US DOJ METROPOLITAIN DETENTION CENTER, EIGHTEEN DAYS AFTER THE ARREST

Don groaned and tried putting the pillow over his head in addition to his arm. It didn't help. The occupant of the cell next door slammed something – a foot, his whole body, a truck….Don didn't really care – against the wall with a heavy thud and resumed his incessant screaming.

It was keeping Don's gut in a permanent knot after so many hours; he knew the man wasn't being hurt, not physically at any rate. He was half inclined to want to beat the guy half to death to shut him up, but nothing could change the fact that it was impossible to listen to a man screaming and crying without it having an impact.

There were footsteps in the hall outside, and they stopped outside the neighboring cell. Don wondered what tactic the hapless detention officers would try this time. Everything from gentle coaxing to exasperated, shouted threats had failed. There was another thud, and more screaming. He could hear the officer trying to talk to the other prisoner, muffled words finally tapering off in defeat.

The footsteps came to rest outside his door, and Don stood, peering out the small window. "You hangin' in there?" asked Kevin Anderson, the lead detention officer in Don's unit.

"Barely," admitted Don.

"Sorry about that." Anderson winced. "We're trying to get him a transfer to mental health services, but it's looking like a long night waiting for red tape. Poor guy's completely lost it."

"Yeah, well, I'm about to," said Don. He gave the officer an understanding look. "Hard to listen to."

"Yeah." Anderson gave the window a friendly tap with his knuckles. "You're up for the rec room in about an hour, see you in a bit."

Don nodded with a brief smile, and sat down again, ordering his gut for about the fiftieth time to ignore the frantic cries and thuds on the other side of the wall. He flinched, on edge, when the wall at his back registered a furious kick from his other neighbor. "Shut the fuck up!" bellowed a voice loud enough to be mistaken for a bullhorn. "I'll give you a fuckin' reason to scream, you fuckin' retard!"

Don stood and slammed his own foot into the wall. "Knock it off, 'less you want me to start howling too," he shouted. His voice reverberated around the cell with startling clarity, shocking him back into composure. He laid down on the bunk, and forced himself to focus on breathing, not the throbbing in his head or his own intense desire to scream.

There was a sharp rap on the cell door, and Don jumped to his feet. Recognizing Anderson through the small window, he gave the officer a friendly nod of greeting.

Seconds later, Anderson slammed the palm of his hand against the polycarbonate pane with furious violence. The metal door shook, and Don's heart rate spiked as he startled back despite himself.

"Eppes, if this is some dumbass attempt on the part of your guys to force a confession, I swear to God you will see the consequences."

"What?" asked Don, keeping his distance from the door and the furious detention officer outside.

"I just got the detailed case files on the kid next door. He's a suspect in your goddamn case! You people will not use my facility to torture suspects, you got it, you fucking asshole?"

Don met Anderson's eyes. He knew that look of rage; he'd worn it enough times himself. "Let's pretend I don't know a thing about this," he said, maintaining a calm gaze. "Last I heard, I was the suspect in my case."

"Says here in the report that agents have reason to believe your neighbor over there made the tape that constitutes the most damning evidence against you. The kid wouldn't talk, and Special Agent Sinclair has him booked. Your boys are fishing for a deal. But I don't give a damn how much they want to save you, this isn't gonna fly."

Anderson's voice went utterly cold. "They're doing this for you, well I'm gonna make your life a living hell until your buddy backs off."

"Okay," said Don, his voice quiet.

"What?"

"Okay," repeated Don, waiting a moment before speaking again. "You do what you gotta do."

Anderson frowned. The calm acceptance in Don's unblinking reaction was the last thing he'd expected.

"Or, you could just call Sinclair and tell him what's going on before you assume the worst," said Don. "Last I checked, he didn't run cases by inflicting psychological torture on mentally disturbed suspects."

"Word of advice? Don't assume someone that supervises a maximum security jail was born yesterday," said Anderson. "Yeah, a detention officer calls up an FBI agent and says, 'Hey, your prisoner isn't happy here in jail, could you let him go please?' and the FBI agent says, 'Sure, why not.'"

"I could give you the same advice about FBI agents," retorted Don. "We like it when fellow agents are threatened, it makes us all cuddly and cooperative."

The officer's face softened, threatening to smile. "Okay. How'd you feel about my having a talk with your agent and asking him to back off this kid? Would it actually work?"

"How'd you feel about my trying to talk to the guy?" Don jerked his head to the side, indicating the neighboring cell.

"Are you nuts?"

"Will be if I have to listen to him screaming much longer. Hey, I'm a prisoner and I'm an FBI agent. You have to admit I'm kinda uniquely qualified."

Anderson studied him silently, actually considering it. "This wouldn't be you seeing a chance to work this case yourself?"

"Of course it is," said Don. "Not by making things harder on the kid, though."

"Let me run it past some of the guys."

Ten minutes later, Anderson came to a stop outside the door. "Okay. We're going to try this. Both ends of this section are locked down, and I'm going to stand at that door, just inside. If anything at all happens, you hit the floor and lace your fingers behind your back. You do that, I give you my word the first move I make will be to cover you, okay?"

Don nodded, and Anderson opened the cell door. "What do we know about his history?" asked Don. "Arrests, mental health issues…"

"He's pretty clean," said Anderson. "This is his first arrest, so if this is the result of abuse, which I suspect it is, it didn't happen in a jail. I'm not seeing any psychiatric history either, but all that means is he hasn't been institutionalized. He could easily be under the care of a private doctor."

"He violent?" asked Don.

"He hasn't attacked anyone, doesn't seem violent but in his state we can't take anything for granted," said Anderson. "Problem here is, he's severely claustrophobic, and restraints send him into a panic."

Don frowned. "What? So you stick him in solitary?" The thought was revolting; he wasn't the least bit claustrophobic and even he had to fight a primal sense of unease induced by the feeling of being walled up in such an enclosed space.

"He started out in general holding, but he was too disruptive. Made his way through the rest of the facility and wound up here because nobody could deal with him. Doc gave him a sedative and it just wound him up even more."

"What's his name?"

"Sam Lobell. He's nineteen years old." The two men exchanged glances, and Don approached the cell.

Don peered through the window, and only his years of familiarity with crime scenes kept his expression steady. He spoke to the man inside in a soft voice, not paying heed to the words, just their tone. "Easy, Sam. I'm not here to hurt you, okay? I just want to talk."

There was blood smeared on the window, on the walls, on the blanket twisted on the floor. There was no mattress on the steel platform which served as a bed, just footprints of water tinted bright red with blood. The water was everywhere; soaking one side of the prisoner's jumpsuit, covering the floor, splashed on the walls.

Lobell jumped on top of the metal bed with a scream, flattening himself against the wall and staring at the corner of the cell. It was easy enough to see the source of the blood; his hands and feet were covered with the results of hours of slamming into concrete and metal.

Don knew there was no way someone in the grip of such abject trauma would comprehend the words coming out of his mouth, but their tone, their intent…that might be heard. "I'm not going to hurt you, I want to help, okay? You're gonna be all right, son. You're gonna be all right. I'll be back in just a minute." He touched the window with his hand. "I'll be right here, okay? We're right outside the door."

He approached Anderson, stopping at a respectful distance. "Call Agent Sinclair, tell him I said to get this kid out of jail now. Tell him to move him into a good mental facility that specializes in abuse and PTSD, not a hospital psych unit. He'll listen."

Anderson studied him with a piercing stare. "How do I know he won't wind up worse off if I let your guys control this?"

Don rolled his eyes. "You've had me under a microscope for weeks, does anything about me say sadistic asshole? Look, I know you're a humane guy, but how many people would look at the disaster in there and be able to think for a second this was something other than abject cruelty? It's appalling."

A faint hint of a smile appeared in Anderson's eyes. "Probably only the guy stuck in the cell next to him all day."

"Agent Sinclair wouldn't knowingly do this to someone. He's ethical, has a soft heart. One reason I recommended him for the job."

Anderson finally nodded. "Get back in the cell. I'll make the call." Don obeyed, turning around when the door clicked shut softly behind him. The detention officer met his eyes through the opening, and though he didn't smile, there was genuine warmth in his expression.

Don lay down on his side, controlling his breathing and trying to shake the deep-rooted feeling of nausea in his gut. A repetitive screaming issued forth from the neighboring cell, and he flinched, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. His hand found the friendly constellation on the wall, and he pressed his palm hard against the cold cement.

"Please end this." He was whispering out loud, unconsciously trying to cover the horror next door with something more soothing, even if it was his own voice. "Please, please end this." Don felt something wet and warm escape his closed eyes, and he didn't fight it. Perhaps it was part of prayer, part of the grief inherent in having to turn to something unknown for help when every fiber of his being was screaming for the chance to do it for himself.

"Well, let's face it. Don Eppes and trust issues are pretty much synonymous."

Wasn't like he hadn't heard the sentiment a few dozen times, but Liz had put it more succinctly than most.

"I know how to trust! Every time I go in the field, I put my life in the hands of the people I work with. That's faith in my book."

"Not coming from a man who's more afraid of being wrong than of getting shot."

What the hell was trust, anyway? And faith? Putting the outcome of a situation in the hands of another person, of random chance, of God? Wasn't that a recipe for the worst kind of disappointment? Self-sponsored helplessness under the guise of trusting someone or something else to control your destiny? A coping mechanism that, however tempting, would simply lead to even deeper hurt?

You're hurt anyway, Donny. You're lying here in a cell crying because you've lost everything you love, because you're accused of being a criminal, because some kid society should have protected is in agony you can't stop, because no matter how much you want to, you can't get yourself out of this. Because your only hope lies completely out of your hands, and that's just unbearable, isn't it? Is that why people trust? Because it hurts less than this?

"You know – I remember when I was younger, I was looking at this picture of a pile of bodies of people who were murdered in the holocaust. You read so many stories of faith, and I just wonder where that fits in for those people."

The rabbi looked at him, thoughtful. "Faith isn't a way of securing a promise that everything will turn out the way you want it to. It's a matter of being at peace with God, and with yourself and your place in the world."

"Now that's not easy."

The rabbi smiled. "I don't think anyone ever claimed it was."

Peace? How can I be at peace with this?

There was a thud from next door, the sound of a body falling. It was followed by a howl of pain, and sobbing.

Because you know yourself? Because you know you're doing everything in your limited power to help that kid, and you know you're innocent of these charges? Because you know that officer out there is a good human being, and he's doing exactly the same thing?

Because you know David, and Charlie, Colby, Dad, Liz, Robin, Nikki, Amita, even Vic Nychev, and you know they are smart and capable and they care deeply?

Because the smartest thing is to have faith, and trust? To be at peace instead of lying here in misery?

He pressed his hand even harder against the wall. "I'll try," he whispered.