Swiftly and silently, I moved towards the door post on my left. Target confirmed. Now, all I have to do is just creep up very carefully... there's a creaking floorboard over by his desk, don't forget... and strike!

I jumped forward and lunged at the back of my little brother, but I was too slow. He turned around - like the ninja he most probably is - and stood up, crashing forward into my stomach. We both went clattering to the floor and laughed like the little kids we were while trying to get each other to succumb to tickle torture. I must admit, I really have a good relationship with my eleven-year old brother. I know that for a lot of people, their little brothers or sisters make their lives utterly miserable, or vice versa. But then again, we were a special kind of idiots.

"Maya, Tim, minimize those bloody soundwaves! I'm trying to watch a show here!", our mom exclaimed irritably from the floor below. That's wat she did. Watch shows. It was her religion, you could say. And they were the cheesiest kind of crap there was. You know. Man saves woman, woman swoons, they get together and make babies. Hooray!

Nah. Still not my thing. And I'm even trying to make it sound good.

We hushed each other and giggled. This was a scenario we saw everyday.
"Say...mayaaa?", he pleaded. Oh God. No. Here it comes. No wonder he wasn't all that aggressive in his counter attacks today.

I sighed. "Yeeeees?"

"Can I borrow your copy of that Assassin's Creed book you're reading? It's about history, right?", he looked up at me with shining eyes. Damn. But no.

"I'm sorry Tim, but that copy I have is a ... special copy."

"How is it special?"

"Well... it's a bit more spicy." I wasn't about to explain to him the details of what spicy really meant.

"Did you spill pepper in it then?" He looked at me, quizzically.

"Oh hun... um...-" I tried, but I had been saved from a sudden mental mind roasting when my older sister busted into the room, tears streaming down her cheeks, but with an odd, desperate look in her eyes. I couldn't quite pin it down.

"MAYA."

"...present."

"Does it really end that way?", she breathed in shallow breaths. "Because it can't!" A sniff followed by "I know you're hiding a sequel somewhere!" One last intake of breath.

"I AM GOING TO FIND IT EVEN IF IT KILLS ME."

Next she turned on her heels, banged the door shut, with an annoyed complaint from our mother down below, and she was gone.

"This is about that book too, right." Tim said. It didn't even sound like a question, more like a fact.

"Definitely."

"I think I don't want to read it anymore."

"And why is that?"

"Because Jules only cries when it's some sort of romance book."

"...true."

I held back a a relieved sigh. In reality, it wasn't much of a romance book, but a spin-off that included an assassin that went by the name of Ethan Steele.