Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,82

Gwen.” His voice cracks. I can feel his chest move as he swallows. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Why?” I lean back a little, so I can see his face.

He shakes his head.

“Try to explain it. You don’t have to tell me word for word. But tell me something.”

“Do you understand how Army convoys work?” he whispers.

I shake my head. I know what a convoy is, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have whatever knowledge he’s referencing.

“All the vehicles—tanks, Hummers or Bradleys—move in a line. It’s usually when a large number of troops are traveling. Maybe moving camp. So you go through villages. They know.” He blinks. “The people know to stay away. You know about IEDs, I guess?”

I nod.

“Well, they’re always in our path. You don’t stop unless…something specific happens. There’s a chain of command.”

I nod again, trying to keep my face soothing or neutral.

“Kids don’t know.” He takes a deep breath. “Sometimes—” his voice cracks a little— “All those fucking kids. You’d have to leave them. If someone gets hurt—a villager—you help them.” He swallows. “We’re all medics. Most of the older Operators, we’re field medics. They were all ages. Sometimes…little, little kids. There could be no swerving. Sometimes drivers would—” He shakes his head. “But it wasn’t allowed. The enemy would use children. Sometimes they’d come right at you with grenades.”

I lean my cheek against his chest, where I can hear the fast boom of his heartbeat.

“So you can die, or you can kill a kid. The worst times, one of your guys already got hit. Maybe you’re in front of them. So you can kill the kid or they can…” He swallows. I look up at him. “Would you let the kid blow up your buddy?” I can feel his chest start pumping faster. I wrap my arms around him again, hoping the sensation will center him.

“I dream about them on the ground,” he murmur into my hair. “The way someone looks on the ground. I didn’t see it very often through my scope…from far away. You’d make the kill and go. But in Ramadi. Syria… In other places. All the places with close quarters fighting. You would just walk away…and they wouldn’t. Everyone I know, I see them lying on the ground.” His voice cracks. “You know…cause you’re human. You kind of—some part of you wants to pick them up. Not at that moment. They just tried to kill you. But you walk away and—sometimes you know them. Maybe it’s a terp—interpreter—or…sometimes you can’t get them out. Right then.” He puts a hand over his eyes. “I always try to get them. And sometimes I’m taking fire. But usually I’m not. I see everybody I know and I’m just standing there. I walk up on them, don’t know how they got there. I just stand there.”

I can feel him shaking just a little now. I realize belatedly he’s talking about his nightmares.

“Taking out a target, it’s a fucked-up job. But that’s not what I see when I’m asleep. I just see people on the floor.”

I notice he said floor, not ground.

“People who weren’t over there with you?”

He nods, his face still covered by his hand.

“Are you here in the U.S.?”

He swallows. Through the barrier of his fingers, I can see his blue eyes glimmer.

“Last night, I kept seeing this rug.”

I look down. “Oh.” This one.

He folds his arm over my back, pressing me to him. It doesn’t calm the shaking.

I lock my arms around his waist and swallow against the aching lump in my throat. “Was someone on it—in your dream?” I whisper.

“You are.” His arms around me loosen, and he leans away, so he can lock his hard eyes onto mine. “You’re on the floor, Gwenna. It’s you. So you see now? Why I think you should go?”

Despite the firmness of his voice, he bows his head and shuts his eyes again, as if he can’t stand to see my reaction.

I chew on my lip. “I have an idea,” I say slowly. “You can say no.”

His eyes blink open. They’re red around the rims, making his blue-gray irises look bright green.

“We want to change what you see, right?” I swallow, steadying my voice. “Just make it slightly different. This is one of the tenants of getting rid of PTSD nightmares. You want to control the way it goes. So you’ve dreamed of me, dead on your floor.”

He doesn’t move, but I can feel the weight of all his awful grief.

“What if I lay down now—and maybe