Carrie Jones - Need

Because she wanted to keep me safe, I guess.

"My mom," I whisper to Jay.

"Your mom is here? Why is your mom here?" Jay totters against the banister.

"To save me." I pull him closer, trying to keep him upright.

He struggles to understand. "But you're saving me."

"I know, it's okay. Come on."

We make it halfway down the stairs and I can finally see what's going on. My mom is standing in the middle of the front hall, right on a large white square of granite. Her arms are crossed in front of her chest. The king stands on the black square next to her. The pixies are lined up on the walls again, surrounding them.

"It looks like a giant chess board," Jay whispers.

I haul him down another flight of stairs.

"You have no idea how much I've missed you," the king says.

My mother smirks. She does not say anything.

"You've made me wait a long time."

She rolls her eyes. I thought she only rolled her eyes at me. Jay and I make it down another step.

Nobody seems to notice.

Finally she says, "Your pixies attacked our daughter."

"They were renegades. They've been dispatched."

"Yes. By Betty."

He does this giant melodramatic sigh. "I have dispatched the others."

"The others?"

"It was quite the conspiracy. You know I lose my power when I don't have a queen with me. So upstarts who arc power hungry take advantage."

I'm not going to let him get away with this so I yell from the stairs, "You killed Brian Beardsley. Look at Jay. He's almost dead."

Everyone turns to look at us, including my mom. Her arms drop.

The pixie king throws his arms out to the sides. "You know I can't help it."

"You could just stop!" I yank Jay down another stair, closer to my mother, closer. She looks at me with panicked eyes. I'd like to hug her, even though I'm so mad at her. I'd like her to know that I forgive her, that I understand what she is trying to do. I focus on him, the king.

"It's in our nature," he says.

"Then change your nature. You don't have to torture. You don't have to kill."

"Then I would die. Then another pixie, perhaps one more cruel, one less enamored of human peculiarities will take my place."

"So?"

Both my parents look at me. Jay wobbles. I balance him.

"People die all the time for the greater good. It's called being a martyr. Plus, you were stalking me, calling me, trying to get me lost in the woods. That is a definite no-no in the Good Father Handbook," I explain, taking one more step and finally I'm on the flat floor. The pixies hiss like wild animals. They inch closer to me, sniffing the air, smelling Jay's blood probably, getting hungry, wanting to suck. The king motions for them to move back. They do, but you can tell they don't want to.

"I wanted you to come to me of your own free will," he says to me. "I wanted you to want to know your father."

"Get this straight, getting someone lost and confused is not having them 'come to you of their own free will.' Plus, you pretended to be my stepdad, which is just pure evil."

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."