[b][i]Chapter One[/i][/b] [right]4.[/right]

	He couldn’t afford to be bothered with it at that particular moment. There was supper to made, homework to be finished, and studying to be done. Cole was attempting to attend a local community college while working a job that paid below minimum wage, and support his two little sisters and his little brother at the same time. It was a burden that no eighteen year old should have had to bear only two years after the deaths of their parents, but Cole was tackling that burden head-on, determined not to let his siblings be put into foster care.

	The deaths of Becca and Dale were somehow relieving, Cole thought. It gave him a strange sort of peace of mind knowing that neither of them would hurt another human being again. He knew that his mother was a better person than Dale by a long shot. However, Dale was the second person that Becca had cheated on that Cole knew of. She wasn’t exactly morally sound.

	The sun outside was dipping below the horizon when Cole lowered his psychology book and peered at Jenna. She was lying on the floor in front of the couch he was seated at, staring at the ceiling. He looked around briefly before asking, “Where’s Penelope? I’m fixin’ to make grilled cheese sandwiches for supper.”

	“Can I help?” Jenna asked, ignoring his question.

	“If you find your sister and get washed up,” he sighed, setting the textbook aside and walking over to their kitchen’s sink. He was surprised when the water still fell from the tap. Their water bill was overdue.

	Jenna mocked his sigh, exhaling heavily through her nose. She wasn’t bothered by the request, though, and instead of refusing, she pulled herself off of the floor and walked past her brother to exit the back door. On the bottom doorstep, she found herself faced with tall weeds and thick woods that she often explored and played in. Her eyes scanned over the weeds and trees quickly before she called out to her sister.

	“Penelope?” she yelled. “You out here?”

	She waited. For a few moments, her only response was the hissing of the tree leaves as the wind rustled them against each other. Clouds were gathering overhead, signaling an incoming storm. Jenna stepped off the bottom stair and worked her way through the grass that bit at her ankles and made them itch. She pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her vision and trudged into the forest, careful to tread only where she’d been before.

	As she cautiously neared an enormous fallen oak, she could hear the faint shushing of someone calming another. Making her footsteps fall as lightly as feathers across the multicolored leaves upon the ground, Jenna peered over the top of the trunk and caught sight of her sister’s frizzy red hair. Coming closer, she gasped at the creature sitting in Penelope’s lap.

	“What is [i]that[/i]?!” she practically shrieked even though her voice was but a whisper.

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