She nodded. "All right, then."

Mom's protests were wasted when Luke got home. He took one look at her pale, bandaged face, threw a fit, and insisted they go to the hospital. Luke can be stubbornly persistent when he needs to be, and Mom eventually buckled under the pressure. She was still calling out instructions to the two girls--take care of Ethan, don't let him stay up too late, there's frozen pizza in the fridge--as Luke bundled her into his battered Ford and roared off down the driveway.

Isiea made dinner-lunch. Sorta. Nobody ate it. To her, that's enough semi-parenting of Ethan for her. She's holed herself up in her room again.

Lise turned and went into her room, not really having an appetite.

As the truck turned a corner and vanished from sight, the chilly silence descended on the house once more. The house where they'd lived most of their life seemed unfamiliar and frightening, as if things lurked in the cupboards and around corners, waiting to grab them as they walked past. The crumpled remains of Floppy were still strewn across the floor. No one in this house would rip up Ethan's favorite stuffed animal. Something was very wrong.

Footsteps padded over the floor. Ethan in the doorway, staring at seemingly nothing. He looked strange without the rabbit in his arms, and it was strange that he wasn't upset about it.

"I'm hungry," he announced.

Isiea is busy playing with Daisy and Dandelion. "Go ask Lise to heat up the pizza." She tells Ethan.

Lise wasn't worried about either of her siblings. She stared out her bedroom window, looking wt nothing in particular.

His eyes narrowed, and his lips curled back from his teeth. "I'm hungry now," he growled, before going to get Liseolette. He barged into her room. "I'm hungry. Cook me something."

She glanced at Ethan, figuring Isiea wasn't going to feed him if Ethan came to her. " Fine. " She stood up and headed down to the kitchen.

That doesn't seem right. But Isiea is focused on the two little rats and doesn't pay much attention.

Who knew where these demonic mood swings of his were coming from, but let's hope they weren't the start of a trend. Maybe he was just upset because of Mom's accident. Maybe if Lise fed the brat, he'd fall asleep and leave her alone for the night.