My goddamn body wouldn’t let me forget it. But I had to. I had to get her out of my head because nothing had changed since we’d been tangled in these sheets. Nothing would be changing. I lost my clothes and climbed into the bed with Molly curling up next to me. She was snoring before I was.
It felt like I’d barely closed my eyes when the dream started. The nightmare.
I was looking through my scope at the asswipe we’d been sent to take out. He was moving in his home office, drapes open as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I checked the setting one more time, put my eye back to the scope, breathed in and out, letting the calm take me, before slowly pulling the trigger and watching as the bullet ran through the night, through the glass, and into his head. He slumped forward on the desk.
I’d just picked up the shell casing and was turning to head back when the gunfire started back at the location I’d left the team. They’d been watching my back at the edge of the road. I fought the immediate instinct to take off at full speed, knowing that the one advantage they had would be me surprising their attackers from behind.
Gunfire was replaced with an IED going off, and I picked up the pace but still moved quietly enough to keep my presence a surprise, the sound of guns increasing my hope even before I hit the scene. When I arrived, I’d gunned down four of them and was plowing my way through to my guys when the sight hit me. The bodies. The blood. Bull was on the ground, blood pouring from a leg wound, but he was firing into the onslaught.
I kept laying down fire from the back as I edged toward my team. And that was when the second IED went off, shrapnel hitting me in the shoulder, throwing me to the ground. I lay there dazed for a moment before shaking it off. My weapons still in hand, I stood up and faced the black shadows coming at me. I fired, the shadows fell, and I was heading for my team again. What I saw made me want to empty my gun at every shadow that approached.
The sight before me and the slamming of a door ripped me from my nightmare. I lay for a moment, hand on the warm spot where Molly had once been, and I heard her nails tapping on the kitchen floor above me along with Tristan’s soft voice and the baby cooing.
My heart rate was racing at a pace unheard of for me.
The image of my friends, my brothers, blown into parts I’d had to haul on a tarp back to our evac location. The pieces I’d picked up, covering myself in their blood even more than my own.
I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes, wishing it had just been a nightmare instead of a reality. I ran fingers along the scar from my neck, along my collarbone, and out to the end of my shoulder. It had torn into some of my tattoos. They were now twisted and deformed, but they would remain that way. I would never have them fixed. They were a permanent reminder.
I got to my feet, forced myself to head upstairs to the bathroom, before joining the females in the kitchen. Hannah was in her high chair, shoving pieces of pancake into her mouth. She saw me and smiled. “NaNaNaNa.”
I bent and kissed the top of her head. “Morning, Bo Peep!”
She offered me her pancake, and it was a moment of déjà vu from her offering me her noodles before they’d taken off for New York.
Tristan turned, took me in with a scowl, and then went back to washing the dishes.
After the nightmare, this image made my heart topple over with anguish, because Darren wasn’t here to see it. He couldn’t come into the room and kiss Hannah and then his wife. I was full of anger and sadness at having had to pick up the pieces of my best friend so there would be something to bury.
Mac’s words from the day before came crashing into my head. Did you ever consider that having you there only makes it harder for her?
When Tristan dried her hands and headed back toward me and the baby, I reacted. Not that I didn’t know what I was doing—I did—but it was more spontaneous than calculated. Like being on a mission and having to change plans on a dime. When she neared me, I pulled her up against my body tightly. Because I needed to prove Mac’s words wrong. Because I needed to prove she needed me. It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t anything more than basic human contact. She needed to let her defenses down, let someone carry the load with her.
She froze.
“I feel like I’m failing you,” I said quietly.
“Don’t,” she said, muffled against my chest but not returning the hug.
“It’s been a year, Tris, and you can’t even say his name.”
She pushed hard, and I let her go, not wanting to. I wanted to see her fall apart so she could start the journey out from the dungeon she’d been living in. I was selfish enough to want her to fall apart so I could be the one to pick her back up.
“As if you’re doing so much better,” she said sarcastically.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hitting your teammate, getting put on leave, this―” She waved her hand around the room, but all I could register was that she knew about the leave.
“How’d you hear?” I asked.
“Mac. He wanted to make sure you made it here.”
“He should have minded his own business,” I growled.
“Like you? Like you’re minding your own business?” she threw back in my face.
“That’s different.”
“How?” she asked. “How is it any different?”
“Because I need to make sure you’re okay. I promised
