Need np-1

by Carrie Jones

  "I love the way you smell." His sentence touches my skin with his breath, and the wound on my hand tingles and I snap out of it somehow. Somehow I can move again. My hands shove him away hard. His face registers his shock. I bash past him and run for the door, throwing myself against it and yanking at it.

  "Megan! Let me out! Megan!"

  The door won't budge and Ian is next to me in an instant. He throws me across the room and I smash against the wall. A sickening sound echoes throughout the space as something in my arm breaks.

  The lower part of my arm dangles at a funky angle. It doesn't hurt. Shock does that for a second so the body can try to save itself, try to run and fight. I power myself back up and dive for the opening door. I yank off my bracelet and throw it at him. It hits his chest and burns through his shirt.

  Megan opens the door, smiling. "You having a hard time, Ian?"

  He ignores her.

  I plead with my eyes.

  She ignores me.

  "Zara," he says, his voice higher. "Don't make this hard. Now you're hurt. That lowers your chances of surviving. You need to survive."

  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. lan'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. lssie? 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, 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.

  "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. "lssie 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 w
hat 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?"