Page 47 of My Eternal Light

Meryn continued to stare.

Zadie patted his leg. “I think you scrambled her brain.”

Meryn looked to Ryuu who was watching the entire thing with a patient smile. “So, not a brother?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Friends are, in some ways more special than family. Close friends are basically the family you choose for yourself,” he paused, then looked at Pip and the twins. “Though, you have a tendency to that anyway.” He tapped his chin. “Friends choose to stand with you, whereas with family it can sometimes be expected.” He paused again and frowned. “Though with your grandmother, I could see why it isn’t an expectation for you.”

Zadie shook her head. “Girl, you sound like you had a childhood like me. Basically, family bails you out of jail, friends are sitting in jail with you.”

Pip leaned forward to look at Zadie. “I am her brother. If I knew how to bail, I would do that for Meryn. But, I’d rather be with her.”

“Me too. I’m her big sister-cousin and I would totally be in jail with her,” Amelia added.

Brie exhaled. “I’ll post bail for y’all. It might be strange if a deputy sheriff ends up in lock up.”

Zoe’s expression was tragic. “I’m not sure about jail, but I’d totally kill with you. Oh. And post bail.”

“Meryn darling, there are no rules to family and friends. There are those that are family but have no blood ties to you and those with whom we share blood with that we wish were strangers.” She pointed to Darian and Oron as examples. “All that truly matters is that you love and care for one another.”

Meryn took out her laptop. “I need a new category.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Aiden muttered, looking down at her screen.

“I created a spreadsheet for the people I know and put them in categories. Beth helped me color code it.” She typed for a few seconds. “There I moved Kincaid over from ‘warrior peep’ to ‘friend.” And I added Zadie.” She eyed his mate. “That’s okay right?” she asked, blushing slightly.

“I’d be offended if you didn’t. We totally bonded over pepper-gel.”

Aiden watched in fascination. “Baby, can I get a copy of this?”

Meryn narrowed her eyes. “That depends, whatcha gonna do with it?

“Use it. There’s information on some of the warriors that even I didn’t know.” He leaned in closer. “When did Sascha start benching three-fifty?”

“Dude, like right after we left for Noctem Falls. He had to up his regimen as stress relief.”

Aiden pointed. “Go back a second.”

She scrolled.

“There. When did Darren’s mate give birth?”

“End of March before we came here. I had Ryuu pick out a baby appropriate gift and send it,” Meryn explained.

“Oh Meryn, you do care,” Amelia said, softly.

Law and Kendrick began to laugh.

Kendrick pointed to Law to explain.

Law gave his sister a rueful expression. “She maintains that sheet, so she doesn’t have to keep it memorized. Also, I bet there’s a ‘Kill’ tab there as well. Does she care, probably. But, I bet she also has a ranking next to everyone’s name that depicts how useful they’d be in a zombie apocalypse.”

Meryn looked around. “Wait, no one else does that?”

The only other person that nodded was Brie.

“Did I rank high?” Zadie asked.

Meryn nodded. “Hell yeah you did.” She pointed to them both. “You’re definitely ‘A’ team.”

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