I don’t know what to say. I just nod my head.

“You made it out,” Nine says, patting me hard on the shoulder. “Good for you, bro.”

John starts to lead us by Nine, who’s basically been standing right in our way. He sort of reminds me of one of those big dogs that jump all over visitors as soon as they come in the door. When he finally steps aside, I notice the three other Garde that Six told us about—Seven, Eight and the younger Ten. They’re waiting where the living room starts, a little more patient than Nine, at least letting us get inside.

“If you’re wondering what the horrible smell is, it’s the vegetarian food Marina’s cooking for dinner,” says Nine.

“Hey,” the dark-haired Seven—Marina—replies good-naturedly. “It’ll be good, I promise.”

“Dinner,” Nine snorts, “whatever. Who cares? We’ve got the whole team together! They’re pudgier and dorkier than expected, but I’m cool with it. Let’s go blow some shit up.”

“You need to calm down, dude. We’ve been driving for like twelve hours,” Six tells Nine, shoving a bag of equipment into his chest. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

Sarah quickly follows suit, tossing her bag to Nine. Before long, he’s shouldering pretty much all the stuff we carried up from the cars.

“Fine, I’ll put this stuff away,” Nine says as he agreeably lumbers off to put away our gear. “But then we’re gonna at least talk about kicking some ass.”

I notice Five staring down Nine as he leaves the room. Then, he turns to John.

“We’re not really going to fight again right away, are we?”

John shakes his head. “Nine’s just excited. Getting together was a huge first step. Now we need to figure out what to do next.”

“I see,” says Five, gazing down at his hands. “I guess I’ve never viewed violence as something to get excited about.”

“We’re not all like Nine,” Marina says apologetically as she steps forward. She greets us warmly, even pulling Five into a hug, which I think both surprises him and loosens him up a bit. She definitely puts me more at ease after Nine’s brusque display.

Eight introduces himself next. I get a real easygoing vibe from him, a nice change of pace from the alpha-male routine Nine pulled as soon as we showed up. Still, I can tell he’s just as excited as Nine was, he’s just more tactful.

“I’ve got so many questions for you. All of you,” Eight says. “Five, I’m dying to know where you’ve been, to hear about everything that’s happened to you.”

“Uh,” grunts Five. “Okay.”

“I’m sure you’ve overcome a lot to be here,” Eight continues encouragingly.

“The grunting is all John and I could get out of him in the car,” Sarah whispers to me.