It was all over everyone.
Well, with a couple of exceptions. There was very little on him or Autumn. And there was nothing on the Fox. Butch also seemed to have escaped being pounded by cupcakes. But not Cash or Ralen. They were both covered. Although Ralen was grinning manically, so maybe he’d liked the cupcake war.
“Right, how about we clean this all up?” Ink said with a warning look at Betsy. He had some glitter on his nose, which was sparkling under the late-afternoon sun. “And then we can eat.”
Everyone got to work cleaning up. He was next to Sunny when Betsy walked over to her. “You’re not upset about the cupcake war, are you?”
Shit. That hadn’t even occurred to Brody.
But Sunny just grinned. “Are you kidding? Did you see me smack Duke right in the face? It was epic. And then the Fox got him. I don’t think he saw who got him the second time. That wily Fox.”
That wily Fox, indeed.
Come to think of it . . . where was the Fox? He hadn’t seen him since they’d climbed out from under the table.
That wasn’t suspicious or anything . . .
8
FOX, BRODY, AND AUTUMN
The Fox watched the two boys and the small girl.
What were they up to?
Both boys were carrying boxes. On the side of one box was written ‘kitchen supplies’ and on the other one was ‘underwear.’
Kitchen supplies and underwear, huh?
That didn’t sound suspicious at all, now, did it?
He followed them through the forest. They didn’t notice that he was behind them, not that he expected them to. Perhaps the boys would have noticed somebody else creeping along, but the Fox didn’t make any noise.
They came to a clearing and left the boxes under a tree. They hadn’t actually walked too far from the house, they’d headed through the woods down toward the bottom of the backyard. Wanting to be hidden, but not going too far away.
“Right, this is close to where Ink will be setting the fireworks off,” Baron said. “All we need to do is sneak back here and grab these ones, and we can set them off.”
“They’re going to be way better than the wimpy ones he bought,” the small girl said.
She seemed to be healing nicely, living here with Ink and Betsy after everything she’d been through. He’d taken great delight in making her foster father disappear.
That bastard had deserved everything he got.
Those that hurt women and children didn’t deserve to live.
“So what do you have in the boxes?” he said, stepping forward. All three of them jumped and turned to him. The boys immediately stepped in front of the little girl, although she didn’t seem too pleased about that.
“Hey, get out of my way,” she said. “You guys make better doors than windows, you know?”
She attempted to get around them, but they kept standing in her way, protecting her, which was just the way it should be, even though she had plenty of fight in her.
“Hey, you’re the Fox,” the girl said.
“I know.”
“I like you,” she told him.
“You do? Why?”
