Jake Addams: April 24th, 20xx

My younger sister spun on her heels in synchrony with the sound of the door slamming shut, and she twisted her small face into an expression of extreme betrayal. She squeezed her palms into tiny fists and stomped her foot onto the ground as she accused me.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew a real-life prince!"

I choked on a piece of broccoli, more particularly one that had been discarded from her plate and tried my best to cough it out of my airway. Frona ran over to pat me on the back while Luca ran to the fridge to get me a water bottle.

"Woah, he's got like ten million bottles of water in here!"

Luca proudly used the biggest number he'd learned a few days ago as he looked at the fridge's contents. There weren't actually that many in there, but since my stepmom didn't like the kids using disposable water bottles, he didn't see them that often.

He quickly recognized I couldn't respond to his amazement and grabbed one to give to me. I didn't know why he had so many bottles in his fridge though. Maybe someone had given them to him, but he'd never gotten around to using them, or perhaps the water from the taps wasn't as safe as I'd thought.

Either way, it wasn't something I'd give much thought to on a regular day, never mind while I had to witness the dazed expression on my younger sister's face. I chugged down the bottle of water and took a second to calm down.

"Frona, what?"

Her eyes sparkled as she spoke about my friend, who was about nine years older than she was. I'd known this would happen eventually, but it was unfortunate that she'd chosen Finn as her first crush. Besides, wasn't she only eight? Were eight-year-old conscious of romantic feelings? Maybe Frona had an exceptionally well-developed sense of emotions. I'd book an appointment with her doctor and try to get some testing done.

"You know a real-life prince! He's so sparkly! And he looks just like Zilpah! From Sparkle girl!"

She referenced her current favorite show, and I suddenly remembered the character that only came across the screen every so often.

I guess they did look similar, but then again, I hadn't seen enough of the show to be an authority on the topic. Even when I was at home, I rarely sat down to watch Frona's shows with her.

Usually, I would have used Luca's observation to give the kids a lecture on plastic waste, but I was stuck on the dazed look on my baby sister's face.

My younger brother nodded in agreement to Frona's statement, but he didn't seem even half as enthused as Frona.

"Yeah. But I think Jake looks cooler."

Well, I wasn't about to say I was better looking than Finn, but Luca had probably misunderstood the expression on my face as jealousy that Frona thought someone else was better looking than me.

Frona suddenly pinched Luca's nose and twisted it, using her larger structure to bully her younger brother.

"Ah, Frona no!"

I quickly separated them, but Frona, never one to lose, didn't stop talking.

"Why would you say what when I didn't say anything about Jake! It's not my fault Jake doesn't look anything like the people in the show! They only draw pretty people!"

In her attempts to save my ego, she only managed to trample it even more. I needed to end this conversation before my heart completely shattered into pieces.

"Did you two finish your homework? I'm going to look over it in half an hour before we get you two to school."

I hurried them out of the kitchen and cleared things up. Thankfully their mom had enrolled them into an afternoon school that started at noon and closed out at six. I hadn't had the time to stand over them yesterday, but hopefully, they had gotten enough of it done. Luca's had just been a coloring page and a simple multiplication page, but Frona's was about verbs and nouns; not that I didn't know them, but they definitely took me a bit of time to understand the new rules they had implemented since I was her age.

Stolen novel; please report.

But geez, first my girlfriend, and now my little sister. At this rate, I wouldn't have any choice but to have some sort of blood feud with Finn.

On the topic, did he even have a girlfriend? Or a romantic partner of any sort?

I'd never really asked him, but even when we went out, and people tried to flirt with him, he would just look uncomfortable and pretend not to notice.

Being on the topic of the mall inevitably made me remember the happenings of the robbers. My hands made their way up to my collar and dragged my shirt further away from my throat, despite it already being a relatively lower-cut shirt. Even though Mr. Truman and Lux had told me not to tell Finn about anything, I didn't even think I could have.

Aside from the threat of his alternate personality, I was still in shock myself. Even last night, after I'd put Frona and Luca to sleep, I'd just had to sit in the dark and try to decompress and process it all.

The change had gone beyond just a split personality; that was a whole other person. The way they talked, walked, and even how they looked, to an extent, had been different. His eyes had taken on a terrifying red tinge, like an effect in a cheap horror movie, and the roots of his hair had grown at a pace visible to the eyes, only they hadn't been the familiar black color I knew but rather a blinding gold.

Even if I accepted all of that. The different affect of tone, the bright hair, and the changing of his eye color, didn't change the fact that the two people that had spoken to me were completely different from the slow but nice person I called my friend.

The urgency of the situation had led to me underplaying the event to the two men I'd met at the hospital, but the more thought I gave it, the more ridiculous it became.

It seemed like a terrible dream, but there were too many real-world cues to convince me that it wasn't. The extra money in my bank account, the fact that I was in Finn's house, the slight stinging around my neck.

Another thing that bothered me was how strong Finn had become all of a sudden.

Even though he wasn't so thin that I could unironically call him a toothpick, he didn't look anywhere close to being strong enough to take me down as quickly as he had, even with the element of surprise.

All in all, it was all strange. Something was going on with Finn, something quite huge too. But at the same time, I didn't think I wanted to know.

Like Mr. Lux had said, I got the feeling that once I knew, I would likely never see Finn in the same way again.

I finished cleaning up the kitchen and briefly looked over the kid's homework before taking them to get changed. They'd taken a shower the night before, so they were probably fine until tonight.

After taking one more lap around the apartment to make sure we hadn't left anything plugged in or on, I made the kids put on their backpacks and stand by the door while I tried to remember which set of keys belonged to the car that we'd taken out the day before.

Frona happily bounced toward me as she anticipated riding in the fancy car again, but Luca dragged his feet.

"What's wrong buddy?"

Luca wasn't the most excitable kid, but the melancholy was weird from him. He shuffled his feet and tucked his hands behind his back as best he could. His arms were still pretty short and the chunky backpack didn't do him any favors.

"Are you staying home this time?"

I restrained the urge to say yes and make him happy and instead had to tell him the truth.

"I'll stay with you all for a few more days, but when your mom gets home, I have to go back to the dorms. Sorry buddy. But I have to work hard to get you that new tablet you wanted, and Frona's baseball kit too."

He frowned and stomped his feet again as he debated his next response.

"Well… what if I didn't want the tablet then? You can just get Frona her stuff."

I got what he was trying to do, but one of the best parts about joining our school's athletic department were the dorms and the free food. It would be too much to ask our mom to support a whole other adult in terms of food and electricity. She also wouldn't let me financially help any more than I was, so the best-case scenario for our family was how we were.

"No can-do buddy. Sorry. But I'll visit you a lot more. Promise."

I couldn't say much more than I would visit as often as possible so I just picked him off the floor and carried him in my arms on the way down to the parking lot. Of course, Frona got jealous and I had to give her a piggy back ride at the same time.

On the way out I heard a smattering of footsteps and the faint sounds of youngsters bickering as the got away.

The fact that this was a restricted floor made me wonder how they had got up here, but I figured they might just be staff, or the kids of some people that worked here.

Well, it wasn't my apartment and Finn had seemed pretty aware of the security around his apartment. I was sure he could handle it.

I loaded the kids in the car with car seats that one of the staff had brought out from seemingly nowhere and loaded into the car for me. While I didn't know exactly what sort of brand they were, it was clear that they were much more expensive than the ones my siblings usually used.

While I offered to return them, the employee just looked at me like I was being ridiculous.

Then again, the type of people that could afford this sort of service probably weren't too worried about getting them back, and they definitely wouldn't want to use seats that had been used before.

With that, I could only say thank you for a final time and drive out of the parking lot.

It drove smoothly and beautifully, and I could only mourn the fact that the first and last time I got to drive this type of car was on a baby-sitting run.