Chapter 1 - Well, this is a little awkward

The sound of the gunshot was followed by the sound of the gun falling to the floor. Louise didn't expect to kill anyone, this wasn't how tonight was suppose to go.

She had left home on her 14th birthday. It wasn't something that she had planned on, it just happened. She had always had a temper and on that day it had gotten the best of her. She didn't know what she was going to do or where she was going to go.

The first place that she went to was Mr. Fischoder. She felt like she knew enough about him to take advantage of the situation. He did agree to let her stay, under the condition that she did some odd jobs for him. 'Nothing really, just some little stuff'. He promised that he wouldn't tell anyone that she was there as long as she didn't tell anyone what she was doing. 'No reason'. She felt like Felix didn't want her there but he didn't live in the house so she didn't have to worry about him.

For some reason, he gave her a gun. He told her that she didn't need it but just in case anything should happen... But nothing was going to happen.

Just a couple of days after she left her parents came to Mr. Fischoder's house to look for her. He did a really bad job of lying to them but he was weird enough that it worked. From the window in her new room she could see Felix climbing down from his tree house as her parents were leaving. She loaded up the giant slingshot in Mr. Fischoder's widow's walk with the first thing she could find and fired at him, knocking him down before he could tell on her.

She didn't miss her family... well maybe a little bit. Her family was so weird but that was what made them special and fun. She used to have fun doing dangerous things with her siblings but this was OK too. She was free now though. She could do anything she wanted to, she lived by her own rules.

She didn't think that Mr. Fischoder was going to keep her hiding spot a secret for very long so she needed to think about what she was going to do after this. She was surprised when she had finished her first job he handed her a huge stack of bills. She had never had this much money in her life.

New plan. She was just going to stay here until she had enough money to move out on her own. At this rate, it wasn't going to take very long.

At first the jobs weren't very hard, just collecting things from people, money or sometimes some weird objects like vases and stuff. Most people were cooperative with her, they knew why she was there and who she was working for. This time was different. He had fought back, he didn't have the money that she needed to collect. She thought that he was going to kill her and so she shot.

With a deep, shaky breath she left his home. She didn't think that anyone was going to come in here; she was pretty sure that he lived alone. She didn't know what to do.

She nearly ran all the way home... well, Mr. Fischoder's house. Her hand was shaking as she tried to put the key in the lock. It took her much longer than she wanted it too. She slammed the door, forgetting to lock it behind her. She ran up the stairs and was heading to her room when a sleepy Mr. Fischoder stood in her way with a really old gun pointed in her face.

"Mr... Mr. Fischoder... I didn't mean to... I- he was" she was stumbling over her own words. "Hush now, Belcher child," come to my room. She had never gone into his room before, for obvious reasons, but today was a little too crazy for her. Not that she thought that he would actually do anything but better safe than sorry.

He led her to his gothic style room. He sat on the bed and she sat next to him. He took a breath before saying, "Now tell me everything." She told him what happened in as much detail as she could.

"Hm," he nodded, "I see. Don't worry, I'll take care of it for you." He patted her knee. "You just go and lay down and let me take care of this." Slowly she made her way back to her room, leaving the awkward old man to himself.

When she got back to her room she tried to lay down but was still a little too jittery. She got up and started walking around the room. She couldn't help but think about everything that had happened. She suspected that he had planned that from the beginning. It was no secret that Mr. Fischoder had some illegal dealings but she didn't think that he would set her up like that. Or maybe he would. The question was, why would he have her kill him and not hire someone more professional.

She bit her lip as she looked out her window. She wished that she couldn't see Kevin's treehouse but there it was, just across the lawn, ruining her view. It was never her dream to work in a restaurant for the rest of her life. When she was younger she liked to imagine herself as a cool secret agent that killed when she needed to but it didn't feel like this.