Page 94 of Small Sacrifices

"Arrested?" There isn't even a tinge of surprise on Max's face. Just fear. "Arrested for what?"

"She said battery. It's not been officially confirmed."

"So assault, basically." Max's hands are shaking now. He pulls them back to his side and balls them into fists, but even that doesn't contain the tremor.

"Yes. And there have been reports of an ambulance arriving to take someone away. They don't say who was in it, though."

"Everett," Max says and closes his eyes. His voice is almost toneless, and Reid can feel his stomach sink even further than it already has when he watches him sag like a puppet with his strings cut.

"I haven't managed to reach anyone who knows. I'm sorry."

But Marisol's voice is relegated to background noise for now. Carefully, Reid kneels close to where Max has sunken into a sort of squat. His shoulders are heaving with quick breaths, forehead pressed to his knees. Mindful not to touch him, Reid leans forward a bit and says quietly: "We don't know if it's him yet."

If it was him, and he didn't know Marisol, he wouldn't want her to hear him freak out. But Max seems to have no such reservations.

"No, I know it's him!" His voice is heavy with desperation and unshed tears. "He got me out of the way to talk to Dad, and now he's not calling like he promised? He's not even answering texts. Something is wrong! And it wouldn't even—"

He stops himself, looking up at Reid with shiny eyes. Like he's unsure if he should continue. So Reid does it for him.

"It wouldn't be the first time?" he asks. Max nods. "Everett implied as much. But that doesn't mean that something would happen that's bad enough that Everett would need an ambulance." Then a horrifying thought strikes him. "Has he needed an ambulance before?"

Max grimaces. "I don't know. He looked real bad one time. But he said if I called an ambulance, Dad would blame him, and he might get in even more trouble. So I didn't." As soon as the tears spill over, Max lowers his head again, to cry into his pants. Reid watches his tears be soaked up by the black denim and tries to understand the words he just heard. Marisol is cursing again.

It pains him to see Max so afraid, so certain that his father hurt his brother. Still, he can't quite skirt the anger encroaching on the sympathy and his own fear like a silent fog. If it wasthisbad, bad enough for Max to draw conclusions like this, why didn't Everett say something? Just as a warning—or to take a precaution. Did he take any precautions other than getting Max out of the house? It's a good idea, sure, but it doesn't protect Everett. It only protects Max.

If Max’s and Reid's own anxiety are right, then clearly, Everett would have needed protection. Or possibly backup. What kind of fool—

A wheezing sound rips him out of his thoughts. Max is hugging his knees now, breathing so quickly that Reid immediately knows he needs to do something if he doesn't want to call an ambulance as well.

"Hey, Max," he tries. Unsurprisingly, it does little to nothing. Max's breath hitches, but he doesn't move, and then it goes right back to what it was before.

"Max, can I touch you?" Maybe if he can get him to focus on something outside of his head, that could help.

Max doesn't answer. But that also means he doesn't say no, and Reid can feel his own heartbeat speed up by now. This isn't good. He doesn't remember at what point hyperventilation gets problematic, and that only worries him more.

"Hey, Max," he says again. Only this time, he taps Max on the forearm. It gets him a noise he assumes is acknowledgment.

"Max, you need to breathe. Can you breathe with me?"

Quickly, Reid discovers that the problem with that approach is that it results in him imitating Max andalsobreathing too fast, which makes him dizzy. In his haze, he hears Marisol say something about counting. That sounds like a good idea. He counts out the breaths for Max like he counts them for himself in his own head.In-two-three, out-two-three. In-two-three, out-two-three.

It helps. Both of them. What also helps is that Marisol keeps talking. Reid doesn't even know if she's aware she's doing it. It seems to be some sort of stream of consciousness, about how Everett is a big guy, which means it's more difficult to do serious damage and that's a point in his favor in this situation. About how she's sure that someone's just doing their due diligence, calling an ambulance just in case, to let the professionals assess the damage.

And then she says something that makes Reid's blood run cold.

"You know, if Everett really needed an ambulance, and they arrested his father, that might even be good. Means they have evidence—that could put him away for a while, couldn't it?"

He remembers the look in Everett's eyes when they were talking about gathering evidence, and then his determination to make sure that Max knew he loved him before he left. Like he knew something bad would happen.

"I think that ambulance has probably arrived in the hospital by now. You could call around, find out if he was in it. If Max says he's Everett's brother, then maybe they'll tell you where he is."

In front of Reid, Max shudders and raises his head.

"You think?" he asks.

"Well, maybe," Marisol says. "It probably depends on what the police told them. Or what Everett told them."

If Everett can tell them anything.God, Reid hopes he can. He hopes he's driving them mad because he won't stop talking. Everett deserves to tell his story, and to have people listen to him. Maybe now they will.

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