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Standing at a desk beside Caleb, my eyes hurt from going through the mountains of paperwork we had finally separated into piles.
It had taken us five hours to get through the basic items and next we were moving onto the more complicated tasks.
But first, lunch.
Triston and Branson brought us lunch, an indoor picnic of sorts, even in a cute basket.
Riddick stood from the couch where he had been working on a laptop on some other issue, and joined us on the large rug that was in the center of Caleb’s office.
I ate some cheese, meat, and crackers, then sipped on the sparkling wine they’d brought. “Are we allowed to drink wine on lunch?”
“You’ll have to ask the boss,” Triston said.
We all turned to Caleb.
“As long as you aren’t getting drunk, I don’t mind a drink or two at lunch. Plus, the queen gets special permissions.” He winked at me.
“Good to know,” I said and took another drink. The wine they had brought was incredibly good. Pulling out my phone, I took a picture of the label.
“Why did you take a picture of the bottle?” Riddick asked.
“Because it’s really tasty and I want to make sure I remember which one it was.”
Triston smiled. “Don’t worry, my queen, I will add it to the list.”
“List?” I asked, tilting my head slightly as I looked at each of them.
“A list of your favorite things,” Branson explained. “Like those chocolates and the cookies with sprinkles.”
My heart did a weird little flip in my chest at the knowledge they had a list of my favorite things that they shared with each other. I didn’t say anything, but I also had a list for them as well. Though it was harder to find favorites for four of them.
“How are the new members settling in?” Caleb asked Riddick.
Riddick nodded, finished his food, and said, “Good. I spoke to Jolie and she’s going to help us get a bus route to take the children to the nearest school. We also found some jobs for a few of them, but still have about six that are in need of one.”
“We may be able to help with that as we’re going through our new resources,” I said. “We have a few jobs that need filled for the mines and the selling of the crystals in town.”
“Oh, that’s good to know. I’ll talk to them a bit more about their capabilities and let you know.” Riddick pulled out a small box from the basket he had brought and set a cute chocolate cupcake on my plate.
“Where’s mine?” Caleb asked with a frown.
“Sorry, they only had one left at the shop,” Riddick said and winked at me.
Caleb reached for it and I quickly popped it into my mouth. He growled.
I did a little happy dance in my seat as I ate the super sweet and delicious cupcake. So good!
“So, I was able to track down some of the remaining high-level members of the H.E.,” Riddick said.
My head whipped around as I turned to look at him. “What?”
“We’ve been trying to track down the last remnants of the H.E.,” Triston explained.
“I thought they had gone into hiding and we were safe for now.”
Caleb said, “It is better to eliminate them fully instead of waiting around for them to try to attack us. I would sleep better at night knowing we have purged them from this world than to let them commit one more atrocity or put you at risk.”
So, we weren’t safe yet. That had my anxiety returning.
