Free The Six: Complete Series by E.C. Richard Page A

psychiatrist glared a Milo who sheepishly sat with just one shoe remaining. “Don’t...” she started to say.
    Milo ignored her. “Eh, Dennis. Don’t be rude.” Milo’s ratty old sneaker sat against the wall.
    “What? What do you want?” Dennis said with a voice barely above a growl. He rubbed his eyes but didn’t look her way.
    “Why don’t you sit down? You can come over here.” She patted the ground next to her.
    Dennis pulled at the handle one last time. Not a budge, like the last hundred times he had tried. Dennis hung his head and shuffled across the room. As he slid down the wall, she saw the tears swimming in his eyes and the deep bags that formed underneath. He’d aged twenty years since they’d brought him in.
    “It’s no use,” he said. “There isn’t a way out.”
    He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Lila put her arm around his back and did her best to comfort him. Every one of his muscles was tense and pulled to the breaking point.
    “We’ll find a way. There has to be one,” she said.
    Dennis wiped away a tear that had lodged itself in the corner of his eye. “You know why I’m wearing these?” He tore at the frayed ends of the tattered green scrubs.
    “I figured you were a doctor or something.”
    He gave a little hopeless laugh. “I was in the delivery room. I just went out to call my mother-in-law and the next thing I know they had me in some bed with my arms strapped to my sides like a criminal. I was only gone for a minute. I was supposed to come right back.” He didn’t want to cry in front of her, she could see that. A well of tears coated his eyes as he gazed up at the door again.
    “I’m so sorry,” she said.
    “I don’t even know if it was a boy or girl. It was going to be a surprise.”
    She didn’t know what to say. The others seemed so powerful and important and whatever ripple their absence caused would be felt. A high-powered lawyer or a TV star gone missing would matter to people. She and Dennis were just regular people who didn’t mean much to a lot of people. But he was about to change his own life and she had just ended hers. Why would they be chosen from all the people in the world?
    “We’ll get back,” she said. “I know we will.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
    There was nothing for her to go back to. Sitting in this room, not hurting anyone else, was where she should be. It was what she deserved.
    The light bulb above them moved back and forth like the hand on a grandfather clock. “I’m sure you’ll be a great dad,” she said. “That baby will be lucky to have you.”
    Dennis managed a smile but didn’t seem to be filled with an ounce of hope. Of all people, why him?
    The place was oddly beginning to feel like home. She’d been in here for at least a week. In that time she’d examined every crack, every indention in the paint, every fleck of rust on the door. The whoosh of the air conditioner became the lullaby that helped her drift off to sleep against her spot on the wall. Every so often she’d see her mom’s face or hear her dog bark and whatever comfort the room brought her vanished.
     
     
     
    “If they take me out,” she said, “I’ll ask about you. Maybe they’ll let you see your baby.” Dennis wasn’t going to last long down here. He wasn’t eating or sleeping. His muscles had grown weak and his will to escape had decreased as the hours crept on. A photo of his baby might just be enough to get him through this.
    “Thank you,” he whispered.
    The room shook as the clunk of doors down the hall echoed through the building.
    “They’re coming back,” Milo whispered.
    “What do you mean? Why?” Lila asked.
    “They’re bringing Simon back.”
    Footsteps scampered down the hall and walkie-talkies mumbled in the distance. All eyes were peeled on the door as the voices got progressively louder.
    “What do we do?” Lila asked.
    Milo covered his head with his hood. “Just sit down and be quiet.