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Trick smiles, but before he can say anything, Atlas interrupts.

“I can’t wait to see them all, and especially meet the baby,” he grins.

“I wonder what they’ve called her?” Cash wonders. “Knowing Lyric and the guys, it will be beautiful and unique.”

“Absolutely,” Rage agrees.

“I’ve messaged Jynx and the guys and told them what time we’re going to be there and that I’ll video call them once we’re there. She said that she will make sure that she’s somewhere that she can answer,” I explain.

“I really wish she would fill us in on what the fuck is going on,” Rage gripes. It’s something that we say every time that they get brought up, but that’s because the longer that they leave it, the more concerned we get. Rage continues, “I get that we’re on the other side technically, but she’s family, and I’m not being funny, but she’s been my family for far fucking longer than we’ve been with the organization.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Atlas agrees wholeheartedly.

“You know Jynx though, she’s fucking stubborn,” I add with a weary sigh.

All of us are worrying about her and the guys. She’s dealing with something big and dangerous, and it's been going on for a while now. I think I might be getting to the point where I demand to know. I can’t just show up because I have no fucking idea where they are.

But something needs to be done.

I think I’ll play it by ear. They’ll be on video chat with us at Lyric’s place later. I’ll be able to see them for the first time in a long time. If they look like they aren’t handling shit, then I’ll have a word and see if I can convince her to tell me what’s going on.

At the end of the day, it is still her choice if she tells us, and as hard as that is, I’m just going to have to accept it if she doesn’t want to say anything.

For the rest of the morning, I go through my finds from the antique store, making sure that they have the perfect places in my room, and then I spend ages reading the herbal remedies book and making notes on the ones that I want to try.

The first one that I’m going to try is a recipe for a balm that helps with period cramps, and the ingredients seem relatively mundane, nothing too out there. So they should be easy for me to get hold of. They seem to mostly be things that you find in the kitchen, like cayenne. Rafe keeps the kitchen really well stocked, so we’ve most likely got most of what I need. The only thing that I think we might not have would be the beeswax, but that’s easy to find.

Pete and Elijah keep bees.

Well, the bees keep themselves really. There isn’t much that they need to do with them, and they’re fascinating creatures.

“Ever, your favorite person in the world has arrived,” Pete sings as he walks into my room. “The guys sent me to come and get you for lunch.”

“Awesome, I’m starving,” I say, jumping off the bed and following him out of my room. “Did you talk to Jensen and Cash?”

He nods, and we pause on the landing. “Yeah, it’s really strange. I believe them, of course I do, but there is no sign of any tampering with the phone. There are no viruses on it or anything like that. There is no sign that the phone was even called, let alone the number that Knox called from, and I thought that was impossible. I’ve given Jensen one of the spares that we have, and I’m going to drop his one off at headquarters and get the guys to look at it and see if they can figure out what the fuck is going on. It might be that there’s a glitch with the phone, or he’s dropped it too many times and knocked something loose that I can’t see. They’ll be able to figure it out.”

“Yeah, they will,” I agree as we start walking again. “It is an odd one, but I bet it’s because he’s dropped it so many times. Do you know how many times he’s dropped it down the toilet?”

Pete grimaces and shakes his head. “Considering that I just had my face very close to it, trying to figure out what’s wrong with it, I don’t want to know.”

“Fair enough,” I say, pulling a grossed-out face that I’m pretty sure is not helping.

“Let’s eat quickly. I want to see the baby and finally find out her name,” Pete says like we haven’t known her name for weeks and not just a day. “I’ve been trying to figure it out all morning.”

“How?” I ask curiously.

“Just by saying random names and seeing if any of them fit,” he admits with a shrug, making me laugh.

As we walk into the dining room where the others are already gathered and sitting down at the table, I can’t help but let out an audible aww at the sight of Shadow and Wyn curled up on the huge dog bed we have out here, with Runa snuggled up between them.

“Well, I see the others have accepted her as one of their own,” I say, my smile widening as I take my seat and start loading up my plate with the picky bits that have been put out.

“Yeah. I’m so glad. I was really worrying that she was going to be scared of them, or they weren’t going to like her because she’s new,” Luc says, watching them with a happy smile.

“She’s going to have to stay here while we go down to see Lyric. It’s too cold to leave her in the car, and we definitely can’t take her in,” Atlas points out with a slight frown.

“I know, don’t worry,” Luc says. “That’s partly why I asked Pete to bring Shadow up so that she’s not alone.”