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word he yelled at himself.
    “Hey, hey. Stop that.” Hank shot an arm out to block Daniel’s blows. “I didn’t say you were stupid. You know we don’t use that word.”
    Daniel dropped his chin to his chest. His breath came out in ragged bursts.
    Hank hated how Daniel always used his fists to deal with his emotional pain. “How about we head over to the comic store, see if we can find you something new?”
    “Really?” Daniel looked up, brightening at the suggestion. “But you hate driving all the way over to Brandon.”
    “Well, lucky for you, my day just freed up.”

(6)
LILY EASTIN
    Lily left the uneaten soup in the pot on the stove. No amount of cajoling could persuade Maddy to eat once they’d gotten home from the police station. The whole process had been agonizing—she’d had to just sit by, silently watching her daughter struggle to describe the man who’d almost stolen her away. Detective Wallace had watched Maddy with a look of skepticism on his face. It had infuriated Lily.
    How in the world could a fifteen-year-old be expected to remember the thickness of an attacker’s eyebrows or the angle of his cheekbones?
    By the end of it, both mother and daughter were emotionally spent. They didn’t say a word to each other the entire drive home.
    Lily wanted to rage, to scream “Screw it!” at the world, and hide underneath a mountain of covers for a week. But that would be too easy, more than she deserved. Maddy hadn’t created this situation, at least not on her own. The girl was a victim of bad parenting. She had a mother and father who separately had deep-seated issues, but together were even more dysfunctional.
    Yet, in spite of everything that had happened that day, tears still wouldn’t come. Lily refused to let herself feel anything, knowing that if she cracked open her heart even the tiniest amount, emotions would come flooding in, causing its walls to crumble completely. Lily leaned into the numbness. It’d been her go-to emotion for any stressful situation ever since Maddy was a baby.
    Lily couldn’t help but think back to the night when Maddy was only two months old and had refused her last evening feeding. At the time, she didn’t think much of it. As a first-time mother she figured it was no big deal, that a few hours later Maddy would eat again, and would be ravenous from skipping a meal. Yet, when Lily awoke around midnight not having heard the baby’s cry, she got up to check on her. In the night-light’s weak glow, Lily could see Maddy lying awake, looking up at the ceiling. She picked Maddy up to breastfeed, but the baby still refused to eat.
    Lily brought her back to the bedroom and frantically woke Tom, explaining Maddy’s lethargic condition. Tears streamed down Lily’s face as she told Tom they should rush her to the emergency room. He allayed her fears, explaining that sometimes babies were just sleepy and didn’t want to eat. Lily acquiesced to Tom, even though Maddy had been waking up like clockwork to eat every three hours since the moment she’d been born. She told herself that Maddy had finally reached the age where she could go longer between feedings. Plus, she didn’t want to be labeled as one of “those” first-time parents, the type that rushed her child to the ER at the first sign of a sniffle. Both she and Tom agreed that if Maddy persisted in not eating, they’d take her to the pediatrician first thing in the morning.
    The next day, Tom and Lily were waiting outside the doctor’s office before the staff arrived.
    The pediatrician listened to Maddy’s heart and said words that almost stopped Lily’s: “Your daughter’s heart is pumping so fast I can’t count the beats. She needs to go to the hospital immediately.”
    Thoughts rushed through Lily’s head. This can’t be happening. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. After the doctor left to make arrangements for transport, Lily completely fell apart.
    Tom glared at Lily. “Stop crying!