I exhale, everything inside of me relaxing. “Really?”
“I swear.”
He looks so solid and worried and sweet, very, very sweet. I don’t know how I’d manage without him there, with me. My eyes close. They are so heavy.
“I’m scared, Nick.”
He squeezes my hand and his face hardens. He fiddles with my blanket, tucks it around me, just like my grandmother had. I am very well tucked.
“I hated what he tried to do to you.” Nick chokes a little bit, all emotional. “Turning you into one of them. You could never be one of them.”
But aren’t I already? If my father is one. It means it’s in my blood, but Nick doesn’t know that. Nick can’t ever know that. I reach out my good hand and touch Nick’s cheek. It’s all rough, stubbly. “Would you hate me if I was? If I was a pixie?”
His eyes search my eyes. “No.”
I don’t think either of us know if he’s telling the truth.
“What about the other ones?”
He lifts an eyebrow. He has beautiful eyebrows. “The other ones?”
“The pixies, the other pixies?”
Sometimes when cats see a mouse, they torture it. They could kill it easily with one good bite, one swipe of the claw, but instead they play with the mice. They torture them, watch them suffer. The mouse always tries to run away, but always knows there’s no hope, that the cat can get them any time, anywhere. I am worried that pixies are like that.
“Issie and Devyn have been out looking. They haven’t seen any signs.” He pulls a hand through his hair and then uses that same hand to massage the back of his neck. Blue half circles shadow the skin beneath his eyes. He seems so tired.
“So they’re gone?” I ask, hopefully. I search his face. “Do you think they’re gone?”
“I think they’re regrouping. I think it will take them a while, but they’ll be back.” He sighs and then straightens his back. “We’ll be ready for them, in any case. It’s okay, Zara. It’s over for now.”
“Are you sure?”
I open my eyes for just a second to see his nodding, beautiful face hovering just inches above mine. “I’m sure. They can’t turn you now, you’re too hurt. You have too many drugs in your system. You’d die. You’re no good to them dead, not yet, not until after you’ve turned.”
He runs his hands along my shoulders and I shiver, a good shiver.
His voice comes out husky. “I swear I won’t let that happen.”
I close my eyes again. It’s so hard to stay awake, to think. I murmur, “You’re nice, aren’t you, Nick? You’re nice?”
His lips kiss my forehead. “I try.”
I call her. Of course I call her. She’s my mom.
“Zara!” Her voice is frantic. “I’m all packed. I’m still at the airport, waiting for a flight. Everything keeps getting delayed because of the damn storm. That doesn’t matter. What matters is, are you okay? Oh, God, I can’t believe you got hurt.”
“Did Gram tell you what happened?”
I can hear her suck in her breath. “Yes.”
I am silent. I wait. A nurse walks down the hall.
Finally, she says, “I thought it was all over.”
The hospital is a boring, plain white; a blank slate. “Tell me why we lived in Charleston. Was it just because we were hiding? Were you only with Daddy because he kept you safe?”
“I owe you a lot of answers, Zara, but I swear to you that I was with Daddy because I love him.”
“Yep.”
I can almost imagine her twisting at an earring, trying to figure out what to say. “We were hiding. I was hiding.”
“From the head pixie guy?”
“Yes.”
“The king?”
“Yes.”
“And why did he want to get you so badly?” I want to hear her say it. I want her to tell me.
“I double-crossed him, Zara. I did something he wanted but only under certain conditions. Those conditions made him weaker, and . . . and . . . he wanted me to stay. When Daddy died, I . . . I thought he’d come after me, not you. I thought he’d be down here and you’d be safe with Betty up there. I thought—”
“Is he my father? My biological father?”
“How do you know that?”
“Mom?” I press her.
“Yes. Yes, he is your father.”
“So I’m part pixie?”
“No. No, you aren’t. You’re all human because we never kissed, I never turned. Don’t you see? I think that’s part of the problem, part of why he’s so weak. I mean, I’m not a hundred percent positive but I think to be strong he needs to have an actual pixie queen, a soul mate—”
But I don’t want to hear any more. I hang up the phone.
“Everything will be okay,” I tell myself in the muted light of my hospital room.
Nurses pitter-patter down the hallways. Someone’s TV in another room plays an action movie. There are a lot of gunshots and explosions.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, but all my dreams are about my mother reaching out her arms and me turning away.
Gram brings me home the next day. My mother’s flight was canceled, along with 223 other flights along the eastern seaboard. She is trying again today. If nothing works she’s going to drive the fourteen hundred miles herself.
“She’s trying awful hard,” Gram says.
“Yep.”
The roads and driveway have been plowed and the trip in her truck isn’t too bumpy.
The snow covers everything, glistening, pure.
“It looks beautiful,” I say as she turns into the drive. “Did my dad like the snow?”
She nods. “He did. But he liked the warmth more, like you. You two are a lot alike. Always liking it warm. Always having your causes.”
“I wrote my first Amnesty letters with him.”
“I know.”
“You really think we’re alike, even though we aren’t related?” I reach around my body with my left hand to open the door. It jostles my broken right arm and I cringe.
“Blood isn’t always the strongest link,” she says, hopping out of the truck. “Let me help you with that door.”
She puts her arm around my waist and we hobble through the snow together.