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“You probably shouldn’t have told me that,” Sebastian said as he stepped around the kitchen table, right around the time that Mikey decided that a run at this time of night sounded lovely.

With that in mind, she raced to the door, threw it open, and made a run for it, hoping to lose him in the woods and–

“Ow!”

*-*-*-*

“This was a really good idea,” Sebastian said as he loaded more tennis balls into the ball machine.

“Ow!” came the startled gasp as the ball hit Mikey in the back simply because she hadn’t moved fast enough.

“She’s not running fast enough,” Mrs. Blaine said, gesturing with her cane in Mikey’s general direction.

“I completely agree,” Sebastian said, nodding in agreement as he turned the tennis ball machine that he’d helped himself to from the tennis courts, following Mikey as she raced from second base back to first and–

“Ow!”

“She’s definitely not moving fast enough,” Sebastian said with a sad shake of his head as he watched Mikey turn around and head back to second base again.

“She needs to move faster,” Mrs. Blaine said as she reached over and turned the knob to a higher setting and–

“Ow!”

“That’s better,” Mrs. Blaine said, and he couldn’t help but agree.

*-*-*-*

This ended now, Mikey decided as she slowly, ever so slowly, pushed Sebastian’s bedroom window open. Once she was inside, she moved to close the window behind her only to rethink that plan since she would most likely need to make a quick escape.

Decision made, Mikey slowly made her way across the room, careful not to wake up the boy passed out on the bed on the other side of the room. She would make him pay, Mikey decided with a firm nod and–

“What are you doing?” came the whispered question from her left.

After making sure that Sebastian wasn’t awake, Mikey turned her attention to Jonathan and softly whispered, “Revenge.”

Nodding in approval, Jonathan laid back down and closed his eyes as Mikey slowly turned her attention to the reason that she was breaking in at two in the morning.

Sebastian.

The hell he’d been putting her through ended now!

She would no longer live in fear of having eggs thrown at her or have to wonder how early Sebastian was going to break into her room to drag her outside to run laps while spraying her with the hose.

Those days of living in fear were over!

After tonight, he would never chase her with water balloons again while yelling for her to run faster. She was going to make sure that he never–

“What’s going on in here?” Uncle Trevor asked quietly as the bedroom door suddenly opened, spilling light in from the hallway on her.

Swallowing hard, Mikey followed his gaze as he took in the large roll of duct tape in her hand before glancing back at her. At his questioning look, Mikey licked her lips nervously as she weakly gestured toward Sebastian, who was still thankfully fast asleep in his bed, and said, “Revenge?”

For a moment, he didn’t say anything and then…

“No permanent damage,” Uncle Trevor said as he carefully closed the door behind him, leaving her standing there trying to figure out what just happened until she realized that she was wasting precious time.

Giving herself a mental shake, Mikey shifted her focus back on Sebastian, quietly cleared her throat, and–

“Run,” came the softly spoken word that had her breath leaving her lungs in a rush as she watched Sebastian, who should’ve still been sleeping, sit up and…