**Click.**
Waking up with a start I heard a small sound by our door.
Worried I looked around to find Adam and Blake giggling to themselves looking at a phone. *Well at least nothing is wrong.* Annoyed I threw a pillow at them.
"Fall, what's wrong?" Derik muttered with his eyes still closed.
"Nothing, go back to sleep." Gently fixing his hair I got up without bothering him.
With an annoyed expression I led Blake and Adam out of the room. Blake was clearly struggling to compose herself with me fake glaring at her.
"Blake wanted a picture and I didn't know you would wake up so easily." I rolled my eyes at Adam, seeing as all pets wake very easy it was less than a surprise.
"What are you guys doing here anyways?" I asked a little less annoyed.
"The laws are going live tomorrow and you and Derik have been busy. We're taking over for the day since you'll both be busy soon and you two are going on a date night!" Blake announced cheerily.
I gave her a dumb look. "We spend plenty of time together," I stated.
"Yeah but do you guys ever do anything out of the house? You're swamped twenty-four seven, you guys spend time together in between all the crazy stuff and I highly doubt you ever have more than a few minutes when neither of you are busy," Adam stated factually. And he was right.
"Hypocrite," I mumbled.
"What?" Blake asked. She couldn't hear me but I knew Adam did.
"Oh, nothing," I said innocently. "I'll go but just because I think you'll beg us for help before three." I smirked.
"Yay!" Blake clapped her hands and jumped up and down like a little kid. I chuckled with Adam. "Let's get you dolled up."
I groaned and she shooed me into the bathroom.
She spent time brushing and braiding my hair and I decided against pointing out I could do that myself since she looked so happy. She had me stay in the bathroom while she did, something.
I have no clue why she left honestly.
While she was gone I brushed my teeth and waited impatiently.
When she came back she was holding some clothes looking proud of herself. When she handed them to me I realized they were a green and blue off the shoulder tie-dye shirt and some jeans.
The jeans were tactfully ripped and looked low-rise.
*I didn't know I had either of those pieces of clothes, when Blake isn't looking I will definitely be talking to Derik about spending more money on me.*
The clothes fit like a dream on my significantly less malnurished body, hugging every curve they were quite flattering. She pulled a small diamond necklace out of her pocket and I audibly gasped. It was stunning, simple and delicate in just the right way.
*I'm not sure where that came from but I owe someone a lot of money.*
It was the perfect length, just long enough to show off my collarbones and not too long to look awkward. It made everything just a little more vibrant, my eyes, my shirt, my hair.
She gave me some calf-height three-inch heels to complete the look. The outfit was a great choice.
With a small smile I tried to not look excited or giddy when we got out of the bathroom. Adam and Derik were talking and it looked like Adam was just trying to keep Derik occupied. When we got into the room Adam looked a little surprised and Blake beamed.
With a confused look on his face Derik looked to where Adam was looking. His jaw dropped and I don't know if I want to laugh, blush, or smile. I just ended up giving him a nervous smile.
"Way to make a guy feel underdressed," he muttered and Adam chuckled a little while I smirked.
"I feel like it's unfair you guys can hear each other from across the room and I can't," Blake complained.
"But it makes it so much easier to make fun of Adam without you knowing," I joked.
"I heard that."
"Not like I was whispering."
Blake and I laughed together while Adam good-naturedly shook off my teasing.
"Go get her tiger," Adam whispered to Derik pushing him forward.
Derik walked over to me and brought my hand to his lips. A little red I just gave him a shy smile. He brought it over my head and I gave a little twirl.
"Have fun, we'll take care of everything for today!" Adam announced loudly and excused himself.
"Well since you look so nice, we can't go nowhere." He smiled at me and winked disappearing into the closet.
I smiled to myself, there was no way either of us was going to get more than three or four hours to ourselves but it was nice to be able to go somewhere.
A few minutes later he was back out with hair perfectly in place and a blue dress shirt that nicely matched my top. Arm in arm we walked out to the car.
Smiling ear to ear I stared at him dreamily. *He looks so good.*
*And it might not be for long but we're actually going out.* I smiled almost skipping in my good mood.
"Don't tell Adam but we've got three meetings today he knows nothing about," Derik said smiling.
"Wanna make a bet on when they call to say they don't even know how to follow what we're doing and they're struggling?" I joked.
"Adam will call in four hours trying to figure out what to do about the meetings and probably admit he's not even sure what to do for the clinic. He probably thinks we write emails and answer questions all day," he stated decisively.
*I mean that **is** what I do, most of the time anyways.*
"Blake will call in three and a half hours to say Adam's struggling, then at five he will call in tears asking how he's even supposed to answer an email that just says 'why the hell do you get to tell me what to do with my property?'." I countered.
We laughed and got in the car.
"So what are we doing for the little bit we have off?" I asked.
"If I'm being honest, I have no idea. I think we're going with the flow," he responded.
"Works for me."
Eventually we ended up at the market we walked around and looked at this and that. Ate more food than is probably healthy.
Somehow we ended up playing the game where we found the cockiest looking person around and tried to scare them as bad as possible.
This basically entailed me sneaking up on someone since I could make sure they couldn't hear or smell me hissing/growling in their ear to make them panic and then moving out of the way before they knew what happened.
While they yelled at whoever had done that Derik snuck up on them and scared them again. Then we made sure they couldn't see us and watched them walk all paranoidly around. Bonus points when they think they are finally safe and you throw a rock behind them and freak them out again.
I made some dude cry. It was the best moment of my life. *Big bad vampire scared of tiny rock cries. It would be a great newspaper title.*
*For the record he deserved it. Well only a little but he was really rude to the shop worker and I was bored.*
*Okay fine I need to get a life. But after doing nothing outside of working for a few days everything is fun.*
"Alright, sadly you have to stop tormenting the locals." Falling into step with Derik we walked to the car.
During the drive I caught up on the emails. Adam was doing okay, about a fourth of the emails for the day were answered but it was still early and he'd be getting more.
Not like I'm magic but since I have no responsibilities besides showing up where asked, for right now, I got through the emails quicker than either of them could.
And if I was lucky Adam would never know about the twenty-six emails I'd answered on the short drive. And with the amount there I would probably never notice so I knew he wouldn't.
It was only about a quarter of the emails there but it was a short drive. I felt the car stop moving and put my phone away. Where we were instantly made my smile.
"Why do we have a meeting with Cristy?" I asked sounding anything but upset about the idea.
"Well witches can be just about as good at fixing people up as doctors so we're going to have doctors to do most of the work and witches to help. Like doctors will assess patients and witches will give them treatment for anything they can," Derik explained.
"So doctors for setting bones and witches for preventing infection and easing fatigue?" I confirmed.
"Exactly."
Magic and herbs practically bleed from every pore of the house. None of it was harmful but it was potent enough to make me a little overwhelmed. I could barely smell anything else.
The second we walked through the door I heard a little excited squeal and a weight slammed into my left side.
"Fall!" Natalee chirped.
Chuckling I picked her up and propped her at my hip. Cristy gave me a small apologetic smile.
"Sorry, someone got into the pills for fatigue," she accused.
"I don't mind." Smiling ear to ear made the words unnecessary. Derik walked closer dodging the many herbs drying on the ceiling.
"You're strong, Mommy can't pick me up anymore." Natalee told me.
"Well witches are stronger power wise and other races, except humans, are stronger physically. So, your mom and I are just different kinds of strong," I explained.
Natalee nodded wisely and I tried not to laugh at how cute she was.
*Kids are adorable, there aren't enough free ones these days.*
"Thank you for helping me supply, Cristy. There just aren't many witches and I was having trouble supplying with how large scale everything got." Derik sat down as he talked looking comfortable.
"You have that look on your face that my mom does when she sees people with nicer clothes than her. What are you jealous of?" Natalee asked and my face heated up.
*Stupid possessive instincts.*
"Thank you for saying that where everyone can hear you, Natalee," I muttered. *I changed my mind, kids suck.* "Did you know your mom's going to have more wiggle room with her money soon?"
I changed the subject and thankfully she looked at me with interest taking the bait. "She should be able to get some nicer clothes soon. If you ask super nicely she might even get you something."
"Really? What's she helping you with?" From the corner of my eye I saw Cristy start to panic at Natalee's question. Slavery isn't kid appropriate so she has every reason to be worried.
"She's helping us take care of people. Have you ever skinned your knee playing outside?" She nodded very seriously. "Some people hurt themselves and don't know how to fix it or don't have everything they need."
"Oh, that sounds important," she said.
"It is, she's making sure everyone can get fixed up when they accidently hurt themselves. And since she's helping us take care of other people, we're going to help her take care of her and you."
"She's doing a great job at taking care of me," she defended.
"She is. But there's nothing wrong with asking for help, so you can take a break or just to make sure you're doing it right."
"Alright, Fall, I hate to break up your moment but Cristy has to make dinner and we have to go help the injured," Derik told me.
"Be good for your mom." I kissed the top of Natalee's head and gave Cristy a smile before setting Natalee down and walking out the door.
"Are the rest of the meetings going to be like this? To get supplies for the clinics?" I asked Derik on the way to the car.
"Yeah, you didn't see but she gave us a huge amount of everything we need so she'll be much more comfortable for a while." I nodded absently but I was lost in my thoughts.
*Raising a kid is hard enough without all the traumatizing things in the world. Cristy is doing a good job though. Keeping her well feed and happy is worth more than Natalee will know for a long time.*
*Cristy is a lot stronger than anyone probably gives her credit for. Who knows how many people could do as good as her put in the same situation.*
**Buzz, buzz, buzz.**
I looked at my phone a little concerned, it was too soon for Adam to have crashed and burned. My caller ID said it was Adam's home phone so it couldn't be him. He would have called me on his cell.
"Fall, I'm worried about Adam. He's doing the job all three of you can barely do by himself. Have you ever seen someone type at vampire speed? He's going to break his keyboard," Blake's voice said through the phone.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't have to do as much work as he does right now." I told her calmly.
"And don't tell him I told you, he'll be upset that I ruined your day."
"If we're lucky he'll never know I helped him." I hung up and immediately started going through the wave of emails yelling at us about late notice.
The site's been up for days but apparently it took two announcements to actually get people to look at the new laws. Because of course it did.
Despite how annoying that was I just calmly apologized for the inconvenience and said that we would make sure there was more advanced notice for any new laws.
"Well that was sooner than I thought it'd be," Derik commented.
"Agreed." We got into the car and I typed away at my phone for the whole ride. By the time we got out of the car I had a serious amount of work done. *That should help Adam out. We should hire some customer service when we have time for interviews. *
When Derik parked the car I turned into the lady that actually works in the department. *I don't remember my name.*
*Hopefully no one tries to talk to me because that could be awkward.*
The cabin we pulled up to looked a lot like Cristy's. Smelling of magic and herbs and expensive perfume, witches are either helpful powerful tools and paid well or second-class citizens. There's really no in between.
It wasn't the same as Cristy's though, it smelled different. Cristy's smelled only of herbs and good magic but this one didn't. Both those smells were there but it smelled strongly of harmful magic and other ingredients.
Like salt and blood and animal fat, all commonly used in harmful potions. With obvious distaste on my face I walked into the small cabin.
A woman with glittering green eyes and brown curly hair greeted us. She smelled like the witch we were meeting.
"Welcome, you must be from the department monitoring humans and werewolves," she said politely. "It's an honor to work with you."
"Likewise," I responded curtly.
"If you will follow me I have the products you've requested," she said politely.
There was a blond settled by the corner sweating profusely and unconscious. She smelled like she'd been given a bad product. Like maybe she was poisoned as a punishment or given a potion as a tester.
I made a mental note to make that the next thing we worked on.
The table the blond was next to was stacked high with different bottles and capsules. All an unpleasant brown color and smelling strongly of something chemical and something musky.
She gestured towards the table and Derik pulled his wallet out before I held my hand up signaling him to wait.
"And you're sure these are the products we ordered?" I prompted.
"Yes, of course." Her heart speed up as she answered and she smiled too widely.
"Then you won't mind if I inspect the product." Derik looked at me confused, probably trying to figure out what I'm up to.
"Of course not, go right ahead." She laughed nervously gesturing.
I picked up a bottle and took the top off to get a better smell. It was a metallic smell, but not the medical sterile kind. It was sharp and bitter instantly giving me a headache.
It was what was given to the blond. Her blood smelled of it and she was not the type of healthy the product was supposed to produce.
"And you are aware that lying to or withholding information from my department is illegal?" I asked suspiciously.
She stayed silent with a barely hidden look of panic on her face. I sighed deeply and shook my head with mock sorrow.
"This was administered to your pet in the corner. You trying to sell this to a clinic is past an act of lying, this is an act of terrorism against our organization." Leveling her a cold look I watched fear spread over her features.
"Unfortunately, due to recent events you will have to be punished accordingly. Seeing as I have been given permission to regulate in any desired terms, I will have to give you a punishment," I paused dramatically.
"Your rights to own a slave, pet, or any type of unpaid help have been temporarily revoked. This will last the time of three years. Should it be discovered you have illegally obtained any unpaid help, well let's just say I wouldn't let that happen," I stated coldly. *Thankfully witches don't have a legal right to pets like vampires do to take care of bloodlust or I wouldn't be able to get that poor girl out of here.*
"Ms. Smith, please reconsider. It was merely an accident," she begged. *How many people have died that going without unpaid help would be such a large punishment? If I had more time I'd do worse than this but I don't think her pet has time to wait.*
"For an accident you seemed awfully aware judging by your heart rate. Do not lie to me again," I threatened.
I took a deep breath and just as expected the blond was the only pet on the property. Hauling her over my shoulder I gave the witch a harsh look and she visibly shuttered.
Derik followed me out and I set the blond in the back seat. I picked up my phone and called one of the doctors for our clinics.
"Doctor Mia, this is Vivian Smith, one of your employers. I need you to meet me at the clinic, I have a poisoned pet, critical condition."