Dana nodded.
Ellisandre bit their cheek, doing math. It was a complicated question. “Around three years, roughly. The details are not quite the same. And once you’ve started training, you never really stop. Guns are just part of it. I spent a lot of time learning not to be seen.”
Dana’s eyes widened. “But everyone sees you.”
Ellisandre chuckled. “Now they do, because I want them to.”
Dana’s lips lifted in a smile. She was in her older-child head at the moment—serious, planning for the future, and insecure. It changed, moment to moment, whether she felt as young as five or as old as a middle schooler. That was the effect of trauma on a young mind.
Ellisandre eased their foot off the gas, letting the SUV roll up the last bit of hill toward the parking pad in front of the two-door garage attached to the main residence. “Ready to see Jaewoong, Geun, Yohei, Su-jin, and Jun?”
The main attraction of the Estate was a grand house, with a central section of soaring glass three-stories high, braced by massive dark-wood beams. Two wings branched off from either side, both two stories aboveground, quintessentially grand rustic with large mortared rock walls interspersed with wood and plaster, not a single bit of siding or paint was to be seen. Below the massive expanse of wood beams and glass was a wide, multilevel porch large enough to host an event. Fields of grass sloped away from the porch steps.
The SUV rocked to a full stop. Ellisandre turned off the engine. “Let’s go find everyone.”
There was no need to look, however. Gang Junseo sauntered out the side door, hands in his pockets, a large black hoodie wrapped around his shoulders, as if he’d been expecting them. His eyes were sharp and bright beneath his spiky black fringe. Most likely the security team at the front of the property had called ahead. Alice jumped from the SUV and waved. Dana tumbled out after her.
Jun jogged toward them. “You made it.” His English had the kind of accent to it of someone who had spoken various versions of the language in many places. The underlining tinge, though, was American.
Alice grinned. “We did. And we brought Ash to help with the website. He’s asleep.”
Jun glanced into the back of the SUV, following the direction of Alice’s thumb.
“Let’s get you two inside,” Ellisandre said. “We have a bunch of stuff to carry in.”
“I can carry,” Jun said.
“You’re cleared for carrying weight?” Ellisandre asked. They nodded at Jun’s face. It hadn’t been that long ago that Jun had been in a wheelchair to get through the airport in Seoul. Jun touched it, as if he’d forgotten the bruises. They were dark green and brown now.
He met Ellisandre’s question with a shrug. “I didn’t break bones.”
“He can carry some,” Yoihei said, appearing from the direction of the house with Geun on his heels. Geun and Yoihei were both taller than Jun, and between them they had the arm strength to keep him from overdoing it. “We won’t let him do it on his own.”
Ellisandre rummaged in the middle seats for the cooler and retrieved a root beer for Ash. “Let me wake the gremlin.
“Who is Gremlin?” Yoihei asked. His English was heavily accented. He brought his native Japanese language skills to the group, but his English was still something he was working on.
Jun translated the “gremlin” into Korean. Yoihei chuckled and shook his head. He raised his hands and took a step back from Ellisandre. “All yours.”
Ellisandre
Ellisandre got the root beer into Ash’s hands. He drank it before getting out of the back seat, supervised the moving of computer equipment into the house, then ate a pile of cold pancakes and downed two mugs of coffee leaning against the kitchen counter while deep in conversation with Mi Hi over topics like servers and data hosting. Alice and Dana were already off to see Jaewoong and Su-jin. Ash was Dana’s beloved monster most of the time, but not when he was talking about gigabytes and DOS attacks.
Ellisandre caught Jun’s attention and nodded in the direction of the hallway. Jun raised an eyebrow but tilted his head in acknowledgement. He led the way out of the room.
“Where can we talk?” Ellisandre said.
Jun pointed toward the gym. “No one’s practicing right now.”
That worked.
The gymnasium felt larger than usual. Ellisandre took it in. “You’ve been practicing.”
All the machines had been pushed to the back wall where they could still be used, but no longer took up the central open area in front of the mirrors. The colored tape marks on the floor were new.
Jun shoved his hands in his pockets, face guarded. “It’s what we do. Practice. We have to get back to our fans.”
Ellisandre crossed their arms and paced down the length of glass mirrors. Jun leaned back against a weight machine, hands still in his pockets. Away from his 5N members, Damian, and Collin, there was a coldness Ellisandre had not witnessed before. A wariness even.
