by Ella James
“I’m not a Ranger. I’m a killer. I kill…men, women…and even kids sometimes.” My voice cracks. “That’s what I do. That’s why I’m all fucked up. You want a piece of that?”
NINE
GWENNA
I straighten my spine as shock washes through me, starting in my throat and spreading coolly through my stomach.
I frown up at him. He is wide-eyed, with his hands held out in front of him like he might need to fight, or even turn and run.
“I’m a killer… That’s why I’m all fucked up.”
The rough words echo through my head, but I can’t seem to pin them down or assign meaning to them. I blink slowly.
“Like…in combat?”
He shakes his head. He swallows. Nods. “Usually.” The word is rasped, so soft I barely hear it over the crackling fire.
Usually…but sometimes not? “What does that mean?”
He stares through me, and I feel a bite of fear. Standing there in just those sweatpants, with his arm around his chest and a hand raised to his bowed head, Barrett looks so broken, I have trouble feeling anything but worry for him—for this man who’s slow to laugh and quick to touch me; hard to reach and so easy to want.
I have this memory of him crouching down and touching my ankle. I can feel his finger on my face and hear him telling me I’m beautiful. I almost don’t believe he could kill. If he did, surely it would have wounded him terribly.
I whisper, “Why?” I don’t mean to; the word just comes. I stand up slowly, my heart pounding. “What do you mean?” I shake my head.
His eyes meet mine, and they are haunted.
I want to go to him—to close the distance between us and wrap my arms around him—but I feel heavy.
“I want to get what you’re saying. A— do you mean like...an assassin? Like…a sniper?”
His eyes shift so he’s looking into mine. He doesn’t say it, but can see it in his tight jaw.
So Barrett was a sniper. Okay. I inhale slowly. “In the special forces?”
I can see his throat move as he swallows. His face is impassive; elsewhere.
“I don’t judge you.” I’m not even sure it’s true, but I feel compelled to say it—just to ease him. I step closer. “Barrett… You’re my friend. I’m going to be on your side. You know?”
I catch his gaze and try to hold it, willing him to hear the truth in what I’m saying.
I step slowly closer. “I know how wars work. Think about our great-grandparents. Almost everyone had been to war. You think I don’t get that everyone comes back from that different? I don’t know what it’s like personally, but I can imagine. I can sympathize. Of course it had an impact on you. God, how could it not?” Another step, and I’ve closed the distance between us.
Moving slowly, hedging bets, I stretch my hand out, till my fingers touch his elbow. He stiffens. I wrap my hand around it, fingertips prodding gently at the area where he taught me to squeeze.
“Barrett…” I stroke his damp skin, and he shudders. His eyes are peeled wide, red-rimmed and unfocused. He looks skittish. “Look at me.”
He does, and I see so much pain there, I can barely breathe.
“It’s okay.” I hold his anguished gaze. “You’re a friend to me, yeah?”
As I speak, I wrap my arms around him, pull his heavy body close. His head is bowed again, eyes shut. My throat feels tight and aching. Underneath my fingers, his skin twitches. My hand caresses his nape; I lead his heavy head down to my shoulder.
“I know.” I squeeze him tightly. “You’re having a bad time. I know. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
This quiet, kind man—I can’t see him poised behind a sniper rifle. I squeeze his shoulders and, despite his strength, I can’t imagine him ending a life. My gaze laps at his familiar profile. How handsome he is. I see his small, tight smiles and weary eyes. I shake my head.
“Never think that I would judge you. I’m your friend. I’m so sorry, Barrett.”
I can feel his pain. Even in the way he holds his body, tight and still, like someone badly hurt.
He must be having a really hard time. He never sleeps… He said he wasn’t hungry. I’m angry with myself—that I didn’t realize how troubled he’s been.
He lifts his head and he looks down at me with tired eyes; they’re insulated by a sort of vacancy.
His thick brows pinch together, making his pale face look vaguely troubled. And it hits me that I’ve seen this look before. When I opened the front door and I thought he’d just woken up. A time or two when we were sparring.
“I didn’t want to lie about it,” he says roughly. His gaze shifts to mine. “You would want to know what kind of person…”
I shake my head.
“What kind of person,” he continues—
“No.” I shake my head again, and move one of my arms from around him so I can touch his neck. “Do you really think that’s the best measure of who you are? What you did when you were over in a war zone?”
He shakes his head, blinking slowly. “You don’t understand.”
“Are you a serial killer, Barrett? Do you force women into things or kidnap kids or take a baseball bat to other cars when you’re on the road? What have you been doing since you got back? Taking people out at the mall and Target? Did you hunt down your neighbor and carve her into pieces? Kill a cat? Set a house on fire?”
He watches me without speaking, without moving. I move my hand that’s on his neck up to his cheek, trying to make him focus on me; just me.
“How did you get into the Army? What made you want to join?”
He blinks, and I can feel him focus more on me. “When my mom—” He shakes his head. “I was 15, but I would drive her. I had missed a lot of school…and they had said they were going to hold me back. I had this plan to join the SEALS. My dad found out. I finished school, but after that…” He blinks into my eyes.
“So you joined when you were…?”
“Eighteen.” He drops his gaze, as if he doesn’t want to look into my face.
“Were you prepared?”
He frowns.
“You knew what you were getting into? Special forces, sniping? Nightmares, losing people, all the people you would…come in contact with.”
“Kill.” His voice is flat—but still, he looks at me like he is waiting to hear more.
“Well?” I raise my brows. “Did you knowingly go into it?”
“I tried to get with the SEALs, but it wasn’t a time when they were starting a new class. Then I heard about the Rangers.”
“And you made it there.”
He cuts his eyes my way, not a trace of pride on his pale face.
“Then what?” I press. “You moved on up?”
“Joined ACE. Got a longer kill list. Got hurt. Came home. What are you getting at?”
“You came back, it all seems like it’s kind of crashing down. You’re by yourself, you’re trying to readjust to being out of the Army. You’re telling me you can’t be with me because you used to be a sniper. Are you trying to punish yourself?”
He takes a step back, out of my grasp. “I want to keep you away from this,” he says roughly.
“Away from what?”
He holds his arms out, as if the room around us is the problem. “Who would want to…to invest their time in someone who can barely keep their fucking head above water?”
“So it’s an investment.”
He swallows, or struggles to. “Fuck,” he rasps. “I don’t know.”
“So…” I draw a big breath in. “Are you still sniping?”
“No, but—”
“Any of the other things I mentioned?”
He looks frustrated; tight-jawed.
“Okay.” I shrug. “So what about your life is so terrible that it might hurt me?”
“You want that answered?”
I nod. “Yes.”
TEN
GWENNA
“I see things sometimes,” he whispers
hoarsely. “When I started…” He laughs, just a hoarse rasp. “There used to be this stereotype about the old Nam vets. That they were all so head-fucked. Seeing things and hearing shit and ending up on street corners because they couldn’t keep their shit together.” He shuts his eyes and rubs his head.
“Is that what you’re afraid of? That you’ll end up on a street corner?” I’m surprised to find my eyes burn as I say it. My throat stings. I have to inhale slowly, to be sure no tears spill over.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” I step over to him, wrap an arm around his waist. When he doesn’t tense and doesn’t pull away, I wrap my other arm around his back. I stroke his hair and pull him closer to me. And I hug him—long and hard, the way I think his mother would have hugged him. Because regardless of his sins, right now, I can feel his pain, and I want to ease it.
When I loosen my grip on him, I look up and am relieved to see his eyes.
“You’re secure here, though, yeah? You have a house. You have ideas about another job that you’d be great at. Barrett—you’ve been teaching your disabled neighbor new self-defense techniques. You leave your house, you hunt. I know you’re having trouble sleeping, but from the outside, it looks like you’re doing well. And without family close by, either. You don’t see a therapist?”
He shakes his head.
“And still, you’re getting by. It will get easier. If you can hold on—and I know you can—things will get better as more time goes by. That’s the one thing I can tell you.”
I press myself against his chest again and rest my cheek against his chest as his arm comes around me loosely. “I can help you with the seeing things, and the nightmares. Even for my measly case of PTSD, I pulled out all the stops and saw a really good therapist and did the right things. I can teach you all the things I know.”
“You don’t get it, 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 you can lay down after that. With me. We could steer your dream this way.”
His eyes squeeze shut.
“We don’t have to.”
He lifts a hand to his face, then he speaks through his fingers. “Do.”
With one last glance at him, I get onto the floor and stretch out on my side. My side, because when he lays down, I want to wrap my arms around him.
This is also how I landed, though. How I was found. I lie there and my heart pounds thinking of myself alone, and all the blood and all the snow. I try to remember. I try to remember the smell of gardenias, the scent of road salt. Creaks and beeps and tires crunching on snow.
Funny how our nightmares are the inverse of each other’s.
You’re okay, I tell myself. I’ve been dreaming, too, but I know I’m okay.
Barrett grabs me so fast it startles me. I don’t even feel him kneel down by me before his arms go around me and he locks me up against his chest. He squeezes so hard I can barely breathe. His face presses into my neck. I feel his hard back shaking. I wrap my leg over his.
He shakes so hard he makes a little noise, a whimpered sort of grunt.
“I’m sorry, Gwenna. I’m so sorry.” His hand tangles in my hair.
I cup his nape and hold his head against me. “I forgive you.” I hold him close and tight and try to give him all my love. My poor friend. Before I know it, my mouth is on his temple. The one with the scar. I kiss him there, gently.
I feel his lips brush up against my throat. He inhales; then his forehead nuzzles underneath my chin. He rolls away from me, but pulls me with him, so he’s on his back and I’m above him.
He looks dazed.
; I cup his face, stroking the light beard on his cheeks.
My mouth twists up on one side. “Hi, Bear.”
“Can you call me Barrett?”
“Sure.” I lay against his chest and wiggle a hand under his back.
“They called me Bear. Sometimes I miss it, but…”
He shifts his hips a little, and I look down and see a telltale tenting of his pants.
“I’m sorry.”
I draw away from him. I didn’t think about that, about how my rubbing up against him would make him react. Stupid Gwenna.
His eyes flip open, and he grabs my hair. His hand cups his thick erection.
“It would be…a terrible mistake—” He groans— “For me to keep this up.”
“Why would it be?”
His eyes squeeze shut; he grits his teeth. Watching his palm press against his lovely bulge, I touch his leg.
He moans. His hand closes around mine. “Gwenna, please.”
“Want me to move?” I can’t tell where he is, or what he needs. I scoot back.
He sits up. Stands up.
I take hold of his hand. “Everything’s okay.”
“It’s not.” He turns partially away from me; we’re still holding hands, but I can only see his profile now.
I whisper, “Why?”
“I want to touch you again. I’ve been wanting you. It’s a problem.” The word is whispered. “I fucked this up. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to keep from telling you.” He rubs the base of his palm over his face.
“Telling me what?” I ask him gently.
He pulls me to him, rests his chin on my hair.
“I would never, never hurt you. Please believe me.” He pulls back; our eyes meet for a moment, then he pulls me back against him.
I reach my arm around his waist and run my fingers down the firm plank of his lower back. “I do.”
“I wish I could leave it there. I wanted to leave it there. But it came with me. It’s in here and I can’t get away.” He reaches in between us, tapping his chest. “It’s a one-time thing.” He moves his hand and rests his face on my head. “People should…fight and then die.”