Cian P.O.V

I grimaced as I flipped through the papers Jeffery had been so kind to thump down on my desk. Considering how much I still had to work through, I figured Jeffery had the right to be a little huffy as, no doubt, his stack had been three times as thick. I was grudgingly following Pritcher's suggestion of finding a family to adopt or at least foster Ashe, and it was taking a huge toll on all around me. I was almost demonic in my treatment to those unfortunate enough to come under my eye until I finally accepted that it would be best to totally remove him from the stresses of his life. Now, hopefully, his previous life.

Grumbling to myself, I quickly rifled through the pages to separate them into adoption, fostering, and finally hell-fucking-no's. The no's were the power-hungry, the newest-craze followers, the good-gracers, pedophiles and the just plain crazies. And no, I didn't blame Jeffery for not removing those smears to the vampire race; many of them had very pristine portrayals that only the deepest of muck diggers could lever up. And I worked hard to know every little back alley dealing, hidden stain, inner demon, secret fantasy and twisted inner psyche that those long-lived bastard vampires thought they had successfully kept hidden. I wanted to destroy those documents, but stopped myself, knowing that something as small as this could be later used to my benefit. I'm the biggest, craziest, and generally slyest mother fucker of them all. And I used anything possible to my advantage to keep these stupid shits in line.

***

I had focused on the adoption portion of documents, tossing a good portion of them out and a few more when simple searches easily made it obvious that they were not nearly the best choices for Ashe. The rest I had stacked in order of most likely that filled all my requirements plus had additional positive points to those that just filled my requirements. The top three I automatically sent out for background checks that I demanded be given the utmost attention and care. They were to take as much time as necessary to raze through any and all aspects of these three families, sending me any questionable hits. The rest of the stack I also sent in for background checks, but those were not set as priorities until one of the top three were taken off the list.

I leaned back with a sigh, not bothering to check the time since I wasn't even sure what day it was any more. I had no more work to do now that I had sent off the documents for background checks. With Ashe still in his somnolent state, there was pretty much only time anyway. I shifted my neck side to side, neck cracking audibly in the silence of my office. My eyes wanted to close on their own, but the last time I slept at my desk, I awoke with something akin to a hangover, the achy body of a worn punching bag and the rough face of sandpaper. Nope, even if I wanted to, I knew I would regret it more than if I forced myself to go downstairs and flop onto the couch for a few hours of sleep.

Jay P.O.V

David and I haven't been alone in the last couple days after our... Tryst. It's been awkward, to say the least, but the guys seem to think it's just because of our differences in what we should do regarding the drugs. In fact, David had sent us all texts, telling us to meet at his place again, which is really randomly strange considering that no one has any idea what the meeting will entail. Usually it's pretty obvious and just making sure we're on the same page, but while it's probably about the drug dealing problem, none of us know what to expect in specifics. That we know of, there's not been any real change, and David hadn't seemed any different than his usual self.

Speaking of changes... I had been noticing the loss of a presence I had previously never really considered. It was the smallest of emptinesses at the edges of the school's society. I no longer ran into the blind kid. I usually at least caught a glimpse of him now that I knew he existed, especially in the lunch room where he seemed to really get along with the lunch ladies, to the extent that they had even acted like wolves protecting their cubs toward him. It wasn't too strange a sight usually since two of the lunch ladies actually were Werlykos (ver-lie-coe-s) like myself, but the fact that they had such a personal connection with him when he wasn't a member of the pack and yet still evoked such caring from them was... Endearing.

The guys had been messing with the idea of making him a gopher or something and had been harassing him a bit, to which I often was able to steer them from. They had considered using him to hold certain items or deliver, but I kept reminding them of the dangers of doing such. Their idea was more considered for the fact that the kid was blind and would probably be able to make a lot of dealings more secure. But he was human, that I could smell, though there were often the slight scents of blood and so on, which made me think he was bullied a bit and perhaps in the company somewhere of at least one vampire.

While all cultures had some version of 'werewolf' and 'vampire', those words were often not used by either culture, aside as a mostly derogative term for each other. The correct terminology was actually Werlykos and Wanpyrkos (Van-peer-coe-s) as it has been for the longest of times.

I shook my head, figuring I would check with the office or something regarding the blind kid. Hopefully the vampires didn't finally decide to eat him, but I held a small sliver of hope that perhaps the office would know at least something small about what happened to him. He is a student, and it is the school's responsibility to care for their students and check up on them wondering why they weren't coming in all of a sudden. Speaking of, I also was curious if I could get them to tell me his address... I couldn't remember if we had any Werlykos working in the office, but if there was, I could probably get them to find out for me.

I shrugged my backpack on as the last bell rang. We had practice as usual for the upcoming game, but after practice we had the meeting. I figured focusing on not getting pounded into the grass a little more important than worrying about something that I couldn't change. No use spending extra energy being curious about the meeting when I would find out soon, and would definitely rather not have to worry about feeling tired and crappy as well as probably a little stressed when we did have the meeting. So, joining up with the guys in the locker room, we all changed and headed out to fake-train our asses off, since half our teammates were human, the rest Werlykos except two, who we keep a professional attitude with, were Wanpyrkos. About the same proportions fit for the entire school, and for the most part, everything was kept kosher.

Now, aside from that, I have no clue if there were any other supernaturals present here. I knew there were different types, but most of those were not as socially friendly or capable of blending in with the rest of the population as well. Personally, I figured that they were either homeschooled or had their own school set up, if they even did any of those things. There was already too much on my plate facing the future that I never really cared or considered anything aside from my pack and the rare stray thought towards the Wanpyrkos. I personally would rather just call them Vampires because it just sounds better, but I doubt their snooty personalities would consider such a term exemplifying toward their personages.