“The location isn’t as great for this one, and they have minimal outside units,” Daniel said, glancing back and wondering what he’d seen. Eli put his hand on the door handle, then looked over his shoulder a second time. “What is it?”
Eli shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”
Daniel stared down the street. It was an office district, manufacturing. Parking was at a premium, and both sides of the road were full. He glanced at Eli, who was still standing with his hand on the door. “Do you see something?”
“A black car,” Eli muttered.
Daniel focused on the street. There were lots of cars, a few smaller trucks. One or two black cars that were parked, and as far as he could see, unoccupied. “Make, model? There’s a few.”
“In my head,” Eli clipped. He pulled open the door and got in.
“In your head?” Daniel repeated. “Like before?”
Eli huffed. “You’re weird. Most regulars would just think—”
Daniel glanced at him. Eli had cut off the words like they had hurt. “Would think what?”
Eli waited for an interminable moment, then whispered, “Would think I was crazy.” The hurt, the barbed agony in the guttural words robbed Daniel of any question. Daniel looked at the road. The engine was on, but he’d made no attempt to move. That’s what Sawyer had told him they’d done to Eli.
“Sawyer told me they took you to a hospital.”
Eli scoffed. The disbelieving noise cut Daniel. He knew it was like calling Alcatraz merely a correctional unit, but he didn’t know what else to say. “I grew up in a house with four brothers and over twenty foster kids. I know how to keep a confidence.” Eli gazed at him as if he was trying to decide if Daniel was honest. “Was it an adult place?” He knew—Sawyer had told him, but he wanted Eli to.
“I was the only one under about seventy. It was shutting down. The only people there were the ones they didn’t know what to do with.”
Daniel nodded and kept looking at Eli. If Eli was gonna talk, he was damn well gonna pay attention. “This was after the fire?”
Eli nodded. “I remember them injecting me with stuff. I kept waking up in a different place for a few days until the last move. And then I wished I’d never woken up at all.”
Daniel managed to swallow, but it was a wonder.
“I didn’t know where I was for a long time, and I didn’t understand why they—”
“Why they what?” But Daniel wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“American history says most places stopped using straitjackets in the 1950s.”
Daniel froze. No. Surely he wasn’t saying…? “You…” He couldn’t be saying what Daniel thought he was. It was inhumane. Eli was a child.
“They thought the only way I could create fire was by extending my arms,” Eli carried on. “But the flames on my fingers aren’t necessary. They didn’t know that, and I guess neither did I. They thought if they bound my arms, I wasn’t a threat.”
Daniel had no idea what to say. “They tied you up?”
Eli didn’t reply, but Daniel guessed he didn’t have to. “And they drugged me. It’s why—”
Daniel nodded. He understood. Small juice bottles were nothing. He would make sure Eli never ran out of them. He’d seen some cruelty in the last ten years, but that was supposed to be the bad guys. Where was the line? “I don’t know what to say,” he admitted. To be honest he could quite easily throw up.
“None of them ever did.”
Daniel let that settle. “How long?”
“They shut it for good in 2008.”
“Two years?” Daniel shook his head incredulously. “You were in there for two years?”
Eli sighed. “But a new doctor started after, I dunno, a year maybe? She was nice. Made them take it off me, which in a weird way was even worse.”
“What do you mean?”
Eli was quiet for so long Daniel didn’t think he was going to answer. “Because I didn’t trust myself.”
Daniel looked down at Eli’s fingers. He was twisting them so violently they were white-knuckled, and before he thought about it, he covered both of Eli’s hands with one of his own. Eli stilled but didn’t yank his away. He didn’t know how to make any of Eli’s pain any easier. He didn’t know if it was even possible. All he knew was he desperately wanted to try. “Why was it worse?” Daniel linked his fingers with Eli, and Eli gripped his tight. It made Daniel feel as if he was giving him strength.
“Because she lightened the meds so I knew what was going on. I was terrified I would do something to make the fire come and they would tie me up again. I didn’t know what had caused it in the first place. There were no enhanced there. I didn’t even know what one was. Very young transformation didn’t happen then, so I never met one at school, and we lived in a small town. There wasn’t one guard there that was more scared of what I might do than I was myself.”
Daniel stayed still and just let Eli talk. He had a feeling he didn’t get the chance to tell anyone this.
“And there were a few old people. Long-timers. One man had been in for so long no one knew why he was there, but he scared the crap out of me. Another woman would follow me everywhere, pretend I was her son.” Eli breathed quietly for a moment. “One of the guards told me she’d drowned her son when he was little and that was why she was there. Said there was a demon inside him and it had to be gotten out.” Eli gulped a breath, and Daniel tightened his fingers. “I was convinced she was going to kill me, and one orderly would let her come into the same room as me all the time just to work her up.”
Eli gulped another breath, and Daniel felt him tremble. “Don’t—don’t say anything. Please?”
“Say?” Daniel frowned. “You mean repeat what you just told me?” Eli nodded. He moved his hand slightly, but Daniel didn’t let go. He stared down at the slim hands he could cover completely with one of his nearly and wished there was something else he could give him.
“Never,” Daniel promised and let go. He wanted to respond, to think of something that would reassure Eli, but all he could think of sounded trite and worthless. Hell, he just wanted Eli to know he could trust him. “I can do pinky swear?”
Eli blinked like Daniel was talking a foreign language. “What?”
“It’s what Nicole, Jacob’s youngest, says. It used to be ‘Cross my heart and hope to die’ when we were kids, but Mom nixed that when Vance blabbed I’d eaten seven cookies and I convinced him because he had snitched he would die in his sleep.”
Eli’s lips trembled. “Seven?”
Daniel shrugged and held his palms out. “Mom’s cookies? Diabetic coma?” He tilted his hands like it was a tough decision.
Eli turned his head away and stared out of the window. “My mom used to make cupcakes. Not often, but she would have made them for my birthday.”
Daniel’s throat grew tight. “Your mom sounds like mine.” Eli nodded, but he still didn’t turn around.
“How about we go see this last place and I take you to Cara Mia’s for lunch? Then we can go watch the recordings this afternoon.” That’s what the Connellys did. If someone was upset they generally fed them, and Daniel could think of nothing better than his favorite pizza place.