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“I’ll do my best.”
Hanging up, I stared at Sage balefully.
“What is that?” I demanded.
She pointed at the ringing telephone.
“The phone’s ringing,” she reminded me.
Uncertainly, I reached for it but changed my mind at the last minute. I shook my head.
“No. You need to tell me what I’m doing,” I insisted.
“It appears as though you’ve figured it out quite easily. You’re in Shifter Affairs now. The position just opened recently, so it’s a good thing you’re here. You’ll answer calls and report to Atlas.”
The phone stopped ringing, but it was barely quiet a moment before another started ringing. My nerves began to frazzle already.
“Who keeps calling?”
Sage turned away, and my eyes popped.
“Shifters who need Atlas’ help,” she explained. “It’s up to you to determine who he has time to hear and who is wasting his time.”
With that, I was left alone in the office with the endlessly chiming phones, my heart in my throat.
What’s that supposed to mean? How am I supposed to determine who needs Atlas’ help and who doesn’t?
The burden seemed insurmountable and more than I signed on for, but at the same time, I realized that he had put me in a position of trust. I was in his house, answering calls from those who truly needed him. This wasn’t a job for the faint of heart.
He trusts me enough to do this. I can’t screw it up.
But lives were in my hands now, and I had no idea how to handle that.
* * *
The calls didn’t stop.Not for one second, from the moment I arrived until some hours later, when Sage came back to check on me.
I had gotten into some semblance of a groove, I guess. There were other calls like the ones from Lacy. Desperate women calling about their partners tangled up in some unsavory business. One even mentioned Jesse’s name, which made me hate the tiger shifter even more.
But there were other pleas, ones from young kids who were hungry.
“Can you tell Atlas that my mom ran out of food again?” one small voice whimpered. “She did her best to make the last stuff he sent last, but our dad came back…”
The voice cracked, and a sob escaped into my ear, pushing my heart into my throat.
“I’ll tell him,” I promised, jotting down the number onto the “accept” pad. I’d already determined three sub-categories: those who were beyond help, those who definitely needed assistance, and those I would run by Sage for approval.
The fae entered without knocking, and by some miracle, I wasn’t tied down on a call.
“I brought you something to eat,” she told me, tossing me a plain, brown bag.
The smell of warm bread made my stomach rumble. I could almost taste the freshness through the paper.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, unsure of what else to say. “Is Atlas coming? There are a bunch of people who need him.”
Sage snorted lightly. “Of course there are. It’s the cost of running a city, Bianca.”
I bit on my lip and nodded toward the pages in front of me.
