Need You for Always (Heroes of St. Helena)(22)

Obliviously not accustomed to social cues, the fairy climbed up on the bench again. “Brooklyn says there are zombies in the hospital and that they eat fairies,” she said as though that had anything to do with the price of tea in China.

He scrolled though his phone and stopped at Frankie’s number. “Brooklyn sounds like a shit.”

“That’s a bad word.” She said it all scandalized as if he’d just stolen ten years of fairy magic from her, but she was smiling with glee.

He shrugged. “Sometimes you got to call it like it is, and she is a shit, through and through.” And then, because she took a lungful of air as if she was getting ready to tell him another story that had zippo to do with the last, he said, “Did you know that zombies can’t walk in water?”

She went quiet. Really quiet. Quiet enough that he was certain the conversation was over, so he hit Dial. It rang exactly once when the fairy said, “Water, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s like their Kryptonite.”

“What’s Kryptonite?”

“Just take this to scare them away.” He handed her his water bottle. “Somewhere else.”

“I’m running late,” Frankie said by way of greeting.

“How late?” Because if she said more than five minutes, he’d consider walking the five miles home.

“My baby alarm went off.”

“Your what?”

“You know, it tells me the best time to get knocked up.” Dax waited for his sister to laugh, to tell him she was kidding, but when she didn’t, he knew she was dead serious.

“Hold up!” Dax looked at the girl, who was looking back at him. He gave her his hardest do you mind glare. She obviously didn’t, since she swung her legs and leaned in to listen. He cupped the phone with his hand and turned his back on her. “Are you ditching me to get laid right now?”

Frankie snorted. “Like you haven’t done it. Besides, this is serious.”

“So is the present situation.” Between Jonah in bed and now his sister, he was going to need to run to the moon and back to get this crap out of his head. “Pick me up.”

“Give me an hour.”

“Tell her I can wait with you so you won’t be all alone,” the little girl said, not even bothering to sound ashamed that she was eavesdropping.

Dax huddled closer to the phone. “That’s a negative.”

“Sorry, it’s the stress of the performance,” Frankie explained. “Actually, it might be a few hours. Not that I’m complaining. Sometimes he likes to do it two to three times, just to be sure we are being the most effective with our time.”

“Trauma to the ears,” he hissed. “Make it stop.”

“That’s the opposite of what I say.”

Dax closed his eyes. “They’re bleeding now.”

“Do you need a Band-Aid?” Lady Bug 662 said. “I’m learning how to do that today in first-aid class.”

“Nate’s here,” Frankie said. “Want me to ask him how long it will be?”

Dax hung up on another sibling—his second of the day—who reminded him that while they were all happy and in love and getting laid, he was sitting on a bench with a bum knee, an annoying fairy, and no ride in sight—in any sense of the word.

“Violet!”

Dax and the girl looked up to find a pissed-off woman standing by the doors to the hospital. She wore a tiny black tank, an even tinier black skirt, and a matching pair of red-and-black polka-dotted Converse high-tops. Nice legs, nicer rack, and a mouth that made men think certain kinds of thoughts. Full and plump and free of lipstick. And he was a man all right, would have been thinking those thoughts if those lips hadn’t been set into an all-too-familiar screw off pose.

“Pixie,” the girl clarified, not intimidated in the slightest. Dax, on the other hand, noticed that the floor started shifting again, because when Emerson had told him her life was complicated, he didn’t know that meant she came with an eighteen-year commitment who wore fairy wings.

“What happened to waiting inside?” Emerson asked, shrugging that backpack she always seemed to lug around higher on her shoulder. The thing was bright blue and bigger than the ruck he took with him on his first deployment.

“There’s a roof,” the girl said, glancing up. “And I was just waiting with Mister. He’s my new friend.”

“I can see that.” Emerson’s eyes went to Dax for the first time, and he could tell she was as shocked to see him as he was to see her—with her freaking kid. “What are you doing here?”

“Physical therapy.” He pointed to his knee.

“No, I mean here. With my sister?”

“Sister?” he repeated, and what an amazing word that was. Sister. Not kid or mine or daughter. Sister.

He grinned. She glared. Yeah, so he’d taken an extra-long exhale at the news. So what? “Mister needs a ride,” Violet said, interrupting. “You can take him home while I go back to the field trip.”

Dax grinned, big and charming. Maybe this girl was magical after all. “Yeah, Emi, Mister really needs a ride.”



“Nice bike,” Emerson said as she pulled onto Dax’s street. “I especially love the orange boot, really adds that badass alpha flare you seem to be going for.”