Food of the Giants

**Food of the Giants** is the thirty-first chapter of Zak Saturday's Immortal Love Life. It was first published on January 31, 2016.

## Chapter

**Nobody edit below this box**

**Zak's POV**
Giants? Nice.
Doyle and Abbey were playing a video game in the living room, and she was beating him. Fisk, Sarah, Zack (he was a little upset because his girlfriend, Selena, had to go home a little while ago), and I were watching them.
Sarah had seemed somewhat different toward me since Abbey’s been here, and I wasn’t not sure why. Abbey just beat Doyle again for the second time in a row.
“I get winner, right?” I said. “I’ll show the little lady how a real man frags alien death troopers.”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
“You shouldn’t call someone taller than you ‘little’,” Zack said.
I ignored him.
“You know what?” Doyle said to Abbey. “We should get married.”
“What?!” Abbey asked, completely surprised, just as much as we were. Except Fiskerton, who seemed to like the idea.
Then Doyle destroyed her plane on the game. He cheered at his victory. “Oh, and kidding, by the way.”
“That’s not something you kid about,” Sarah said.
“What?” Abbey said in disbelief. “Oh, you cheating, slimy dog.”
“Ok. Me and Doyle then,” I said.
“Rematch?” Abbey asked Doyle.
“On,” he replied.
They played another game.
“Hey. Am I not even here?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. Hey, miniman, you wanna get me a soda? You need anything there, baby?”
They were completely ignoring me, and I didn’t like it.
I grabbed the claw and aimed it at them. “Eeni, mini—”
“No,” Mom finished.
She and Dad had entered the room from behind me, along with Raylee and the animals.
“I was just trying to get their attention,” I said. “Ever since they started dating, it’s like ‘Oooo, sorry, we can’t hear anybody outside of our personal love cocoon’.”
“Zak, I know it’s weird seeing your uncle with your old babysitter,” Mom said. “But Doyle’s had a rough life. Doesn’t he deserve a little happiness?”
“Yeah, but Abbey is my . . . babysitter.”
Then we heard a ringing sound.
“What is that?” I asked.
Fiskerton found what was making the sound and held up a little box.
“Again, what is it?”
“Our landline,” Dad said. “It’s a phone.”
“We have a non-video phone? Why?”
Dad pressed a button on it. “Hello?”
“Hello, uh, Doctor Saturday?” a man’s voice on.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Bud Harger. Harger Logging. Uh, last night one of my camps was attacked. Two men were taken. I’m offering a reward for any help with—”
“Uh, Mr. Harger, I’m very sorry about your men, but that’s not really the sort of work we do. How did you get this number?”
“Anonymous tip. Uh, listen, they told me missing persons wasn’t your thing, but they did say you might be interested in *what* took them.”
That was enough to get us to go.

So we headed to the Allegheny Mountains. We met Bud Harger, and he showed us his camp that got attacked.
“Something powerful came through here,” Dad said, noticing all of the trees smashed down. “I’ll take a look around.”
And he went off.
“You said one of your loggers saw something?” Mom asked Harger.
“Uh, Ruby,” he replied. “I’ll introduce you.”
And they went off too.
I was sitting on a stump, pouting a little bit, when Doyle came over.
“Hey, look, I know you had puppy love for your ex-babysitter,” he told me. “But no hard feelings I got the girl, right?”
“What? No,” I said. “I don’t care what—I mean, just because some people might wonder what’s so much better about you than me.”
“Umm, you’re eleven. You know, to be honest, Fisk was bigger competition.”
He gestured over to him giving Abbey a gift. First, a bouquet of flowers, than a bird. Abbey took them, thanked him, and let the bird fly away. Fisk wasn’t happy about that.
“You two are such assholes,” Raylee said, which was a little hurtful. “Trying to get a girl to like you as a competition is stupid and idiotic. If I were her, I wouldn’t date either of you since you two clearly don’t know what a relationship is really about.”
Sarah nodded in agreement, which hurt me even more.
“Oh, dammit.”
“What?” Zack asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. I just hate it when people say what they would or would not do in certain situations and I say it myself without even thinking.”
“It’s kind of hard not to say that sometimes,” Sarah said.
“Yeah.”
Mom was talking to Ruby a few feet away.
“It was big,” Ruby said. “Hairy, razor sharp teeth, and claws. Looked at us like a starving man looks at a steak.”
“Anything else you remember?” Mom asked. “Hair color? Straight or curly claws?”
“It’s an allegewi,” Dad said, looking at a big foot print. “Based on the tear patterns on the trees and the size of these footprints and Ruby’s description, I don’t see what else it could be.”
“I’m sorry, an allegewi?” Harger asked.
“Part of a legendary tribe of giants from these very mountains,” Mom explained.
“Are you kidding me? I got a giant on my land?”
“We’ll need to find your men soon,” Dad said. “The allegewi were man-eaters.”
“Whoa,” Doyle said. “You guys should ask for double the reward money.”
They glared at him.
“Right. Old habits.”
“And they die hard,” Raylee added.
“Take the four-wheeler back to base camp,” Harger told Ruby. “You’ll be safe there.”
She nodded and went off.
“Wait. You’re coming with us?” I asked.
“We’re a public company. I’d, uh, like to make sure this stays quiet.”
“We can do quiet without you, Mr. Harger,” Mom said. “It isn’t safe here—”
“My land. My men. My call.”
“Then let’s get moving,” Dad said.
He and Harger moved away.
“Is anybody else wondering if we can trust this Harger?” Abbey asked.
“You suspect something?” Doyle asked.
“More a combination of things. He’s been dodgy from the start. An anonymous tip? How many people even have your number? And now he insists on running *toward* danger?”
“What are you suggesting?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know. But I can do some digging. Satellite Wi-Fi. Web in the wilderness.”
“Tell me what you find.”
“Actually, my powers say that there’s nothing wrong with him,” Raylee said.
“Well, only one way to find out.”
Raylee doesn’t like Abbey for some reason. She’s been obvious about it since yesterday. And she and her pets have all been keeping a close eye on her.
We all followed my dad into the forest. I looked around on air, riding Zon.
“I couldn’t see anything from the sky,” I said.
“That’s because the trail’s gone cold,” Dad said.
“Just like that?” Doyle asked.
“No, it’s been covered up,” Mom said. “Which means whatever we’re following, knows we’re following it.”
“She’s right,” Sarah said.
“So now we’re chasing a smart cannibalistic giant,” Doyle said. “For free.”
“Doyle, maybe you should take Abbey back—” Dad started.
“Abbey wouldn’t be out here if she couldn’t handle it,” he interrupted. “She’s strong, and smart, and—”
“She smells like nectarines,” I added.
Everybody stared at me.
“Uh, scientific observation.”
Then we heard her scream.
“Abbey!” Doyle called.
We ran in the direction of where we heard it come from. When we got to her, she was lying on the ground.
Doyle helped her up. “Where is it?”
“It wasn’t the allegewi,” she said. “It was Harger.”
“Harger?” I asked.
“He saw me working. He knows what I found out about his company. This isn’t his land. The government shut it down decades ago after loggers kept disappearing.”
“Then why—” Dad started.
“Money. Why else? He stole the land with fraudulent lease. He doesn’t care about his men. All he saw was free timber.”
Dad was mad, and so were we. But the Hollingers didn’t seem convinced, though they didn’t say anything.
“Which way did he run?” Dad asked Abbey.
She pointed to her left. We all ran in that direction, but the Hollingers weren’t as fast and were lagging behind for some reason.
“He can’t be that far,” Dad said.
Then, suddenly, he and I stepped onto a trap and were lifted into a net.
“Hang on,” Mom told us. “Fisk, get ready to catch the net.”
She unsheathed her fire sword, and tried to shoot a fire ball from it, but it wouldn’t work. “What?”
Doyle tried his jetpack, but it started smoking. “My jetpack’s fried too.”
He took it off of him, slammed it to the ground, and rolled away just before it exploded. But he rolled right into another trap, and then he was caught in a net like me and Dad too.
“Doyle,” I said.
I tried the claw, and it broke into pieces, which I really didn’t like. Dad tried his power glove, and it wouldn’t power up.
Abbey looked through her bag of stuff. “It’s all trashed.”
“Harger must’ve sabotaged our gear,” Mom said. “That’s why he insisted on coming.”
Fisk walked up to the tree that we were hanging on.
“Fiskerton, be careful,” Abbey told him.
He jumped onto the tree, and he triggered a trap, but he jumped away before it got him. Then there were traps all over the ground that could wrap around their ankles and lift them up.
Abbey got caught in one. Mom did too, after avoiding most of the ones she triggered. Komodo went through some grass and got himself caught in a net trap, and hung right next to us. Fisk avoided a lot of traps, but he got caught in a caged one that came from either side of him that he had no chance of avoiding. Zon got slammed to the ground when a heavy basket landed on her.
All of us were caught except for the Hollingers. They climbed into the trees, that no longer had anymore traps in them.
“Well, I’ve gotta admit, you’re good at setting a trap,” Raylee said.
Why did she say “you” and not “him”?
“Harger! Show yourself,” Dad called. “Harger!”
He appeared out of the bushes, acting surprised to see us. “What in the name of—” he started, but then his ankle got caught in a rope and he was lifted up into the air. “What is this? What are you people doing?”
“Tip from me to you,” I told him. “Don’t even try the innocent act on my parents. It only makes them angrier.”
I knew that from experience.
“No, guys,” Raylee said. “He really is innocent.”
“Now that’s the kind of work I expect from my apprentice,” we heard a familiar voice say.
Van Rook suddenly appeared on a video screen on the ground.
My family and I looked accusingly at Doyle.
“Doyle?” I asked.
“After all this, you’re still working for him?” Dad asked. “We took you into our family.”
“Hey, he’s lying, alright?” Doyle protested.
“He’s right,” Raylee said.
“No,” Van Rook said. “I’m just not talking about you.”
Suddenly, Abbey cut her rope off with a knife she had hidden in her boot and landed on the ground. Then she removed a leafy cover-up to reveal a box, opened it up, and put on a white mask, a jet pack, grabbed a kind of gun and aimed it at us.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s not personal. It’s money.”
My family and I were all shocked, even the Hollingers seemed to be as well.
“How much, Abbey?” Doyle asked. “How much did you get for selling your soul to Van Rook?”
“Van Rook?” Harger said. “Leonidas Van Rook? That’s—that’s the man who sold me this land.”
“And don’t think it was cheap,” he said. “Arranging the phony sale of forbidden government land.”
“Not cheap?” Mom said. “That doesn’t sound like you. Who paid for this setup?”
“Turns out you have a lot of enemies. I took up a collection.”
The screen was turning fuzzy.
“Van Rook?” Abbey asked. “I’m losing your signal.”
“Did I tell you not to go with a discount set com provider?” Doyle said.
Van Rook appeared back on the screen. “Hurt him extra.” Then he disappeared off the screen.
“Just so you know, you’re the worst babysitter ever,” I said.
I felt like saying something hurtful to her.
“How long?” Doyle asked her.
“He recruited me right after you quit,” she replied. “Figured the family connection might come in useful. But, my feelings for you, that part was always—”
“Just do what your paid for.”
“Oh, I’m not the one doing it. You think we set all this up just to shoot you? No. The giant cryptid is going to eat you. Sorry, but people pay extra for hectic vengeance. Goodbye, Doyle.”
She blew him a kiss and started up her jetpack, but then was knocked into a tree when the giant appeared behind her and she became unconscious.
The giant growled and walked toward us.
“Zak?” Mom said.
I knew what she meant.
I activated my powers. “It’s too focused on its hunger. All it wants to do is eat.”
Sarah and her family jumped down from the trees and landed between the giant and us with their swords drawn and powers activated. The giant was a little annoyed by them, but instead ignored them and went to us, breaking our nets and cages and dropping us on the ground.
“It—it doesn’t wanna eat us,” Harger said. “It’s letting us go.”
“No, it’s not,” Sarah said.
“She’s right,” I agreed. “It’s a predatory thing. It has to hunt its food.”
“Just like we do,” Amber said.
The giant growled.
“Run!” Dad said.
And that we did.
Zon had a broken wing, so Fiskerton carried her. Doyle also picked up Abbey since she was still unconscious.
“How much farther to your camp?” he asked Harger.
“I’m not going back to camp,” he replied. “Not while my men are still out here.”
“What?”
“No, he’s right, Doyle,” I said. “If the allegewi wanted to hunt us, maybe it did the same thing with them. They could still be alive.”
“And how are we staging a rescue carrying someone who’s gonna stab us in the back the second she wakes?”
Abbey began to stir. We stopped running for a moment and Doyle dropped her on the ground.
“Oops,” he said sarcastically. “I guess I tripped.”
Half of us couldn’t use our weapons, so we picked up some sticks while the others had their swords and held them at her. The animals stood ready to attack. (They look mean when they’re angry. You definitely never want to mess with them.)
She woke up and noticed us holding weapons to her. “Sticks? I take it things aren’t going well for us.”
“There is no ‘us’,” Mom corrected. “There’s *us* figuring out what to do about you.”
“Van Rook’s apprentices know how to take care of themselves,” Doyle said. “I say we leave her.”
“Not an option,” Dad said. “Not with the allegewi out—”
Komodo and the animals growled in the direction behind us.
“They’ve got something,” I said.
Then, suddenly, the giant jumped out of the trees and landed in front of us. He picked up a tree out of its roots and swiped it at us. We barely dodged it. Fiskerton attacked him at the legs while still carrying Zon.
“Fisk!” I called.
I still had my stick in hand and charged at the giant. He pushed Fisk away and rolled a boulder at me. I barely dodged it and lost my stick, falling on the ground in the process. Doyle helped me up and we all continued to run.
The giant followed.
“Everyone up in the tree,” Mom said, pointing to a tall one a few feet ahead of us.
We all climbed up it.
“You think he can’t climb?” Doyle said.
“He kind of doesn’t need to,” Zack said. “He is taller than it, after all.”
“Just get up there and hang on,” Mom said.
She cut the tree down with her fire sword and jumped on after it fell. Then we began to slide down the hill, surprisingly missing every tree we passed. The animals were running beside us, and the giant was following behind.
“Way to go, Mom,” I said.
Then I looked forward and noticed that we were about to fall into a chasm.
“We got it!” Raylee said. “Sarah? Zack?”
“Ready!” they both said.
They activated their powers and, when we fell into the chasm, we were floating, trying to get to the other side. But, all of a sudden, we got hit by a fireball that came out of nowhere, breaking the tree in half, and we all fell into the chasm. Hard.
The giant didn’t follow us down, but the animals did.
We stood up from the ground, rubbing our heads.
“Where did that come from?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know,” Raylee replied. “But I have a feeling we’ll find out soon.”

Doyle tied Abbey’s hands behind her back.
“And what do I do the next time the giant attacks?” she asked.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Doyle said and walked off.
I turned to her. “We could’ve been something, Abbey.”
“No, we couldn’t,” she said.
“But, yeah, I know. I mean, I’m just saying, maybe.”
“You’re eleven.”
“No, but like in an alternate universe where I’m ten years older.”
“Or she’s ten years younger,” Sarah offered.
“Ok,” Abbey said. “Maybe.”
I shook my head. “You threw it all away for money.”
I walked off too.
Dad and Doyle seemed to be having a good conversation on heat seeking.
“Wow,” Raylee said. “I think that’s the nicest conversation they’ve ever had so far. And they agree.”
“I’m sorry about Abbey,” Dad told Doyle.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I mean, if anybody in that relationship was gonna be secretly evil, I’d put my money on—”
Mom knocked her elbow into him before he could finish, which was probably good.
“Well, we’ll leave it at sorry.”
“Ok, forget what I said a minute ago,” Raylee said.
Sarah and I were making an open-carrying bag for Zon so that it would be easier for Fiskerton to carry her.
“Hey, guys, check it out,” I said, showing it off. “Traveling with a broken wing in style.”
Zon liked it. Fisk? Not so much.
“Ok, we’ve even the odds a bit,” Mom said. “But don’t forget what we’re dealing with. This is the allegewi’s hunting ground. He’s caught us off guard once already and—”
She was interrupted when we heard a growling sound. We fanned out. But then we heard Shillow growl and bark a few times. She ran at me.
I thought she was going to attack me, but at the last second she jumped over me and instead attacked whatever was behind me. A man to be exact, and she had him pinned down. She grabbed the stick he was holding with her jaw and pulled it away from him.
Everyone ran over.
“Wyatt!” Harger called.
“Bud?” the man, whom I assumed was Wyatt, said.
“Shillow, get off of him,” Raylee told her.
She did as she was told.
Harger helped Wyatt up and hugged him. “You’re alive. I knew you had it in you, mountain man.”
“It got us, Bud,” he said. “In its cave. I swear it was gonna eat us, but I had this stick and I got it, right in the foot. Distracted the monster long enough to get away.”
“There were two of you missing,” Dad said to Wyatt. “Where’s the other—”
He was interrupted when we heard the giant roar.
“I—I guess I didn’t distract it enough,” Wyatt said.
We started running.
“If you count the gorilla and the dino bird as one, that’s twenty of us,” Harger said.
Fiskerton and Zon didn’t like that.
“You’re gonna wanna count them separately,” I said.
“Ok. Twenty-one of us. That still gives us three groups of—”
“No groups,” Dad interrupted. “Doyle and I are going in for the last logger.”
“Hey, I think it’s great you two bonded,” Mom told him. “But this really isn’t the time for macho pride.”
We heard the giant roar.
“She’s right,” Doyle agreed. “I don’t mind more people going in. Maybe even different people, I am easy.”
“This isn’t macho pride,” Dad said. “It’s bait. We’re going in there to draw the allegewi out here. And you make much better low tech backward traps than I do.”
Mom nodded in agreement. Then turned toward Doyle. “Doyle, I’m sorry, but we’ll need as much man power as possible.”
He knew what she meant.
“Watch her.” He cut the vines from around Abbey’s hands.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Raylee said. “We will.”
“Van Rook doesn’t hire apprentices unless he knows they’ll finish the job,” Doyle said.
Abbey sighed. “Look, I don’t want to get eaten more than the rest of you. They’ll be time for business later.”
“Time to go, Doyle,” Dad said.
They picked up some sticks and ran inside the cave.
“We’ll need wood, as much as you can find,” Mom said.
We all ran off to get some, which was easy to get with the Hollingers super strength and all.
Sarah and I got some vines together and put sap all over it. Everyone else put together a couple of catapults and set easy enough to carry boulders right next to them. Some of the wood we also used for torches and Zack provided the fire for them.
We were all ready. Mom and Abbey held torches, Wyatt and Harger catapults, and the rest of us were going to attack the giant head on.
A few minutes later, Dad and Doyle ran out of the cave with the other logger and the giant was close behind them. Mom and Abbey held their torches up to stop him.
“Now!” Mom said.
Wyatt and Harger launched boulders at the giant. Some of us threw sticks and Sarah, Zack, and Raylee threw fireballs.
“Fisk, Zon, go!” Mom said.
They ran between the giants legs and hit them, then they pushed it in the back and it fell onto mine and Sarah’s vine trap.
“What’s on the vines?” Dad asked.
“Hickory sap,” Mom replied. “Zak’s idea.”
“Nature is my weapon,” I said.
“Mine too,” Sarah said.
“So what do we do with the monster?” Doyle asked.
“Relocation, I suppose,” Dad said. “We’ll need somewhere with plenty of open land and zero human population.”
“That wasn’t the one I meant.” He was referring to Abbey.
“This doesn’t have to happen, Doyle,” she said. “There’s a job to finish, but your family doesn’t have to go just yet.”
Doyle laughed a little. “And since when do you control the situation?”
“Oh, I don’t. He does.”
She grabbed the knife out of her boot and threw it at the vine net, cutting it up. The giant stood up. Abbey ran away.
That made me mad.
“Fisk, Hammer throw,” I said.
“Make it a double,” Doyle said.
He grabbed both of our arms and threw us at Abbey. We grabbed onto her and we went tumbling down a hill, stopping near the edge of a chasm. Then we noticed the giant running toward us.
“Tell your family I’m sorry,” Abbey said.
She pushed us both away and the giant tackled her into the chasm.
“Abbey!” we called.
We looked down into the chasm, hearing her scream all the way down, but she was gone.
Our family came up behind us.
“She—she sacrificed herself to save me and Zak,” Doyle said.
“I guess she loved both of us,” I said. “In, you know, different ways.”
We heard a sound from the chasm. We looked back and noticed her. She was climbing down with a grappling hook.
“Tell your family I’m sorry,” she told us. “But I will have to finish that job some day.”
“Man, she’s good,” Doyle said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Then, suddenly, some force pushed me forward and I fell into the chasm.
“Zak!” Sarah called.
She jumped into the chasm and flew toward me. She reached me and grabbed onto me before I could hit the bottom. Then she flew us both back up. When we got back up top, Mom gave me a hug.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, then turned to Sarah. “Thanks for saving me.”
“Don’t mention it,” she replied. “But how did you fall down there?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, well, well. I knew you couldn’t resist saving him,” a girls voice said from behind us. We turned around and saw Danielle, Sarah’s evil clone. “You’re so predictable.”
“What if I didn’t save him?” Sarah asked.
She shrugged. “Oops.”
That made Sarah grit her teeth. “What are you doing here? And where’s the rest of your family?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. But I’m only here to mess with you this time. Not fight. But we will fight soon with some other friends of mine.”
“Great. Can’t wait to meet them,” Sarah muttered.
“You already have,” Danielle said. “You and the Saturdays.”
Raylee narrowed her eyes. “We have? Who are they?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Oh, and you may have already figured this out, but just in case you haven’t, I was the one that threw that fireball at you guys while you were riding that tree. I’ve gotta admit, that looked pretty fun.”
“If you’re not here to fight, then could you just leave already?” Sarah said.
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll see you in Paris soon.”
“Paris?” Raylee asked, sounding a little uneasy. “Which Paris, exactly?”
Before she answered, she activated her powers and she was gone.
“Why did you sound . . . scared when she said Paris?” Zack asked his mom.
She looked sad, like she was having a bad memory. Pikachu and the animals seemed to understand. They rubbed up against her, giving her comfort.
“I can’t talk about it,” Raylee replied, her voice sounding about ready to break.
They didn’t ask her anymore questions.

We all headed back to the camp and Harger and his men went to catch up with Ruby. The rest of us, well, were moving on.
“So, I guess I’ll see you around,” Doyle said.
“You’re going after Abbey already?” I asked.
“No. I just need time to clear my head. I feel a little messed up now, you know? Hey, I’ll be in touch.”
He began walking away, but I stopped him.
“What? No. You can’t keep running away, Doyle,” I said. “What Abbey did, messed us all up, but you don’t have to deal with it alone.”
“Zak, there’s nothing wrong with always running away when someone or something turns bad and wanting to cope with it alone,” Raylee said.
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m not trying to.”
I just ignored her and focused back on Doyle. “You’re part of a family now. A family who—we . . . come on. I don’t wanna say it, and I know you don’t want me to say it.”
“We love you,” Mom finished for me.
“I wasn’t gonna say it either,” Dad whispered to me.
Raylee laughed.
Doyle sighed. “Alright then, family. We’re still gonna get payback on babysitter girl, right?”
“Oh, yeah,” I agreed.

**Sarah’s POV**
We headed back to the Saturday’s home.
I’ve been debating with myself on whether or not I should talk to Zak and try to patch things up between us all day, and I’ve decided that I will. So, after we had gotten back, I went to go talk to him in his room, where he was getting ready for bed.
“Hey, Zak, can I talk to you for a moment?” I asked.
“Umm, sure, Sarah,” he replied. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Us.”
“What about us?”
“Well, my mom and my twin brother told me that I should talk to you about what happened between us, and I’m gonna do just that. So, can you tell me what happened that day between you and Wadi?”
“Do you just wanna know because your family told you to, or because you want to?”
“I want to know.”
“Why?”
“Because I miss you,” I admitted. “A lot. Probably even more than I realize.”
Zak sighed. “I miss you, too.”
I found that a little hard to believe, given the past couple days, but my powers told me that he wasn’t lying, and they never lie.
“Ok,” I said. “So what happened?”
He told me everything. How my twin brother had accidentally pushed him into Wadi and that he somehow caught her lips and also how guilty he felt when I saw. Now I’m the one who feels guilty.
“I believe you,” I said.
“You do?” Zak asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“So you forgive me?”
“Actually, I don’t think you should be sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine because I was the one who was overreacting, so I shouldn’t be the forgiver, but the forgivee.”
“It was both our faults,” Zak said.
“How is it your fault?” I asked.
“It’s my fault because I didn’t fight for you and I should’ve. And I promise I won’t let that happen again.”
I smiled. “That’s so sweet. So you forgive me?”
“Only if you forgive me.”
In response, I leaned over and kissed him. “Does that answer your question?”
Zak smiled. “Yes.” He kissed me.
God, I’ve missed him kissing me, but mostly, I’ve missed him.
Then we heard someone giggling. We pulled away from each other and tried to find where that sound came from.
“Sarah,” Zak said, gesturing to the door.
I looked at it and saw the little girl we’ve seen many times before who doesn’t really say much, if anything, and appears and disappears whenever. She looked exactly the same, wearing the same clothes again.
“Hi,” I told her.
“Whatcha doing?” Zak asked her.
She just smiled at us.
“She is so cute,” I said.
“About as cute as you,” Zak said.
“I’d say cuter.”
“Maybe.”
The little girl laughed.
“Her laugh is also cute,” Zak noted.
“I know,” I agreed. “Cute as a button.”
“Buttons aren’t that cute. If at all.”
“I know. I don’t know why that’s a saying, because it’s not really true.”
She smiled at us one last time, waved, and ran out of the door.
“I’m not going to bother running after her again,” I said. “I know that I won’t find her, because she always disappears.”
“And appears out of no where,” Zak agreed. “I think she’s a ghost.”
“I’m beginning to think that too. But, then, how come only you and I can see her and no one else, and why?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I wish I did.”
“I do too.”
“So, changing the subject, you won’t admit that you like Wadi, but you’ll admit you like Abbey?” I asked.
“Can we not talk about that, please?” Zak said.
“Ok.”
“But can we talk about how you and your family seemed suspicious of Abbey from the beginning? Did you know that she was secretly working for Van Rook?”
I shook my head. “No. That was a complete surprise. When I first met her, my powers told me not to trust her, and they never lie. And the same with my mom and my twin brother. That’s why we acted so suspicious of her.”
“And you couldn’t have told us that?”
“Would you have believed us if we did?”
“Probably not,” he admitted.
“And that’s why we didn’t tell you.”
“Fair point.”
“Yes. And for the record, if you were the same age as Doyle, I bet you would’ve won her instead of him.”
“You really think so?”
I nodded. “Of course. You’re more sweeter and nicer then he us. Plus, you’re way more attractive.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not. I mean it. You’re a really great guy, Zak. Anybody would be lucky to have you.”
“Like you?”
“Yes.”
Zak snorted. “I’d say I’m more lucky to have you than you have me.”
“Oh, I beg to differ,” I protested.
We both laughed.
“But my mom is right,” I said, remembering what she said earlier. “A relationship isn’t a competition. It’s not to show off that you have the most prettiest girl, or the most handsomest boy. It’s not about anyone else but the two of you. A relationship is based on how much you love and care for the person that you’re with and that person feeling the same way.”
Zak nodded in agreement. “Like a family.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“Can I say that you are the most beautifullest girl I’ve ever met?”
“As long as you don’t show me off like some asshole, then yes.”
We laughed again.
“And speaking of my mom,” I said. “On my way to your room, I was walking by the living room and I noticed her and she had Emily with her, feeding her with a bottle, and she was talking to Doyle.”
“She was?” Zak asked.
“I know, right? And they were having a nice conversation. I find it kind of weird how she and your dad are now getting along with him since they both hated him so much when they met him. But I’ll get use to it eventually, I guess.”
“I know.”
I know it was getting late, and I felt tired. Too tired to walk back to my room.
“Umm, is it ok if I stay in here with you tonight?” I asked.
“Sure,” Zak replied. “We can share the bed together if you want.”
“Ok.”
We both climbed into his bed and snuggled up next to each other. Even kissing a few times, but eventually went to sleep.
I was so happy that we were back together, and I could tell Zak was happy too.

Sarah and Zak are back together. Yay. I think they're really cute, and the next chapter is going to be even cuter.
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## Character Appearances

### Main Characters

* Zak Saturday
* Drew Saturday
* Doc Saturday
* Sarah Hollinger
* Zack Hollinger
* Raylee Hollinger

### Minor Characters

* Doyle Blackwell
* Bud Harger
* Ruby
* Wyatt
* Danielle
* Selena (mentioned)
* Emily Hollinger (mentioned)
* Wadi (mentioned)

### Pets

* Fiskerton Saturday
* Komodo Saturday
* Zon Saturday
* Pikachu Hollinger
* Shillow Hollinger
* Amber Hollinger
* Kimbia Hollinger
* Kika Hollinger
* Chewie Hollinger
* Toto Hollinger
* Honey Hollinger

### Enemies

* Abbey
* Leonidas Van Rook

## Trivia

* Van Rook's first name is known.
* Sarah and Zak make up and get back together.