Maverick didn't see Milly for the rest of the day, or into the night, either. That was fine, he figured she'd gotten mad and was ignoring him. He made himself a TV dinner, played video games all night, and when he woke back up in the morning, Milly still wasn't around.

She'd done this a couple times before. Fallen asleep in the library, gotten locked out of the apartment and panicked, sleeping outside instead of calling him, that kind of thing. Maverick wasn't really that worried.

It was a Saturday now, anyway, so Milly could've come home late and gone out early. There were plenty of explanations, and Maverick wasn't going to pretend to be concerned.

He sat alone in the living room, eating his second bowl of cereal, some adult cartoon playing on the TV. It was almost eleven when the door opened, Milly coming in with her school bag and a bright yellow raincoat, the duckling hood still pulled over her head.

Maverick didn't even realize it was raining.

"Well well, look who decided to finally show up. Where the Hell have you been?"

Milly ignored him, peeling out of her coat, setting her things up on the rack and squeezing out her hair.

Maverick rolled his eyes.

"Are you seriously giving me the silent treatment right now? You just disappear for twenty-four hours and then do this shit? What if I reported you missing to the cops? What if I thought you ran away?"

"You didn't think I ran away." Milly said flatly, opening the fridge to get a soda.

"Well where were you, then?"

Milly looked over her shoulder at him.

"I went to the school. I played hopscotch. I made a new friend." She shrugged and Maverick's eyebrows went up.

"... seriously?"

"Seriously what?" Milly snapped, crossing her arms. Maverick laughed, standing up and walking over to her. When he was straightened up he stood almost two feet taller than her, but she didn't back down when he glared at her.

"I played hopscotch, I made a new friend" He mocked her voice.

"Are you seriously trying to fuck with me?"

Milly looked at him like she had no idea what he was talking about.

"You're not going to gaslight me into getting my friends together so you can go 'prove' that you summoned a fucking ghost."

Milly kept staring blankly at him.

"First of all, that's not gaslighting. Second of all, I didn't say anything about you or your friends, at all. You asked me what I was doing and I told you."

"You're LITERALLY trying to make it sound like you summoned a fucking ghost!"

Milly shook her head.

"I'm not trying to do anything-- I'm just telling you what I did. I'm going back to the school tonight, and I don't need you or your friends to go with me."

"Milly, oh my God, there's no such thing as ghosts."

She shrugged.

"Okay, you're right. There's no such thing as ghosts. So leave me alone. I'm going to go play with my new friend tonight."

Maverick groaned, throwing his face in his hands.

"You are such a manipulative little brat sometimes."

"I am literally not doing anything! Stop treating me like I'm a bitch or something! I don't have to prove anything to you!"

Milly stormed out of the room, slamming her door shut.

Maverick slowly blinked his eyes, rolling them as if he was so beyond tired of his sisters bullshit. She wanted to pull his leg like that? Fine. He'd just call her bluff. And then, when absolutely nothing happened, he'd call her out for being an arrogant little liar.

She hadn't gone to the school last night, and if she had, nothing happened. But until he and his friends went along with her, she'd just keep acting crazy, pretending like she'd seen the ghost and it was no big deal, and they were all a bunch of losers for not believing her.

Fine.

Fine.

--

"Milly, come on, hurry up." Maverick banged on her door a third time, the door finally flying open. Milly stood in front of him and a handful of his friends, fully dressed like she was going to school, despite the fact that it was nearly midnight and she should've been in her pajamas.

She crossed her arms, glaring up at him.

"I'm not taking you guys with me. I'm going by myself. You don't believe me, so why should you go with me?" She shouldered past him, her nose turned up as his friends parted behind him.

"Jesus dude, what did you do to her?" Eric leaned over his shoulder, watching Milly walk past them.

"She's never that angry--" Eric had known Maverick for an entire lifetime, and if he wasn't mistaken, Eric had also been the first person to ever tell him the Bunny Girl story. So, of course, he was there, along with Bridgette, Eric's girlfriend, Madison, the girl that Maverick thought about when he touched himself at night, and Cameron, who nobody really liked but was there anyway.

Milly just grabbed a tub of chalk from her back pack and started out the door.

Everyone looked at each other in silence for a moment before taking off after the kid.