“Hey there, kid. Come to say goodbye?”
“No,” I told him primly as I walked over to the chair beside his bed and climbed onto it. “I don’t want to say goodbye.”
His lips twisted, and I noticed they were pretty lips, almost like a girl’s. “Don’t have much of a choice here. I’m goin’ away for a while.”
“Because you killed that bad man?”
“Yeah, ’cause I killed that bad man.”
“So…” I twisted my fingers in my lap and thought really hard about it. “I’m the reason that you have to go away, then. Because you had to save my stupid life?”
“Hey,” he barked so suddenly that I jumped a little. His voice softened as he leaned forward to snag my eyes with his. “Don’t want to hear you talk like that, yeah? Innocence is always worth protectin’. If a baby needed your help, are you tellin’ me you wouldn’t help ’em?”
“I’m not a baby,” I told him.
“No.” He smiled at me and it made me forget to be annoyed at his comparison. “But babies are sweet and innocent like you. They haven’t learned about all the bad stuff in the world yet.”
I twisted my fingers in my lap again. “I don’t want to be like a baby. I want to know about the bad stuff. If I don’t know, what am I going to do when it happens to me when I grow up? Wait for some stupid prince to come save me now that my guardian monster is going away?”
Zeus laughed a great big laugh. “No need to grow up too fast, kid. You got lots of time and once you lose that innocence, you can’t get it back. Trust me.”
“I do,” I told him eagerly. “That’s why I don’t want you to go away and never see me again. Can I visit you where you’re going?”
“No, absolutely fuckin’ not.”
I thought about being hurt for a second and then I guessed, “Because bad people go to where you’re going?”
“Exactly.”
“But I want you to be my friend,” I tried to explain, reaching forward to put my little hand on top of his giant one resting on the bed.
He stared at our hands for a moment with gentle eyes and then looked up at me with a nice smile. “We are, kid.”
“Hurrah!” I whispered, because I was excited, but it felt like too important a moment to ruin with a shout.
“What are you doing in here?” Nurse Betsy said in a really high voice like the one my mum used when I was doing something gross or stupid.
She pushed back the curtain that separated Zeus’s bed from the rest of the big room and ran over to me, checking me over with her hands and glaring at my new friend.
“What is she doing in here with you? You’re in enough trouble as it is,” she hissed at him.
I tried to pull away from her, but she pressed me close to her chest, tucking my head into her neck as if that meant I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Sometimes, adults are so dumb.
“Relax, Bets, she was wandering around down here and decided that I looked like a fuckin’ angel. She took a seat and we shot the shit for a minute. Nothing else.”
He didn’t seem that concerned about how angry Betsy was and it was kind of weird that they seemed to know each other. Betsy was tiny and pretty and soft. She didn’t look like she had it in her to be friends with Zeus.
“You never think,” she continued to hiss. “If someone else had come in here and seen you talking to a cute little girl, what do you think they would have done? You’re already going to freaking prison for manslaughter. Do you need a molestation charge on top of that?”
I couldn’t even see him but the air got weird and heavy and I knew without looking that Zeus was mad.
“Don’t even fuckin’ say that out loud. I’m a father for fuck’s sake, Bets. I’d never hurt a kid.”
Betsy relaxed a little against me and pet my hair. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m protective of this one. They think she’s got Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She’s been in here a lot and she’s curious, likes to roam.”
“Fuck,” Zeus said, soft and angry at the same time.
I wanted to reach out and pat him like I did when my dog growled. My grandpa had always warned my mum that I was attracted to dark and damaged things. I was just a kid but I was a smart one and I knew Zeus was both of those things.
A fallen angel. A monster, but a good one under all the scary.
I didn’t want someone like him to feel sad for me like everyone else.
“Told you I was dying,” I grumbled loudly enough that he could hear me even though my lips were up against Betsy’s boobies.