I race by him, but he’s fast. Ian is always so fast. I should have known he isn’t human. He grabs me around the waist. Another bone in my arm cracks and my knees buckle. The shock is wearing off and pain slashes through my arm and into my shoulder. I try to grab my arm with my good hand, but he holds on so tightly that I can’t move.
“Just let me kiss you, Zara,” he says in a lovely convincing voice, like he’s asking for an order of french fries at a diner.
“Just do it, Ian,” Megan orders.
He hugs me tighter. A scream breaks through the room. It’s my scream. The bone sticking out of my arm sends warm, wet blood down my arm. Ian’s eyes turn wild. He licks my blood. It covers his lips.
“You don’t have to say yes,” he hisses. “It’s just easier that way. It’s like when you’re at the dentist. The more you fuss, the harder things are, the longer it takes, the more likely you are to get hurt.”
“I hate dentists,” I say, trying to twist away. My hand, the one that’s scraped like a rune, glows. I press it against his face. He screams but doesn’t let go.
A growling noise seems to come from somewhere. Maybe me? Ian moves closer. I stare at his blood-covered lips. They are full and cold. I know they’re cold.
“No,” I say, sobbing from the pain but still trying to wiggle free somehow.
We both fall. The floor smacks against us. Ian’s eyes fill with need.
“I need this, Zara,” he says. “I need . . . Please, help me, Zara. I need you to . . . I can’t stand it, just being regular, just being a minion.”
Megan yells, “Ian!”
His lips come closer to mine. I push at him, woozy, dizzy. I’ve lost too much blood. I can barely keep my eyes open.
“No,” I whisper. “Please . . . no.”
But his arms are tight and his lips are close and he has this need. And me? I can’t do it anymore. Ducking my head down against his chest to avoid his lips, I fall toward darkness.
Nosocomephobia
fear of hospitals
The growls aren’t human.
I know that.
Even though I can’t open my eyes, can’t make my mouth form one dumb word, I know that the growls aren’t human or pixie.
“She’ll be okay, she’ll be okay,” a voice says. A girl’s voice.
The world makes no sense. Snow covers it. I am beneath the snow. That’s it. Right? The snow covers me, heavy, blank, white.
A man’s voice: “I’ll kill him.”
The girl again: “She already did.”
Something wet touches my cheeks. A washcloth? A tear?
The man again: “This is my fault, all my fault. I didn’t protect her.”
Nick?
Betty’s voice: “Yes, you did. I have to splint her arm. She’s lost so much blood.”
Betty! Gram!
Someone touches my arm and the pressure startles me back, out of the snow, back into the concrete room. I scream.
“Zara!”
The girl: “She has a massive lump on her head. And her arm’s so broken.”
The world fades away again. I hear another voice, my dad’s voice.
“Zara, hold on,” he urges me. “Hold on.”
“Daddy?” someone says. I reach out, looking for something to grab on to, but someone holds my arm down.
“She’s hallucinating.”
The snow comes down inside me, above me, all around me.
“It’s cold,” a voice says. “I’m so cold.”
The snow falls and falls and falls and I let it bury me. There is nothing else to do. It is so cold.
They won’t let me go.
“Zara,” one of the voices insists. “Zara, we need to get you out of here. Can you sit up?”
I try to swim through the snow, back up to someplace warm. And I do, but pain hits me, shoots through my arm, pounds in my head. I flutter my eyes and open them, but I can’t focus.
“Nick?”
“I’m right here, sweetie.”
“My mother calls me sweetie,” I croak out. Why is my voice so faint and funny, hoarse yet whisper thin? Where’s my mother?
I gasp as someone puts something on my arm. I try to open my eyes again. “I can’t see.”
“Did he kiss her?” a girl asks.
It’s Issie. Issie? Why is Issie here?
“I don’t think so, not for long anyway. I came right in,” Betty answers. “Nick, did you see him kiss her?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It hurts,” I manage to say. “Please make it stop hurting.”
“Okay. Okay, sweetie. It’s okay,” Nick’s voice comes again, close to my ear. I grab his shoulder with my free hand. It’s naked. A naked shoulder. “We have to get you out of here, get you to a doctor. Okay?”
I nod. My hand presses against his skin like it wants to burrow in and hide. “You’re so warm.”
Issie’s voice soothes me. “We’ll take care of you, Zara. Don’t worry.”
My eyes start to focus on Nick’s face. His eyes—perfect, brown, and human—stare at me, blending into the walls, into my unconsciousness.
“Don’t leave me.” My hand drops from Nick’s shoulder. I can’t keep it up.
Cold. Ice. Frozen. Death.
Novercaphobia, fear of your stepmother.
Nucleomituphobia, fear of nuclear weapons.
Nudophobia, fear of nudity.
Numerophobia, fear of numbers.
Nyctohylophobia, fear of dark wooded areas or of forests at night.
Everybody always leaves.
“Don’t worry,” Issie says. “We won’t leave.”
Everybody always leaves.
“Don’t let Ian . . .”
Gram growls. “You don’t have to worry about Ian anymore.”
Nick pulls me against him. He is so warm, burning warm, and it hurts to be moved. I scream. Even as he holds me, the cold and the darkness comes, waiting to take me again.
I wake up in the hospital. My arm is hoisted above my head and encased in white plaster.
“Nick?” I whisper.
Gram jumps up and grabs my good hand. Her face cracks into a half smile and there are tears in her eyes. “Zara?”
I blink. The light hurts my head.
“It’s bright in here,” I try to say.
She lets go of my hand.