Marked

Chapter Three

"That's good, Rachel. Just take care of the tots for me and I'll handle the little ones until our other helper arrives at noon."

She glanced at a clock above the door and forced a smile even though she felt like grimacing. Two hours until reinforcements arrived. For now, she had to find a way to sedate the little ones. They were beginning to gnaw their cookies down to stumps and she needed to find something to entertain them before they started crying again.

She moved around the room, careful not to step on any of the sharp, impaling toys until she reached a bin of crayons. She plucked a few blank sheets of paper and went back to her group of seven toddlers.

"Do you guys want to color?"

"No!" Rachel jumped back, surprised to hear intelligible sound come from one of them. A little girl with brown pigtails who looked to be about four. "More cookies!" She demanded.

"But snack time is over...um...what is your name?" Rachel asked.

"I'm Magdaleeeena." The way she said it was adorable, the way she thwacked Rachel on the leg, not so much.

"Give me more cookie!"

Across the room, Lexi shot Rachel a sympathetic smile. "What do I do?" Rachel asked. "Do I give her another cookie?"

"You just gotta be smarter than them, Rachel. I'm going to change Penny in the bathroom, just, try to hold the fort down while I'm gone, okay? No more cookies." Lexi's went into the bathroom, her brown ponytail disappearing and with it the last hope for salvation.

"More cookies!"

"Hey, listen, how about we play a game? Let's play hide and seek, I'll count first!"

"No! More cookies!" Now another child had joined the resistance. Rachel glanced at the cookies, wondering how fast she could shove a cookie into each of their mouths before Lexi came back and caught her. She didn't remember it being this hard with Jed, but then again Jed had only been three years younger than her and such a calm kid.

"Cookies, cookies, cookies!" They chanted. Rachel took a step back and took a spill over a red fire truck, landing hard on her backside and causing the crayons in her hands to go flying out into the air.

"Magdalena, you little trouble-maker, stop terrorizing my girlfriend."

Rachel blew strands of hair out of her face and turned to the sound of Hector's voice, found him leaning against the counter, his lips working hard to contain his laughter.

"How long have you been standing there?" She asked, feeling her cheeks burn red both from embarrassment and at having him refer to her as his girlfriend.

"Not long." He grinned.

"What are you doing here?"

"I work here," He replied with a shrug. "And that one's mine." He pointed at the little girl that had been terrorizing her for the past couple of minutes.

"This is your sister?" The little girl shot Rachel a big-eyed glare.

"Sure is." Hector jumped over the gate, scooped Lena into one arm and extended the other to Rachel. She took it and once she was on her feet, she closely examined the little girl, found that her and Hector shared the same big, brown eyes, the curly, dark hair. She could have easily passed as his daughter.

"I'm terrible at this," She explained as she gestured around the room. "I don't know anything about kids."

"It's easy, C'mon, I'll show you."

...........................................................................

A few hours later, Lexi had gone to get lunch and Hector had set up a bunch of colorful mats and blankets for the children to lie on. By some type of magic unbeknownst to her, he'd gotten them all to take a nap.