“Honestly? I don’t know. But I do know that this person is doing harm to my people. He needs to be stopped by any means.”

  “Any means? Even lethal force?”

  “Yes, poppa. Even lethal force. This person has either harmed, will harm more people, and maybe even kill others in the future. This has to stop. I don’t know if I have the strength to take a life, but I will stop this person by any means that I have at my disposal.”

  “That’s my girl.” She could even hear the smile in his voice. He knew that his little girl was no killer, but still had the wherewithal to do what needed to be done. He didn’t have the words to tell her how proud he was of her.

  The moment between them was predictably ruined by a strident voice in the background. “Who’s that on the phone?”

  His voice was partly muffled as if he held the phone away from him. Seulgi heard her father protecting her by saying, “No one, Dear. It’s a wrong number.” Turning back to the phone, he continued a nonexistent conversation by saying, “I’m sorry sir, I cannot help you. You were given the wrong number, there is no one here by that name. Yes, have a good evening.” And the phone call was abruptly disconnected.

  After a brief pause, she said into the dial tone, “I love you, too, Poppa.”

  She sighed, hung up the phone, and went about doing the st things before going to bed. She went ahead and took a long shower. She cleaned her emotional self more than her physical body. By the time she pulled herself out of the shower, she was all pruney.

  She dried herself and put on a beautiful blue silk bathrobe. It was Japanese and had golden koi fish swimming through it. She spends more time drying her hair and doing other self-maintenance. She was pampering herself to reset her mental equilibrium. She knew that finding the badge earlier and the implications of it while using Jackson to hang it had thrown her off kilter. Exactly as it had been intended to do.

  She pulled out one of the few truly exotically, hedonistic, and horribly expensive things that she allowed herself to buy; pure silk, hand-crafted set of sky blue pajamas. The robe that she was wearing earlier was part of the same set. She sighed at the cool comfort that slid against her skin as she pulled them on.

  These pajamas annoyed Suki because they were so soft and silky that her fur would not stick. So, she could not mark them as hers as she did with the rest of Seulgi’s wardrobe. She did, however, keep trying. The poor cat could not even lie convincingly to herself and would not admit that she found them nice to y on.

  She hung the robe back up in the closet, grabbed a book in her left hand, and a cat in her right hand, and tossed both on the bed. She extinguished all of the mps except for the one by the bed. By the time she got back to the bed, Suki had already curled up into a furry ball with only her blue eyes and grey ears showing. She slowly blinked zily at her Idiot feeling content with the activities of the day. She gave a jaw-popping huge yawn before she closed her eyes, purring.

  Seulgi pulled back the white comforter and sheets to expose the bed. She slipped between the sheets with a sigh of comfort and a soft sensual pleasure.

  So, naturally, her cell phone chirped at her. Slightly annoyed that her sensual bliss was interrupted, she wondered if it was important. Especially at this time of night.

  She got up, padded out to the dark living room where she had left her phone, and took the phone back to the bed. She had found the phone by following the sound in the dark room. If she was going to read some flipping text, she’d at least be comfortable. She set the phone on the bedside table before she got back into bed. She went ahead and plugged the charger in as well. She bought the three meter cable for the bedside overnight charging.

  Seulgi slipped back in between the sheets and pulled up the covers. Once she was ready to see who the message was from, she wasted a bit more time by stroking her cat and cooing nonsense at her.

  Suki was too busy luxuriating and purring to put any real heat into the single thought of: Idiot.

  After a couple of minutes of complete petting, she turned to the phone as it beeped at her again. She turned away, annoyed, from the cat, who was satisfied to just y there and purr.

  Seulgi grabbed the phone and unlocked it to the home screen. The wallpaper was of a majestic Chinese mountain range that was in the sea. The mixture of browns, greens, and blues was actually breathtaking. That image alone was enough to make her pause, take a breath, and start whatever was bothering her again.

  She opened her messenger app and was pleasantly surprised to see that Wendy had responded to her earlier text. Either Wendy woke up too early, or Seulgi had stayed up too te.

  She got a wall of text in return. Part of it was asking for specifics on some of the things mentioned. The rest was about what she was doing. What she was doing in personal therapy and physical therapy, what whom did to whom, and how they retaliated.

  Seulgi could tell that she was trying to show that things were well there and there was nothing more to worry about from her side. The Parents were doing well. They even managed to surprise her by buying a karaoke machine that was preloaded with all of her favorite songs. As well as a few new ones that she didn’t know but was wanting to try.

  She ended her already too-long message with a message saying that she was looking forward to getting back to see her, Katie, and the rest of the gang. The Gang? When did they become a Gang? With the amount of people in their group, it was closer to a small mob than a gang, but whatever.

  She read the ending remarks. Those words filled her with warmth. With a smile, she turned off the lights and let sleep overtake her.