“They’re great, Stanley. Everything works perfectly! Good job. Get some rest,” the man said awkwardly.
“Good…” Stanley said with a smile and drifted off.
Marisa covered him with the nket and followed Mr. Duncan out into the living room where Cam was sitting with Sigrid. She took a seat across from her mother as the big man made his way into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and made a happy noise when he spotted a baking pan of brownies. He pulled it out, got a knife from the drawer, and carried both back to the living room. He sat next to Marisa, peeled back the stic wrap, and cut her a brownie which she epted with a smile. He cut two more for Cam and Sigrid then one for himself.
“Oh my god, this is good!” Marisa sighed as the choctey treat melted in her mouth.
“Did Yuko make these?” Cam asked looking suspiciously at the square in her hand. Marisa stopped eating to look at her nervously.
“No, I believe these were from the pretty blond neighbor,” Sigrid exined.
Marisa sighed in relief and took another bite. “So good!”
“How did it go in Japan?” Sigrid asked.
“Better than expected. Stanley was marvelous in his addressing the Minister and left him with a very secure position in the cab. Afterwards we had a lovely dinner with him and his wife but we mistimed Stanley’s recharging and had to leave rather hurriedly,” Cam exined. “You may get a bill for the damage to the inside of the jet.”
“So no more taking the boy overseas,” Mr. Duncan said firmly.
She looked to him and nodded. “Last time. After seeing what happened with Marisa, I don’t believe the idea of getting Stanley a mour from the Fey is an option. He’s notpatible with Fey magic. He has to stick with his current method which has strict timing requirements. The repercussions of not following the timing is too severe.” She looked sadly at his bedroom door. “It will also have a very restrictive impact on his social life speaking of the pretty blond.”
Marisa nodded sadly. She’d felt Sandy’s attraction to Stanley, her genuine concern. There was only pain ahead for them if they pursued that.
Cam looked at Marisa. “How goes the technology upgrade? Are we safe yet?”
“Stanley has worked some real miracles. The equipment he’s configured is working perfectly. I don’t understand how he does it but he gets the most out of every system he installs. It all just works for him. We would have been migrating over to the new data server and file storage systems if Stanley hadn’t been injured. He’s going to have to rework the data backup and restore n with this set back. It will add a couple of days. That would have been the beginning of the rollout of the new servers. I mean aside from Mr. Duncan’s which are already in production,” Marisa exined.
“How did you jump the queue?” Cam asked her Security Chief.
“The boy treats me like a father,” he smirked.
Marisa smiled at him and shook her head. “Stanley said Mr. Duncan’s servers were the easiest to upgrade and as his system protects all the other systems Stanley prioritized it.” She turned to the redhead. “Were you aware that Stanley configured our new firewall to send you reports of intrusion attempts?”
The man grinned wickedly. “Yes, its honeypot and back trace feature are especially helpful.”
“We’re being hacked?” Cam blurted.
Marisa grinned with pride. “Were. Past tense. He sent the details to Mr. Duncan. Stanley identified the back door ess someone added into our old firewall and reced the whole thing with an ‘N’ Dimensional Labyrinth. That’s what Stanley called it at least. He wrote the software himself in college. All I know is that it can thwart any kind of cyber-attack we tried to throw at it. Stanley keeps trying to break it with new hacking methods he reads about but so far it’s imprable and all attempts are reported to Security.”
“What’s next?” Cam asked.
“This weekend the new workstations are to be rolled out. I need to speak with Stanley to see if we should proceed with that as we were going to switch over to the newwork at the same time which requires the data server and file storage to be in ce. If he says yes, it will take all of the workers to manage the instations,” Marisa exined.
Sigrid finished her brownie and stood up. “We should be getting back to the office. Are you going to stay to watch over him?” she said looking at Marisa who nodded. “Save the receipts for any meals you order and we’ll cover the expense.”
“I’ll bring over a bag of clothes and essentialster,” Cam said as she stood and handed Stanley’s keys to her daughter.
Mr. Duncan cut himself another brownie square and put the pan back in the fridge before joining the two women. He grinned back at Marisa, chocte crumbs on his lips, as she locked up behind them.
She went back to Stanley’s bedroom and looked in on him. He was sleeping peacefully. She knew his current meds would likely run out around dinner time. This meant he should be able to get a few more hours of pain free sleep before she’d need to give him a pill. She went back out to the living room and checked the pills her mother had received from the doctor. Then she curled up on the couch to rest her eyes just for a bit.Exclusive content from N?velDrama.Org.
She jolted awake when she heard the phone ring. She got up to answer it and saw it was 6:30PM.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Buzz me in,” Cam’s voice said so she pressed the 9 button and heard its rasping tone. While she waited, she went to check on Stanley and saw he was moving restlessly.
She heard a knock and moved to let her mother into the condo. She had Marisa’s suitcase with her.
“Thank you for this,” she said as she took the case from her hand.
“How is he?”
“I think he’s ready for his next pill,” Marisa said with a frown.
Cam walked over to the bedroom door and looked in. “He’s going to need to switch before he does. It’s time. Let’s get him on his feet and out of his clothes.”
“Really? He has to be naked?” Marisa asked skeptically.
“The change shreds clothes,” Cam said, scowling at her daughter who moved to pull the nket from his body.
Cam knelt down on one side of Stanley and Marisa took the other side.
“Stanley. It’s time for you to change so we’re going to stand you up and get you undressed. Ok?” Cam said gently.
His eyes opened and he smiled at her and then Marisa. They gently held his shoulders and helped him sit up.
“Ohhhh,” he moaned quietly. They stood and held him as he got his legs under himself. Then they lifted him and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh fuck,” he whispered.
Looking at her mother with concern, Marisa helped her quickly undress him and they had him stand on his own. The livid bruises covering his torso were awful to see and they bit their lips to keep from gasping.
“Are you able to do it?” Cam asked as he wobbled slightly on his feet.
“Stand further back,” he mumbled.
They moved then he put one hand in the other. They couldn’t see what he was doing with his hands but the air twisted around him and a Satyr was before them. He copsed as they rushed to catch him.
“Stanley!” Marisa cried out.
He just moaned so they straightened out his limbs on the bed and pulled the nket up over his muchrger body. It took all theirbined strength to move him and they were as careful as they could be to not hurt him.
“Would you like something to eat?” Marisa asked.
His eyes opened and he looked at her. “No.”
“I’ll get you a pill and some water,” she said.
Cam stayed with him while Marisa went out to the living room and got the pills. She poured arge ss of water as well. She went back into the bedroom and knelt next to him.
“Stanley, open up,” she said and Cam gently lifted his head so she could put the pill on his tongue. Then she held the ss to his lips and he drank it all.
Cam let his head rest back against the pillow then ran her fingers through his silky soft hair as she looked down at him fondly.
“I’m so sorry this happened Stanley.”
“S’okay.” He was struggling to stay awake.
“Rest Stanley. I’ll check in on youter,” Marisa said as she and her mother stood and left the room.
“Are you going to be safe with him tonight?” Cam asked when they were in the living room.
“Yes, I won’t need to feed for a few more days at least,” she sighed at her mother’s caution.
Cam nodded and rubbed her fingers together as she recalled how soft his hair had been. “Ok, I’m going to head home then. I’ll stop in on the way in to work tomorrow.”
Marisa didn’t bother to argue. She knew her mother would be here regardless. She just nodded and followed her to the front door. She gave her mother’s cheek a kiss and closed the door behind her after being subjected to another look from the woman.
She walked back to the living room and dropped herself onto the couch. She just closed her eyes when there was a knock on the door. Sighing, she pushed herself back onto her feet and walked back to the door.
“We’re fine, mother!” she eximed, pulling the door open.
The blond neighbor was looking at her in surprise as she stood there holding arge pot of something which smelled very good.
“Sandy?”
“Hi Marisa. I was worried about Stanley and thought I might pop up and bring him some supper. It’s homemade chili.”
Marisa froze. She couldn’t let her in as Stanley was in Satyr form and unconscious at that.
“Ah, that’s really nice of you but this isn’t a good time. I just gave him his pill and he’s just fallen asleep again.”
“This is really heavy and it’s getting hot so can I set it down on his stove?” Sandy said.