She tilts her head. “What does that mean?”
“It means I fix broken bones and car-crash lungs. I’m a mechanic for people who’ve had a really bad day.” I give her a small, tired smile. “And right now, I’m just your daughter’s neighbor.”
I scan the room without moving my head. I’m looking for the threats, but the room is sparse. The dresser top is clear. Even the pictures on the walls are secured. Madison has been doing this for a long time. She’s stripped the environment of every potential weapon before I even put my car in park.
“You’re lying,” Donna whispers, but the edge is gone from her voice. She’s looking at my hands and the faint bruises on my knuckles from the punching bag nights ago. “Why are your hands hurt? Did you fight the dark?”
I look down at my hands. “Something like that. Sometimes the noise gets so loud you just have to hit something until it stops.”
“It’s loud,” she agrees. “It’s like a thousand radios playing different stations. It’s beautiful, Beckett. It’s so bright. But my heart… my heart is trying to keep up, and it’s getting tired.”
“I know,” I say, and I mean it.
I’m looking at the jugular pulsation in her neck. Her heart rate has to be sitting at 130, maybe higher. Her skin is flushed. We need to break this cycle.
“Donna, look at me,” I say gently. “Just me. Forget the radios for a second.”
She locks eyes with me.
“You’re not going back to a cage. Not right now. But we need to turn down the volume on those radios for a few hours, so your heart can catch its breath.”
“No needles,” she says, her lip trembling. “No silence. I don’t want the gray.”
“No needles,” I promise. It’s a calculated risk, but I need her trust more than anything right now. “I have a pill. It’s like a dimmer switch. It won’t turn the light off; it’ll just take the sting out of it. You’ll stay righthere in your room. Arthur is downstairs.”
“With my girls?”
“With your girls.”
“And Noah is on his way,” she tells me, but I think she just needs the confirmation.
“Noah is on the way. And I’ll be sitting right outside that door, and I’m a very big guy to get past.”
She watches me for a long beat.
“Madison is sad,” Donna says suddenly, her eyes filling with tears. “I made her sad, didn’t I? My strong girl. I broke her again.”
The lump in my throat is unexpected. I think of Madison in the hallway, looking like she was carrying the weight of the entire house on her narrow shoulders.
“Madison isn’t broken,” I tell her. “She’s just tired. She’s been holding the rope for a long time. She needs you to help her hold it, and the best way you can do that is by taking a breath. By letting me help you sleep.”
She looks at the window, then back at me. She slowly uncurls her legs and crawls across the carpet until she’s a foot away from me. Then she reaches out a trembling hand and touches my knuckles.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little,” I say. “But I’m okay.”
“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay, Beckett. Just the dimmer switch. No gray.”
“No gray,” I repeat.
I reach into my bag and pull out a single tablet. It’s fast-dissolving. It’ll hit her system quickly and start to quiet the dopamine storm.
I hold it out in my palm.
She takes it and swallows it without water.
“There,” I say. “Now, let’s get you under the covers.”
