Jennie was strapped to the table and Jennie didn't even feel afraid. She had refused to help her mother solve the mystery of the bomb the entire week and her mother had finally lost her patience with her.
Jennie started thinking maybe she really should have shot her mother after all considering. She was apparently just as sadistic as her father. The few days she had been there her mother had run around the facility bossing everyone around with such authority, creating so much fear that Jennie started to put two and two together.
She had always thought her father was the one that made decisions, but clearly, her mother had always been the boss. She had been smart enough to pretend she was stupid but apparently behind closed doors, her mother was actually very smart and incredibly cunning. The obedient housewife had all been just a facade. She fooled everyone, including Jennie.
So now Jennie found herself strapped to a table as she came to. She had fought off a few men before one of them finally managed to sedate her so she would stop struggling and now she was bound to a table and her mother was smirking over her.
"I'm not going to ask again. You will fix the research." Aeri threatened for the thousandth time that day.
"You can torture me all you want. I've had a lot of practice. My father made sure of that." Jennie taunted, managing a smile.
"Tell me what you figured out. I know you already know. The admiral might have not gotten it all but I could tell you weren't bluffing about figuring it out." Aeri said in a cold tone. "Fix my bomb."
"I don't know how to fix it. I'm just an incompetent doctor remember?" Jennie argued back, recalling all the taunts she got from her parents while she was in med school.
"Tell me what you figured out Ruby Jane." Aeri said as she slapped Jennie harshly.
"I didn't figure out much mother." Jennie answered once she recovered from the blow. "I got closer than you but I wouldn't be able to get it to work. I'm incompetent, just like you said all of those years."
"Tell me now!"
"There's nothing to tell." Jennie said again.
Aeri brandished a scalpel. She had lost her patience. She'd spent the last two days starving Jennie, cuffing her to a metal table with the papers in front of her so she would work on fixing the bomb but she refused to do it and Aeri was ready to take drastic measures now to get her to talk.
She needed to be more extreme. Aeri grabbed Jennie's arm and cut into it with the scalpel, letting her bleed.
"What did you figure out?" Aeri said menacingly.
Jennie didn't even wince as it happened. She had a high pain tolerance now. Especially after her father had used that hammer on her and broken several bones.
"What is it!" Aeri shrieked, cutting in deeper in anger.
Jennie didn't answer, choosing to mock her instead by smirking as her mother brandished the bloody scalpel in her face.
"I can still bomb your little friends you know." Aeri threatened.
Jennie didn't take the bait, rolling her eyes at her mother.
"If you actually bomb them I certainly wouldn't tell you anything. Your leverage would be gone and you know it. Not that I'll help you now anyway." Jennie said adamantly.
Aeri lost her patience again. "Bring me the sat phone! I'm calling that air strike!" She shouted at her security agent she kept near her at all times. He'd been by her side for almost two decades now.
Jennie was left unfazed. "Don't you know what I did mother?" Jennie said mockingly in response.
Aeri scowled at her, looking to Jennie on the table as Jennie continued to speak.
"When my father tried to kill her? When I thought Lisa had actually died? Do you know what I did? I snuck into his base so I could blow him up into tiny little bloody pieces and me along with him. You kill them, you kill her, and I'll willingly die too. If you even so much as try to touch her I'll find a way to kill myself in a heart beat because wherever she goes, I go. Believe that, because I can't live without her. So if I was you, I'd probably stop threatening me with killing her before I do something stupid like kill myself and let you watch your last hope at making that bomb fizzle away."
Aeri scowled even harder and threw the satellite phone her security agent had just handed her at the wall in anger, watching it shatter. Jennie had never been defiant, they had trained her that way all of her life by beating it out of her—up until she ran away to the military. She could see Jennie's conviction and the truth of her words and it angered her.
Not to mention she knew Chul's base had been bombed and he had apparently died in the blast, his skull bashed in. Lisa had said she killed him but Aeri knew he had been holding her hostage at the time so it must have been Jennie after all.
"I have other ways of making you talk." Aeri threatened.
Aeri lifted Jennie's shirt up.
She dug the scalpel into Jennie's abdomen.
"I'm no doctor, but I've seen enough of your father's experiments to know what to take out so as not to kill you. I can make you hurt enough that you'll start singing like a canary and tell me everything I need to know. If there's anything he found out that was useful, it's that everyone talks after enough torture. That's the one simple conclusion that his experiments came to." Aeri threatened. "Tell me what I need to know before I scar your pretty little stomach."
Jennie thought of Lisa, closing her eyes and shaking her head in defiance as her mother made a deep diagonal gash in her stomach. Jennie thought of Lisa who was practically superhuman and survived much worse than this.
She thought of what she would say, that Jennie was so strong too, that she was superhuman too for surviving her abusive father. That she was superhuman for surviving this too and to hang on so Lisa could get to her and save her.
Jennie hardened her jaw this time as she felt the cut, she felt the blood seeping out of her abdomen.
"She's going to stop you." Jennie said adamantly. "She'll stop this war too."
"Who, your little girlfriend?" Aeri said derisively, a maniacal glint in her eye as she cut into Jennie.
"She's not my girlfriend, she's my wife." Jennie said smiling proudly even through the pain.
As soon as she got out of here she would marry Lisa. Even if it wasn't legal. Even if it didn't count in anyone else's eyes. She was going to make it official and be Lisa's wife somehow. She swore it to herself, she gave herself strength at the thought of getting to do that one day.
"You're just kids. You can't stop this. You really thought you could stop a war?" Aeri said almost cackling now as she cut in to Jennie again, making the cut deeper.
"I'm strapped to a table, my own mother torturing me because you believe this kid figured out what you couldn't in just a week." Jennie taunted. "You really think we can't stop a war mother? You think you could stop her?"
That pissed Aeri off so she cut into Jennie repeatedly now, making sure to avoid any major organs but making sure she hurt her as much as she could by making lines next to parallel lines of cuts.
Jennie had a high pain threshold, but she finally winced after that. Her face contorting in pain each time. She held the tears and the screams back though, not wanting to give her mother the satisfaction of knowing Jennie was in pain.
"Should I take your appendix out first?" Aeri asked Jennie, not waiting for an answer and moving to do just that.
Any time Jennie would almost pass out from the pain Aeri would stop and dose her with a shot of adrenaline so she would stay awake so she could feel it all. Asking her what she had found out within the research each time.
Jennie held on, refusing to answer. She needed to stay alive and distract her mother enough to give Lisa time to plan. Lisa still had the completed bomb formulas, she had no doubt she had already planned some kind of mission to stop this war and she was sure to be on her way to rescue her soon.
All she had to do was find where Jennie was and once she did Jennie knew she could pull it off and save her. If anything Jennie knew, it was that Lisa would stop at nothing to get to her and although she didn't want Lisa in danger she also knew Lisa was the best soldier anyone had ever met. Lisa was so good she should have been promoted to the highest rank already, she should be an admiral or a general by now.
Jennie had to admit her mother was really good at this torture thing. Jennie was sure she would go into cardiac arrest from so much adrenaline being pumped into her but apparently her mother knew just how to fix it. She'd inject her with something else any time she started coding.
Her mother really was the chemist after all. Jennie was sweating from the strain and the pain. A thick coat of sweat covered her entire body, her clothes clung to her, they were drenched and sticking to her body because of how hard she was sweating.
At some point Jennie lost too much blood and her mother frantically tried to find her some to replenish it. Jennie was barely conscious by then.
Jennie vaguely wondered why her mother couldn't narrow down her blood type right away though. Her mother knew her own blood type and she knew her father's blood type and there were at best three possible combinations for Jennie's blood to be. There were only three blood types her parents' kids could produce.
Her father's blood type was A. Jennie knew because of the many experiments he did on her. So Jennie knew mother's blood type should be AB or B since Jennie was B. It was the only possibility after all. Jennie knew her science, especially medicine.
So the fact her mother called someone frantically to donate so Jennie wouldn't die yet because she still needed to get the answer out of her, shouting for one of the lab techs to give her his blood instead because she apparently had A blood didn't really make sense to Jennie because that was impossible. Jennie figured it was probably her mind playing tricks on her because she was in pain and hopped up on adrenaline and also impossibly almost passing out from blood loss.
Her mother couldn't have said she had A blood. Her father had A blood. It was impossible because two A's couldn't possibly make a B like her.
Jennie was delirious. She almost giggled at the fact she was going through all the possible blood combinations in her head right now when half of her stomach was open.
"I'm going to keep you open like this and you'll likely get an infection." Aeri threatened. "Unless I cure it, you know it'll be slow and painful death. Tell me what you figured out."
"Okay, I'll tell you." Jennie slurred.
Aeri perked up. "What?! What is it! What did you figure out?"
"I figured out both my parents are sociopaths." Jennie said giggling as she lied on the table in pain.
Aeri slapped her angrily. Jennie was left unfazed, continuing to speak once the sting on her cheek subsided.
"And I thought—I thought I was evil too because of who my father was. I felt disgusting when I found out he was the angel of death and I hated that I came from him. Then, turns out you suck too. Your blood is just as filthy as his." Jennie said, earning herself another slap. She continued talking as she recovered again. "So since both of you are like this I felt gross and unworthy and evil too but you know what? Lisa says I'm her angel. So fuck you. I'm not tainted just because you made me because as long as she loves me I'm okay."
"You're not evil?" Aeri laughed. "There is no evil or good. There's just yourself. Just you to take care of and making sure you always win. You're stupid if you think otherwise ."
"I'm smarter than you." Jennie taunted her again.
She really had to stop hanging out with Lisa. Lisa would totally taunt someone while lying open on a table while completely at their mercy. Jennie was practically turning into her. She could never though.
Lisa was everything to her and despite getting tortured by her own mother right now Jennie was determined to survive so she could finally go marry that stupid girl. That stupid, reckless, beautiful girl that she loved so damn much that Jennie would always choose to die with her if it came down to it.
Her mother slapped her again.
Aeri started again with the cutting, angry at Jennie for talking back but eventually Jennie passed out because Aeri couldn't use any more adrenaline on her to keep her awake or she would kill her.
Jennie dreamed of Lisa.
_______________
The boys didn't know who was more frustrated, Lisa or Jisoo.
They practically avoided them at all costs unless either of them asked for them because both of them were either livid or grumpy or downright hysterical.
There were only a few brave souls that approached them willingly without being summoned.
Felix was the only one that would brave Jisoo because he wanted to find Rosie just as much as her so despite getting yelled at and being called an idiot and almost getting slapped once or twice, he still let Jisoo boss him around.
Bambam was pretty used to Lisa going crazy over Jennie so he braved being around her too while they coordinated.
Haein surprisingly didn't flinch at them either. It probably had to do with the fact his father had been an admiral so this was really nothing new to him. He's braved worse when his father was in one of his rages.
Wondeok scolded the both of them, taking Jisoo and Lisa aside multiple times to urge them to stop terrorizing the boys while they worked. They would both deflate for about an hour, feeling bad Wondeok was disappointed in them. Then they would both quickly lose their patience and the shouts would be heard again.
"There's got to be another fucking lab! She couldn't have done this at her house in the first place and even if she had the house is gone anyway!" Lisa shouted at all of the soldiers in front of her.
Everyone had pretty much settled into Jisoo's library in the last week, it had become sort of their command center for them to find the girls. "The lab needs to be secluded if they did fucking bomb testing! Look at the maps again!" Lisa yelled, crumpling the one in front of her and throwing it at a soldier's face in anger.
"You haven't called all of the hospitals yet!" Jisoo shouted at Felix and Lucas too, completely ignoring Lisa's shouts coming from the table next to theirs where they were strategizing how to find Jennie. "I gave you the numbers this morning!"
Felix grabbed the satellite phone and started dialing again, trying to make sure Rosie hadn't been admitted anywhere.
Haein had actually been a little helpful to Lisa. He wanted revenge for his father's death and considering he had been in the military for years, in the higher ranks, he'd been able to tell Lisa where General Yu's main base was.
Lisa had a hunch the lab should be around there. If it was her and she was spending millions of dollars on someone to develop something like that, something so potent as a bomb for her she would be sure to keep them close. So Lisa had them scour the surrounding areas of the base for possible sites, giving them the criteria she figured they would need to test a bomb of that magnitude without arousing suspicion. She knew they had to isolate enough to test the bombs but had to be close enough to base to deliver results.
Jisoo had the boys working overtime too. She made them call any hospital or military jail they could find just in case Rosie had been taken while Jisoo wracked her brain and used her knowledge of her girlfriend to figure out where she might have gone.
Jisoo had a breakthrough first. She got closer than Lisa did when she remembered how Rosie had been adamant about contacting Mr. Lim.
"The train guy! What the fuck was the train guy's name Felix?" Jisoo said abruptly, looking up from the letter Rosie had written her that she had been reading for the thousandth time that day.
"Who?" Felix asked curiously.
Jisoo slapped him over the head and Felix winced a bit, Jisoo had a heavy hand. "The train guy you idiot! The ticket guy! What's his name!"
"Oh, Mr. Lim?" Felix asked, not knowing where any of it was going.
"That's right! That's his name." Jisoo said, nodding.
Jisoo would have remembered it if it hadn't been for the fact she had made Sang-ho call their connections and do all the work when Rosie had wanted to contact him. Jisoo had been too busy trying to make the most of their time together to bother with such things. She had just passed on the message and made Sang-ho promise to use all of her resources to find Mr. Lim for Rosie.
Jisoo called Sang-ho and desperately asked him to find him again. Sang-ho still had the number to the village Mr. Lim lived at and passed it along. It took Jisoo a few days to get in contact with him. He was always out of town but she finally found him, catching him on one of his trips back home.
Jisoo asked him where Rosie went. He didn't want to tell her at first but Jisoo was so desperate she basically spilled their whole story, admitting they were in love with each other and that it had all just been a messed up situation but Jisoo was ready to take Rosie back and protect her. Jisoo thought Mr. Lim might think them weird and just hang up on her but he finally gave up the train information, letting Jisoo know the line Rosie had boarded.
"I don't know which stop she used to get off at. I just helped get her in undetected. All I can tell you is that the train was going south on the B line."
So now Jisoo had a map too and she was making Felix, Lucas and Jackson call every single station on the B train's way to ask if they'd seen a blonde of Rosie's description come out while Jisoo studied the map and looked at all the surrounding cities so she could see if she could guess where Rosie would have gone if she left the train at any of the stops.
________
Something was nagging at Jennie. Her mother kept torturing her, cutting into the same places she had already cut into, not letting Jennie heal as she kept showing Jennie the research while she threatened her. Trying to get her to work on it. Attempting to make Jennie replicate whatever she might have figured out.
Unlike Lisa, who had only been able to copy so much, her mother had all of the research. She had way more than Lisa had been able to copy in the short amount of time she was in the basement. Jennie's mother kept showing her the formulas, shrieking at her to finish them but she would often get hysterical and let some of the other papers get strewn around and Jennie had gotten a few glimpses of the beginning—of how it all started.
Something didn't add up.
The beginning of the research showed test sites and experiments in a simple lab and completely different formulas from what she had been looking at and it just nagged her because the more glimpses she got the more she thought the direction of this research had taken a drastic turn at some point.
Jennie was almost positive her mother hadn't been aiming to make a bomb at all in the beginning. It didn't make sense.
"Are you listening!" Aeri shouted again.
Jennie didn't even realize she had been so spaced out, thinking about the conundrum that was that research.
Her mother had stopped using the scalpel on Jennie in the last couple of days because she had cut in so much already she would probably kill her if she continued so now she proceeded to have one of her agents punch her to get her to talk.
This, Jennie could take though. She'd gone through it all of her life with her father. Though now she was getting punched into a cut up and sewed stomach and she would start bleeding immediately when they broke the sutures but whatever. The punches were still better than the scalpel.
"What were you trying to make at first?" Jennie asked after she caught her breath after the blow, ignoring her mother's other questions. "It wasn't a bomb."
She watched her mother tense before she shouted at the agent to punch Jennie again.
"The torture will end if you just tell me Jennie!" Aeri shouted as she motioned the agent to punch Jennie one more time because Jennie still wouldn't speak.
Jennie's mother's reaction to her question about the beginning of her research just made that nagging feeling just get worse. Her mother hadn't once lost her composure ever since Jennie had been trapped there. She would get angry of course but besides that she had never paused until Jennie had asked her that question and her mother froze, visibly.
Jennie decided the nagging feeling might be worth pursuing after that.
"Can I see all of it?" Jennie asked.
"See what?" Aeri asked sharply.
"All the papers."
"You already know how to fix it! Just tell me!" Aeri shrieked.
"I have to re-do the formulas and the solutions. I don't have them memorized." Jennie lied. "Besides, maybe I can make your bomb even stronger. Let me see all of it. I only had so much to work with when Lisa brought what she copied to me. I'm sure I can do better if I can see everything."
____________
Rosie tried her best to keep her head up but it was tough. She missed her friends. She missed Jisoo. She cried every night. She felt awful because even Woojin had noticed she was distraught. He walked around pouting too thinking he had upset his girlfriend and Rosie had to keep telling him it wasn't his fault and that she was just sad because she missed her family.
She helped them in the market every day. The butcher tried to recruit her again. She ended up making a deal with him. She asked to borrow both of his sons to help Haesook catch things at the river in exchange for her putting in a few hours at his shop and selling what she could for him.
Rosie had never seen the world so grey before but it was like it had turned completely black now and Rosie didn't know how to swim out of the darkness now that Jisoo was so far away from her.
Rosie had done so well at the butcher's that day, selling everything he had that he gave her free beef to take home just to thank her for her efforts.
She was packing it up in some newspaper, happy that at least she was helping feed something so expensive to Woojin and Haesook. She froze when she saw the picture on the newspaper she was using to wrap the meat in.
She quickly unwrapped the newspaper. She uncrumpled it as much as she could as she read it. The newspaper was the front page of the Korea Times.
There was a picture of Jisoo and next to it a picture of Haein.
What made her heart drop wasn't the fact that they were pictured together though. What made her heart drop was the headline of the article.
Explosive Wedding: Chaebol Heirs Bombed
Rosie quickly read the article.
What was expected to be the biggest wedding of the decade as the Kim and Jung families united their respective conglomerates through a romantic wedding turned into a tragedy Saturday evening.
The wedding was meant to be explosive indeed, luminaries from the military and chairmen from the biggest companies were all in attendance. They had explosive guests in every sense of the word, the combined net worth of everyone in attendance was probably more than the three wealthiest countries combined.
Kim Jisoo, heir to the Kim conglomerate, which nets the most profits in the entire country and Jung Haein, heir to his own conglomerate—only dethroned in profits by his fiancée's companies were set to be married in front of an exclusive and very high profile list of guests.
As the wedding reached its peak, Thai bomber planes targeted the venue with a continuous air strike lasting twenty minutes.
Korean soldiers were deployed to help the wounded as soon as possible, hoping to fight the attack.
At the time of this writing, the list of casualties includes Jung Haein's own father, Admiral Jung.
Medics have worked tirelessly to identify the bodies. Both Kim Jisoo and Jung Haein have been missing since the incident. It is uncertain if they were also in the list of casualties but considering the source of the initial blast was near where the newlyweds would have been standing and the fact such high profile individuals haven't resurfaced since the incident, it is this reporter's belief that Korea's royal heirs were unfortunately taken out by the enemy in their unfortunate, explosive wedding.
Rosie dropped the newspaper as soon as she finished reading. She started sobbing immediately.
Jisoo. Her friends. Everyone had been at the wedding. Everyone had gone and they had gotten bombed.
Rosie gasped for air as she thought about who might still be alive. As she thought about the fact Jisoo might be dead. She almost collapsed at the thought.
She had never run so hard in her life.
______________
"It's here!" Lisa exclaimed, "Their lab has to be here. This land is perfect for bomb testing. It's in a valley and I bet they built the lab underground, the terrain is perfect for it."
"It makes sense." Bambam agreed.
"So what now, when do we go get her?" Wooyoung asked.
"I'm going tomorrow." Lisa said firmly. "She's been in there too long."
Lisa turned to go talk to Jisoo about getting them all some gear.
"Wait, Lisa. You need a plan." Bambam argued. "You can't just go in blind!"
"Watch me." Lisa shouted back.
"I have an idea." Haein interrupted. "I know you're good Lisa. I have no doubt you'd get at least half way on your own but you don't know the layout of the lab or how many people might be in there. This could go wrong very fast and if it does we'll never get her out."
Lisa frowned. She needed to go get her already. They had already wasted so much time. She couldn't bear the thought of Jennie suffering for so long but she knew they were right.
"Fine. What's your idea?" Lisa asked, turning around.
"How about we do some bomb testing ourselves?"
Lisa looked at Haein curiously, not knowing how that could help them but she motioned for him to continue.
"Jisoo's estate is a valley too, just like where you think their lab is. It has the same terrain. It's perfect for this kind of testing. I say we blow up a couple of things at the edge of her property. Do some bomb testing to draw General Yu in. Make him think we're testing the actual bomb he's been coveting and I get him to spill on his lab so you can get Jennie out."
"That's just going to bring Korean soldiers rain down on us when they hear the explosions. We're too close to Seoul." Bambam protested. "We'd get slaughtered."
"I can take care of that. Lisa herself said I was in danger if I knew about the bomb. Everyone thinks I'm dead. I can make a simple call to my superiors letting them know about my little project that I stole from my dad and General Yu will be here within the hour so he can shut me up and steal it. He'll only come with a small force, with people he trusts. He's too scared someone will steal his thunder."
Lisa figured that part was true. There was definitely good logic behind that. "How will you get him to talk though?" Lisa asked. "I'm sure getting him here won't be a problem but he's a general. Don't you guys go through intimidation tactics at that level? He won't tell us what we need to know that easily."
Haein smiled. "He killed my father. I'll get him to talk."
Lisa looked at Haein intently and she saw the determination in his eyes.
"You're sure?" Lisa asked, boring her eyes into his, almost threateningly.
"He murdered my father. I've done worse to people who did way less. I'll get what you need." Haein affirmed.
Lisa nodded. She figured it was a better plan than they had before at least. She had been planning on going in blind anyway. At least now they had a sort of plan to help them strategize.
"The only problem if we go through with this is we'd be exposing the location to Jisoo's estate." Lisa pointed out.
Haein deflated, he had thought about that too. He didn't want to expose Jisoo's location but it would be more believable if they did it here. There weren't many places in Korea where you could safely test a bomb of that magnitude without suffering casualties.
"Let me talk to her." Haein said, getting up to speak to Jisoo.
He tentatively approached her side of the library, she was yelling at Jackson again over something about a train station.
"Jisoo?" Haein probed.
"What?" Jisoo asked sharply without looking at him, looking at her map again.
"We sort of made a plan to find Jennie but we have to expose our location by dropping bombs on your property?"
Jisoo looked at him blankly. "Okay? So what? Why are you talking to me?"
"Is that alright?" Haein asked apprehensively.
"I don't care what you do to find Jendeukie. Just find her." Jisoo said shoving him away. "Now leave me alone. I'm trying to find my chipmunk."
Haein nodded and then shrugged towards Lisa.
"Alright then. Let's get to it." Lisa said after witnessing Jisoo's response. "Felix! I need you!" She shouted.
Felix had been looking at the maps with Jackson. He looked at Jisoo nervously, not wanting to leave because he was sure she would scream at him for not helping to find Rosie.
Lisa shook her head as she watched him panic. "Wooyoung, switch with Felix." Lisa ordered, because Felix was frozen in his seat.
They both clambered out of their seats to switch jobs.
"Yes Lieutenant?" Felix asked Lisa nervously.
"How many bombs can you make by tomorrow?" Lisa asked.
"Depends on how many hands I have and how big you want them and if we have the equipment and—"
"As big as you can make them. Everyone will help you work. Tell me what you need and we'll go get it." Lisa answered, cutting him off.
_______
Haein got on the satellite phone that night.
"Jung Haein, reporting."
Lisa paced around Jisoo's office nervously as she listened to his call.
"Yes sir. My father was working on a classified project. I couldn't reach out sooner because I had to see it through." Haein said to the phone.
Lisa was not comforted by the fact that Haein looked just as nervous as she felt as he spoke to the his superior on the other end of the line.
"If you could get me in contact with General Yu, he'll know what this is about. It's important sir."
Haein scratched the back of his head as he spoke.
"I'll wait for his call." Haein said after a few seconds.
Haein hung up the phone.
"That's it?" Lisa asked. "You didn't even talk to him! You're supposed to get in contact with the general!"
"He'll call us." Haein said firmly. "I know he will."
"He better." Lisa said as she rubbed her face in annoyance.
"This just buys us time to make as many bombs as possible to convince him what we've been doing when he flies here."
"Are you sure you can handle him on your own?" Lisa asked. Haein was a fairly new addition to their misfit army without a flag but Lisa knew he was a good man. It took her about a day to trust him and she knew she wouldn't be the only one upset if he happened to be killed.
Haein smiled in a way that made Lisa think of a cute little boy and it didn't reassure her at all. He seemed way too innocent to go through with any of this.
"I know what you're thinking." Haein said as she watched Lisa grimace. "I know I look too young despite being older than you. I know I look like I can't hold my own, but that's part of my charm. I did horrible things while I was in the military, things I hated. Now I get to do them for a good reason. I get to use those skills to avenge my father and stop an awful man from killing millions because of his own greed to become president."
Lisa threw an arm around his shoulder. "I'm sorry about your father Haein. I'm the one that got him killed. I shouldn't have made a plan to approach him. I just thought he had enough power to stop this and I ended up getting him killed by letting him know about all of this."
Haein shook his head. "He's had a target on his back for years. It was only a matter of time. It's not your fault. Either way, I would have done the same thing as you did and tried to use him too. It was only logical."
"Have you called your mother?" Lisa asked. "Have you called Youngro? They must be worried sick, all the newspapers are speculating that you're dead. They need to know you're alive."
"I will. I'll call them once this is over. Just in case I don't make it."
Lisa stopped them from walking.
"I need you to call them right now." Lisa said in a tone that left no room for argument.
"I don't want to give them false hope." Haein admitted.
"And I need you to have hope." Lisa said adamantly. "I need you to have a reason to fight your way out of anything that comes at you. I need you to tell them you're alive and that you're coming home soon so that you fight tooth and nail to make it happen and not break your promise to them so that you survive."
Haein looked at Lisa intensely before speaking, appraising her first before letting the words out.
"You should be a general." Haein said honestly. "With those kinds of speeches, you could lead armies." Haein said that part in a teasing tone but he truly meant it. Lisa had a way of inspiring people to be great. He saluted her, smirking before speaking again. "Ma'am, yes ma'am."
He clicked the heels of his boots together as he shouted and turned around, sending Lisa a wink as he went to call his family just like Lisa ordered him to.
Lisa rolled her eyes at him but smiled nonetheless
__________
Everyone worked tirelessly through the night, helping Felix make the explosives at his direction and setting them up at the edge of Jisoo's property.
They started the first round of setting off the explosives at five a.m. They figured they were already being watched after Haein's call and they needed to make the "testing" as believable as possible.
"Holy shit." Lisa said as she watched the first explosion after Felix lit it up. It was massive and Lisa felt like her eyebrows had been singed afterwards despite being nearly a mile away from the blast.
"I was emotional." Felix answered in response. His explosives packed a lot more punch than normal because he had thrown all of his sadness over his best friend Rosie being gone into them. Those explosions were lethal if you weren't careful.
Haein got the call from the general at seven a.m sharp.
"General Yu." Haein greeted.
"I was told by the newly minted Admiral Lee you wanted to speak with me. My condolences over your father. Such a shame." General Yu said through the phone and Haein had to grit his teeth to stop himself from saying anything stupid at the insincere tone the general was using.
"I appreciate that. I'm continuing his legacy though. He left behind some very interesting research for me. I've been monitoring it this last week." Haein forced out, thankful Lisa was next to him and encouraging him because he was so close to cursing the general and ruining their plans.
"Research?"
"My father the admiral got a hold of a bomb. It's massive. They've been doing minor tests so far. I was disappointed at first but the grand finale will apparently happen tonight. They've promised to level miles of land." Haein continued.
"That's impossible."
Haein almost smirked at the hint of nervousness in the general's voice.
"I thought so too, but the research seems solid. He seemed to have recruited some Jennie Kim? You know The Chemist right? You must know since you're one of our best generals." Haein said, wanting to throw up at the fact he was complimenting the man that had murdered his father. "Jennie is The Chemist's daughter. She finished what the chemist started. I thought you might be interested in bringing attention to it. I'm not decorated enough to get an audience with the president so I figured I could use your help to bring this up to him." Haein said into the phone.
"I'll need to see it first. I doubt this bomb exists."
"Of course, I'll send you the coordinates so you can watch its capacity. They'll be using the actual bomb soon. I can ask them to push the test up when you get here, we wouldn't want to waste a general's time."
Haein hung up after that and Lisa high fived him.
"He's coming?" Lisa asked eagerly.
"He's coming." Haein nodded.
"We need to get everyone in position. I'm counting on you, get whatever you can out of him." Lisa told him.
"I promise." Haein said. "I can get his great grandfather's middle name if need be."
They both jumped as Jisoo ran into the office and snatched the phone out of Haein's hand. They watched her frantically dial a number.
"Hae-Sook?!" Jisoo almost shouted into the phone. "Is Rosie with you? Tell me she's with you!"
Lisa perked up and ran to put her ear on the phone next to Jisoo.
"She left earlier honey. I couldn't stop her. She thought you were dead. We tried calling but the phone was busy and she just couldn't wait. She wanted to check on you."
"Is she coming here? How?!" Jisoo demanded into the phone again.
"The train. We saw her off at the train station about an hour ago."
"Thank you Hae-Sook. I'll call back later. I'm sorry for hanging up so abruptly but I have to find her right now. It's dangerous for her to be out."
"Okay honey. Call me when she makes it there safely."
"I will." Jisoo said before hanging up.
"You figured it out." Lisa said.
"I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, of course she went there." Jisoo said, almost facepalming. "What if she doesn't make it back and she gets caught on the way?"
"She's Rosie. She'll charm her way out of it right?" Lisa said, trying to reassure them both.
"Right. She'll be fine." Jisoo said nervously. "How are we with the Jennie thing?"
"The general is on the way. We'll take out his team first and then leave Haein to get information on the lab. It's too far from here we need to hurry and take off as soon as possible."
"What's your plan?" Jisoo asked.
"I'll make it up as soon as Haein lets me know what he finds out." Lisa answered.
"So you're going in blind?!" Jisoo scolded Lisa.
"No! I just told you. He'll get what we need and then we'll go in." Lisa protested.
"Jennie will literally kill me for letting you do this Limario!" Jisoo scolded her.
"Jennie will get killed if I don't do this." Lisa bit back.
Jisoo was about to argue again but they all heard the distinct sound of helicopters in the distance.
"Shit, they're early." Lisa said before sprinting out of the room. Haein was hot on her heels.