Chapter 54
ROCK BOTTOM, STILL DIGGING
Days follow. Three? Five? Twenty?
It doesn’t matter.
Time loses its edges. The fluorescents overhead hum at a pitch I feel in my teeth. Meals arrive, then vanish. I barely move, barely breathe. My mind doesn’t clear, the fog doesn’t lift. I can’t tell if I’m being drugged or if I’ve just given up.
Sometimes I drift to the piano and sit without touching the keys. Sometimes I curl up on the bed and count the ceiling panels until they blur. Sometimes I sprawl on the floor and cry until someone carries me to bed. Mostly, I float, just waiting for everything to end.
When the door opens, it’s always one of two ghosts.
Vincent: quiet, always carrying tea he forgets to drink. He sets it on the desk, checks my cuff, adjusts the room temperature two degrees without asking. He speaks like the room might shatter if he’s too loud. I hear my name more in his visits than in the last year combined.
Or Colt: louder by nature, even when he’s gentle. He brings warmth with him, something alive that doesn’t match the stale air. He plants himself at the foot of the bed and pretends to lose at cards he deals face-up. He tells stories I don’t hear.
Wake. Drift. Sleep. Repeat.
The rest is blank.
I don’t remember lying down, but I’m on the bed when their voices start. A hushed conversation that settles just outside the edge of pretending I can’t hear.
“Is she okay?” Colt starts.
“No spikes today. Vitals are normal. She’s not breaching red; she’s not climbing out either,” Vincent says, stylus striking the tablet.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning she’s surviving, at baseline at least. They have her on stabilizers until she can prove she won’t bring the roof down. Carr won’t tell me the doses, so I can’t say how much of her…withdrawal is coming from side effects.”
“Carr asked me for a report,” Colt says quietly.
“What did you give him?” Vincent sounds startled, but not shocked.
“Nothing yet. I’m due in his office in twenty.”
“Keep it vague. No language he can act on,” Vincent says. “Once it’s in writing, it’s his.”
Colt exhales, nervous. “What does he plan to do with her?”
“I don’t know,” Vincent admits. “He keeps throwing around recalibration, but that’s not a viable option, not for her.” I shift under the blanket, suddenly uncomfortable.
“She can hear us,” Colt murmurs.
“I know.”
Footsteps creep closer. Vincent’s thumb presses my wrist above the cuff—one, two, three, four—then lifts. Breath reset without the command.
“Keep fighting, please,” he says, so soft it might be for him. The door whispers closed. One set of unsure footsteps fades down the hall. Colt hesitates.
“Hey, Mays.” The mattress dips near my ankle as he sits without asking. “Everything’s going to be okay, okay?”
I don’t answer. I’m not sure I can.
His voice warms anyway. “What about a story?” he starts.
“First time I saw real rain, I was five or six. The sky split open. There were these huge clouds, so dark you’d think it was the middle of the night.
Then boom—droplets everywhere. I made my dad stick a bucket outside just to prove to me it wasn’t magic. ” He huffs. “I still think it was.”
My mouth curls the littlest bit at that. His eyes light up.
“You think that’s funny?” he continues, gesturing wildly with his hands. “You should hear what I did when I laid my eyes on snow.”
My body strains to laugh, but I sputter out a half-cough. The intent was there, and I think he saw it.
“There she is.” He smiles, patting my leg. “You’re going to get through this. You have to, y’know. I won’t accept anything else.” Colt folds his arms like a petulant child. I don’t know if I can believe him, but I appreciate him, and that’s almost the same.
The next morning, I manage to drag myself out of bed.
I stumble to the shower, scrubbing at least a week of agony from my skin until I’m red and raw.
The only thing in the armoire drawer is a loose regulation white uniform, pinned with someone else’s number.
I tug it on with trembling fingers; it’s close enough.
When my eyes finally find the mirror, I can barely hold eye contact with the fractured girl who stares back.
She’s still breathing, but that seems to be all we have in common.
I’m still fighting a brush through my brown tangles when Colt strides through the door. He finds me instantly, looking startled. Then surprised. Then relieved.
“Mays,” he breathes.
“Hi,” I croak, yanking at another knot. I yelp, fist clenching around the brush.
“Do you want help?” Colt’s smile is so warm I could collapse into it. I can’t form a response, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He strides to the chair in the corner, then gestures for me to sit in front of it. I pass him the brush and drop to the ground, pulling my knees tight to my chest.
“I can’t promise this won’t hurt,” he tells me.
I nod, biting back a cringe anytime he pulls too hard.
For an enforcer trained in nothing but violence and sedation, he’s almost gentle.
Once he has a handle on the tangles, he runs his fingers carefully through my hair, calming the static.
He clears his throat and presses a hand on my shoulder. “One braid or two?”
My eyebrows raise in surprise. “You know how to braid?”
“I grew up with sisters. Plus, I’ve watched you do it countless times.
How hard could it be?” He fumbles with it, starting over at least six times.
Eventually, muscle memory kicks in. The finished product isn’t perfect, but he beams like it’s a masterpiece.
The sight of it brings a lightness in my chest I haven’t felt in months.
It dissipates instantly, and I’m empty all over again.
“What should I do now?” I ask, hating how small it sounds.
“Anything.” He nods at me, then pauses. “Except sleep. You’ve done a lot of that.” I offer a small smile, but my mind goes blank. What does one do when everything feels meaningless? He cocks his head at my silence, a small frown tugging at his lips. “How about cards?”
That…doesn’t sound half bad. I offer him the ghost of a nod and climb back up on the bed. “Okay.”
We don’t chat. We don’t confess fears or spill secrets or commiserate. We just play. And for a few minutes, everything’s okay again.