Chapter 207: Jake
Madeline drifts off fast, breath warm against Reid’s chest, fingers still hooked in his shirt like she anchored herself on the way down. After a minute he slides an arm under her knees and another behind her shoulders and lifts her with that quiet care that undoes me, sets her on our bed because it’s my night with her, and takes the other without a word. I slip onto the side closest to him and let her sprawl, hair a soft mess on the pillow, mouth parted in that small, wrecked peace I could live in.
We crack the laptops and let the room settle into its gentle thrum—keys tapping, AC humming, lamplight turning the duvets to honey. Inbox triage rolls by: inspectors to placate, donors to charm, a permit that can wait. Then Charlie’s update lands for both of us. Finn, Liam, and Sloane got the boat good to go; the cracked window at the SWMRI house is being replaced today; everything’s steady. One more line: Sloane left this morning for a week—no outings on the water—so she’s gone back to the city to see family or something, will be back after.
Reid raises an eyebrow, filing it where he keeps sharp things. “I didn’t remember her family being in the city. I thought it was her friends.”
“Maybe they’re there now,” I say with a shrug, even as the cursor blinks like a metronome in the corner of my screen.
We work another hour, maybe two. The blue outside the window deepens; our drafts and redlines stack into neat little victories. When the quiet starts to feel too neat, I glance over and ask, “What exactly did Sloane say about Madeline on the boat?”
Reid goes rigid, hands pausing over the keys. “She said she has proof Madeline… committed a crime, or something back there. Someone told her.”
My jaw tightens before I can stop it. “I hope she’s not planning some bullshit.”
“She wouldn’t,” he says on reflex, then scrubs a hand over his mouth and corrects himself. “Or if she is, she’s going to come back with whatever she thinks is proof and we’ll address it. As long as she doesn’t go to Madeline directly, it’s fine.”
I look at the girl sleeping on our beds, lashes tangled, the faint shadow of our fingerprints fading at the hem of her underwear, and I nod once. “Fine,” I say, because for tonight that’s the only word that matters. We’ll handle the rest when it comes.
About an hour later the emails are quiet, the drafts are parked, and we call it. I close the laptop, kill the lamp, and the room slips into soft dark.
“Night,” I say.
“Night,” Reid answers from the other bed, then adds a low, aggrieved, “Sleeping alone sucks.”
I laugh under my breath. “Sucker.”
He huffs a chuckle, the kind that says he walked into that one. I turn toward Madeline and slide an arm around her waist, drawing her back into me until she fits perfectly—warm, loose, smelling like vanilla and clean cotton and something that’s fast becoming home. Her hair brushes my chin; her breath evens against my forearm.
The last thing I register is the curve of her hip under my hand and that ridiculous, delicious smell of her. Then the day lets go, and I go with it.
A sharp sting snaps me awake—four hot lines scoring my forearm. I flinch, look down, and find Madeline’s nails sunk into my skin, knuckles white. I ease my arm free and whisper her name, but she doesn’t answer. When I roll her toward me, the room’s dim glow catches her face; her eyes are shut tight, lashes wet, breath coming too fast.
I try to settle the blanket higher, thinking she’s cold, when her voice slips out in a small, shredded thread: “No, please.”
“What?” I keep my voice low. “You don’t want the blanket?”
“Please, please leave me alone,” she gasps, still somewhere else entirely. Tears streak hot along her temples. “Don’t hurt me.”
I move over her, hands braced either side of her shoulders, gentle as I can as I try to pull her up to waking. “Hey—hey, it’s just me—”
The world explodes sideways. Something slams into my ribs, lifts me off the mattress, and pins me hard against the wall. Not something. Reid.
“What the fuck, man—” rips out of me on reflex as the lamp rattles and the bed frame groans.
His eyes are feral for a heartbeat—then focus, horror flooding in. He lets go like he’s touched fire. “Fuck—sorry. I heard her— I thought someone was hurting her.”
I’m pissed because my back is going to remember that, but I get it because I heard her too. “It’s—”
Her scream cleaves the room. “Please don’t—please don’t—leave me alone—” She thrashes, voice cracked and raw, and the sound rips straight through everything reasonable.
“Fuck,” we say together.
I hit the switch; light floods the motel room in cheap gold. Reid is already at the bed, gathering her up; she claws at his forearms on instinct, a wild, blind panic that leaves crescents in his skin. He takes it, wraps her tighter, careful and immovable. I crowd in close, shushing, hands up where she can feel the heat without feeling trapped.
“Mads, it’s us,” I say, steady as I can make it. “It’s Reid and Jake. You’re safe. You’re here. Breathe for me.”
“Nightmare,” Reid murmurs against her hair, rocking her once, anchoring her with his whole body. “You’re here with us. We’ve got you.”
She jolts awake like someone cut a cord—eyes blown wide, chest heaving—and immediately tries to tear free of his arms. He locks his forearms around her and holds, not crushing, just unbreakable, riding out the panic until it ebbs. I keep talking, soft and relentless. “It’s okay. It was a nightmare. You’re good. You’re okay. You’re with us.”
Her fight leaks away by inches. She stills. Focus returns in halting clicks, and then she looks between us like she’s surfacing, hand lifting, searching for something solid to prove we’re not part of the dream. I take her fingers and squeeze; Reid’s touch follows along the same forearm, a slow pass of warm knuckles that says the rest without a word.