Stone uncapped the bottle he’d already opened and drank from it. He finished the liter and then forced himself to his feet. He was dizzy, exhausted, hungry, and tense. He checked the latch on the door, then slid the chain into place, and propped a chair under the handle. Finally, he couldn’t stay upright any longer.
“One of us should really keep watch, but I don’t think either of us is capable. I’m dead on my feet.” He sank gingerly onto the bed. “You should take a shower before you fall back asleep.”
Wren nodded and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. After a moment, the shower turned on and Stone was left to picture her naked and wet beneath the water. Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. She rounded the bed and lay down on the edge, stiff and seeming unsure. Stone wrestled with himself briefly, and then gave in.
“Get over here, babe.”
“What?” Wren’s eyes were wide.
Stone extended his arm and crooked his finger at her. “Come over here. Closer, so I can hold you.” Wren wriggled over until her head was on his chest. He curled his arm around her, holding her waist and trying not to let his hand wander lower. “Better?”
Wren nodded, and within moments was asleep. Stone wasn’t far behind, despite the fact that they were both wearing nothing but towels.
An unknowable time later, Stone woke up with Wren curled against his uninjured side. She was tensed, even pressed against him. He knew by her breathing that she was awake.
“Stone?” She rolled away slightly, clutching the towel in place. She searched his eyes. “In the lobby…was that just…I mean—did you—?”
“I don’t know, Wren. Honestly I don’t. I don’t know what it means.”
“Did you…feel anything?” Her voice was small and hesitant.
“Of course I did,” he said. “How could I kiss you and not feel anything?”
She shrugged, and the towel slipped slightly, drawing Stone’s attention to her cleavage. He forced his gaze to her eyes when she spoke. “I don’t know. It’s so hard to tell with you. You don’t ever seem to show emotions. You don’t show pain, or fear, or happiness, or anything. You’re just this wall of…stone.”
Stone laughed. “How do you think I got the nickname ‘Stone’ in the first place?”
Wren’s face scrunched. “Nickname? Stone’s not your real name?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I got it after my first combat mission.”
“Why?”
“Well, like you said, I don’t really…show much. I never have. And then during combat I was just stone-cold calm the whole time, and my L-T made some kind of casual remark, like, ‘you’re made of stone or something, Pressfield,’ and the nickname Stone just stuck.”
“So they gave the nickname to you for being unemotional?”
Stone wobbled his head side to side in a ‘not really but sort of’ gesture. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“What do you mean?”
Stone sighed. “It’s another one of those things I don’t like to talk about.”
“I watched you kill men today, Stone. I think I can handle some old story.”
“It’s not just because I’m stone-cold emotionally; it’s because I seemed like a stone-cold killer. That first combat mission, it went off the rails. Went bad. Old intel, the bad guys had more backup than we’d anticipated. One of them got the drop on L-T, and I was out of ammo. Rookie mistake, you know? Shooting too much, waiting till empty to reload. Supposed to reload when you’ve got a few rounds left, and you never just throw the clip away like in the movies. You save it. Reuse it. Anyway, a tango got the drop on L-T, and I was out of ammo. For some stupid reason, I went for my KA-BAR instead of my sidearm—”
“Kay-bar? What’s that?”
“Combat knife. I should have shot the fucker, but I stabbed him instead. Of course, unless you know exactly what you’re doing and where to stab and all that, you never get a guy on the first try with a knife. It’s surprisingly hard to kill a man with a knife. That’s why you always hear about someone being stabbed like twenty or thirty times. The human body can withstand a shitload of damage as long as it doesn’t stop the heart immediately, or the brain. So I got the guy, but he had a gun and I had my knife, and L-T was down, wounded, so I just laid into him again. Not thinking, just doing.” Stone flexed his hand, remembering the feel of the knife in his hand and the warmth of blood on his hands for the first time. “Shooting someone from far away, that’s one thing. Even from thirty feet away with a pistol. It still takes it out of you, hits you hard the first few times you do it. But to kill someone up close and personal like that? With your hands? You watch the light go out of his eyes. You watch him turn into a dead husk right in front of you. Watch him bleed out, knowing you did that to him. And because I don’t show much emotion, and never have, it seemed to everyone else that I just did it easy as you please, no guilt, no remorse.”
“Did you? Feel that stuff?” Wren asked, sounding shaken.
“Shit yeah. Of course. I wanted to puke afterward. I couldn’t sleep for weeks, seeing his face every time I closed my eyes. That mission, those first kills? I’ll never forget them. Not for as long as I live. I don’t really remember most of the others, but you never forget the first man you kill.”
Wren didn’t answer for a long time. When she did, it was in a tiny whisper. “Have you killed a lot of people?”
Stone just nodded. “Too many.”
“And today. You killed people today. For me.”
He pulled her against him. “Yeah. And there will probably be more before we’re safe.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t plan on talking about this.”
“It’s inevitable. You’ve seen some awful shit. Experienced hell.” He touched her cheek with the knuckle of his forefinger. “At least you’re with me, now. Safe. And you weren’t raped.”
“I saw it, though. I saw…girls. A lot of them. Being…used. And that was almost me. If you hadn’t—”
“But I did. I’ve got you.”
Wren burrowed against him, relaxing into him, slipping a hand across his chest and holding him. “Thank you, Stone. Thank you, so much.”
Stone felt his heart constrict and expand. She sounded so vulnerable. Felt so right, in his arms like this. “Of course, babe.”
“What’s your real name?”
Stone sighed. “I was born George Alexander Pressfield the third. My grandfather was the captain of an aircraft carrier in World War II, and my father commanded a PT boat during Vietnam. My great-grandfather was in the Navy too. So that makes me a fourth-generation Navy brat.”
“George? Really?” Wren sounded amused.
He pulled back and glared down at her. “Is that funny to you? Is it funny that I’m George the third?”
She nodded, laughing now. “Yes! It is funny, actually. George. Little Georgie.”
Stone growled. “That’s why I go by Stone. I was never so glad for a nickname in all my life.”
“Maybe I’ll call you George from now on,” Wren suggested.
“You better not.”
“Sensitive much?”
“I hate that name. I’ve always hated that name. Even in elementary school, I would introduce myself as Alex. I actually went by Alex until I got the nickname Stone.” He laughed. “I refused to answer to anyone unless they called me Alex. I got detention almost every day for the first half of third grade because my teacher refused to call me anything but George. Eventually we compromised on ‘Mr. Pressfield.’”
Wren shifted against him, and now the humor was gone from her eyes. In its place something else, something hot and desperate and alluring. “So you won’t answer if I call you Georgie? Even if we’re alone?”
Stone shook his head. “Nope.”
She moved even closer, and now she was pressed against him, almost lying on top of him. Her legs were warm against his. “I like Georgie. It’s cute.”
“I’m a Navy SEAL. I don’t do cute.”
“Am I cute?”
