The Hostages

Up There

The room was deathly quiet, save for the leaders' shaky breathing as they stared at the picture of Taeyeon on the desk.

"Do you think she's..." Qian couldn't finish, covering her mouth with her hand.

Junmyeon took a deep breath. "Well, the message says is, not was, which must mean she's still alive."

"Or at least she was when this picture was taken," Taeyong mumbled. "Who's to say how long they waited to send it? She could've died days ago!"

"Calm down, Taeyong," Jinki whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Doing something like this means the kidnapper is getting impatient. He wouldn't wait to send proof of that."

"Jinki's right," Qian said, squaring her shoulders. "What do we do now?"

"We have to tell the others," Joohyun said, finally managing to speak.

"We can't show them this!" Taeyong exclaimed. "They'll freak out!"

"Stephanie and the others deserve to know what's happened to her!" Joohyun said stubbornly. "We can't keep this to ourselves!"

"She's right," Junmyeon said decidedly.

"What?!" the others exclaimed.

"We can't keep this to ourselves," Junmyeon continued, "but it's not our decision to tell the others. We have to reseal the envelope and get it to the CEO. Then we can see what he does with it."

"And if he doesn't tell them?" Joohyun demanded.

"What good will it do to worry them?" Qian interjected. "We're barely keeping the peace as it is. It won't help Taeyeon or us to make things worse."

They all considered this for a moment. "I don't like it," Jinki said finally, "but I agree with Qian. We won't tell them."

"But we still know about it, so what do we do?" Taeyong asked.

"There's not much we can do stuck up here," Qian mused.

"Then it's obvious: we have to get off this floor," Joohyun said.

Taeyong snorted. "There's no way any of us are getting out of here. There's too much security."

"She may have a point," Junmyeon said, his mind churning. "Tomorrow's the press conference, right? Mr. Yang will address the reporters and release an official update on the investigation. Maybe we can take advantage of the distraction."

Jinki shook his head. "Even if we could get off this floor, we'd be missed almost instantly."

"Only one of us needs to go," Joohyun said.

"But who? Which of us wouldn't be missed?" Jinki countered. "It's too risky."

"Why do we even need to leave?" Qian asked. "What would we hope to gain?"

"Someone has to go up to Mr. Yang's office and poke around!" Joohyun said excitedly. "We're bound to find something in there!"

"Oh sure, because it's so easy to just waltz into a CEO's office and go through his stuff," Taeyong said sarcastically.

"Most of his staff will be in the conference room for the update," Joohyun retorted. "Someone can slip up through the stairwell, have a look around and be back before it's over."

"That still doesn't clear up who would go," Jinki reminded her. "It would have to be someone trustworthy and mature enough to not freak out."

"Someone old enough to understand the consequences," Taeyong mused.