Page 49 of In Safe Hands
With a small noise of disgust, Daisy yanked at the material. In her half-awake panic, she just managed to tangle herself further. Her feet caught the edge of her blankets, tripping her as she lurched out of bed. She landed on her hands and knees, the hardwood floor connecting painfully, the throb telling her she’d have bruises later. Twisting so she was sitting on the floor, she kicked her way free of the covers that still managed to cling to her feet.
Finally free, she scrambled to her feet and hurried toward the stairs, whacking her shoulder on her bedroom doorframe as she passed through it. She grimaced, rubbing the spot where yet another bruise would appear. It was like the house itself was punishing her for what she’d done that day eight years ago.
Although she hadn’t had a destination in mind when she’d fled her bedroom, her legs carried her automatically to the training room. Ignoring the creeping feeling of menace emanating from the immobile equipment, she jumped onto the treadmill. Daisy arrowed up the speed past her usual warm-up, needing to run fast enough to get away from the nightmares and the memories and her stupid, panicky, shut-away life.
Running was too monotonous, though, giving her too much time to think. She kept thinking she heard things over the steady burr of the treadmill—a creak of a floorboard or the click of a latch. Every imaginary sound made her jump and flinch so strongly that, several times, she stepped on the edge of the belt and almost fell. Running wasn’t enough to kill her past and present ghosts, so she started a circuit, moving from pull-ups to leg-lifts to jump-ups to burpees to sit-ups to punching the heavy bag to push-ups and back to the treadmill for more sprints. She lost track of how many rotations she’d done, her muscles burning until they finally just went numb.
Numb was good, she decided, as the feeling disappeared from her body and then her brain. She stopped hearing the phantom intruder, her mother’s sobs, a gun firing. All she knew was her feet pounding on the treadmill or her fists smacking against the bag, until either she tripped or her legs decided they were done, and she sprawled on the floor.
That didn’t hurt as much as it should have, either, so there was another benefit to the numbness. With the current noodle-like state of her muscles, she barely managed to roll over onto her back. The high ceiling was white and bumpy, and Daisy stared at it until her eyes grew fuzzy and she had to close them.
She wondered if she’d really damaged her body, if the lack of feeling was disguising a serious injury. With her phone upstairs, Daisy would have no way to call for help. She’d be trapped in the exercise room, possibly for days, until Chris decided to visit. Or maybe he’d never come. He’d decide she was too much trouble, or the sheriff would order him to stay away, or Chris would find a girlfriend who could actually leave the house and go on a date, and he’d marry this non-messed-up woman, and they’d have adorable blond babies who’d wear Chris’s charming grin.
Daisy knew she was wallowing in self-pity, but she couldn’t stop. Her muscles and her mind had nothing left to give, no reserves of emotion or energy to help her bounce out of her funk. She could only lie there, tears seeping from under her eyelids and tracking over her temples. Finally, she took the only escape she had open to her—unconsciousness.
* * *
The pounding woke her. It was faint, but persistent, and it seemed to be growing louder. She rolled onto her side and groaned when every piece of her shrieked in agony. The floor was hard underneath her, and she reluctantly opened her eyes to see the legs of a weight bench in front of her face.
Painfully, she hauled herself to a sitting position, blinking a few times to orientate herself.
“You couldn’t have made it to the mats before you passed out?” Daisy muttered. She’d never been drunk, so she’d never been hungover, but she wondered if it felt anything like her current state. If so, she’d continue abstaining for reasons other than just because her dad refused to buy her alcohol.
The pounding was getting ferocious, so Daisy stumbled to her feet, straightening her body with a whimper. Her first steps were stilted and uneven, although moving helped the stiffness in her muscles. By the time she reached the front door, she was walking almost normally—normally, at least, for a ninety-year-old woman.
She jabbed at the intercom button. “What?”
There was a pause before Chris’s voice came through the speaker. “What do you mean ‘what’? Why didn’t you answer?” He sounded pissed.
“I was sleeping,” she snapped, feeling a little cranky herself. “Why didn’t—this is dumb.” Releasing the intercom button, she buzzed Chris in and then leaned against the door, taking some of her weight off her complaining legs.
The exterior door closed with a harder thud than usual, meaning Chris had helped it along. For some reason, the idea of him slamming doors like a hormonal thirteen-year-old girl made her snicker as she unfastened the interior door locks.
When she saw his face, her initial theory was confirmed. He was indeed pissed.
Although she expected him to tear into her as soon as he was inside, Chris remained silent until she’d locked the door and made her stumbling way into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with you?” he finally demanded, following her. Instead of heading to the coffeemaker, he stood stiffly by the far counter, his arms crossed over his chest. As always, it really did nice things to his muscles when he stood that way.
Daisy shook off the lecherous thoughts, trying to focus. “What’s wrong with me?” she repeated. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
His scowl deepened, and Daisy didn’t have the heart to tell him it made him more attractive rather than intimidating. “You’re limping. Are you hurt?”
“Just sore.” With a yawn, she figured she might as well take advantage of the brewer if Chris wasn’t interested. “I worked out pretty hard last night.” She started a cup of coffee and grabbed a glass for water. From the way her head was pounding, she knew she had to be dehydrated. She downed two glassfuls while Chris glared at her.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
Apparently, it was going to take a few more minutes for Chris to get over his snit. “My phone’s in my bedroom.”
For a moment, he looked more confused than angry. “You just said you couldn’t hear me knock because you were sleeping.”
“I was sleeping.” She traded her water glass for the coffee mug. Between the water and the caffeine, one or both should help with her headache. “Just not in bed.” A yawn interrupted her explanation. “I fell asleep in the training room.”
“Why were you sleeping in the training room?”
Sometimes it was a pain to be friends with a cop. “It wasn’t really a planned decision. I was tired after working out, so I lay down and dozed off.”
“On the floor of the training room.”
