"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, tear 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," lssie 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.
Fear cramps my stomach. "Don't go."
"I'm just shutting off the lights," she says, flicking it off. She hustles back and takes my hand again. "You had me some worried, little one."
"Am I okay?" My voice starts to sound a little better.
"You have a nasty break. Two bones in your arm. You have a concussion, a serious one to add to your minor one. You also have bruised ribs."
I would shrug if I could. Instead, I try to smile. "That's all?"
She laughs and squeezes my hand a little bit. Then her face twists into something serious. "Do you remember what happened?"
I lie to my grandmother. "No."
She bites her bottom lip a little and watches me. "Nick said that you-" I try to sit up, but it's too hard. "Mick? Is he here?"
"I sent him home. He's been here all night. That lssie girl too, and Devyn. They were wiped out. I don't know how many phone calls I had to make to their parents saying they were okay. Finally, they just had to go-" My heart drops.
"They didn't want to leave, especially Nick."
Gram wiggles her eyebrows. I can feel myself blush.
"He's a cute boy, that one," Betty says. She lets go of my hand and smoothes the hair off my forehead.
"I've called your mother, who is hysterical, blaming herself for sending you up here. She's trying to find a flight in, but the whole East Coast is one big mess. There's a massive storm front. I've never seen anything like it. It's not even officially winter yet."
She holds a glass of water to my mouth. I swallow. It tastes like metal.
"She doesn't need to come."
"I told her that." She settles the water on the side table. "But maybe she does. I haven't exactly done a good job taking care of you."
"Sure you have."
She chokes a little laugh out. "Right. That's why you're here in the hospital with another concussion and a broken arm."
I avoid her eyes and focus on the light weight of the hospital blanket that covers me. "So, was that you?
Growling?"
She nods, squeezes my hand.
"Holy crap," I whisper.
"You keep talking like that you'll end up sounding like me."
I gulp. "Was Daddy?"
"He kept you and your mother safe for a long, long time, Zara." Her voice trembles. "He loved you both so much."
She pulls the blankets up a little higher. "I'm sorry, Zara. Your mom and I, well we didn't know there was more danger. There hadn't been any danger for over a decade. Even when the Beardsley boy went missing, I hoped that it was a human who took him or that he did run away. It's foolish." She runs a hand across her eyes. "People don't want to see the truth sometimes."
"Not if it's a bad truth," I agree. "I've been denying everything. That there were pixies… that there was something supernatural going on… how hollow I've been… who my father is."
She looks at me and gives the tiniest of nods. "I've made a fine mess of it. I'm getting too old to battle pixies."
"That's not what I hear," I say. I take her hand. There are age spots across her delicate skin, but her fingers are long and powerful. "Why didn't mom come?"
"Even your dad couldn't have kept her safe here."
"Why?"
She runs a hand through her hair. "It's the king's hometown. Her presence here would have driven him crazy no matter how hard he tried to control it. If the king knew she was right here, he'd have to come after her. He wouldn't be able to resist."
"So we were hiding? All that time in Charleston? My whole life? We were hiding?" My head tries to wrap itself around it, but I can't. The world is so different than I thought, so totally, ridiculously different.
She nods. "I'm sorry that Ian got to you, Zara. I know I let you down."
"Where were you? I thought you were hurt when you didn't come back home."
"The truck broke down halfway. Someone sabotaged it. I started hiking back and it was taking forever, so I turned. Then I realized that the pixie had already beat me to the house, so I hid out, waiting. I knew you were safe at home but I also knew you wouldn't stay at home. I figured you'd leave and when you did the pixies would strike. I wasn't quick enough, though. I should've gone after you first instead of getting Nick out of the net."
"No," I say. "That was the right thing. And then you followed us to where Ian and Megan took me." "It was an easy smell to trace." I solid the question out. "Did you kill him?" "If I hadn't, your boyfriend would have." Ian is dead. She killed him. Probably ripped him apart like tigers do. I shudder.
"He's not my boyfriend."
"Ha. That's a good one. I saw you two tonsil surfing out there."
I could kill her. "I don't even have tonsils!"
"I know that and I bet Nick knows that now, too." She slaps her leg because she's just too funny for words. The door opens and Nick stands there, filling out the frame. He rushes over to my bed and hovers over me but doesn't touch.
"Well, well, well, speak of the devil," she says, snickering a little bit and standing up. "Looks like you've got company, so I'm going to run and get some decent coffee. We both know I just make horse swill."
She kisses my forehead and searches my eyes with hers. I don't know what she expects to see.
Then she turns to Nick. "You going to stay here for a bit?"
He nods.
"You take good care of her. She's the only granddaughter I have, okay?"
He stands a little straighter, the way people do when Betty gives an order.
"I promise."
"Good." She marches out the door, leaving us alone.
The moment he seems sure she's gone, Nick bends over and kisses my cheek. My lips feel abandoned.
His other hand touches my cheek.
"I was so worried about you," he says.
"You left."
"Betty made me. I was just hiding in the other room."
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.