by Olivia Evans
“Of course, I’d be honored to have your grandmother’s support in any context, but that doesn’t give the two of you a pass to do whatever you please.” Her father looked between the two of them and squared his shoulders. “The moment you become a liability, your relationship is over. I’ll ship Presley to the farthest boarding school I can find, and if she refuses, I’ll cut her off. Understood?”
Dylan’s grip tightened on Presley’s thigh, his fingers biting into her skin as his jaw flexed. How dare that motherfucker imply he’d send Presley away. All thoughts of his grandmother’s decorum flew out the window. Just as he was about to tell her father to go fuck himself, Presley spoke.
“I promise our relationship won’t have any impact on your campaign. If you lose, you’ll have only yourself to blame,” Presley snapped, jumping to her feet and pulling Dylan with her. “Enjoy the rest of your lunch. I’ve lost my appetite.” Without another word, she led a stunned Dylan out of the apartment, ignoring the heated voices of her parents.
On the roof of Presley’s apartment building, they listened to the bustle of the city around them. More than an hour had passed since Presley had stormed out of her apartment, and while she was only starting to calm down, Dylan hadn’t stopped laughing since they walked into the hallway.
“I’ve lost my appetite,” Dylan mimicked, his voice high, snooty, his chin lifted in defiance as he looked down at Presley.
“Hush,” Presley laughed, throwing a fortune cookie from the takeout they’d ordered in place of the lunch they hadn’t eaten with her parents.
Dylan eyed the broken cookie on the ground and shook his head. “Presley, what would your father say if he saw you wasting food like this. You should be down at the soup kitchen, not throwing food at your superhot boyfriend on the roof of your building. If voters found out, it could cost him the election!”
“Har, har,” Presley drawled. “He’s a Republican running for office in New York. He has bigger issues than me throwing a fortune cookie on the ground. And I don’t know why you find this so funny. What if we do something that lands us in trouble, and he ships me off to the other side of the world?”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I have no plans to knock over a bank anytime soon.”
“You suck,” Presley snipped, turning away. It was clear Dylan’s attempt at humor had fallen flat. The truth was, he was just as worried as Presley, but he felt like it was his job to set her mind at ease. Obviously, he was failing. He had no doubt that her father implying his campaign was more important than her had stung. He should have been more sensitive to her feelings.
“Hey,” Dylan whispered, scooting next to her on the lounge chair. “I’m sorry. What your dad said was a total dick thing to say. Had you not made your little speech, I’d probably be banned from ever seeing you again.”
Presley blinked back tears and gave him a weak smile. “I know. I saw your face. It was the reason I said anything in the first place. Although, I must admit I hadn’t planned to say those exact words. I just couldn't stop myself.”
Dylan grinned and pushed back the hair hanging over her shoulder. “It felt good though, yeah?”
Presley nodded and laughed. “So damn good.”
“Everything will be fine. And if it’s not, then we’ll deal with it. Got it?”
Presley leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. “Got it.”
Chapter Six
Present Day
Dylan drummed his fingers against his thigh and looked at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. The end of his shift at Grace was approaching, which meant he would soon be on his way to Hilltop. His anxiousness was palpable. He needed to see her again. He needed to unravel the web of lies that somehow ended with Presley locked away in a hospital, completely detached from reality.
“What’s got you so keyed up?” Joel asked, leaning against the wall next to Dylan.
Dylan flattened his hands on his thighs and gave Joel a half smile. “Tonight is my first shift at Hilltop.”
Joel nodded in understanding. “I was nervous before my first shift too. It’s weird how different Hilltop feels from Grace, especially at night. Sometimes, the silence is downright creepy.”
“So not many night owls?” Dylan kept his tone casual, though inside, he was anything but. He wondered what time Presley returned to her room, if she was in a restricted ward, if he could handle being so close to her without being able to see her.
“Depends. You met Cody, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well Cody and Maverick sleep through the night, they’re great. Zach not so much.”
“I remember Dr. Edmonds mentioning something about him being a bit of a troublemaker.”
“That’s putting it mildly. If he likes you, then you won’t have anything to worry about. So I’d try my best to get on his good side. And you don’t need to worry about knowing when Cody is Maverick or Zach—I promise you’ll know. If you want to get the lowdown on everyone, you should talk to Nurse Milly. She’s been the night shift charge nurse for something like fifteen years. She likes butterscotch,” Joel added with a chuckle before looking at his watch and pushing off the wall. “You have fun tonight. I’m going to face-plant on my bed for the next twelve hours.”
Dylan lifted his brow. “What happened to sleeping when you’re dead?”
Joel laughed. “I’m resting up for our weekly drinking binge.”
Dylan grinned and pushed away from the wall as well. “You realize you’re the only one who binges, right?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Joel chuckled. “Good luck tonight.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll see you in a couple days.”
The short trip to Hilltop felt like an eternity. Dylan’s stomach churned, and his hand shook as he swiped his access card across the sensor. The doors beeped and slid open, bringing him one step closer to Presley.
A wave of emotion rolled over him as he walked through the doors of the lounge area. Presley sat near the windows, her shoulders drawn and her eyes focused on the blanket cradled in her arms. He knew that she was real, accepted he hadn’t lost his mind. Even still, seeing her again filled him with a choking sense of disbelief.
“Can I help you?”
Dylan spun toward the sound of the woman’s voice, startled by her proximity. “Hi, I’m Dr. Walker. I work at Grace—”
The woman waved her hand toward his face, effectively cutting him off. “I know who you are. Dr. Edmonds mentioned you’d be starting tonight. I swear you doctors keep getting younger and younger.”
“I’m sorry,” Dylan muttered with a slight grin. “You must be Nurse Milly.” She was short, barely reaching Dylan’s chest. Wisps of white hair fell from her messy bun, framing her rounded face. Her brows rose in surprise as Dylan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package of butterscotch candies and handed them to her.
“Joel?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with amusement. Dylan nodded, causing her to chuckle. “If I were forty years younger,” she muttered with a shake of her head. “That boy’s nothing but trouble. Now there’s two of you?” She stared at Dylan for a beat before letting out a defeated sigh. “Well, come on, then. Let’s get you to work. It’s time for evening medications.”
Dylan licked his lips and nodded, his nerves spiking. This was what he wanted. He wanted to see Presley’s file. He wanted to know what had been done to make her forget almost everything. A chill crept up his spine as a possibility he had yet to consider entered his mind. What if nothing had been done to her? What if Presley’s current state had nothing to do with her parents or doctors? What if what happened all those years ago really had broken her mind? What if he couldn’t save her?
The room tilted, and Dylan had to blink several times to clear his vision. He couldn’t think that way. It didn’t matter how she’d become the way she was. All that mattered was bringing her back, and he’d stop at nothing to make that happen.
“Well, are you just going to stand there
, or are you going to give me a hand?”
Dylan snapped his eyes to Milly, who stood across the room, her arms crossed over her chest. “Sorry,” Dylan muttered, hurrying toward her. Inside the nurse’s station, Milly swiped her key card, and the pair stepped into the secondary room surrounded by Plexiglass. The room was set up like a pharmacy. Long shelves filled with medications lined the back of the room, a large table with file folders and medicine cups in the front. While Milly pulled bottles from the shelves and positioned them on the table, Dylan labeled each cup. Once everything was in order, Dylan grabbed the medication list and began reading off each patient’s medications as Milly dropped them into the individually marked white cups.
When he reached Presley’s name, his throat constricted, causing his voice to shake when he spoke. “Presley Cooper. Half milligram Triazolam, twenty milligrams Fluoxetine, ten milligrams Haloperidol. Jesus,” he exhaled, wide-eyed.
“You all right, Doctor?”
Dylan swallowed and gave a slight nod, doing his best to school his features. “Yeah, I’m fine. That just seems like one hell of a cocktail.”
Milly shook her head, her face creasing with a frown. “That’s just her night dose. That poor girl…” She trailed off, before going back to her task. After a moment, she looked at Dylan and rolled her wrist in a gesture for him to continue down the list.
He wanted to ask a million questions, but he knew doing so would raise suspicion, and that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take. That didn’t mean his mind wasn’t running in overdrive as he considered the medications and their implications. Tranquilizers and antidepressants were one thing, but it was the last one that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. Haloperidol was given to patients with schizophrenia. Presley might be a lot of things, but there was no way in hell she was schizophrenic. Any doubt Dylan had about her parents’ involvement in Presley’s current state vanished as quickly as it had come. Her parents and the doctor treating her had done this, and they would pay. All of them would pay.
“Here is the list of patient names and ID numbers. Just match the number on the cup with the number on the wristband. It’ll get easier once you become familiar with everyone.”
Dylan nodded and took a tray while Milly grabbed another.
“This isn’t something a doctor would normally do, but it's one of the many differences between what you do at Grace and what you’ll do here at Hilltop. It’s also a great way to put names with faces. Plus, you’re handsome, which makes this task much more enjoyable for me.”
Dylan couldn’t help but laugh, caught off guard by the lighthearted tone of her voice. “Happy to help.”
Milly smiled before her face became serious, the lines around her mouth and eyes deepening. “Don’t let this place or the people here weigh too heavily on your heart. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that you can’t save everyone, and trying to do so will land you right next to the poor souls here. We just have to do our best to make their lives as comfortable as possible until they’re with the Lord.”
Dylan was suddenly overcome with emotion. He’d become a psychiatrist to help people, to pull them back from the darkest depths of their minds, but since the moment he saw Presley, he hadn’t given a single thought to anyone else. “I know,” he muttered, turning to the other side of the room.
Pulling in a deep breath, Dylan moved toward the first patient on his list. Murmurs of soft conversation echoed around him as he grabbed a cup from his tray. “Hello, Brenda,” he said, a soft smile curving his lips. “I’m Dr. Walker.”
The woman lifted her head from where it rested on the table. Her blond hair was stringy and unkempt, her cheeks sunken, but it was her eyes that Dylan found himself trapped in. They were hollow and barren, empty of emotion in a way he’d only witnessed in cadavers. She lifted her arm and took the cup, her eyes never leaving Dylan. When she parted her lips and tossed the cup full of pills into her mouth, her eyes closed and she sighed in relief. Dylan blinked and looked away, unnerved by the woman’s silence. She placed the cup back on the tray and laid her head back on the table, dismissing him without a word.
Dylan straightened his back and turned away, his mind flipping through the possibilities of what brought her to Hilltop based off the medications she’d taken. As he moved from patient to patient, he found himself assessing each one, trying to unlock the clues to those who met him with only silence and those who spoke as if they were standing in line at a coffee shop. Dylan scanned the paper, his distraction ending when he realized there were only two names remaining on his list.
“Hello, Cody,” Dylan said, moving to the boy’s side and kneeling.
“I’m not Cody,” the boy muttered.
Dylan’s eyes widened for a moment before he schooled his features. The boy looking back at him was Cody, but he wasn’t. Something about his eyes was lighter, even more childlike. Clearing his throat, he handed the boy the small white cup. “Well, my name is Dr. Walker. Would you mind telling me your name so we can be properly introduced?”
The boy’s expression relaxed a little. He gave Dylan a timid smile and took the cup from his hand. “I’m Maverick. Cody said you were nice.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Maverick. Do you also enjoy reading?”
Maverick shook his head, his face twisted with disdain. “Reading is boring. I like dogs. Cody said he had a dog, but that was before…” Maverick dropped his chin to his chest. Dylan didn’t miss the way his jaw flexed. He didn’t know what events took place that ended with the boys at Hilltop, but something tugged at Dylan’s chest, a deep feeling of needing to help him somehow. He wondered if this was how he’d feel with every patient he encountered. He was both hopeful and terrified to find out the answer.
“What about books about animals? That could be fun. You could learn all sorts of things about them.”
Maverick eyed Dylan with a skeptical look on his face. After swallowing his pills, he shrugged and looked away. “Maybe,” he muttered, causing Dylan to grin.
“I’ll tell you what. When I come back, I’ll bring some of my favorite books about animals. How does that sound?”
“I might not be here,” he whispered, the childlike innocence in his eyes darkening, haunting. It caused a chill to run up Dylan’s spine.
“Could I leave the books with Cody?”
“Sure, but not with Zach. Please don’t leave them with Zach.”
Dylan wanted to ask why, but he could tell just the mention of Zach had put Maverick on edge. “Okay.” Dylan nodded. “You got it.” Dylan looked around the room, noticing Milly’s tray was almost empty as well. The lounge area would only be open a bit longer before the patients were escorted back to their rooms. Ruffling Maverick’s hair, Dylan stood. “I better get back to work. I’ll see you soon.”
Dylan’s heart began to thud inside his chest as he made his way toward Presley with even, measured steps. He gripped the tray with both hands to keep them from trembling as he kneeled in front of her. Like before, she didn’t look up or acknowledge his presence. Her eyes were focused on the blanket cradled in her arms.
“Presley,” he whispered, his voice shaking. When she didn’t answer, he spoke her name again, louder this time. Her feet stilled, her rocking coming to a stop as she lifted her eyes. Again, she looked straight through him. It was like a dagger to the heart all over. He was certain the pain of her lack of recognition would never lessen.
She lifted her hand, her palm facing up, her dull eyes unfocused. Dylan swallowed and tipped the cup on its side, the pills falling into her waiting hand. She brought her hand to her mouth, her lips parting as she dropped the pills inside and swallowed before lowering her eyes back to the blanket and resuming her rocking.
“Would you like some water?” he asked, aching to hear her voice. She shook her head, not bothering to lift her gaze to his. It wasn’t enough. “How are you doing tonight?”
She began to hum. The familiar song, the same one that had le
d him to her days before, caused his skin to heat. She was so lost. So broken. He knew it was wrong, but the desire, the sheer need to feel the warmth of her skin pushed him to place the tips of his fingers on top of her forearm. She flinched, her rocking increasing, her eyes downcast. He brushed his thumb over a small mole on her arm, the familiarity causing a rush of peace to wash over him.
“I’m going to make you better,” he whispered. “I’m going to bring you back to me, and I’m going to make the people responsible for this pay. I’m going to make them pay, Presley. I promise. I won’t let you down again. I won’t lose you again. Never again.”
Presley’s rocking eased to a stop, and as if in slow motion, she lifted her gaze to Dylan. His eyes widened, and his heart pounded as she studied his face. Did she remember him? Had she understood what he’d said? “Presley?” His voice broke, his nerves causing his skin to prickle.
“I’d like to go to bed now,” she said, her voice dull, monotone.
Dylan blinked and pulled his hand away. The rush of emotions he’d felt seconds before tumbled like boulders off a cliff into the pit of his stomach. “Would you like me to walk with you?”
Presley shrugged as she stood, but she didn’t make a move toward the door. Dylan looked at Milly, who was walking toward them. “Ms. Cooper has asked to be taken to her room.”
Milly nodded that same, sad expression, causing her lips to crease into a frown. “Yes, that’s why I came over. With her medications, it doesn’t take long before she’s out of it completely. You’re welcome to take her. She knows the way.” Milly reached out and squeezed Presley’s arm. “Are you feeling well, Miss Presley?”
Presley gave her a tired smile. “Dylan has been a bit fussy today. I think he’s teething.”
A wave of nausea caused the room to spin as Dylan listened to Presley speak so openly about a baby that existed only in her mind. He was equally stunned by Milly’s response.
“Yes, well, teething babies are a bit of a handful. You be sure to get some rest tonight. We’ll make sure he’s taken care of.”