Daddy?”“I’m right here, baby.”Lumps form in my throat, going all the way down into the core of me.It’s his voice. His. Right there. I reach toward the doorknob but I don’t get to turn it.Nick smashes at me with his head, pushing against my lower jaw and cheek, like a blow. His muzzle moves my head away from the door. He presses his face in between me and the wood. Fur gets in my mouth. I spit it out and push at him.“That’s my dad. My dad.” I slap the door. “He’s on the other side. The pixies will get him.”Nick shows me his teeth.“I can’t lose him again, Nick.”The wolf snarls like he’s ready to bite. My head jerks back and away, but then I steady myself.“Get . . . out . . . of . . . the . . . way.”Pushing against his thick neck, I slam my hands against him over and over again, pummeling him. He doesn’t budge.“Move!” I order. “Move.”“Zara, is there a wolf in there with you? Do not trust him,” my dad’s voice says, calmly, really calmly.I grab a fistful of fur and freeze. All at once it hits me that something is not right. My dad would never be calm if I was in my bedroom with a wolf. He’d be stressed and screaming, breaking the door down, kicking it in like he did once when I was really little and had accidentally locked myself in the bathroom and couldn’t get the lock out of the bolt because it was so old. He’d kicked that door down, splintering the wood, clutching me to him. He’d kissed my forehead over and over again.“I’d never let anything happen to you, princess,” he’d said. “You’re my baby.”My dad would be kicking the door in. My dad would be saving me.“Let me in,” he says. “Zara . . .”Letting go of Nick, I stagger backward. My hands fly up to my mouth, covering it.Nick stops snarling at me and wags his fluffy tail.How would my dad know that it is a wolf in here and not a dog? How would he know that it isn’t pixies?I shudder. Nick pounds next to me, pressing his side against my legs. I drop my hands and plunge my fingers into his fur, burying them there, looking for something. Maybe comfort. Maybe warmth. Maybe strength. Maybe all three.
Alex, please.”He balls his fists. “Stop saying my name. You don’t know me anymore.”“I do know you.” I’m still crying, swallowing back spasms in my throat, struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare and I will wake up. This is a monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together, broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and whole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his even as he tries to pull away. “It’s me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember 37 Brooks, and the blanket we used to keep in the backyard—”“Don’t,” he says. His voice breaks on the word.“And I always beat you in Scrabble,” I say. I have to keep talking, and keep him here, and make him remember. “Because you always let me win. And remember how we had a picnic one time, and the only thing we could find from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And you said to mix them—”“Don’t.”“And we did, and it wasn’t bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were so hungry. And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me.” I’m gasping, feeling as though I am about to drown; I’m reaching for him blindly, grabbing at his collar.“Stop.” He grabs my shoulders. His face is an inch from mine but unrecognizable: a gross, contorted mask. “Just stop. No more. It’s done, okay? That’s all done now.”“Alex, please—”“Stop!” His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. “Alex is dead, do you hear me? All of that—what we felt, what it meant—that’s done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.”“Alex!”He has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. “I don’t love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.”The air goes. Everything goes. “I don’t believe you.” I’m crying so hard, I can hardly speak.He takes one step toward me. And now I don’t recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. “It was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.”“Please.” I don’t know how I stay on my feet, why I don’t shatter into dust right there, why my heart keeps beating when I want it so badly to stop. “Please don’t do this, Alex.”“Stop saying my name.