Chapter Fifteen
Hawk couldn’t tell if he was awake or dreaming. All he knew was that he was in a nightmare. Waking or dreaming, didn’t matter when the flashbacks took hold and turned his world into chaos, because it felt so real. Like he was right back in the war. The fight.
This time, he heard the incessant sounds of beeping, along with the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire pinging the helicopter. He was going down and he had three other people on board. Soldiers he’d picked up right out of a firefight, saving their lives and taking them to safety.
Except, they weren’t going to make it. They were going down in enemy territory.
One of them screamed, “Robinson took two to the chest!”
Fuck.
Brown dropped next, a hit to his thigh as the helicopter suddenly listed to the right. No matter how hard he tried to control it, the helo was going down.
“Brace for impact!” He hoped they heard his warning over the screeching engine and blades whapping. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Call sign Hawk. Taking heavy fire. Four on board, two soldiers shot.” He gave his coordinates. “Going down. Mayday, mayday, mayday.”
He saw the ground coming up fast, knew it was going to hurt like hell and probably kill him, but he tried with all his might to control their erratic decent.
He wanted so desperately to save them all.
The moment of impact brought him out of his flashback and to reality as he struggled with the tangled sheets. Everything was quiet for a moment, then the buzzing sound started up again.
He wasn’t thinking straight when he rushed out of the room to the kitchen and grabbed Lucky by her biceps and shook her. “Make it stop.”
Her eyes went wide with fear and she struggled to free herself from his punishing grip. “Let. Me. Go.” She leaned in, her gaze direct and demanding, showing him she meant business even with the terror in her eyes.
Suddenly, he realized what he was doing and let her go, putting his hands to his ears, trying to block out the incessant sound before he fell into another nightmare.
Lucky smacked the blender button, the noise ceased, and she stood before him, her chest heaving with her own distress as she stared wide-eyed at him, her hands shaking at her sides. “What’s happening? Why are you sweating so much? Are you sick? What’s wrong?” All the questions ran over each other as she quickly spit them out and he tried to keep up. But his mind was split between here and there. Her and them. Life and death. Sorrow overcoming him for the ones he lost, even though he tried so hard.
He fell back against the counter and sank to his ass on the hardwood floor, knees up, his fists in his eye sockets as hebreathed even heavier than her and tried to clear the bloody memory from his mind, while also silently chastising himself for grabbing her like that. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He rocked back and forth, but it didn’t soothe him. He just got more agitated. “I didn’t mean to grab you like that. I should have never touched you like that. It wasn’t you. I was just trying to find my way out. I needed to get out. To make it stop.”
Her warm, trembling hands slid over his hands and into his hair as she crouched in front of him. “You startled me. I wasn’t expecting you to come at me that way. I’m okay.” It sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “You didn’t hurt me. Everything is okay.”
He wondered if she was telling herself that or him.
“Ssh. You’re okay. Everything is fine. You’re safe.” She kept brushing her fingers through his hair, her body snuggled up against his up drawn legs.
He didn’t know if he could ever look at her again and not see the fear he’d put on her face. “I’m sorry.”
She pressed her cheek to the top of his head. “Was it a flashback?”
“Yes.”
She wrapped him in an awkward hug. “Do you want to talk about it?”
No. He didn’t. But he owed her some kind of explanation. “I.” He swallowed back the bile still rising in his throat from the flashback and from treating her so badly. “I told you I’d been in a helicopter crash.”
“I remember. The shrapnel wounds you have are from that accident.”
“It was no accident. We were shot down. Of the four of us on board, only two of us made it.”
Her hands stilled on his head. It felt good to feel her holding onto him. “I’m so sorry that happened. I can’t imagine how horrifying and devastating that must have been.”
“Sometimes, I’m right back in the helo seat watching the ground coming at me, hearing the guys yelling, the bullets hitting the chopper. I can smell Robinson and Brown’s blood, the smoke from the engine, and hear the grinding of the engine gears as the blades whap, whap, whap so loud it’s like I’ll never hear anything else.”
“The blender.” She breathed out the words. “No more smoothies. Got it.” She wrapped her arms around him again, her cheek on his forehead. “What can I do to help you?”
“You’re doing it. Your voice. Your touch. I need them to ground me in the here and now.”
