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“I don’t care!” came the announcement that drew his attention back to the locked bathroom door.

“This is for your own good, Mikey,” Sebastian drawled as he debated his options.

“No, it’s not!”

Deciding that they’d wasted enough time with this, he made his way back to the hallway, walked the short distance to her baby brothers’ room and quietly climbed over the baby gate. Once he’d assured himself that he hadn’t woken any of her brothers up, he made his way to the bathroom door and reached for the doorknob. He wasn’t exactly surprised to find the door unlocked, but he was surprised to find the bathroom empty.

Climbing over the baby gate, he crossed to the other door and…

Sighe

d.

Just freaking sighed as he turned around and pushed the shower curtain aside. When the teenage girl that was currently trying to hide from him saw him standing there, she noticeably swallowed. When her gaze landed on the large Nerf gun in his arms, Mikey cleared her throat as she stood up and gestured awkwardly toward her bedroom. “I’ll just go grab my shoes.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Sebastian murmured in agreement as he stepped back, giving her a chance to do just that.

When she hesitated, he switched off the safety and aimed the Nerf gun at her. With another murmured, “Right,” a nod, and a grumble, Mikey stepped out of the tub, climbed over the baby gate blocking her room, grabbed her sneakers and headed for the door. That was followed by Sebastian deciding that two hundred rounds probably wasn’t going to be enough.

*-*-*-*

“Finally,” Mikey mumbled as she shoved the practice test aside and promptly dropped her head down on her folded arms, too exhausted to do anything more than that.

“You finished with five minutes to spare,” the horrible boy that was making her life a living hell said, sounding pleased.

“I really hate you,” Mikey mumbled, shifting to get more comfortable.

“I know you do,” came the absently mumbled response along with a patronizing pat on her head that had her turning her head so that she could level a glare on him.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Mikey asked, too exhausted to do anything more than glare in his direction.

“You’ll thank me later for this,” Sebastian said, reaching over to give one of her braids a playful tug.

“I really won’t though,” she mumbled even though she knew that he was probably right.

They were scheduled to take the entrance exam next week on the one day that she didn’t have practice, which meant that when Sebastian wasn’t torturing her with early morning runs, pushups, and crunches, he was helping her study and giving her practice exams and now…

Now she just wanted the damn test to be over.

“Hey, it looks like you raised your score by twenty points,” Sebastian said, nodding in approval.

Sighing with relief, Mikey opened her mouth and–

“Run.”

“What?” she asked, blinking slowly as she raised her head and–

“Run,” Sebastian said as he reached for the paintball gun that she’d been wondering about.

“Wait!” Mikey said, nervously licking her lips as she stood up, knocking her chair over in the process and–

“Run.”

“Why am I running?” she asked, tripping over the chair as she backed away from the crazed boy following her.

“You’re running a minute for every question that you got wrong,” Sebastian answered, sounding bored as he raised the paintball gun.

“This,” Mikey said, gesturing frantically between the two of them, “is the reason why Jonathan is my favorite!”