16. Bryn

Bryn

As I flipped the crêpe, I heard a stool slide out at the island behind me. I smiled and glanced over my shoulder to see Koa in his jammies still. He had a stuffie hugged against his chest, thumb in his mouth as he leaned against the counter to watch me.

"Morning," I said.

He pulled his thumb out long enough to say, "Morning, Papa."

"I almost have a plate for you. You hungry?"

Koa nodded.

Turning back, I pulled the crêpe off and set it on a plate before adding a bit more butter to the flat iron. Then I poured the thin batter and spread it out with the little crêpe tool. While it started cooking, I buttered Koa's crêpe, added some Nutella in the middle and then some vanilla cream before rolling up and sprinkling powdered sugar over it.

By then, it was already time to turn the next crêpe, so I paused to do so. I handed Koa his plate.

He set his stuffie on the counter and grinned at me. "Thank you, Papa."

"You' re welcome."

Calix walked into the room and smoothed Koa's hair down before kissing the top of his head. "Good boy using your manners."

Koa grinned.

"Want some juice?" I asked as I tended to the crêpes.

"Yes, please."

Calix stopped at my side and kissed my cheek. "I got it."

In the corner of my eye, I watched Calix pour Koa a sippy of apple juice and then a sippy of chocolate milk. He set both in front of Koa.

Once I had another crêpe off and poured the next, the buzzer to the air fryer beeped so I pulled out the basket and dumped the contents on a paper towel. Selecting a few crispy pieces of bacon, I turned to place them on Koa's plate. "I'll get you some fruit in a minute. Want another crêpe?"

"Yes, please."

"I got the fruit," Calix said when I turned back to the stove. "Just concentrate on the crêpes, Bryn. I can help you with breakfast."

I nodded. He moved behind me and pinched my ass, making me jump.

Calix smirked, winking at Koa. Koa giggled, covering his mouth.

"Keep laughing and I'm going to eat this crêpe," I teased, holding up the one I just prepared for him.

Koa sat up, pressed his lips together and stared at me with big eyes. He fought his smile. There was no hiding his happiness this morning.

I fed him three more crêpes before Javan, Rue, and Bryn came downstairs. By then, I'd loaded up four plates with piles of crêpes and Calix had set the different fillings on the island.

"I'm done, Daddy," Koa said.

"Then go wash up. Don't touch anything with those sticky hands. Want to try dressing yourself this morning?"

Koa grinned. "Yes! "

"Okay, go ahead."

He hopped down from the stool and raced out.

It used to be very weird for me, seeing a big man covered in tats and piercings acting like a little kid. It had been disorienting, and I felt kind of foolish pretending. It definitely didn't come naturally to me like it did to Calix.

Which was why we'd encouraged him to find a Little to begin with. He'd always told us that he wanted one. He was a Daddy who needed a Little. It just wasn't a role that Javan or I could fill for him.

But we had done a lot of research while Calix looked. However, seeing it in person? I wasn't sure there was anything I could have done to prepare myself for that. It took me a long time to get to the point where I was now.

I didn't just accept Koa for who he was, I definitely embraced it. He was a good man and a good little boy, too.

Once I'd straightened up my mess, I joined my husbands and wife at the island while we ate. Up until the last few days, I couldn't remember the last time we've spent so much time together as a family. Nothing like tragedy to make you slow down and appreciate what was right in front of you.

Koa returned to the kitchen and joined us at the island. He wasn't Little anymore, but he still brought the stuffie he'd left behind to his chest as he watched us eat. Once we were done and Javan had cleaned up the dishes, we sat at the island.

"So," Koa began, "I don't think I want to go back to the office. There isn't much I can't access with my laptop."

"Not feeling up for it?" Calix asked.

Koa shook his head. "No. I think I need to stay home for a while longer."

"Are you going to be okay to run the scenario?" I asked. "We can find another way if?—"

Koa shook his head. "No, I can do a couple hours of work."

Calix took his chin in his fingers and pulled Koa's face around. "Are you sure? Really sure? "

"I'm going to spend a couple hours teaching Bryn how to use my program. I think it'll be too easy for me to get sucked back into the pressure of digging into the old ORKA systems and what we can reach of Silence's."

Calix pulled him forward and Koa came tumbling out of the stool, nearly falling. He laughed as Calix dragged him up. He never would have let Koa fall. "I'm really, really, really proud of you for recognizing that in yourself."

Koa bowed his head. "I'm afraid of what I did," he whispered, his eyes flickering up to the rest of us. He'd always been better about vulnerability when it was just him and Calix. It meant a lot to me that he didn't feel the need for privacy to admit that. "I don't want to do that again."

Calix wrapped his arms around Koa, hugging him tightly. Koa sighed into him, closing his eyes and burying his face in Calix's shoulder.

"But I can't stay like this forever," Koa admitted quietly.

"No. Not forever. We all know that," Calix agreed.

"I'm hungry," Koa whispered.

He wasn't talking about food, either. He was referring to his monster.

"I think we all are. But I'll tell you what." Calix pulled Koa back to look at his face. "We have a plan and it's one we're excited about. There are some factors we're not quite sure of yet, primarily a time frame. However, once we go, you can eat as much as you want."

A growl filled the air before Koa visibly flinched and choked it off. His eyes turned matte black, and he blinked rapidly for several seconds until the color faded. Then he gave Calix a bemused smile. "Not cool, Daddy," he deadpanned.

Calix laughed loudly. "I'm not going to let you hurt anyone. I just want you to know there's light at the end of the tunnel, my sweet beast."

Koa sighed. "Okay." He looked at me. "Ready?"

"Are you?" I retorted .

He waggled his hand back and forth. "Maybe."

"I have an idea," Rue said, and we all looked at her. "How about if we stay together as a family and we'll all sit in Koa's ball pit outside while he teaches Bryn how to use his software? He'll have all our support, he can feel us surrounding him, he has the whimsy and fun of his Little right there, but he can still show Bryn how to use it."

Koa smiled. "Yes. Let's do that."

We got to our feet. I stopped beside Rue and kissed the side of her head. "We really love how you innately know how to put him at ease," I murmured.

"I'd like to tell you that I've been around kids a lot, but that's not it at all. I'm the youngest and I have no cousins."

Of course she didn't. Her family was dead.

Sighing, I kissed her again, hugging her fiercely. "We have big families, so you now have lots of cousins and nieces and nephews. Grandparents. And we have lots of friends and many have kids. Also, there are the orphans."

"That's the second time they've been mentioned," she said.

"I think I'm still going to hold off on telling you for now. Let's focus on the immediate task at hand, okay?"

She frowned. I tried to kiss her frown away and eventually she laughed. "Just tell me they're being taken care of."

"I promise, they're being taken care of."

"Well?"

"Very well," I promised. "I'll introduce you to Tatum at some point over the next few days. She's the director of Haven—where the kids are."

"Okay. I'll let it go, but only because we clearly have bigger things to think about. You really think your plan is going to work? Do we have an answer?"

"We've run it by the larger group of our friends and yes, we think this is probably the best strategy. Our biggest obstacle is going to be predicting their actions so we're on the move when they are. "

"And closing the doorways? How about reopening them?"

"Actually, no. Closing them down will be easy enough. If all else fails, Tyrus can just move us through the shadows. But I don't think it'll come to that. We have the Taikas and with them comes a lot of fucking magic."

"Sweet. Have I met them yet?"

I grinned, taking her hand in mine and leading her to the backyard where the rest of our husbands were gathered. "Uh… maybe? Three women, four men, six kids. Although, the triplets are adults now, I guess."

"Hmm," she hummed. "Guess I don't know."

It took Koa just under two hours to explain how to program his software before he checked out. I still had questions, but since he assured me I couldn't break it, I was pretty much just chugging along and inputting information as best I could.

After an hour of messing around, my phone rang. It was a call from Koa's office. Shutting the laptop, I climbed out of the ball pit, sending a flurry of balls all over the place, which made Koa dissolve into giggles.

Chuckling, I stepped away to answer the phone. "Yes?"

"Bryn?"

"This is he."

"There's—So, this one thing—There's this—" the man stuttered breathlessly.

"Give me the phone," someone else said. A quiet scuffle made me smirk until another voice filled my ear. "Bryn?"

"Yes."

"Okay. He's excited, but doesn't even know why. So, we've monitored ORKA's online activity since Silence killed them. You know, monitoring their systems to see if anyone tries to access them again. "

"Yep, it's been mentioned."

"Okay, good. Well, they've been silent for two years. Like, nothing. Absolute silence."

"And that's changed."

"Yes, but not necessarily in a way that's meaningful. One of the lines is now filled with static. As if someone has turned something on, but… maybe there's nothing to turn on? Maybe that's where the static is coming from?"

I glanced back at Koa. My family was in the ball pit still, tossing balls back and forth and laughing. I chewed the inside of my lip. "Do you know where that signal is located? An IP address?"

"Yep," she confirmed.

"See if you can find someone to check it out. Unless we already have eyes there?"

"The security system is offline so no, no eyes."

"Maybe we should have turned it back online," I muttered absently.

"We talked about it, but it seemed like an unnecessary use of resources. We looked for like eight months. Silence murdered everyone. So why would we turn it back on to watch nothing?"

She wasn't wrong. Every time we identified someone alive, Silence beat us to them, and we only found a body when we got there. It made us suspicious that we had a mole. Someone was feeding them information.

So we sat back and watched, keeping anyone new spotted to our inner circle—our family and the Igarashis. We stopped going after them and just watched. Every time, Silence found them right after we did.

Koa determined they were also watching the old ORKA feeds. So when we found someone logging in, they found it at the same time.

It felt stupid that we were so suspicious because, obviously, they'd been watching ORKA. Still, just in case, we kept the most intimate details of our operations on a strictly need-to-know basis. Just in case. We did extensive background checks on everyone who had access to HP intelligence and the compound but… you never know.

"Can we turn it on remotely? Is that an option? What are the odds that Silence is still watching these feeds?" I asked, mostly to myself.

"Koa identified the signal that was Silence's tie-in to ORKA's systems. They turned it off a year ago. We've been scanning for it and anything else out of the ordinary. So, I feel relatively confident that they don't know," she answered. "As far as turning on the system, we tried. It's been out of use for so long that it's probably corroded, or an animal has chewed through it. That was the first thing we did."

"What do you think it means?" I asked.

She paused. I wondered if anyone ever asked her what her opinion would be. "This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think, in light of recent events, there are people stranded all over the place and looking for help. I think someone stumbled upon the frequency, or even the facility, and tapped in but couldn't figure out how to work it, which is why it's just static."

"You don't think it's an ORKA operative in hiding all this time?"

"I mean, even if it is, Bryn? So what? One man. One. At this point, whatever information they have isn't going to matter because we have much bigger fish to fry. But… that's just my opinion."

"You're used to discounting your opinions, aren't you?" I asked.

Silence. I grinned.

"Don't do that. I think you're right. I'll run it by Koa when he's in the right place; so for now, just keep an eye on it. Thank you for letting me know."

"Okay, thanks. Am I allowed to ask how Koa is? We're worried about him. "

"I know you are, and it means a lot that you care about him. He's doing okay. He's got a long road, I think, but he'll be okay."

"That's good," she said, sighing. "Okay, I'll let you know if something else comes up."

We ended the call and I looked at my family in the ball pit. I'd mention it to them once Koa takes a nap before we talk to Koa about it. But this woman, whose name I forgot to ask, is right. Regardless of who accessed the old ORKA systems, could anyone on it be worth dealing with right now?

So I didn't carry this information on my shoulders alone, I sent a text to my friends and explained the situation, telling them to think about it and talk it out and that I'd be back in touch with them later.

Just in case.