My mom leaves her white square, coming to put her arm around me. It feels good. "He did what?"
"I was getting desperate," he explains.
"That's lame. That's a lame excuse," I say, as Jay crumples to the floor. I try to catch him, but I'm too small even though he is light.No pixies even try to break his fall. "And now it's time for us to go. I don't suppose you guys have a wheelchair or anything I could put Jay in."
My mother stiffens next to me. "Zara…"
I don't want to look at her face, but I do. I almost double over, the hole inside of me is so big, so huge.
"Mom?"
"What else can I do, Zara?"
"And you'll just stay here? With him? The torturer?"
She nods, one slow movement of her head. She keeps her hands on my shoulders.
I stomp my foot like a baby. "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard."
"I know you don't always believe it, but you are the most important thing in the world to me, and I must keep you safe." Her eyes sweep over my cast, take in Jay on the floor, and then she kisses my cheek before turning away from me, turning to him. "You'll let them go. You promise. You'll let them go and never bother them again if I stay here right now?"
He nods. "I promise."
"Mom!"
She pulls me to her one last time. "I'm so sorry, Zara. I thought this wasn't inevitable, but it is. What's my freedom compared to-" "He'll make you a pixie," I insist. "One of them."
She doesn't answer.
I pull away. "You said inevitable. Nothing is inevitable."
Pixies pry me away. They carry me to the door, take me out into the snow, and drop me there. Two more plop Jay Dahlberg beside me.
"You could have at least given him some clothes!" I yell, but they just go back inside and close the door.
"Hell," Jay mumbles. "Hell. It's cold."
"Donot worry," I say, yanking him up with one hand. He barely makes it. "I have a plan."
We hobble toward the boundary of the woods. I take off my jacket, try to get it on him. It's way too short and small, even though he's so skinny now, but it's something.
"What are we going to do?" He shudders.
His feet are blue and naked.
"We are going to get help," I say as we make it to the woods. I whistle and then I yell. "Gram!"
Nothing.
"Mick!"
Above us an eagle circles. It screeches. Two seconds later they storm out of the woods, a massive white tiger and a wolf, a beautiful brown wolf. They are wild and fierce looking. Gram is beautiful but so… so… I don't know. She's strong. Her muscles are massive, feral, gorgeous. And Nick? Nick is here. He came back to help, like he said he would before he found out about the whole pixie gene thing.
I raise my hand and smile so big my teeth hurt from the cold.
"Holy…Holy…" Jay staggers back.
"You're hallucinating," I tell him. "Do not stress."
He passes out, which is only to be expected. I half catch him with my good arm, stagger, and place him gently on the ground.
Both Gram and Nick are growling and angry; teeth bared, ready to kill and ready to spring and tear before they are killed. But I know there are too many pixies in there for them to handle. I know that killing is not cool, no matter how awful people or pixies are.
"Ihave a better idea," I tell them. "You've got to trust me. We're going to go into phase two of my amended plan. It's amended since Mom came early. I guess it's part plan and part rescue mission. I'll tell you at home, okay?"
The first thing we do is wake Jay up, sort of. We balance him on Gram's back. She will drop him off where someone will find him quickly. I take my jacket so there's nothing tracing him back to me. She leaps off into the woods, and Nick and I head back to my house, where we will call lssie, wait for Gram, and then start the plan. Because I think I have one and it sure as hell better work.
Phone service is back up and Devyn calls lssie, and then leaves to bring her over. Gram calls Mrs. Nix, the school secretary.
"She's a bear," Betty explains after she hangs up the phone. "I trust her."
I don't even blink.
Nick stalks around the room, angry, not really looking at me.
Finally I grab him by the arm and say, "What?"
"You went with him."
Something inside me bristles. "He threatened you."
"I can take care of myself, Zara." He yanks his arm away and heads into the kitchen, where Gram is studying the silverware.
"It was part of the plan that I go outside with him," I say. "We talked about it at the hospital. You know that. I was the bait. You and Gram would attack. It almost worked perfectly."
"Only because I came back with Devyn. Only because he saw what direction he took you in." "We had no choice. We had to get Jay." Betty holds up a fork. "Do you think there's iron in this?"
I blow her off and shout down Nick. "I found out where they were. Did you ever think of that? Now we can go after them, trap them there."
"How do you propose we do that, genius?" He leans against the counter, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Gram coughs. "No name calling."
"Yeah," I say. "No name calling, dog breath."
Gram tries not to laugh. She holds up her hands.
"I'm going to go wait in the living room while you two lovebirds kill each other."
"We can find the house again by retracing our scent trail, right?"
"It won't last long. Not with the snow," he mutters.
"That's why we're doing this now."
He eyes me and something in his shoulders relaxes. "How do I know? How do I know you aren't in on it? Aren't pixied?"
Gram calls in from the other room, "Because she couldn't wear the iron bracelet, dog."
"Hey. Now who's name calling?" I yell, smiling, before I look back at Nick. He's bending over at the waist like he has a stomach cramp. I reach out to almost touch him, but don't. My voice gentles out, "You okay?"
"I feel stupid," he says really slowly. "Of course you wouldn't be able to wear the bracelet if you were a pixie."
"It's okay," I say, but I'm not sure that it is.
A muscle in his cheek twitches as he storms across the hardwood floor and into the living room. But at the threshold he turns and says, "I don't want you to take chances, not for me, okay?"
I swallow and try to make a joke of it because I don't know if I can keep holding it together any other way. "Okay, Mr. Lovey Dovey."
They come on snowmobiles. Nick piggybacks Devyn in because he hasn't brought his wheelchair.
"I hope I start healing faster," Devyn says as Nick drops him into the white chair by the door.
"Yeah, I'm sick of carrying you," Nick says, but you can tell he's just bluffing.
"You're already freaking the doctors out," issie says, sitting on the braided carpet. She leans back against his legs. "You're supposed to be completely paralyzed."
"They'll just call it a miracle," Gram says as Mrs. Nix comes in. She opens her arms. The ladies hug. It's kind of cute. Mrs. Nix blushes when she sees us.
"So, I'm a bear," she explains, eyeing us all. "Wait? Is Issie something?"
"Nope," Issie pouts. "All human. All the time."
"The coolest human ever," Devyn says, reaching down and ruffling her hair.
I take charge. "Okay, Betty's explained what's going on, right?"
Everyone nods. Nick perches on the arm of the couch, and Mrs. Nix sits in the other green chair as I pace across the braided rug.
"So, my theory is that the pixies can't cross iron," I say. "My iron bracelet burned Ian. Plus, it says on the Web site that they hate iron, even stick to rural areas just to avoid it."