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DAISY LAZARUS
Daisy’s proclamationhung in the air. She should have realized it was Axel’s sister dying, not him. She should have picked up the clues from the moment they’d turned up at her doorstep. She should have investigated him when their bond connected. This changed everything.
He wasn’t dying.
But…
She watched him glance at his sister. Pain flittered over his features. He loved her so much. Elena was the reason he’d risked his life for the Syndicate. He’d joined the Faithful for her.
Daisy tried to tug him back after he started for the pitch machine, but a quiet desperation in his eyes asked her not to push the subject. That flitter of pain he’d revealed was squashed so fast that she wondered if it had ever been there. Daisy glanced at Elena and found her watching them.
Axel walked to the end of the cage and stood behind the pitch net. A bucket at his side was filled with baseballs. He flicked on the machine and picked up a ball.
“You ladies ready for a reckoning?”
Elena snorted. “As if. I’ll hit every one and then you’re paying for ice-cream.”
The two of them continued the charade that the world wasn’t going to hell in a hand-basket. The end of the world can wait.
It was just the sort of thing she used to say to Parker when he would scowl and refuse to go out to the lab roof and play when they were younger. And he’d always end up enjoying himself.
Axel put a ball in the pitch machine and shouted through cupped hands, “Batter up!”
Elena glanced at Daisy.
“After you,” Daisy said.
Elena tapped the top of the bat on the plate, then raised it to the ready position and stared down the pitch machine. Axel taunted her with a chant kids probably used in the sandlots. But it didn’t irritate Elena. It made her more determined to focus on the coming pitch. Daisy approved of her moxie. And there was something about her sickness, something about the way she faced it headlong, that reminded Daisy of herself after she’d been burned in her youth.
Axel switched the machine on… and… nothing happened.
“Wait!” He peered into the barrel of the machine. “Must be jammed. Two secs.”
While he worked at dislodging the stuck ball, Daisy and Elena stood uneasily next to each other. Daisy should probably say something, but she was a terrible conversationalist. She was terrible socially, period. All she could think about was how she’d blurted out that Elena was dying. She stared at Elena and wondered why she sensed so little despair in the young woman when her fate was announced. How? Why?
Normal people are sad when their impending death is pointed out.
“You’re looking at me,” Elena said with a smirk on her pale lips.
“Yes,” Daisy replied.
“So spit it out. I get questions all the time.”
“Why do you feel no despair about your pending death?”
“Wow.” Elena blinked. “I expected something about the missing hair but not something so deep. Wait a minute… You can sense despair. You’re really one of the Deadly Seven, aren’t you? I can’t believe you’re here. Oh my God, which brother is Gluttony? Cos he always winks at the camera—swoon. And…” Her eyes lit up with a sudden thought, she checked to see if Axel was looking and then leaned in to whisper, “I made these collectable Deadly Seven cards—don’t tell Axel, I was supposed to be studying—but maybe, if you’re okay with it, I could get you to sign one for me?”
“The Deadly Seven are my brothers and sisters. Not me.” Daisy wasn’t sure she’d ever be part of that crime fighting unit. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be, let alone to appear on a set of cards that glorified her. “We’d have to be the Deadly Eight, and that’s not going to happen.”
Elena nodded to herself and her eyes turned wistful. “Yeah, eight. You’d need a whole new logo. I’m getting ideas already. If Axel wasn’t watching, I’d pull them out of my backpack and start drawing.”
“Please don’t.”
But Elena’s eyes were already focused inward, her bottom lip drawn into her teeth as she no doubt planned to do exactly what Daisy hoped she’d not.
But she was right. If Daisy did become part of that crime-fighting group, then Parker would need a complete brand overhaul. That would be costly. And then there was the fact Daisy didn’t like the idea of dressing up and heading out to fight crime. It reminded her too much of what she did for Julius—just the other side of the same coin.
“You asked why I feel no sadness,” Elena said. “It’s because I’ve accepted my fate. It is what it is.”
