The scent of breakfast brought me out of my slumber. I tore off the blankets I was under and headed into the kitchen to see Wesley by the stove.

“Good morning,” I greeted him.

“Good morning, how was your night?” He asked, flipping a pancake.

“I slept well,” I answered, “The bed was really comfy.”

“Okay, want some pancakes?” He still had a warm smile on his face.

“Of course. I’m starving.” I grinned at him. Wesley waltzed over and placed a plate with two pancakes in front of me.

“It smells delicious.” I told Wesley, digging into my pancakes. “It tastes really good, too.”

“Well, it has to be the best for a guest, you know,” he said. Wesley took a seat next to me and stared at me hogging the food.

“Why are you staring at me?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow. He blinked a few times and came back to earth.

“What? I was staring?”

“Yeah. I guess. I-um-kind of...” I grinned as he avoided eye contact with me focusing on the pancakes. “You like pancakes, right?” My shoulders shrugged subconsciously

“I’ll eat it. I can’t be picky.”

His face turned and his feelings looked quite hurt.

“No. It’s alright.”

I threw my hands up, rubbing his arm.

“Calm down. You’re so sensitive.” I stated.

His eyebrow rose.

“I’m sensitive?” He chuckled as he flipped the pancake.

“From what I can see.” I smiled. “It’s attractive, though.” I didn’t exactly mean to flirt with him, but I did.

“You’re pretty attractive as well.” I was still wearing sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt. If he considered me attractive there was no way I was going to argue with him. The smell of pancakes were beginning to fill my nostrils and clouding my mind.

“Do you have any clothes you wouldn’t mind me borrowing?” I hated asking for things. I had always earned everything. I had earned my father’s respect, my entire salary, and my top rank in the business. It didn’t matter that I was his daughter. The only thing that matter was me doing the assignment right.

“You know what?” He sat a plate down of pancakes. They were toppling over each other like a waterfall. “Gretchen wanted to go shopping. You could take her down to the shopping mall and buy you some stuff. My credit card balance is in the thousands. Just...don’t go crazy.” I nodded. He grabbed a bottle of syrup. “Tell me when to stop.”

I was silent. I watched it pour out like water from a sink’s faucet.

“Stop.” I finally said when the bottle was half empty.

When the fork reached my hand, I was stuffing my mouth like the pancake was a jumbo bag of marshmallows. If he hadn’t given me a plastic fork, I would have killed myself from jamming it into my mouth.

“I’ll assume that you like it. How long were you locked up?”

“Val was locked up?” A small voice rang from the back room.

“Gretchen!” He called.

“Sorry.” She grew silent. I swallowed another set of pancakes.

“I think it was three to four months. They didn’t really feed me.” He nodded.

“If you need anything...” Gretchen came walking out of the back room.

“Good morning, Val.” Her smile made my skin shine brighter. This kid was irresistible.

I’d always liked kids. I sometimes wondered if maybe it wasn’t some Freudian-type deal. You know, the kind where some weird old guy with a bunch of meaningless diplomas on his wall would tell me that since I’d never had a proper childhood, I wanted to relive it vicariously. I never believed in that stuff. But I still liked kids.

As I finished with my Prussia-scale awesome pancakes, I rose and stretched out my joints, which were stiff despite the comfy bed. Or maybe, because of it, since I wasn’t used to the feeling.

I smiled at Gretchen, although it probably came out as more of a grimace. I’ve never been good at smiling on command. When I force it, I either end up looking pissed or stoned - not that I’ve ever done drugs.

“So,” I said, in the cheeriest voice I could muster, which honestly wasn’t that difficult to do as they’d been so kind to me already, “Guess what we’re doing today.” I paused considerably, making Gretchen squirm with anticipation, “I really hope you like shopping! And hopefully also dislike guessing, because I’ve ruined your opportunity to do so.” I concluded, somewhat awkwardly.

Gretchen flew to me, her arms wrapping around my waist in a warm embrace.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She bounced up and down excitedly.

I chuckled lightly.

“You can thank your big bro over here, he’s the one paying for it.” I smiled at her as she released me and squeezed her brother in a hug.

“Thank you, Wesley!” she said, clinging onto him for as long as possible.

He chuckled and stared at her, love and adoration in his eyes.

“You’re welcome. Now, go get in the car. Val and I will be out in a minute.” He smiled at her as she nodded her head and sped outside, getting in a beat up Ford pickup truck.

“I thought you weren’t going to go with us.” I tilted my head to the side in confusion, curious as to why he changed his mind.

“And leave you two pretty girls all alone, without a bodyguard? As if.”

I raise an eyebrow at him but let him do as he pleased. I really didn’t need the protection, I could kill a man in cold blood if I had to with just my bare hands. But he didn’t need to know that.

“Better not leave Gretchen waiting. She’s extremely impatient.” He chuckled at me before grabbing my hand and gently leading me outside to my death.

“Okay.” I grabbed Gretchen by the hand, kicked open the door, and walked out. She looked so excited, almost skipping next to me. It was cute. Very different from what I was used to, but cute.

I smiled at her and crawled into the passenger seat of their dusty old car. Wesley shortly followed me, sitting in the driver’s spot after buckling Gretchen in her carseat.

The entire drive there was nearly silent, other than Gretchen’s consistent whining about how long it took to get to the mall.

Finally, after nearly a half an hour, Wesley pulled into the parking lot. I climbed out of the car and groaned when I saw how far we had to walk.

“Did you really need to park so far away?” I grumbled, opening the door for Gretchen.

“Unbuckle her seatbelt.” Wes pointed at the girl, whose tiny hands were pressing on the button.

I unlatched the seatbelt as I said, “So, do you want anything specific?”

“Shoes!” Gretchen squealed as she hopped into my arms. I staggered slightly with the stubborn weight change, but I didn’t complain.

Twenty minutes later, after lugging Gretchen across the uninhabitable plain that was the parking lot, and then having her propel herself out of my arms like a monkey on acid LMAO (probably leaving a bruise, I might add) and run for the hills, Wes and I finally managed to locate her- in a giant fort built out of shoeboxes.

It was actually very cleverly constructed, in a slightly pyramidal shape, but with an overhanging sort of entrance leading to the interior of the structure. After wondering how she had managed to build something with such a complex layering and such limited materials, I began to wonder if maybe I was in the wrong career field.

Surely a normal person wouldn’t be this fascinated by random structures. But, if that were the case, then did that mean that all architects were abnormal? Obviously that wasn’t politically correct, but then again, what about that Australian opera house? Somebody obviously had some issues to come up with that - or maybe just a lively career as an experimental drug tester.

Oh well. I stared helplessly at Gretchen amidst her fort of shoes, at a loss as to how to extract her. Lethal darts had always been my favourite for getting people out of tight hiding places and into the open where they could be gunned down, although that probably wasn’t an appropriate way of dealing with the situation at hand. This is probably why I never really took to babysitting.

Wes, on the other hand, seemed completely unperturbed and was checking out some rather feminine looking mens’ dress shoes.

“Wesley!” I whisper-shouted, shocking him out of his interest in the shoes. He glared at me, obviously more interested in the shoes than his sister, and put his open palm upwards as if asking, ‘what?’.

I rolled my eyes and motioned to Gretchen, who was now standing on the top of the shoe fort.

“She’ll be fine.” He waved his hand dismissively. “She does that every time we come here.”

“Apparently, you go shoe shopping very often,” I said, continuing to stare at the architecture. If it can be considered that.

Gretchen resembled a queen looking over her subjects. She blew some kisses at random strangers like a prom queen. I chuckled, watching her. Wes finally looked back over, the shoes under his arm. He grinned, looking very happy. “She looks very happy.” I smiled, watching.

“She’s glad you’re here. So am I.” I looked at him, catching my breath at the look on his face. I blushed and looked away.

“So, uh, are we going to go shop now?” I awkwardly cleared my throat, looking anywhere except at Wesley.

He smiled, either not noticing my discomfort or just ignoring it.

“Sure,” He turned around, facing Gretchen and falling to the floor with his knees on the ground and his arms above his head, also touching the ground, “Queen Gretchen, willeth thee proceed to come down from thine castle and join myself and Lady Valerie in a shopping adventure?”

Gretchen turned to her brother and said, “Kneel first, my royal peasant.”

“What about Valerie?” Wesley asked as he crouched to his knees.

“No, I like her.” Gretchen shrugged. “She can be my assistant lady.”

I laughed.

“I have a higher ranking than you!” I teased, smiling at him. He narrowed his eyes at me playfully, a devilish smirk coming onto his face.

“Oh, really?” He questioned, raising one eyebrow, “Is that true, Gretchen?”

She giggled gleefully, nodding her head.

“Are you sure? That’s your final answer?” He repeated, causing Gretchen to mimic her own actions from his question.

“Then I guess I’ll have to change your mind.” And with those final, fatal words, he lunged at Gretchen, his hands placed in front of him in position to tickle her. She giggled under his touch, letting her body go loose so that Wesley was now holding her in his arms as he tickled her.

“So, who’s the one with the lower rank?” He asked with a grin.

“Y-you are!” She said between giggles. He pouted at Gretchen and stopped tickling her. He turned away from her and crossed his arms over his chest, pretending to be sad. Gretchen came up and tugged on the back of his shirt, her expression somber.

“Wesley? I’m sorry.” She stared at the ground, all signs of fun and laughter gone.

“Does that mean you admit that I’m a high rank?” Wesley questioned her, raising one eyebrow.

“Fine. You can be the knight that comes and sweeps Lady Valerie off her feet!” Her eyes lit up, thoughtfulness flitting across her face. Wesley and I blushed in sync with each other as Gretchen giggled.

“Are we going to shop?” I tried to change the subject. Gretchen smiled and jetted out the door of the mall. We followed her as she skipped down the marble floor.

“I have no idea where she’s going. I just go with it.” He murmured.

“That’s all you can do. Gretchen’s a free spirit. I wish I could have had her freedom when I was her age.” The words seemed to slip out and I didn’t want to make this a pity party. “So, what about you? What do you like to do for fun?”

“I build stuff, cook, and hunt. That’s about it. I always have my hands full.” He gestured toward Gretchen.

“What do you build?” He shrugged.

“Usually little traps. It’s my way of security. You’d be surprised how many people try to break into my cabin. People used to think it was abandoned. I guess they know, now.” The way he said it made my skin crawl. I disregarded his comment and scanned the mall.

My eyes locked with deep brown eyes and thick, but waxed eyebrows. I didn’t have to see anything else. Norman stood looking at me from the other side of the mall’s divider. He wore sunglasses but I could feel his eyes burning through my skull. He wasn’t in his normal flamboyant get up, instead he wore sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt.

“Val, can you take me to the arcade? Val?” I didn’t hear Gretchen in my ear because I was too busy being scared. “Val…” I wondered if he had followed me or worse. I wondered if Xander was somewhere stalking the shadows.