Blaze

Burdens

Chorong stepped away from the wall as the shock of Victoria's words took the meeting room a step closer to cruel reality. Tao twisted around in his chair to look up at her, Lay suddenly making his appearance at Victoria's back, and Kris' eyes widened.

A gasped infiltrated the room, no one knew who it belonged to, and Kris shot up from his chair, "Victoria!"

"Why? You're playing dumb?" Victoria ignored his call.

Suho and Namjoo were barely able to reply under her scrutinizing eyes.

Squeezing his way in Lay managed to make space for himself adjacent to Suho, "Suho was with us in Yeongwol. Chorong and I were with him the whole time. Don't jump to conclusions yet, Victoria."

Victoria shot Lay a glance before turning to eye Suho, who stared back. The corner of her lips protruded up when she saw the defenseful glint in Namjoo's eyes. Victoria couldn't forget the fact that Namjoo was more arrogant than the passive Suho who had only begun holding a gun again.

"Alright," Victoria nodded, "so Suho has an alibi. Then, what about Namjoo?"

"No, I..." Lay began, but Victoria raised her hand up to silence him; her eyes glued onto Namjoo's face the whole time.

"Ah...the capable one who can manage a fight with Donghae, you carry out his orders day in and day out, isn't that right? I believe you'd know Donghae a lot more than Suho would."

"Victoria, stop it," Kris cut in, an edge of irritance in his voice. "I don't know what's going on, but you're being unreasonable."

"Your teammates almost got killed yesterday, Kris, and you're saying I don't have the right to track down the one behind it?" Victoria shot the question at him. "The only one who managed to get there late was no one else, but Namjoo."

"You're going too far," Suho finally managed.

"Why? Is it a scary thought that your own teammate might want to wring your neck?" Victoria asked.

Suho gritted his teeth silently tightening the sharpness of his jawline.

"Neither of you can be trusted," Victoria stated, "someone here in this room is trading information with the ring. They're always a step ahead of us and that's why we've got nothing done so far."

"Don't you think you're the problem?" Tao stood and moved so that he was in front of Namjoo, blocking Victoria from her. "In all honesty, you and your people are the ones slowing us down. We don't need you. Who do you think you are? You're just the aid team, but here you are trying to take over. Are you guys really from the bureau? You're more like a coup. Why don't you leave instead of immaturely throwing your finger around?"

Pressing her teeth together she ultimately stared at Tao with cold eyes.

"Suho and Namjoo, they haven't done anything wrong," Chorong started, "so why are you being like this?"

Disbelief fell upon Victoria's face. Chorong dodged her eyes before hesitatingly looking back at her.

"There's no evidence," Chorong went on, "you can't dismiss them from the team. Only Donghae has that jurisidiction."

"Who's removing who from the team?" Donghae's voice surprised them from behind.

Victoria immediately spun around to look at him. Donghae seemingly shot her a sidelong glance before stepping into the room and looked around from face to face as if carefully studying them; categorizing them into the right and wrong.

"What do you think you're doing?" Donghae turned his head to interrogate Victoria.

Ignoring him Victoria turned to the group, "Chorong, Lay, Kris; head to Yeongwol and investigate the warehouse for anything left behind. You're to report back to me and only me when you return." Victoria trained her eyes hard on the three while Donghae somewhat glared at her.