By the time they reached the parking lot, his world was reduced to a pinprick of light, leaving him dizzy and disorientated. He stumbled, falling over his own feet like a drunken sailor.
A strong hand gripped his arm. “Hang on. We’re nearly at my truck.”
Zac didn’t care where they were going, as long as it was away from the concert.
“Did you bring any medication with you?”
He nodded and reached into his jacket pocket. Before he left home, he’d doubled the amount of emergency medication he carried. Coming here tonight was always going to be risky, but he thought he’d be okay. But he wasn’t, not by a long shot.
John’s arm dropped to Zac’s waist. Somehow, he managed to half-carry him across to the truck.
Zac collapsed onto the front seat. Dropping his head between his knees, he focused on breathing—on staying in the here and now and not in the middle of a hot Kabul summer.
Montana was thousands of miles away from Afghanistan, but he could taste the grit of the sand, hear the high-pitched screams of women and children being torn to shreds by an avalanche of bullets.
Breathe. In. Out.
He closed his eyes.
Inhale.
Exhale.
“Here’s a bottle of water. How many tablets do you need?”
Thinking about an answer was like stepping through a thick, boggy, minefield. “Two red. One purple.”
The click of the lid opening and closing was the only clue Zac had of what was happening.
“Take these. Remember the water.”
Short, sharp, and direct. That was the only way he would be able to get through the next few hours.
He swallowed the tablets, praying they’d kick in sooner than they normally did. “I’ll be all right in a few minutes.”
“That’s what everyone says. You’re coming back to my place.”
The shaking in Zac’s hands was getting worse. If he didn’t go with John, he’d end up in the fetal position in the back of the truck.
John leaned inside the cab, buckling Zac’s seat belt into place. “Don’t worry about Willow. I’ll let her know you’re with me.”
All Zac could do was grunt. His head throbbed with a pain that was twice as bad as a migraine.
Without saying another word, John drove back to his house, hauled Zac out of the truck, and lowered him onto a bed.
With the curtains closed and a blanket thrown over his shaking body, Zac prepared for the worst.
And that’s exactly what he got.
Willow walkedoff the stage just as Ryan was launching into a medley of his greatest hits. The fifteen-minute break was supposed to give her time to have a drink and relax her vocal cords. But all she wanted to do was find out where Zac had gone.
She turned on her phone and checked her messages. John’s text worried her. She hadn’t thought about the noise and lights of the concert triggering Zac’s PTSD. Guilt and a huge dose of dread made her hand tremble as she called John.
If his cell phone was turned off she didn’t know what she would do. Apart from Levi and Brooke who were on their honeymoon, all her friends were at the—
“Hi, Willow. Zac’s safe. He took some medication and has fallen asleep.”
“Does he need to go to the hospital?”
