Incognito.

After our awkward meeting in the living room we all retreated back to our rooms before dinner.

“So,” Brendon started casually standing in my doorway, “What do you think?”

“About?” I mumbled, pulling the sheets onto my new bed, with a bit of difficulty considering I had an arm in a sling.

“This entire situation.”

“I think that maybe that bullet should’ve hit a little more to my right.” I half-shrugged. Brendon’s expression dropped and he squinted.

“Don’t say that.”

“Why? I seriously feel so like, I don’t even know, y’know? It’s like I have nothing significant in my life, and I don’t have anything to do.” I attempted to flop onto the bed, only kind of succeeding, “I’m not talking to you about this.” I mumbled before shoving my head into the bed.

“I don’t really understand what’s going on with you right now,” Brendon sighed, “and-”

“You shouldn’t understand,” I snapped, cutting him off, “You barely know me. Just go away.”

I didn’t hear much after that, just the click of the door. I breathed out a sigh of relief and tried to relaxed. Not even thirty seconds later did I feel something –or someone- lay down beside me with a hand across my back. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. I should tell him to go away. He needs to bug off. I’m leading him on, but no. I just breathed as quietly as possible.

“It’s okay, y’know?” Brendon said quietly, “To be weak sometimes.”

I’m not weak! I wanted to snap at him, but I can’t. I’m so tired.

The hand on my back started moving slowly, comforting strokes up and down. I glared, though no one could see me eyes, before painfully rolling over onto my bad shoulder and pushing him off, “Bug off.” I snapped standing up and exiting the room.

I headed down the stairs and to the back of the house. There was a pair of glass doors which I gladly exited. I started to let out a sigh of relief, but that quickly got cut off, when a huge black something was running towards me. I instinctively jumped backwards as a black lab got on it’s hind legs to reach my face.

“Lola!” I heard a voice I recognized as Patrick’s snap. Then the big black dog was backing away, tail between it’s legs.

“Sorry about him. That’s just Lola.” Patrick explained, from where he had his head stuck out the door, “He won’t hurt you, but he may lick you to death.”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” I nodded glancing to where the dog was now sitting, tail thumping against the ground. I didn’t really care to hear why a boy dog was named ‘Lola’.

“Anyway,” He glanced behind him, “Dinner should be ready in a while. We’ll let you know.” He nodded.

“Okay.” I answered, glancing around the yard. He nodded once more and pulled his head back in, sliding the door closed. I flopped onto the ground glancing cautiously at the big dog.

Lola slowly approached me and ended up curled into my side as I scratched his head. A little while later, I heard a ‘thunk’ against the glass door and glanced over to find Nate with his hands against the door. His mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Hana came up behind him seconds later and pulled open the door.

“Dinners ready.” She stated, glancing my direction.

“Okay,” I nodded getting up and brushing myself off, “Thanks,” I mumbled before clarifying, “For watching Nate all day.”

“Bill helped.” She shrugged.

“Still.” I returned the gesture before grabbing Nate and taking him into the bathroom to wash our hands. He whined and squirmed a bit. When I finally got his hands washed he started splashing the water around a bit, and giggling.

“No.” I told him, wiping his hands dry and heading towards the kitchen.

I sat down next to Hana with Nate in my lap. I was waiting for everyone else to join the table when a shiny red object was placed on the table in front of me.

“Zack thought it’d be a good idea for you to have a new one of these. William told us what kind you’d want.” Greta said. I glanced at the object to see a red cell phone, just like the one Nate dropped in the toilet.

“Oh, thanks.” I smiled picking it up and pocketing it.

“It’s all set up, with the same number. You just have to enter your contacts. Oh, and we have a booster seat for him.” She nodded towards Nate.

“Thank you.” I nodded trying to put any emotion into my voice. Greta nodded before putting Nate in a booster seat across the table, and seating herself further down the huge table.

“We already entered our numbers.” Pete piped up from the other side of Hana.

“Who’s ‘we’?” I asked cautiously.

“Pretty much everyone in this house.” Hana filled in.

“Oh.” I nodded shortly as Bill, Ryan, and Brendon came in. I pulled out my phone to distract myself as Brendon flopped down next to me. Opening the contacts I glanced at the first one on the list ‘BB Urie’. I raised an eyebrow before holding the phone in Brendon’s direction.

“That’s me.” He smirked.

“Mhmm.”

“Kayla won’t shut up!” Bill muttered as he pocketed his own phone.

“I thought you guys were in love.” I questioned.

“Psh. Before she wanted to spend every waking moment with me, okay.”

“Are you her first boyfriend?”

“No, and I’m not her first ex, either.”

“Way to break a girl’s heart.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, well.” Bill shrugged, like those two words explained it all. He spoke up again shortly after everyone was seated at the table, “Y’know, we have relatives in Chicago.”

“You and Natalie?” Greta cut in as I raised my eyebrows.

“Yeah, I never met ‘em.” He shrugged.

“Hm.” Greta nodded. I managed to get down some meatloaf and luckily no one noticed the lack of food inake, or no one who noticed mentioned it.

---

Dinner was pretty uneventful. Afterwards I took Nate into the living room to play as I looked through my new phone.

I had six missed calls, upon checking I saw the same number six times. I would know that number anywhere. I pressed ‘talk’ and put the phone up to my ear.

“Hey.” Adam answered on the first ring.

“Hey.” I laughed.

“How’s Chicago?”

“Chilly.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, we’re staying in this big house. They have a little girl and a little boy.”

“Cool, how are you?”

“Good, I guess.” I shrugged.

“That’s good. I made my will today.”

“Oh, my God.”I breathed out into the phone, “Let’s talk about anything except that.”

“Sorry, but it’s going to happen,” He paused to go into a coughing fit, “Pretty soon actually.”

“Oh, joy.” I sighed, “I might just hang up on you if you don’t shut up.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop. So, do you know what you’re going to do?”

“As in, while I’m here?”

“Yeah.”

“No, Greta and Patrick –the people we’re staying with- are teachers. So, I’m guessing they’ll be gone most of the day. I don’t think they want us to get jobs or anything, because then we would be registered as an employee and whoever this dude is could track us down.”

“Oh, gotcha. Well how big is this house? Do they have like video games and stuff?”

“I’m not sure,” I paused as Nate threw a block across the room, “No, Nate. Sorry, I know that it’s huge. There’s a piano over on one wall in the living room.”

“Hmm,” He hummed then paused for a few seconds, breathing harder.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, can I talk to Nate?”

“I don’t know how much he’ll say, but here,” I handed Nate my phone, “Can you say ‘Hi’?” I looked at Nate.

“Hi,” He said into the phone and then squinted as I heard Adam saying something, “You go there.” He said quickly before giving the phone back to me. I laughed a little.

“Where am I going?” Adam asked.

“Back to me.”

“Oh, I have another-,” He paused, “The nurse just came in, I have to go now, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Oh, okay, bye.”

“Love you.”

Then he was gone. I pouted, he didn’t say goodbye. I sighed as Grace paraded down the stairs.

“Mommy said that when Sam and, and,” She paused for a second trying to remember Nate’s name before shrugging, “And him go to sleep, I get to watch Mulan!”

“That’s so cool,” I exaggerated, “Is Sam asleep?”

“Mommy’s laying him down, so go put him to bed, hurry!”

“Okay,” I laughed, “Nate, let’s go upstairs.” I stood up and held my good arm down to him.

“No, no.”

After struggling and getting Nate upstairs, I started our routine of saying ‘Night Night’ to everything. After saying ‘goodnight’ to a table, a bathroom, and the pictures on the walls, we continued our stroll through the hallway.

“Say night night Bill.”

“Night night, Nathan!” Bill cooed pinching Nathan’s cheeks before tickling him.

“No, tickle, no tickle!” Nate repeated giggling.

“Don’t get him wound up.”

“Okay, Night, Nate.” He kissed his forehead pulling away with a loud ‘Mwuah’ which made Nate giggle. I rolled my eyes, continuing down the hall.

“Say, night, night Hana.” I told Nate turning into Hana’s room.

“And Pete and Ryan!” Hana returned.

They all said goodnight to Nate and I was nearing Brendon’s room. The door was partially open, partially closed. He was on the phone, so I passed up his room.

“I can put him to bed.” Bill offered coming up the hallway behind me.

“Oh, yeah, thanks.” I nodded handing Nate off and leaning quietly against the doorframe to Brendon’s room.

“No, but,” He sighed, “No, just listen, hold on, I’m trying that. She’s really like, I don’t know. I’m-”

I couldn’t listen anymore after that as the little that I ate for dinner came back up. The only restroom I knew of was downstairs so I hurried down the stairs, taking them two at a time, before falling onto my knees in front of the toilet. I could faintly hear Mulan playing in the living room.

“Natalie?” Greta called before knocking on the bathroom doorframe to make her presence known. I held up one finger, before wiping my mouth with toilet paper and flushing the toilet.

“Sorry,” I apologized quickly.

“No, no, don’t be sorry.” She excused, “Are you sick?”

“Uh, I think I just,” I paused rubbing my forehead, “I’m just going to go to bed early, I’ll be better by tomorrow.”