Miraculously though, she just shrugged and patted the floor at her side.
Every single one of Mercer’s bones ached as he sat down. Maybe committing a kinda-murder aged a person. The dark humor of the thought made him feel nearly as sick as the memory of the thing itself—but he had the rest of his life to drown in that misery. Right now, he was sitting on a floor, carpet beneath him, wearing a clean, blue shirt the same color as the dusk sky outside Lydia’s window. He was here. He had something to do, something, specifically, to do for his daughter, of all people.
She looked as tired as Mercer felt, her chin on her knees and her beanie pulled nearly over her eyes as she cradled her phone between her thighs.
Mercer nudged his shoulder into hers, and as much as it hurt to even think the question, he forced himself to ask, soft and sympathetic, “Puck, why did you want to be a vampire?”
She shrugged, staring at her feet. “Sometimes it just sucks being sick. It hurts and I’m scared, and you’re scared, and that makes me more scared, and you keep saying everything will be okay as long as I take my meds and be careful and do everything right, but sometimes things just aren’t okay.”
Mercer thought he understood part of that, because he could feel her pain—was feeling it now, deep in his chest as his heart wailed to do something, anything. All that tension and fear told him to contradict her. Hecouldmake things better for her, if he hid his fear deeper down, and they stockpiled her meds and—
But no. That onlyfeltrational, felt like if he fretted and pushed then they had to make some kind of progress. And occasionally fretting and pushing did work out—but mostly it didn’t. Lydia was right. Sometimes things just weren’t okay.
Despite Mercer’s heart still beating like a panicked rabbit’s, he kissed the side of her head and gently asked, “Do you still want to go through with it?”
Lydia hesitated, but then she shrugged again. “No? Maybe. It would be really cool. And I’d be strong, and wouldn’t have to worry about seizures or nerve damage. I’m awake most nights anyways, and I don’t care about the sun or garlic that much. Maybe it’s not the best, but you wouldn’t have to be afraid my meds will run out because all I’d need is blood, which you have all the time.”
One phrase caught in his chest, encircling his heart like a cord from one of Leah’s traps:you wouldn’t have to be afraid.
Hewouldn’t have to be afraid.
Mercer sucked back a sob. He leaned forward, trying to catch her gaze. “Puck, were you thinking of doing this forme?”
“It would make you less stressed out.”
“You don’t…” Mercer forced himself to breathe, absorb her words and feel without reacting for one, two, three beats, until he finally managed with a steady voice, “My stress and my fear are my own, Puck. I wouldn’t trade them away for a different version of you. I don’t always know what to do with you, and I’m afraid of making decisions that will hurt you by accident. And you’re right, too much of that isn’t good for either of us. But that’s somethingIneed to fix, not you.”
Though, perhaps not alone, he thought. There were people whose jobs were to help with the extremes of human emotions. Medications, too, if he could get them without being poked and prodded too much for it. Maybe they wouldn’t solve everything. Maybe sometimes things just weren’t okay. But he could try it, at least. And having Rahil to lean on would help.
Wait. “Did you thinkRahilwas going toturnyou? That’s why you kept going back?”
“No, duh.” Lydia rolled her eyes. “He gave me stupid tasks saying he was testing me, but he was never gonna do it. He thinks I don’t know, but I’m not stupid.” She fiddled with the edge of her beanie. “I wanted to do his stupid tasks, though. I like him; he’s cool and he listens, and he doesn’t tell me it’ll all be okay.”
“I listen,” Mercer protested, feeling irrationally defensive despite his sudden rush of pride for both Rahil and Lydia.
Lydia snorted. “You listen for what makes you scared. That’s different.”
His instinct was to fight the accusation, but he had a guilty suspicion it was true. “You know, you’re very smart for a chaos fairy.”
She grinned, tiny but fierce. Chaos fairy indeed. “Am I not grounded forever, then?”
Mercer sighed, rubbing his face with one hand. “You’re not grounded at all. But if you ever get hooked on a boneheaded idea like vampirism again, you tell mebeforeyou go demanding strangers turn you. And there’s something youcando for me that’s not becoming a vampire, okay? You talk, and I’ll try to listen better. I might still be scared, and I might have scared dad ideas, but I promise I want to know your scared daughter ideas too. Maybe we can make this less scary, together?”
“I’m not, like, that scared,” she grumbled. “But sure.”
“And we’re seeing a movie next weekend. You and me. Even if everything else is not okay,weget to be okay for a couple of hours of popcorn.”
“Yeah, fine.”
“What was that?”
“Yeah, dude.”
“Dude? Who’s dude here?” Mercer probed his fingertips into her sides, cackling as she squirmed against the tickles.
“Duuuuude, stoooop,” she laughed.
He knew her laugh, though, and this one was too shallow, too short. She held herself awkwardly, too, now that he was looking for it, pain in the curl of her back and the stiffness of her jaw. Mercer transitioned his assault into a massage, rubbing her back instead. “I’m not trying to be scared dad here, but when did you take your meds last?”
