Chapter 5

“This will be your new home, girls. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything.” Mrs. Barnes said, satisfied with their reaction. “This is the butler, call him Grandpa Bryan. She’s the cook, Miss Emma…. I’ll introduce you to the other staff later on.” Mrs. Barnes led them into the house with both girls on either side of her, Mr. Barnes walking behind with a content smile.

The interior of the house seemed even nicer than the exterior. The huge hall looked like a ballroom, the kind they’d only ever seen in movies. Everything about it suggested the Barnes villa had stood there for at least four generations. The Chinese-American style of the design blended beautifully, giving off something both modern and old at once.

“That’s the dining area, the kitchen, your rooms will be upstairs, let’s go.” Mrs. Barnes kept showing them around, clearly enjoying every second of it.

“Where’s Ray? Why hasn’t he come to welcome his sisters?” Mr. Barnes asked the butler after settling into the sofa and accepting a cup of coffee from the maid.

“Sir, he went out to play basketball with his friends from school,” the butler replied respectfully.

“Didn’t he know about today? That boy’s attitude never changes.” Mr. Barnes said, sipping his coffee.

Juliana sat on her bed, content and proud of herself for being chosen and adopted by the most powerful family in R City. Mrs. Barnes has decided to adopt Juliana…. and Elaine, she thought back, and couldn’t help but sneer. She’d have to find some way to get that girl out of this family so she could enjoy everything for herself alone. She got up to shower after hearing the maid announce dinner would be ready in thirty minutes.

Elaine, on the other hand, unpacked the books she’d begged Sister Ann to let her keep onto her bedside table. She hadn’t brought enough clothes to bother hanging any. She hadn’t reacted as strongly as Juliana had when they arrived, not because she wasn’t surprised or happy, but…. she sighed. She’d just try her best to avoid Juliana, so peace could reign. She grabbed a book on martial arts and stepped out.

“Miss, dinner will be ready in thirty minutes,” the old, kind looking woman told her the moment she came downstairs. It seemed Mr. and Mrs. Barnes had already gone up to their room. Elaine nodded slightly and headed straight for the backyard she’d spotted, and into the woods beyond it, where she could get some privacy to practice her moves and breathing techniques.

Though she was only seven, she couldn’t explain why she loved studying and martial arts so much, or why the moves came to her so easily even without a teacher. Maybe it was instinct. She found a quiet spot and began practicing, the calm of the place settling something in her.

“Juliana, where’s your sister? Didn’t you call her down for dinner?” Mrs. Barnes asked when she came down to find only Juliana at the table.

“Mom, she wasn’t in her room, maybe she’s upset,” Juliana added, the last part almost a whisper.

“Madam, she went out to study,” Nanny May said as she served the dishes, giving Juliana a meaningful look. After waiting a while, they had dinner without Elaine and kept a portion aside for her.

Meanwhile, out in the backyard, an unwanted noise interrupted Elaine’s practice. She heard the footsteps even though the person had tried to tread carefully. She opened her eyes to find a young boy, maybe in his teens, watching her lazily as he leaned against a tree.

“What do you want, and why did you interrupt?” she asked, visibly annoyed.

“I should be asking you that. What are you doing in my backyard?” he answered, a small smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

“You can leave when you get tired.” Too uninterested to pay him further attention, she closed her eyes and resumed training, treating him like air.

“Interesting. You really are different,” he said, before finally leaving after watching her a while longer with something like curiosity.

Ray let himself in through the side door still smelling faintly of sweat and outdoor air, tossing his basketball toward the hall closet without looking. He hadn’t made it three steps before his mother spotted him.

“Ray! There you are, come here, come meet your sister.” Mrs. Barnes waved him over to where Juliana still sat picking at her dinner. “Isn’t he handsome? Just look at him.”

Ray was tall for his age already, with the kind of sharp, clean features that made people do a double take on the street, dark hair falling just slightly over one eye, a jaw that looked like it belonged on someone twice his age. Even in a plain t-shirt with grass stains at the knee, he carried himself like he knew exactly the effect he had on a room, though he never seemed to care much for it.

“Doesn’t he have the finest jawline in the whole of city R? I keep telling him he could be in magazines if he wanted,” Mrs. Barnes went on, hands clasped under her chin, while Mr. Barnes chuckled into his coffee.

Ray barely glanced at Juliana. “Hey.” He said it flat, already half turned toward the stairs.

“This is Juliana, your new sister,” his mother pressed, undeterred.

“Cool.” He offered nothing more than that, clearly bored of the whole introduction before it had even properly started. “I’m going to shower.”

He disappeared up the staircase two steps at a time, leaving his mother mid-sentence and his father shaking his head with a small, amused smile.

Juliana sat frozen for a moment, dinner forgotten in front of her, staring at the empty staircase he’d just vanished up. She’d never seen a boy like that in her life, not even close, and the fact that he barely looked at her only made her want his attention more. Long after she’d gone up to her own room that night, she lay awake replaying the two seconds he’d spent glancing her way, wondering what she’d have to do to make him look at her like that again, properly the next time they get to interact.