A girl, maybe seven years old, stumbling out of the darkness toward the light.Her dress is torn.Her feet are bare.Her eyes are wide with terror and hope, looking right at me like I’m salvation itself.
Go, little one,I try to say, but my voice won’t work.
The gunfire comes next, a staccato rhythm that’s etched itself into my muscle memory.The girl’s eyes go wide.She opens her mouth, she screams for help, and I lunge forward to grab her, to pull her to safety, but someone is holding me back.
“Shelby, let her go!”
No.No, I won’t leave her.
But my legs won’t obey.My arms won’t move.I’m trapped in this moment like amber, watching her body jerk as the bullets find their mark.Watching her crumple to the dust like a paper doll.
Abeera,I want to say, but that’s not right.Abeera was older.Abeera was?—
Another shot.A second child goes down.The boy manages to slip past, disappears into the tree line, and that’s the only mercy we’re getting tonight.
“Shelby!Shelby!”Nikolai’s screaming.
Wait!No, it’s not Nikolai’s voice.It’s softer.It’s a woman’s voice, and she’s terrified.I find her.It’s Serena, under a pile of rubble, and she’s covered in blood.
Something inside me fractures.I’m too late.She counted on me, and I couldn’t save her.
Heaving, I wake up, my whole body is drenched in sweat.For a moment, I don’t know where I am.The darkness is suffocating.My heart is slamming against my ribs so hard I think it might break through bone, tissue, and skin.
I look down and realize I’m on top of Serena.
At some point in my nightmare, I must have rolled over her, my body acting on instinct.I was protecting, defending, or covering.Now, she’s trapped beneath me, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes wide and frightened and too awake.
I immediately roll off her with a low curse.My breathing is coming in harsh gasps.Sweat is cooling on my skin.Adrenaline and fear are apparently effective stimuli for arousal because my cock is semi-hard from the trauma response.
“Shelby.”
Her voice cuts through the static in my head.
“I’m—” I start, but I can’t finish the sentence because I don’t know what I am.Losing it?
Fractured?
Breaking?
I’m probably all of the above rolled into one.
“Don’t.”She sits up, and I watch her in the moonlight filtering through the windows.Her hair is tousled from sleep, her face still soft with it, but her eyes are sharp and aware.“Don’t apologize.Don’t minimize it...Stay here in the moment with me.”
I could run.I could go to the gym, punch the sandbag until my hands bleed.I could drive to the office and bury myself in work, in strategy, in anything that doesn’t involve sitting with my feelings, my regrets.
But Serena is giving me patience, offering understanding.She’s throwing me a rope into deep water when I’m drowning.I do the only thing I can do under these circumstances.I take the rope; I accept what she’s offering me.
I sit up slowly, my back against the headboard.My muscles are trembling.The aftershock of adrenaline still courses through my system, making everything hyper-aware and terrifyingly fragile.
Serena doesn’t touch me.She sits beside me, her presence steady and solid and real in a way that the nightmare wasn’t.
“Syria,” I say, because she deserves more than silence.Because keeping it locked inside is exactly what’s been killing me for years.
She nods as she understands.She doesn’t ask questions.She just waits.
“It was 2014,” I continue, my voice rough, “My team was responsible for extracting an informant and his family.The intel was supposed to be solid.”I drag a hand over my face, trying to wipe away the images that won’t fade.“In fact, the information was compromised.We got there...”My voice breaks, and I can’t finish the sentence.
My jaw tightens as the memory crashes over me like the fucking building coming down on that family.I still smell the acrid stench of burning concrete, the copper of blood, and the nauseating sweet-sour smell of immediate death.I can hear the screams.I see the moment again when everything went sideways.
