Chapter 69

CHAPTER 69

P oppy was better once she saw Darius but still rocky, so once they'd had their moment, I cleaned up the cuts on her arms and hands, Neosporin-ed everything to the nines, and wrapped up her wounds. Normalcy was a good idea. So I made Poppy brush her teeth and wash her face—such normal things to do—and then sat on her bed with her, trying to find a way to make things right again.

"It's over," I told her. "The bad guys are all gone. We're safe again."

"I was so scared," she said. "I was so scared and I didn't know what to do."

"You did great. " I tightened my arm around her.

"I wanted Ozzie to come," she said, tears in her eyes. "But he never will again."

"No," I said. "But we have each other, and that's pretty good. And Serena is gone now, and we own the building so we won't get evicted, and everything's going to be all right."

"I don't want Max to leave."

"I know, baby, but he wants to go."

"No," Poppy said, sounding like a four-year-old about to throw a tantrum. " No. "

"We can ask him to stay tomorrow," I said, and she nodded, her head wobbly.

"That's good." She moved away from me to lie down, and I got a blanket from the foot of her bed to cover her. She was still wearing her zombie costume with real blood on it now, but that was fine for one night. For one night what she really needed was sleep. Escape. I looked around for William and then heard him scratching at the door, so I opened it and he came in, annoyed as usual, and leapt up onto the bed, finding his place in the curve of Poppy's body and settling in, purring. I saw her take a deep breath, and she put her hand on William and began to stroke and closed her eyes. "Everything's going to be all right," I whispered, the chorus I'd sung her to sleep with when she was little, from Shawn Mullin's "Lullaby," and when I stopped, she said, "Sing it, please," and I wrapped my arms around her and sang, "Everything's gonna be all right, rockabye, rockabye," over and over until her breathing slowed and was even. I waited a minute until I was sure she was asleep, and then I left her to go back to my own bedroom and meet my own problem.

Max was sitting on the edge of my bed looking exhausted, and I realized that even a guy trained to do this stuff would have a backlash when it was all done. That much danger, that much at stake, that many dead people, of course he'd be tired.

So I went in and sat beside him and took his hand. "Thank you for saving my daughter."

He shook his head, slowly as if it was too much to move. "It's over now. I can go back to my own bed?—"

I pushed him back onto my pillows and climbed on top of him, and he didn't fight back.

"You know how Poppy needed Darius with her there for a while?" I kissed his forehead as he put his arms around me. "Well, I had a really bad night, too." I kissed his nose. "I shot somebody, Max. That's not who I am." I brushed his lips with mine. "And I was terrified for what seemed like forever, I really thought I might lose her. And then you saved her." I kissed him on the mouth again, staying there for a while this time, his arms tightening around me. "I need you here with me tonight," I whispered into his ear, and he rolled us to our sides and said, "Yeah, I could use that, too," and then we just comforted each other the best way we knew how.