"Sixteen days," I say. "They've had him in solitary for sixteen days."
"I know."
"How much longer?"
"I don't know." Gage's hand finds mine in the dark between our seats. "But Kent's good at what he does. And you're the most stubborn person I've ever met. If anyone can get him out, it's the two of you."
"The three of us," I correct.
He squeezes my hand. The tears come back without warning—not the ugly kind this time, just the slow, exhausted kind thathappen when you've been running on fury for two weeks and someone finally sits still next to you long enough for the rest of it to catch up.
"Hey." Gage pulls me across the center console so that I'm straddling his lap, and his arms go around me, and I press my face into his chest and let it out. He doesn't shush me. Doesn't tell me it's going to be okay. Just holds me with one hand on the back of my head and the other flat against my back.
"I'm not going anywhere," he says against my hair. "You hear me? I'm not going anywhere."
I nod into his shirt. His heartbeat is steady under my ear, and I let it hold me together until the shaking stops.
The parking lot lights flicker overhead. Somewhere inside the building, Jude is in a cell, sedated and alone, because he broke through a door to get to me.
I'm going to get him out.
I don't know how yet. I don't know what it will cost or how long it will take or what I'll have to sacrifice to make it happen. But I'm going to do it.
Chapter 24
Hope
The court-ordered welfare check takes nineteen days to process.
Nineteen days of paperwork, of legal arguments, of Kent calling in favors. Nineteen days of me sitting in my apartment with my notebooks and my checklists and the growing certainty that something is very wrong on the other side of that security door.
When the order finally comes through, they can't refuse me. Court mandate supersedes facility policy, and Kent made sure the language was airtight. One supervised visit. Thirty minutes. Documented observation of patient welfare.
I arrive at 9:47 AM with my clipboard and the tremor in my hands that I've learned to hide. The intake officer processes me without meeting my eyes—she's been doing that since the access suspension, like looking at me directly might contaminate her.
Gage meets me at the checkpoint.
"I'm coming with you," he says.
"The order specifies facility escort. That's supposed to be—"
"I switched shifts." His jaw is tight. "I'm coming with you."
I don't argue. Having him there feels like the only solid thing in a building that's turned hostile.
The solitary wing is quieter than I remember. The fluorescent lights buzz at the same frequency as everywhere else, but here the sound seems louder. More insistent.
The guard at the final checkpoint unlocks the observation slot before opening the door.
"Thirty minutes," he says. "I'll be right outside."
The door swings open.
The cell is twelve feet by ten. Concrete walls, concrete floor, a narrow bed bolted to the wall. A toilet and sink in the corner. No window. No color. Nothing that isn't strictly necessary for keeping a human being alive.
Jude is on the bed.
The man who filled a doorway, who tore through a security door to reach me, who held me against his chest with hands that had just—
