right now. So we try not to let her around a lot of people who might be sick so that she doesn’t catch their illness.”
“Oh.” Ciana’s tears disappeared. “I promise I’m not sick and neither are my brothers or sister. Neither is Ryan. Right, Ryan?” She practically growled the question in my direction, her eyes shooting flames at me in a silent command to answer.
“I’m not sick,” I replied dutifully, but only because I didn’t want them to take Nova away.
“I don’t have anything Nova could really play with, though,” Ciana said, her tone turning sad once again. Her emotions were all over the place, and it was giving me a headache. “I was expecting her to be bigger, like Vito and Bennie. Not tiny like a baby.”
“I’m not a baby!” Nova yelled, offended. “I’m a big girl.”
Ciana’s face scrunched up, like she wanted to argue but didn’t want to make her cousin angry.
“She means you’re short, Nova,” Garret told her with a laugh. “All her toys and games are for tall people. Not shrimps like you.”
Nova released my hand and strolled over to her brother. She walked so calmly up to him that when she kicked him in the leg hard enough to make him shout in pain, we were all surprised. Well, everyone except for their mom.
“Don’t be mean to me, Garret!” she yelled up at him as he hopped on one foot while trying to rub away the ache in his leg.
“Nova, don’t kick your brother,” Felicity scolded, but her voice was back to being soft once more, not full of steel like it had been when she’d spoken to her son. “Garret, don’t tease your sister about how tall she is or isn’t.”
Garret stopped rubbing at the sore spot on his shin. “So, it’s against the law to speak the truth now? Yeah, okay, whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “We gonna play with your Xbox or not, Ciana?”
“Yeah, of course we are. But what about your sister? I don’t want her to feel left out.”
“I’ll play with Nova,” I offered.
“Yay!” Nova squealed, bouncing happily back to me and putting her hand in mine—where it belonged. The act was so natural, so full of trust, it was as if she’d been doing it all her life. It made my chest squeeze in that funny way again, and I tugged her closer. “Can we play hide-and-seek?”
“Nova, let’s save that game for when you aren’t tired from traveling all day,” her mom recommended. “We don’t want you to fall asleep while hiding. What if Ryan can’t find you?”
“I would find her, no matter what,” I vowed.
Ciana and Garret left to play in the game room on the second floor, and I guided Nova up to my room. I didn’t have a lot of things a girl would normally want to play with, but Nova didn’t seem to mind as she skipped around my room, inspecting everything.
“You got lots of books,” she murmured and yawned. “Can you read?”
“Yep. Do you want me to read to you?” She yawned again but nodded, the smile on her face making her green eyes bright. “Do you want to pick the book?”
She shook her head. “Just something with a brave girl. Like me!”
Grinning, I grabbed one of my favorite books and walked over to my bed. She followed but struggled to get onto the mattress. Smiling, I helped Nova climb up, and she laid her head on my pillow. Her eyes were already lowering, so I pulled the covers up over her and sat beside her.
I barely got to the third page before she was asleep. Closing the book, I just sat and watched her. She looked like a little doll lying there, with one hand tucked under her cheek and the other clutching my shirt. I liked the way she held on to me, wanting me close.
As I watched her, my own eyes began to get heavy, and I scooted down so I could lay my head on the pillow with her. The last few nights, I hadn’t slept much, and my whole body felt exhausted all of a sudden.
3
Ryan
Nova shifted in her sleep. Releasing my shirt, she clasped my hand, her tiny fingers wrapping around my considerably larger ones. A sense of peace hit me out of nowhere, and the next thing I knew, it was dark outside my window.
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I moved, and my heart stopped when Nova cuddled against me with a soft whine. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around her, and I kissed the top of her head. I knew I had to get up, that Nova needed to eat. Both of our stomachs were growling because they were empty. We had both missed lunch earlier, and I knew it must be past dinnertime at this point.
But I didn’t want to move.
In that moment, I wasn’t scared or tired or dreading being around people I didn’t know. There were no bad memories from before Mom became my mom, from when I had a different mom. The one who wasn’t so nice to me. The one who liked to make me cry and hurt me. The scars on my chest didn’t make my skin crawl. My stomach wasn’t cramped up.
There was just the tiny angel who trusted me to protect her while she slept peacefully beside me.