I woke up the next morning thinking about money. Thinking about family. It was almost Thanksgiving.

Levi was making breakfast in the kitchen with Gina when I got downstairs. They both gave me short glances, their eyes narrowed.

I stood in front of the counter and looked at Levi only. He was going to be a father and I was going to be an uncle. There was no adult figure in our lives anymore besides ourselves, and that was frightening.

I was clearly thinking too much and I turned around to leave out the kitchen door.

I saw Ed standing on the other side of the sidewalk and I flashed him the middle finger from across the street, although I'm not sure he even noticed who I was.

I reached Caspian's house and knocked three times on the door before his father answered.

"Whaddya want?" He said in a rough voice. He only had blue boxers on, exposing his hairy chest and gold necklace.

I tried to peek around his body to see inside, the view unflattering in front of me.

"I'm here for Liv. We have a school project we're doing together."

He started laughing and he opened the door for me, "No fucking."

I rolled my eyes once I got past his almost nude body.

The house still smelled like beer and cigarettes but I simply made my way upstairs to Casp's room without thinking about the scent. I knocked on his door and he slowly opened it, quietly peeking out, his eyeballs darting around.

"Come in, quick," he closed the door and immediately pinned me against it.

"What are you doing here?" He stared directly at me, his big hands pushing into my shoulders.

"I missed you," I raised my eyebrows and his tense grip loosened a bit.

He dropped his arms to wrap around my waist, bringing me in for a kiss.

He kissed me a few times before backing away slightly, "Nobody ever missed me before."

He had a half smile on his lips as he talked, his hands slipping into his pockets.

I looked up into his eyes, which seemed content. "Can you admit that you're gay now?"

He shook his head, rolling his eyes as he turned around to sit on the end of his bed.

"I guess I'll just declare us boyfriend and boyfriend." I crossed my arms to try and meet his demeanor, coming up sub par.

He rain his fingers through his hair and shook his head again, shrugging while he looked up at me with a tired stare. "I'm never admitting that I might be gay."

I came home to an empty house. A note was attached to the fridge, written in chicken scratch. It read:

The old lady down the street said she could take better care of us than you.

I pondered the note for a while, crumbling it up in my fingers and tossing it into the wastebasket. "What kind of old lady steals little kids?" I thought.

I soon realized there really wasn't anyone home with me. I cracked open a beer and enjoyed the quiet house, putting on a random movie, my feet elevated on the coffee table. Although the serenity was nice, Levi came storming through the front door with Gina clutching her stomach.

"We're having a baby!" Levi exclaimed almost too happily, hugging Gina as her hands rose from her stomach to hug him back.

They danced around the living room excitedly as I stayed in my same spot, finishing my beer in a matter of seconds.

"Yo, do you know anything about the old lady down the street stealing your siblings?"

Levi stopped dancing and looked at me with a blank stare. I only realized it once I turned around on the couch to see if he had even heard what I said.

"Wait, you're joking with me, right?" Levi's hand clutched his hair. Gina and I looked equally as confused.

"Come here, Hale. You gotta see this," Levi grabbed Gina's wrist and pulled her into the laundry room where we keep our only laptop. I followed along, my arms tightly crossed.

"Come on you old piece of shit, work... work!" Levi exclaimed as he smacked the laptop over and over, trying to get it to load faster.

After about ten minutes, the internet browser opened and he hurriedly opened a website containing sexual predators. I looked closer at the screen, realizing the street shown was our street.

"So, right down the street here, this old lady is accused of being a sexual predator."
Levi clicked the red dot that indicated her house, showing a mugshot of her, thirty years ago.

"Wow, you better go get your siblings. She's a sicko," clutched her stomach as she said it, as if her baby would be effected by this old lady too.

"Thanks Sherlock, we're gonna get on that," I said in response to Gina, ready to pull my hair out from today's events. I quickly headed for the door.

"I'll be out in a second," Levi said as I slammed the door behind me.

I looked down the street, which was empty, trying to figure out what else could go wrong in this stupid, corrupted town. My cousins are probably subjected to nudity in an old woman's basement.

The sky was starting to turn light orange from the sun getting ready to set and the thought of night without my cousins scared me.

"Why are you just standing there? Let's go," Levi grabbed my arm and started jogging down the sidewalk, pulling me with.

"Wait, what's our plan? What are we going to do? Keep jogging 'till we hit China?" I kept up my pace while we jogged down the sidewalk, following Levi's lead since he seemed to know where he was going, and it wasn't China.

We made a turn onto a porch, the porch where my cousins should be located. Levi knocked on the door erratically, his breath heavy as he glanced back at me with a sweaty forehead when nobody answered the door.

I shrugged, "Maybe we should just go back, it was probably all fake."

Levi shook his head, and beads of sweat dripped from his nose. It was a pretty hot evening, and the humidity was thick in the air.

"No, I gotta find my siblings," he shook his head, "Hale, do you even realize what these kids are growing up in? They don't know what its like to have parents. They don't know what its like to have money. Hale, you had to give a guy a blowjob just to pay the bills. They don't know that, but it's important we all stick together. If it's one thing they do know, it's family. We're all family and I have to protect my family."

I studied his face while he spoke, the passion in his voice was enough to tell me that he was taking this seriously.

His knocking became louder, and he started shouting into the door.

"OPEN UP, I KNOW YOU HAVE KIDS IN THERE!"

At this point, he was practically jumping up and down with each knock, his face red.

"YOU FREAK, SICKO, OPEN THE DOOR AND LET MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS OUT!"

I stood back, glancing up and down the sidewalks. The door creaked and an eye appeared between the crack of the open door.

Levi got as close as possible to soak up each and every word.

"Would you calm down, yeah? I've got your siblings. They shouldn't even be able to go back to you. I'm calling the authorities. Where's your parents?"

"Excuse me? You're saying my siblings shouldn't come back HOME with ME?! You're the sexual predator!" Levi started pounding through the door.

"Levi, Levi, please calm down," I grabbed his arms and pulled him back and away from the door, standing between the creepy old lady and him.

"Listen, just let us have our siblings back. My cousins, his siblings. I'm the guardian of these children. I'm sorry for his behavior, we couldn't find his pills in the medicine cabinet this morning."

I gave a glare over at Levi, who had clenched fists and an even heavier breathing pattern than before.

"Okay, fine, come in. But only you. You seem sane," the old lady glared at Levi outside.

"Hale, I swear to god if you don't come out of that house in five minutes with all four children accounted for and unharmed I will call the cops," Levi shouted as the old lady practically smuggled me into her house, making sure Levi couldn't squeeze in if he tried. She locked the door once I was inside.

"Hale!" Lilly came running up to me, tugging on the leg of my pants. She had a piece of paper in her hands, "look what I drew."

She held up the piece of paper for me to see. Her smile was beaming, glancing from me to the old lady back to me.

"Good job, Lil," I said, scanning the room.

The old lady smiled and stood with her hands crossed at her stomach, her eyes creasing which showed how much of a real smile it actually was. I stared at her for a few moments.

"Wow, you're really happy," I commented.

"I just love kids so much!" The old lady responded, wiggling around a bit as she spoke. A little creepy.

"Okay, come on guys, time to go home. Let's go," I shouted as I kept my eyes on the old lady, indirectly watching her every move.

Danny, Melanie, and Joyce came downstairs with soda cans in their hands. They seemed surprised to see me, but I didn't say anything to them until we were down the street back at our house, far away from the creepy old lady.

I sat everyone down on the porch steps, Levi angrily keeping quiet at my side.

"What the heck is wrong with you guys?"

Melanie raised her hand, "I know that like, we're old enough to make our own educated decisions, but she seemed so sweet and lonely. She had some nice snacks too."

"What's wrong with our snacks?" I asked, "we have the most snacks in this whole neighborhood!"

I received blank stares.

"She was nice," Danny said. He smiled wide.

"You're all weird. Go inside and go to bed." I shooed them all inside, leaving me to deal with Levi who almost looked normal again.

"I'm going to bed too," Levi said, bypassing me to head up the porch steps and into the house, his head hanging the whole time.

I sat down on the steps, looking at the empty road ahead of me. I needed money.

***
thanks for reading! i've been unbelievably busy and preoccupied with thousands of other things to be able to sit down and focus on writing this, although i've wanted to for such a long time. I finally had some time to write, since i'm on spring break right now. i don't know when i'll be able to produce another chapter, but i hope its soon.