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His throat worked as he tried to swallow. “Sixth Day,” he said hoarsely.
“If you have to blame someone, blame them.” She gave in to the urge and clasped his hand, squeezing for a few seconds before releasing him. “Wait until André gives you the green light before you go outside. I’ll be at Elijah’s side. I will not leave him.”
Another nod and he went to the front door.
Val joined the others against the wall and sat next to Elijah. “This sucks,” she said.
Elijah choked on what might have been a laugh. A hysterical laugh, but she’d take it. “What did they put on the lawn?” he asked, his voice very small.
That pissed her off. How dare they scare Elijah? How dare they make him feel small?
She drew a breath, let it out. “Dunno exactly.”
“It...” Elijah twisted so that he could look up at her. “It’s a body, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. We’ll have to see.”
“It’s a warning,” Elijah said, defeated.
“Let’s wait to see what it is before we go all gloom and doom, okay?”
“Okay,” he murmured. “I wanna go home.”
To New York. Oh, honey. Keeping her weapon firmly gripped in one hand, she draped her free arm over Elijah’s shoulders. “I know. Can’t say I blame you.”
He did a little double take. “You don’t?”
“Sweetie, you’ve just had a super-bad twenty-four hours, and you were missing New York even before that. Of course I can’t blame you.”
“Me either,” Jessica said.
“Same,” MaryBeth added. “You did good, kid. You did what Val said to do and you didn’t panic.”
“I should have done something, though,” he said, a little petulantly.
“Like what?” Val demanded. “I mean, I have a gun and I didn’t go running after them.”
“And she’s a badass,” Jessica said solemnly.
“I’m more badass,” MaryBeth said, even more solemnly, then stuck her tongue out at Jessica when she made cooing noises, like MaryBeth was an infant. “You shut up! I am so a badass.”
“Yes, my love,” Jessica said with a sigh. “You are a total badass, and I quake in fear.”
“That’s better,” MaryBeth groused. “Czar, lick her face. Or shake your wet beard at her.”
“Noooo!” Jessica laughed. “Not the wet beard! You are the badassiest of all. I swear!”
Elijah laughed then, a true belly laugh. “Are they always like this?”
Val smiled at him. “Silly? Sometimes. I think we all need to get a little silly sometimes.”
Elijah shook his head. “I’m not silly. Or badass.”
Val tilted up his chin so that she could see his eyes, dark like his father’s. “Elijah. Listen to me. You kept your head last night, you got away, you listened to your aunt, and you pulled Rick Gates’s ski mask off his face. That alone was huge. That told us who to look for. You are totally badass.”
He tilted his head, his lips curving. “I guess I am.”
“Hell yeah,” Jessica said, then oofed when MaryBeth elbowed her. “I mean, heck yeah. We both said ‘badass,’ but I can’t say ‘H-E-double-hockey-sticks’?”
