“Lunch? What time is it?”
“It’s one.”
I rubbed my eyes. The report was only a few pages, but it felt like I was reading a different language. Between bad handwriting, the references to places that I had never heard of and the odd sentence structure, it was slow going. I groaned as I stretched.
“How is it going?”
“Rough. It’s hard to read and I don’t know half the places the scout mentions. I’m making a list of everything that doesn’t make sense to me, but I could use a break. Let’s go eat!”
Once I stood up and worked the kinks out of my neck, we made our way to the kitchen where it sounded like there was a party. When we entered, I saw that Sarah, Janelle and Sibhre were here now.
“Hi, everyone! I didn’t know you were coming, Sibhre!”
She nodded at me. “Kait thought it best that I join you here since I helped you break the ward. He was concerned about retaliation against me.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Well, I’m glad to see you. When did everyone arrive?”
Janelle answered. “We’ve been here about a half hour.”
“So, the most important question is, what’s for lunch?”
They all laughed. Sarah answered while gesturing at the countertop where the fixings were, “Sandwiches. It’s the easiest thing for this many people. Help yourself.”
“Thanks!” I was getting a little tired of sandwiches, but I was hungry. So, I grabbed a paper plate from the stack and some wheat bread. After piling the different kinds of meat high on the sandwich, I moved on to the vegetables. I put lettuce, tomato and a few cucumber slices on before adding the mayonnaise. David made a face at me as I moved away.
“What? What’s wrong with my sandwich?” I looked at the sandwich then back at him.
“Cucumbers and mayo? That’s nasty.” I shrugged, then stared at him as I conspicuously took a big bite of my sandwich. He was right, it was not as good as I had thought it would be, but there was no way I was going to admit that to him. The more I ate of it, though, the better it tasted. He added everything that was set out to his sandwich, including two different kinds of mustard. I made a face at him.
“What?” He looked at me quizzically
“You just added cucumbers and mayo as well as regular mustard and spicy mustard. That can’t taste good.”
He laughed. “Mine is better because it’s on white bread.”
“Oh, I thought it was the mayo you were objecting to.”
“It was. Mayo by itself is gross.” He sat down next to me and bumped my shoulder. Kait and Travis just shook their heads at him as they made their sandwiches. Kait took the seat on the other side of me, and Travis sat across from me. For the most part, we ate silently, but when Kait was done, he started asking questions.
“How much of the report have you worked through?”
“I’m almost done. I would like to discuss with you what information is important from the report, though. Do you want a list of the cells they have found, or just the places, or what?”
“After lunch, I’ll walk you through what information is important to me, okay?”
I nodded.
He looked to David and Travis. “How are your assignments coming?”
They both said “Good,” in unison. Kait nodded, then turned the conversation to lighter things.
We joked around for about a half an hour before Sarah got up and started putting the ingredients away. I hopped up to help her, and David and Travis cleared the table. As we worked, I fretted about my emotional state.
Here we are, in a life-threatening situation, hiding from people who want us dead. But, crazily, I had a cozy, homey feeling, and there was a warm glow from being around people who love me. It made me concerned that there was something wrong with me for not feeling anxious. Kait snorted, catching my attention.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Princess. The way you are feeling is completely normal. You’ve never had a good family life, so it’s not something you would automatically understand, but, believe me, this is good.” He came over and wrapped his arms around me. “This means you are accepting us as your family, and accepting our love.”
I looked up at him as my heart warmed. He was right. It wasn’t something I had thought about it, but I did accept them all as my family now. I went up on my tiptoes to press a kiss on his lips. His arms tightened around me. A throat clearing behind us made us separate as Kait sighed.
He let me go as he turned around. David stood there, with a creepy smile on his face. He gestured toward the door. Kait sighed and nodded. He kissed me on the top of my head, and said, “There’s something I need to deal with. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” David’s smile grew as he turned and followed Kait out the door. That was odd. I headed to the room I was using, paused right inside the door as there was a muffled thump from somewhere in the house that made my skin crawl.
I started to turn to go investigate when an odd smell hit me. The room went black.
My head was pounding, and my mouth tasted awful when I woke up. I couldn’t believe we were back to this. They were going to be in for a rude awakening this time. A Lorgaire stepped out of the shadows and opened his mouth. I formed a ball of ice from the moisture in the air, throwing it with my powers as I did. The ice hit it in the head, hard. It slumped bonelessly to the ground. Well, shit. I probably should have let him speak first, so I would know what they wanted this time. Oh well.
I froze my invisible bonds and was pleased when they broke as I pulled on them. I wasn’t sure that would work, so I was
