The Monster Under The Bed

14. Lost And Found

Autumn lands hard on the in front of a house. She moans and sits up, rubbing her head. She jumps to her feet when sees exactly where she was. It was Kris's family cabin. Inside, she could see the silhouettes of a single person moving around inside. , a woman. Kris's mom.

She hesitates. A few months ago, she would've ran into the woman's arms gladly. But now, she didn't know if his mom would understand why she joined Exo.

She shifts awkwardly on her feet, debating whether or not she should go up to the door and knock or not. She bites her lip anxiously as his mother walks into the window. She sees Autumn.

"Who's there?" she calls. Autumn doesn't move. She shields her eyes when his mother shines a light on her.

"Autumn?"

She doesn't move as the woman runs outside and wraps her in a tight embrace.

"Autumn, you're safe!" she cries, Autumn's shoulder was now wet with tears. She pulls away, "Where's Yifan and Luhan?"

Autumn shakes her head and lowers it.

"They're... I don't even know," she whispers, "I haven't checked on them in almost two weeks. Luhan, they said he's gone. Yifan, last I saw him he was sick with a fever."

"What do you mean?" his mother asks her. That's when the tears start to fall.

"Honey, what's wrong?" she asks, putting a hand on Autumn's face. Autumn flinches away.

"Come inside honey," Kris's mother tries to soothe.

"I can't," Autumn whispers, "I can't. You'll hate me."

Kris's mother takes Autumn's hand, leads her into the cabin, and makes her sit. Gently, she takes Autumn's face and tilts it up.

"Autumn, whatever's wrong, I could never hate you. Your aura hasn't changed since the first time I saw you, you haven't changed."

"I joined the," Autumn sniffs, "I joined Exo. I joined the people who we were running from."

"Where is your heart?" Kris's mother asks.

"Autumn, wake up."

Autumn opens her eyes with a shock and sits up swiftly, knocking heads with Kyungsoo. He falls to the ground.

"Chill Autumn, it's just us," Jongin says, holding up his hands. Her mood darkens.

"You ditched me in a nightclub!" she accuses, getting up. His face shows his guilt. He shrugs, his shoulders staying up.

"Oops?" he replies meekly. She sighs and helps up Kyungsoo.

"Why are you sleeping in an alley?" Kyungsoo asks.

Memories from what happened before flood her mind and her eyes widen.

"Autumn, what's wrong?"

"Chanyeol is in danger!" she cries, grabbing Jongin's upper arms.

"What?" Jongin replies, clearly shocked at her sudden outburst.

"ThemanwiththeplantpowerswaskidnappinghimoutsidethehouseandwhenItriedtosavehimhetriedtogetmetoobutIteleportedawayandlandedhereandImust'vehitmyheadand--"

"Woah," Kyungsoo cuts her off, "Slow down."

Autumn takes a deep breath.

"After I found out Jongin had ditched me, I wandered around for a while to calm down because my power wasn't working properly. When it finally worked, I went home. When I looked out the window to my room, I saw Chanyeol collapse at the edge of the woods. I went out to help him, but some man showed up. The plants moved to his order. I managed to touch him, but he tried to, capture(?), me as well. So I teleported back here, but since I wasn't wholly focused on what I needed to do, it wasn't a graceful landing. I think I hit my head..." she trails off.

"You definitely hit your head, there's dried blood in your hairline," Kyungsoo comments calmly, "Do you think you can show us an example of what the man was doing?"

She nods, then looks around. She sees a small, pathetic looking plant and focuses her attention on it and what she wanted it to do. After a few moments, it clumsily springs to attention and wraps around Jongin's leg. Before she can stop it, it yanks him up and holds him upside down. He cries out in surprise and teleports out of it. She cringes and makes it go back to being small and pathetic.

"Sorry Jongin, I couldn't stop it," she apologizes.

"It's fine, I deserved that one," he replies, "Kyung can testify to that."

Kyungsoo doesn't reply. His face showed pure panic.

"Kyungsoo?" Autumn asks, waving her hand in front of his eyes. His head shoots to her, then to Jongin.

"Fuck," he whispers, she takes a step back, a bit shocked. Kyungsoo never cursed, and when he did, it was never that severe.

"What's wrong Kyung?" Jongin asks.

"We need to get back to the house and find Yixing and Chanyeol. They're in more danger than we originally thought."

"What are you talking about?" Autumn asks.

"I know who took them."

Autumn and Jongin glance at each other in confusion.

"We need to go," Kyungsoo orders, "I need to tell Suho."

Jongin shrugs and grabs both of them, bringing them all home. They land in the kitchen. Kyungsoo immediately runs up the stairs. Jongin and Autumn glance at each other again, this time curious.

They sneakily follow Kyungsoo and wait outside Xiumin's room, where Suho was staying. They listen carefully to the voices inside.

"Suho, we have to find them now."

"Kyung, you think I don't know that?" they hear Suho sigh.

"Suho, Heechul took Chanyeol."

"What?!"

"How do you know Kyung?" Xiumin's voice joins in.

"Autumn saw it this morning, and she now has his power."

"Shit," Baekhyun mutters.

"It would be easy to find them if Autumn had Leetuk's power," Xiumin comments. Autumn listens harder after hearing her name.

"Doesn't she though? I mean, she's made contact with him, right?"

Jongin taps her and mouths, 'Have you?'

She nods.

But I've never used it, and the first time is always clumsy.

Jongin nods in understanding.

"Make sure the others know, but that Leetuk and Kyuhyun don't find out we know. If Heechul is here, that means they're planning something and the others aren't far behind."

"If they're not already here."

🔼🔼🔼🔼

Chanyeol wakes up a bit when he is roughly thrown to the ground. Whoever dropped him ties his hands behind his back, then walks away. He groans and struggles to sit up, looking around when he finally does. He was somewhere dark, the air smelled like the earth. A cave maybe?

In the corner, he could see a silhouette of a person curled up on the ground. He struggles to his feet and staggers over beside the figure. He could see that they were tied up with their hands in front of them.

"Hey," he whispers, nudging them with his foot gently. The person wakes with a start and sits up swiftly, startling Chanyeol causing him to fall flat on his butt.

"Ow," he complains.

The person is at attention.

"Ch-Chanyeol?" he stutters, Chanyeol recognizes the voice immediately.

"Yixing!"