.”

    She grits her teeth. Her eyes dart around the room in a quick glance, ensuring that no one is listening. Then she whispers, “Who do you think told Marge and Baekhyun to tip the 3 of you off?”

    My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Well, I’m sorry for screwing that up.”

    “Goddammit, Ami,” she groans, rubbing her temples. “You had the perfect setup. You could’ve-,”

    “Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you keep in touch with me after I left?” I cut in. “Is it because you were unable to? Or because you didn’t want to?”

    “Because I was unable to, of course!” she snaps. “My mom made Marge and Baekhyun block all forms of communication between the 4 of us! And stop changing the subject, okay? Do you realize what you’ve done-,”

    “So tell me everything that’s happened here for the past 4 years. Why has the Seven Stars and X.E. decided to join Project Cotton instead of stopping it?”

    Lina sighs. “First of all, getting through the 4 Flames defenses is incredibly hard. Their algorithms literally change every day. Marge and Baekhyun crack through- only to have it change the next hour. It’s really pissing them off.”

    “I can imagine.”

    “That’s not the worst part.”

    “What is?”

    “With all the information on Project Cotton that’s stored on their database, the 4 Flames has also integrated the illegal operations the Seven Stars and X.E. has as well. Simply put, they’ve mixed our dirty laundry with theirs. If we release the information we found on the 4 Flames’ database, we go down, too.”

    “Can’t you just remove the information regarding X.E. and the Seven Stars and only submit info regarding the 4 Flames?”

    “You can’t selectively submit information to the government. That’s illegal. If we turn this into Interpol, they’ll definitely notice bits and pieces missing. We’re totally stuck.”

    I grimace. “So this is exactly where we were 4 years ago.”

    “Well, yeah.” Lina lets out a deep sigh. She crouches down to the floor next to me.

    “How’ve you been?” I ask quietly.

    Lina shakes her head.

    “I hate this place,” she mutters.

    “Why? What happened?”

    “Well, my mother tried to keep all the really bad things that the Seven Stars does away from me, but I still found out. It’s absolutely disgusting. Human trafficking, ion rings- it makes me want to throw up. How could my own mother support activities like that?! I hate her and I hate the Seven Stars and I hate every gang. Marcus didn’t die for me to do this.”

    I glance at her uneasily. Her chest is heaving and her fists are clenched. I can only imagine how brutal it must’ve been to be confined in a gang’s headquarters for 4 years- a gang very similar to the one that was responsible for her best friend’s death.

    Jungkook.

    My stomach clenches.

    “I heard,” she murmurs, looking down at the ground. “You had a run-in with... him.”

    “I don’t want to talk about it.”

    Lina takes my hand. “I’m sorry, Ami.”

    “It’s fine. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been so hasty in going to that stupid party. I could’ve found some other way.”

    She grins. “That’s the same thing we said after we tried interrogating Jaemi Kim. Do you remember that?”

    “Oh my god. Running away from those 4 Flames agents trying to kill us? That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.”

    “We did do a lot of stupid things back in the day.”

    “Oh, god. Remember all those meetings we had in the library? During lunch?”

    “Of course! And all the times when we’d have those meetings about Yohan after school, but we had to play anime episodes to make it look like it was just another Anime Club meeting? Talking about organ trafficking with Tokyo Mew Mew playing in the background was really bizarre.”

    “And those times when we crashes Marcus’ house and-,” My throat swells up and I have to stop talking. I look away. Tears are beginning to form in my eyes.

    Lina and I are silent for several moments.

    Then she whispers, “I’m going to see Anna and Preet later. All 3 of you are being held in separate rooms.”

    “Where are Kyungsoo and Joshua? And the other tall guy who was brought in? By the way, he and X.E.-,”

    “I know,” Lina nods. “I was briefed in by Marge. Baekhyun was literally fuming.”

    “What’s the full story behind him? He could tell I was involved with Yohan right off the bat.”

    She shrugs. “I don’t know-,”

    Lina’s watch beeps. She presses a button on it, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

    And then she blanches.

    “What’s the matter?” I say nervously.

    “The head of X.E. wants to meet with you. Now.”

    “Who is it?”

    “I don’t know. I’ve never even seen her. She’s referred to as A.K. around here. No one knows her actual name.”

    My nerves are jittery. “Where is she?”

    Suddenly, the door creaks open.

    “She’s right here,” a smooth voice says.

    Lina and I whip around.

    My eyes widen.

    It feels like my stomach is sinking into the floor.

    No.

No.

This cannot be true.

    “Mom,” I whisper.

    My mother’s lips curl into a cold smile. “Long time no see, Aemin.”

A/N: YALL LOL THERE WAS A REASON AMI'S PARENTS WERE SO SKETCHY LMFAO 

sry for the late updates i have tennis practice every day for 3 hours and its taken the outta me but im finally back home!!

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