Magnus' POV

You know for a 5 year old, Madzie really knew how to cry. I wasn't overly familiar or even really fond of kids but something about her just sucked me in. Maybe it was her dimply little smile or her charming kid voice. All I know is that she had me wrapped around her tiny finger. But at the moment, I just wanted some peace and quiet.

"Sweet pea. Please. I need you to stop crying. We don't know if those zombies are all gone and your crying is just bringing more attention to us," I softly whispered in her ear. She'd been attached to my shoulder ever since we both watched Kit and Alec get swept away by the river.

She gripped my neck tighter in response. "I want my brother! Bring him back!"

I had to finally set her down in order to calm her breathing. Her hyperventilating could be felt even through our several layers of clothes. "Hey. Listen to me. I'm going to find Kit. We both are-Blue Bell too!"

Blue plopped herself beside Madzie and wagged her tail. She even gave Madzie a wet doggy kiss with her nose in an attempt to cheer her up.

Madzie wiped her tears. "How can Blue Bell help? She's a dog."

I smiled at this. "Well....I'll tell you how she can help. Dogs have an amazing sense of smell. They can smell things that we humans can't." I took out one of Kit's shirts out of my bag and held it to Blue's nose. "She can use Kit's scent and track him using her nose. If he's been around here, she'll pick up his smell and find him like that."

Madzie stroked Blue's fur with a tiny hand. "Find my brother, Blue. Please?"

Blue Bell sniffed Kit's shirt and quickly darted off. She knew what to do; she'd been tracking with Alec many times and was extremely good at it even if she wasn't part bloodhound. My guess was that she was part border collie and part German Shepard, so that would explain why she was so multi-talented.

She didn't seem to be picking up anything. We trailed behind her for an hour but she just kept stopping to smell trees and even peed on one of them at some point. Any response to a possible Kit trail was out of the question.

"How will we know when Blue finds Kit's scent?" Madzie asked.

"Um....she'll bark maybe. Or lie down where Kit might've walked. But we'll know. Trust me."

As luck may have it, it started to rain. Even someone with no experience with tracking knows that all scents are ruined when it rains and that's exactly what happened in our case. If Blue did find a scent (which it seemed like she did for a moment), she definitely lost it by now. It was obvious by her loud whines that she lost the trail.

"Why is Blue crying?" Madzie stroked the dog's wet fur, ignoring the rain that pelted down on her.

"She must've lost the scent when it started to rain. Come on, pumpkin. We need to get out of this weather for a while and warm up." I scooped her up into my arms again, pulling her hood up over her head. "There you go. Now you won't get any rain on your cute face."

We found an old fishing shack that stood about thirty feet away from the river. There was nothing inside so I ushered Madzie in and shut the door behind us. The floor was kind of wet and old so I laid out a deerskin that I'd skinned a few days ago along the floor for her to lay down on.

"Okay. Alright. We have a roof over our heads. We're still soaking wet and the fire situation is a bit of a bust...." I looked around for something to wrap Madzie up in but there was nothing to be seen. "Are you cold? Do you need another blanket over you?"

A visible shudder ran through her. "I'm-I'm okay. I'm not cold."

I snorted. "Don't lie, sweet pea. I can tell you're freezing cold." Shrugging off my coat, I draped it around her tiny shoulders. "Now you stay here with Blue while I try and find a way for us to build a fire. Blue? Stay."

Blue hung her head but happily edged closer to Madzie for a snuggle. Any chances of getting a cuddle, that dog was going to take it.

There really wasn't a place to put a fire, inside or out, but I had to try anyway. Madzie was freezing and to be honest so was I. Even setting up a small fire inside the shack would rack up the carbon dioxide and we'd all suffocate to death. At least we wouldn't be cold anymore, I suppose.

"You doing okay in there Madzie?" I called out from behind the shack.

A little voice answered "I'm a little cold but I'm okay! You?"

"I'm doing fantastic. Soaking wet but just fantastic. I'll be back inside in a few. Just....looking for a way to safely make a fire without killing us both...."

Oh my god, I was awful with kids. Alec had it much easier because he grew up with three younger siblings but me? I was an only child. Not to mention I wasn't exposed to kids very much growing up. Even as an adult the exposure was pretty much at a zero. Never had time for them. Funny how the apocalypse really tests you in more ways than one.

"Hey Magnus?" Madzie called out. "Why don't you just leave the door open and build the fire outside it or something?"

I trudged back to the front of the shack and looked down on her tiny form in the doorway. "Not a bad idea. But what if the wind changes direction and blows the smoke inside with us?"

She blinked. "The wind changes?"

Sighing, I nodded in defeat. "Fine. I guess that's our only and best option right now. You didn't want to make the fire, did you?"

Madzie shook her head. "Kit says I'm not allowed to start a fire by myself. Not without his sup...super...."

"....supervision?"

"Yeah. And Kit's not here so...."

Lovely. So the kid completely ignores the fact that I'm a grown man and can watch her as she makes the fire. Besides. It'd be quicker if I did it anyway. "Okey dokey then. I'll get that fire going. You just....hang in there. Holler if you see anything that looks dangerous."

Within a matter of minutes, we had a nice fire going just outside the fishing shack. Yes, I knew the risks of the entire place catching and burning down but it was still raining and the fire was quickly dying faster than I could put wood into it to keep it going.

"That's not a very good fire," Madzie commented through chattering teeth.

"Yeah. I know. It'd be much bigger if it wasn't raining so hard. But at least it's a bit warmer now right?" I wrapped an arm around her in attempt to warm her up even more. "You're a lucky girl. Blue Bell doesn't just give snuggles to anyone. She's very picky."

Madzie giggled. "I love Blue. She's a nice puppy."

I smiled down at the two of them cuddling together. "She's a good girl, isn't she? Alec and I were lucky to find her when we did. She was almost starving."

"She was?!" Madzie gasped. "That's bad! You fed her though. She's nice and fat now."

"I wouldn't call her fat," I chuckled. Just the look on Blue's face alone told me that she was offended by being called fat. "She's....muscular. That's from all the runs in the woods she went on with Alec over the last year."

Blue gave me a doggy smile at the compliment and cuddled in closer to my chest. Her tongue reached out to kiss my chin but I just gently moved her snout away with a hand.

"Can you tell me a story?" Madzie asked after several minutes of silence.

"A story? What kind of story?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. A nice one. One with a happy ending."

Oh boy. I didn't know any stories with a happy ending. Granted, I do read but most of the books I've read in the past are long forgotten. Plus most of my experiences in the last six years don't exactly have happy endings. "Alright then. I've got one for you. It's about a young man who's going through some hard times."

She cuddles in and gets comfortable by my side. "Does he have a name?"

"Let's call him Joe for now. Joe is living alone in this house before he decides to move and find another place. When he does find this new place, he lays eyes on the most beautiful man he's ever seen in his life."

Madzie gasped. "Who's the man?!"

I laugh at her enthusiasm. "The man was named Adonis. He was a gift from the gods themselves during the hard times. Joe couldn't believe what he was seeing. Every time he laid eyes on Adonis, his heart would skip a hundred beats and every time they locked eyes it always felt like the first time they were looking at each other. It stayed that way for as long as they knew each other."

My own heart ached at the thought of Alec but I managed to continue on. "Joe and Adonis went through a lot together. They saw things that nobody else would believe. They lost people they never thought they'd lose. But they never lost each other and their love was so strong that not even distance could break them apart."

Madzie smiled. "I like this story. Do Joe and Adonis have a happy ending?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Their story isn't over yet."

The fire eventually died and Madzie fell asleep pressed against my side. She was shivering slightly but between me and Blue, she had plenty of body heat to keep her warm inside this cold shack. Me? I couldn't fall asleep. Alec kept crossing my mind. Was he hurt? Was he safe out of the cold somewhere? The thought of not knowing was killing me inside. This is the farthest we've been apart in over a year. At least when he was on his hunts in the woods I knew he'd always come back.

Now I wasn't so sure he was going to.

Blue suddenly lift her head and let out a low growl. She shifted ever so slightly (probably trying not to wake up Madzie) and stared at the door to the shack, body and ears alert.

"What is it girl? What do you hear?" I strained my own ears to listen. There was a shuffling outside the little building as well as low snarls.

Forsaken. Shit.

I quickly got up and closed the door as quietly as I could. Luckily there was a lock on the inside so that sucker was quickly latched shut just as the sounds outside got closer. Blue was about to bark but I put a forefinger on her nose and a thumb below her chin, squeezing gently. Alec and I had trained her so that when we did this, it meant be quiet. She obeyed, continuing to stare at the now locked door in silence.

The growls passed by the shack. There was a good chance they didn't even know we were in here so just as long as Madzie stayed asleep, all would be well. She would probably scream and start crying again which is something I couldn't have; not only was it not safe but it was also irritating. Thankfully there were no windows but even so, the results could be disastrous.

I knew that the Forsaken had passed when Blue did her little circle dance and laid down on the deerskin again to cuddle into Madzie. Having a dog like her worked out perfectly; she could sense things I couldn't and pick up sounds long before they even reached my ears. She was a good girl and I loved her with my whole heart.

"Good girl," I whispered as I pat her head. "Good girl. Always on the job, aren't you?"

She whined happily when I buried my face in her fur. That's when Madzie woke up and yawned loudly.

"Why is the door closed?" She rubbed her eyes and yawned again. "Did I hear growling just then?"

If I told her the truth then she'd only start freaking out again. "No. That was my stomach. I'm starving....I'm actually craving waffles right now."

"What are....waffles?"

Oh boy. Giving a child "the talk" was bad enough but explaining waffles to a five year old? Waffles shouldn't even have to be explained. Waffles should should just automatically be known-

"Magnus? I asked you what a waffle was."

"Huh? Oh. Sorry. Waffles. They're a breakfast food. Light and fluffy, toasted to a perfect golden brown, can be doused in either maple syrup or molasses. Sometimes you can even put whipped cream on top. Butter is always an option too but I prefer some good old maple syrup-"

I realized that Madzie was staring at me in confusion and stopped talking. "Magnus? I don't know what any of that is. I know what butter is but everything else...."

I sighed and hugged her to my side. "You know what? When we find a nice place for the four of us to stay, I'll find some waffle making supplies and make you the most delicious waffles you'll ever taste. How does that sound?"

She nodded and yawned. "Sounds good. You make waffles sound yummy."

"Of course I do," I booped her nose. "Go to sleep, sweet pea. I'll wake you up once the rain stops."

After squirming around for a comfortable spot she finally cuddled in. "Do you think Kit and Alec are okay?"

I really didn't know the answer to that so I made something up. "Absolutely. Alec loves the rain. It puts him to sleep. He's probably having a fantastic little snooze right now. Kit too."

A snore indicated that Madzie had fallen asleep again. Pulling my coat up over her, I too closed my eyes and thought about Alec, silently sending a prayer out that he was okay.

"I'm okay Alec," I whispered. "I'll find my way back to you. I promise."