Something is different when Harris comes into the room today.

    None of his trademark torture devices line his belt strap. His agents are standing near the back of the room, instead of at his sides, leering at me.

    “You’re done,” Harris says.

I weakly look up at him.

“You had your chance to tell us something. You’ve held up well. But now you’re just a waste of space.” He raises the gun to my face.

“Goodbye, Ami Hwang.”

I close my eyes.

After a heavy silence, the sound of a gunshot rings through the air-

As well as a thud!

My eyes fly open.

Chanyeol and Hansol have pinned a struggling Harris down to the floor. Kyungsoo, Kris, and the rest of EXO- save for Baekhyun- and Seventeen are pouring from the doors, pistols in their hands. The 4 Flames agents stumble back a little in surprise, taken aback by the sudden appearance of their rival gangs- and my friends pounce on this opportunity by immediately attacking them, ferociously shooting them without any remorse, landing vicious blows that knock them to the ground. I spot a chip in Sehun’s ear; I can assume that Marge and Baekhyun are speaking to him from HQ.

And at the back of the room, behind everyone, stands Jungkook. The members of BTS are behind him as well, fists clenched and stony expressions on their faces.

I inhale sharply.

When Jungkook sees me, he urgently pushes through the chaos and madness of the battle and grabs my hands.

“You’re going to be okay, Ami,” he breathes. He fumbles into his pockets and withdraws a bolt cutter, with which he proceeds to work on removing my handcuffs. I cannot say a word. I still do not understand what is occurring.

Is this a dream?

This cannot be real.

It is too good to be true.

“You bastard!” a furious voice roars. Harris, who is still on the floor, struggling against Chanyeol and Hansol, seethes at Jungkook. His expression is so terrifying my breath catches in my throat. Harris is livid.

“You’re working with them? You tipped off X.E. and the Seven Stars?” Harris rages. “You traitor!” And with one clean movement, he flexes and throws Chanyeol and Hansol off of him. Every pore of his face is consumed with raw hatred- all directed at Jungkook. He raises his arm, about to-

Then a blur of black flashes into his back and throws him down once more.  

Namjoon has placed Harris in a headlock, while Yoongi jabs his fingers into Harris’ solar plexus. Harris lets out an oof! and doubles up, straining his neck against Namjoon’s forearm.

My throat swells up and that is when it all hits me.

Tears flow down my cheeks.

“Namjoon,” I whisper. “Yoongi.”

“We’re not doing this for you,” Yoongi hisses, throwing his body weight onto Harris’ limbs. “We’re doing this for our own lives. We found out that someone hacked into our databases and stole all our data about Project Cotton. This way, we end up on the innocent side.”

“No,” Namjoon grunts. He looks me straight in the eyes. “That’s a lie.”

Someone suddenly comes to my feet and begins taking apart the cuffs on my feet. “We’re doing this because we’re done,” Jin quietly tells me.

“This is our only chance,” Hoseok huffs, punching one of his own gang members in the face as Taehyung kicks another man in the side, causing him to topple to the ground.

“And look.” Jimin pulls aside my broken metal chains, and takes my hands. “We... we don’t like seeing you like this, Ami.”

“Speak for yourself,” Yoongi scoffs.

I sniffle, wiping my nose on my sleeve of my tattered clothes. “I’m so sorry,” I sob. “I betrayed your trust and I’m so, so sorry. But I always regarded you all as my friends.”

Jimin squeezes my hand, and then turns around. “Extraction ready!” he shouts.

Suddenly, a familiar black-haired boy sprints to my side. There is a bloody gash on the side of his face and he is wheezing, but my heart rises up in my throat and I want to wrap my arms around him.

“Can’t believe I’m actually working with BTS,” Joshua wryly comments. “This is a first.”

“How cute,” Yoongi snarks, and then places a grudging arm under my shoulder to support me. “The extraction site is secure. X.E. and Seventeen have control of the building. Let’s go.”

And then I hear an anguished, primal howl, and Taehyung’s eyes are widening and he begins to shout no and arms are wrapping around me and all of a sudden Jungkook wraps his body around me and grapples me to the floor and there is a bang! and dust is on my tongue and someone shrieks Jungkook! and something wet drips through my fingers and it is sticky and I know exactly what it is and someone is screaming and I can feel it vibrate through my whole body and then I realize that it is me and then suddenly everything goes black.  

Water.

That is the first thought that emerges from the darkness.

Water. Water.

My throat feels like sandpaper.

Slowly, my eyelids begin to crack open.     

And then promptly shut after painfully bright light hits them.

    A groan escapes my lips.

    Someone gasps. “She’s awake!”

    “Water,” I rasp with effort. Immediately, I feel someone ease me up into a sitting position, as someone else positions a straw in between my lips. I drink greedily, water through my dry lips.

    Voices echo in my ears. With effort, I slowly open my eyes.

    It feels like deja vu. The scent of antiseptic wafts into my nose. I feel a rhythmic beeping next to me- a heart monitor. When I try to turn my head, I cannot move it more than few degrees, but I can still make out clear tubes snaking into my body out of the corner of my eye.

    A blurry figure hovers over me. I blink. Kyungsoo.

    Fingers reach out and lace themselves between mine. I move my head to the side. Marge.

    And then someone rushes into the room, followed by a horde of nurses.

    Baekhyun.

    I am alive.

    The nurses don’t let anyone in. They insist that I need rest.

    Lina, Preet, and Annabelle sneak in during the night, however, and tell me everything.

    I stare at the ceiling blankly as they explain everything to me in hushed, urgent voices, their words tumbling over each other, their eyes darting back to the door every 10 seconds to make sure no one sees them.

    “You were there for 10 days,” Lina murmurs. “And you’ve been unconscious for 5 days. It’s been... horrible. You were supposed to be back within 2 days, but when you were found at the Yohan party, Sentrix changed their backdoor login codes while Fei was in their databases. We were partially locked out and we had no idea what was going on-,”

    “And then Jungkook contacted us.” Preet swallows. “He was terrified. He told us what was happening to you and where you were. He didn’t know what to do.”

    “We made a plan to get you out, and we negotiated the terms of his and BTS’ safety after we outed the 4 Flames.”

    “See, after Fei retrieved all the files from Yohan, my mom and your mom went straight to the FBI with the information,” Lina explains. “But they couldn’t publicly come out with the information- it would’ve been chaos-,”

    “The Pentagon said it would’ve started World War 3,” Annabelle cuts in.

    “-so they made sure that all operations on Project Cotton would cease, but also that it would become top secret information that is classified at the highest level of security-,”

    “But they’re not getting off free,” Annabelle says. “They’re all being prosecuted on charges of organ trafficking, first-degree murder- they’re facing lives in prison-,”

    Stop. Stop. Stop.

    “Not BTS, though,” Lina interrupts. “You, Marge, and BTS got whistleblower protection- and the fact that you and BTS were minors during the majority of your affiliation with the 4 Flames gave you another level of security- so don’t worry, you’re safe-,”

“Stop,” I murmur, but they do not hear me.

    “The top 4 Flames officials are in custody right now- including all of BTS’ parents, senior executives, the board of directors-,”

    “Stop,” I say, with more intensity, and Lina, Preet, and Annabelle freeze.

    “Are you okay, Ami?” Annabelle finally asks after a long silence.

    “I don’t care,” I breathe, “about any of this.”

    They gape at me.

    “Tell me something useful,” I utter. “Tell me something I-,”

My voice cracks.

    Lina, Preet, and Annabelle look at each other. The dark shadows in the room partially obscure their faces, but I can still see their grave expressions.

    “Is he alive?” I ask.

    Annabelle looks away. Preet places a hand on my shoulder.

    “I’m sorry, Ami,” Lina says softly. “We don’t know.”

A/N: school... is taking the out of me lmfao 

it is absolutely awful and i hate senior year im always tired and exhausted 

ughhhhhh