Exhaustion

The ladies walked into the conference room silently and in a somber mood, all of them exhausted except for maybe Hannah, the only Guardian of the bunch. The scent of coffee infiltrated Cadence’s lungs immediately—not the burned variety she’d noted in Mina’s RV when she’d stepped in to help Cass—but the kind that promised revitalization. It was a shame she hated the stuff. Still, she noticed a lidded disposable cup sitting in front of her chair and assumed she looked as weary as she felt. She made her way over, managing a smile at the gentlemen assembled around the long connected rows of tables shaped like a large rectangle with an opening in the middle, and took her spot, waiting for the rest of her crew to find a place to collapse.

Aaron reached over and squeezed her shoulder as he began to address the team, his way of greeting her without making everyone else feel uncomfortable, and she touched his hand lightly before he moved away. She w