Read Evan Arden 03 Otherwise Unharmed for Free Online Page B

mine, I managed to start breathing normally again.
    “ Where did you go?”  Lia’s fingers continued to run from my temple to my chin.
    “ Back there,” I responded.  I swallowed past the growing tightness in my throat before continuing.  “When they first tried to put me in the hole, I’d struggle.  It was stupid—there were too many of them to fight.”
    “ But you kept trying.”
    “ For a while.”  I nodded.  “Eventually, I figured out there wasn’t any point.  Once I didn’t respond that way anymore to whatever they were doing, they’d try to come up with other ways to get a reaction out of me.”
    “Shit,” Lia whispered as her arms tensed.  “You were there a long time, too.”
    I could only nod.  Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to keep the memories shoved to the back of my mind, but I was really too tired for such an act of will.  They were going to be back —with force.  My hands began to shake uncontrollably, and I gripped Lia’s thigh a little harder.
    “ Evan, it will be all right.”  Her voice echoed around the small room. “We'll figure it out. I'll help you figure it out.”
    I laughed. It was hollow and without humor.
    “Figure it out,” I repeated sarcastically. “I shot up my neighborhood park. I'm going to prison.  I should go to prison.”
    Her hand stroke d the top of my head.
    “ We'll figure something out,” she said again.  “I don't know what that is yet, but there has to be something.”
    “Can’t think,” I told her.  “Can’t think when I can’t sleep.”
    “You have to sleep.”
    “No.”  I shook my head against her body.  “It’s too much —too real.”
    The door across the room opened abruptly, and Mark Duncan stepped in.
    “ Were you serious about your offer?” he said immediately to a confused Lia.
    She shook her head, her look quizzical.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to admit I’m a little anxious to see how much this helps.  Evan hasn’t slept more than a few minutes at a time in the past two days, and I believe it’s largely to blame for his breakdown.”
    Breakdown.   Is that what it was?
    “ Who are you?” Lia finally asked.
    Mark shook his head like Odin does when he gets a bath.
    “I’m so sorry, Miss Antonio.”  He extended his arm, and I flinched as Lia’s touch left my skin briefly to shake his hand.  “I’m Mark Duncan, Evan’s psychologist.  I’ve been observing both of you through the monitor.  I assume you are the young lady Evan has spoken to me about.”
    I’d said nothing to him about Lia as far as I could remember.  Not that my memory was all that great, but I had a pretty good idea he was really thinking of Bridgett.   I hadn’t told him much during the few sessions we had actually had, but he had guessed that the person I was sleeping with was a hooker, and I hadn’t denied it.  I tensed, unsure about what else he might say.
    If he called Lia a prostitute, I was going to rip off the chains and beat him to death with them.
    Apparently, the doctor-patient privilege still held because he said nothing else about it.
    “I want to help,” Lia confirmed.  “What do you want me to do?”
    “Sleep with him.”
    Her eyes narrowed a little, and her hand stilled against my cheek.
    “Where?” she asked.
    “Here,” Mark said.  “ Visitors aren’t allowed in the cell units, so there isn’t any other place, and this is a bit of a desperate situation.  He’s in serious danger if he doesn’t get proper sleep.  I can see what I can do to make it more comfortable.”
    Lia looked around the room while I tried to make sense of what Mark was suggesting.   I wasn’t successful; it was too hard to keep track of what was going on around me in my present state of mind.  Inferred reasoning wasn’t going to happen.
    Thankfully, Lia spelled it all out.
    “You want me to just…what?  Lie down with him on the floor so he can sleep?  Do you really think that will work?”
    “ If he could