Survivor in Death (In Death 20)

“Don’t worry about us,” Mira told her. “It’s obvious you’ve had something come up. We can easily entertain ourselves for a while.”

“Even better.”

In the game room Nixie and Kevin took a break from the machines. She liked having another kid around, even if he was a boy. And his mother and father seemed nice. His mother had even played Intergalactic War with them. And nearly won, too.

But she was glad she’d gone away for a while. There were things you couldn’t say with adults around.

“How come you don’t talk like your mom and dad?” Nixie wanted to know.

“I talk like everybody.”

“No, they have a sort of accent. It’s different. How come you don’t?”

“Maybe because they haven’t been my mom and dad the whole time. But they are now.”

“They, like, adopted you?”

“We had a party when they did. Almost like a birthday. There was chocolate cake.”

“That’s nice.” She thought it was, but there was a jittery feeling in her stomach. “Did somebody kill your real mom and dad?”

“My other mom,” he corrected. “Because I have a real mom. You get to be real when you’re adopted.”

“I mean your other. Did somebody kill her?”

“Nuh-uh.” He began to pet Galahad, who’d deigned to stay and have his belly rubbed. “Sometimes she’d go away, and I’d get hungry. Sometimes she’d be nice, and sometimes she’d hit me. ‘Smack the crap out of you, little bastard.’ ” He grinned when he said it, but it wasn’t a pleasant expression. “That’s how her face looked when she hit. But my mom now, she never hits, and she never has that face. My dad either. Sometimes they get this one.”

He drew his eyebrows together and tried to look stern. “But mostly they don’t. And they don’t go away, and I don’t get hungry, not like before.”

“How did they find you?”

“They came and got me from the place where you have to go if you don’t have a mom or something. You get to eat there, and they’ve got games, but I didn’t want to stay there—and I didn’t for very long. Then they came and we got to go live in Virginia. We have a big house. Not as big as this,” he said, stringently honest. “But it’s big and I have my own room, and Dopey came with us.”

Nixie moistened her lips. “Are they going to take me to Virginia?” She knew where that was, sort of. She knew the capital was Richmond because she had to learn all the states and their capitals in school. But it wasn’t New York. It wasn’t here. It wasn’t home.

“I don’t know.” Obviously intrigued, Kevin cocked his head and studied her. “Don’t you live here?”

“No. I don’t live anywhere. People came in our house and killed my mom and dad.”

“Killed them dead?” Kevin’s eyes popped wide. “How come?”

“Because my dad was good and they were wrong people. That’s what Dallas said.”

“That’s the doom.” He gave her a pat, as he had Galahad. “Were you scared?”

“What do you think?” she snapped back, but the sympathy on Kevin’s face didn’t fade.

“I think I’da been so scared I wouldn’t even be able to breathe.”

The little flash of anger died. “I was. They killed them, and they didn’t kill me, and I have to stay here for protection. Dallas is going to find them and put them in a goddamn cage.”

He slapped a hand over his mouth and slid his gaze to the door. “You’re not supposed to say goddamn,” he whispered. “Mom gets that look on her face if you forget and say it.”

“She’s not my mom.”

When tears glimmered, Kevin scooted over and put an arm around her. “It’s okay. She can be your mom, too, if you want.”

“I want my own mom.”