Riders (Riders, #1)(56)
“Okay. Thing number two. Well, let’s see … I spent three months in a mental institution last year—how’s that? It was right when I first started blacking out and waking up knowing things. Before I really understood. I thought I was going crazy. Literally, I thought so because my mom suffers from depression and anxiety, and it’s bad sometimes. Really hard on her. On all of us. My whole family. So when I started passing out, the doctors thought it was mental illness again, only manifesting in a different way. And I guess I did too at first. My psychiatric team—I had a team—strongly suggested committing me. My parents agreed and I didn’t disagree, so I ended up at this private hospital in Maine.
“I actually had to break out of there or I’d probably still be there. You’d have been proud of me. It was totally Escape from Alcatraz. I had to dig a hole and crawl under a fence. I gouged my back doing that. It hurt so much. It gave me a big scar that I can only see when I look in a mirror—three lines running down my back like a tiger almost caught me. It was pretty gross when it was new. But I did it. I got out and I haven’t been anywhere near there or my home since.”
My pulse had picked up, hearing all that. I wanted to shoot into the past and help her bust out of that place in Maine. And I wanted to know more about her. A lot more. “Why haven’t you gone home?”
“Because nothing is different. This is my life. This never ends for me. I always have to leave. I always have to go where I’m needed. And it would just be too hard to see my family, then have to say good-bye. It’d be too hard for them. I do what I can to make it easier. A few months ago I sent them a postcard from Croatia, telling them I was traveling around the world finding myself and not to worry. I hope it helped. It’s better than if they knew the truth.”
I could relate to that. I’d left Anna and my mom without an explanation or good-bye.
“Are you turned off yet?” Daryn asked. “Are you picturing me in a straitjacket?”
“Was that your plan? Nice try, Martin. But it backfired. I like you even more now.”
That last part wasn’t supposed to come out but there it was. And there it stayed, second after second. I had no idea what she thought of it. None. My confidence was dying a thousand deaths.
Then she said, “Don’t you want to hear thing number three?”
I pressed the talk button. “Sure do. Lay it on me.” I was ready for things three through a hundred.
“This one’s a little different. It’s something I’m just realizing, kind of a revelation, and it’s that … it’s that your eyes are my favorite.” Her voice had gone all gentle and soft, so I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right until she kept going. “They’re amazing. So blue and direct sometimes. Other times, when you’re not being sarcastic or contrary, when you’re listening or when you’re just driving, there’s such humor in them. Such humor and kindness. Then there are the times I catch you watching me, and what I see in them makes me forget everything. What I am, and what I do, and … I’m just a girl again. A girl who gets a million butterflies in her stomach over a boy with the prettiest blue eyes. It feels so normal. So normal and so good.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know how to speak anymore. My heart was going ballistic in my chest. Finally I got it together enough to respond. “So what you’re telling me is that I make you feel average?”
She laughed. “Yes. You make me feel perfectly ordinary. It’s the best.”
“Daryn … Dare. Just come over here.” I didn’t say “please,” but it was all over my voice. I wanted her with me. I was losing my mind, I wanted that so badly.
But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Every second that passed felt like she was putting mile after mile between us again. If this was her life—postcards from Croatia?—then I was beginning to understand the distance she needed. Not easy to get attached to people when you were always leaving. Coming from a military family, I knew about that.
“We should get some rest,” she said. “Special Agent Daryn Martin, signing off. Good night, Gideon.”
“Night, boss.”
I shut off my radio. But I didn’t fall sleep for a long while after.
CHAPTER 34
I woke up hungry, tired, and partially deaf, but ready to coordinate our ingress into Italy. Four stowaways climbing out of a cargo plane on the Fiumicino Airport tarmac were bound to attract some attention, so. Time to plan.
I stood, stretched, and put Lia back in her cage, giving her one of my granola bars. Sebastian and Marcus were both awake, but Daryn was still out cold, using my Giants sweatshirt as her pillow.
I thought about our conversation over the radios. I wanted to get smart about depression so I could talk with her about it without sounding like an idiot. The scar on her back? Definitely wanted to see that. She’d acted like it was ugly, but no way. It just couldn’t be. And the last thing she’d said? Mind-blowing.
I checked my watch and decided to let her sleep a little longer. We still had some time before we landed. We’d left Los Angeles at 11:55 p.m. Direct flights from LA to Rome took around twelve hours, and we’d gained nine hours in time-zone difference. That added up to it being night again in Rome when we’d land, somewhere around the 9:30 p.m. range, local time. Night was good. Darkness gave us more options. I set my watch. If I’d estimated everything correctly we had about thirty minutes until we touched down.