How did he get a gun?
Aden’s pressed against the wall, his eyes darting to the window where fireworks explode out over the ocean. Every pop and bang manages to coil him tighter, closer to snapping.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh. Be quiet!”
“Aden . . .”
His gaze remains firmly set to the window.
“You’re scaring me.”
He blinks and slowly his eyes find mine. I gasp at the torture, the war I see raging behind his glare. “I won’t let them get to you. You have my word.”
I swing my gaze from him to the window and back. “Who? Aden, there’s no one out there.”
He huffs out a breath and seems to calm a fraction before another round of fireworks goes off in a string of explosions.
He jerks away from the wall and grabs me by my biceps, dragging me to the bedroom. “Stay down.” He pushes me back on the bed.
There’s movement from the corner of my eye and I watch as Cal creeps in through the door. He puts a finger to his lips and I grip Aden’s hand before he turns around. “Wait.”
His eyebrows drop low over his eyes as he stares down at me. The Aden I’ve come to know is gone and been replaced by a soldier in a fight for his life.
“Don’t leave me alone back here.” It’s all I can think to keep him from catching Cal and accidentally shooting him.
Aden searches my face frantically. His lips are pale and there are beads of sweat on his skin. Whatever is happening inside his head his body is responding to as if it’s real. He has a moment of clarity and the look of agony slices through his face. “Celia.”
That one name carries so much pain. He has no idea, but what I wouldn’t give to hear my name on his lips. My sister’s name will always be the wall that divides us.
“I’m so sorry.” He steps between my knees and hooks me around the neck to pull me to his stomach, the gun hanging to his side.
“What’s going on, Aden?” I lean around to see Cal moving through the bedroom door.
Aden’s body locks and the muscles of his abs tense.
He whirls around, pushing me behind him as he raises his gun. It happens so fast and next thing I know Cal is on the ground and Aden’s standing over him with the weapon pointed at his uncle’s chest.
I hop off the bed and wrap myself around Aden from behind. “Stop it!”
“Son . . .” Cal’s voice is shaking. “Put the gun down. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Aden, listen to him.” I try to pull him back but he shrugs me off with a powerful shove of his shoulder.
Cal holds a hand up. “Stand back, Sawyer.”
My eyes meet his and he cringes when he realizes what he’s done.
Thankfully Aden seems too caught up in his head to notice.
The fireworks continue to explode in a series of bursts that sound way too close.
My heart pounds in my chest.
“I just want it to stop.” Aden’s voice cracks. “The screaming, the blood, it never goes away!”
Cal pushes himself up slowly, not taking his eyes off Aden. “I know, son. I know.”
“You don’t!” He steps back, freeing Cal from his overbearing stance. “I can’t get away from it!” He brings the gun to his head and taps his temple with the barrel. “It’s in here, it’ll never go away, it’s in here! I want to die!”
A whimper slides from my lips.
He whirls around and stares at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Except when I’m with you . . .”
Locked in his eyes I take a step forward. “I can help you forget.”
His eyes flare with hunger as his wild gaze traces my face to land like they always do on my lips. “You’re scared.”
“Yes.”
I see Cal stand to his full height behind Aden and he fishes a bottle of pills from his pocket. “Aden.”
The stern sound of his name locks his progress to me and he dips his chin.
“I’m not leaving you alone with Celia with a gun.”
“I would never hurt her. I . . .” The strong soldier before me stares down at his hand and blinks at the weapon. He nods once, clicks something on the side of it, and holds it out for Cal to take.
Cal shakes out a couple pills and places them in Aden’s empty palm then mumbles something close to his ear.
Aden nods and throws back the pills, swallowing them without water.
Cal meets my eyes. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
The fireworks have stopped and that seems to relax him a little. “What did you give him?”
“Prescription from the VA to mellow him out.” He looks at Aden then to me. “Do you want me to stay?”
I study Aden, who now resembles a broken boy. “No, I’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
Aden cringes.
“I’m sure.”
You know where I am if you need me is the unspoken message I see in his eyes.
With that, he turns and leaves me alone with the man who pointed a gun in my face.
And I can’t bear to abandon him when he needs me most.
ADEN
It’s not real.
None of it.
Fuck if my head knows that.
I thought I could handle the fireworks, that if I stayed grounded, stayed with Celia, that I wouldn’t forget where I was. That my mind wouldn’t have the power to take me back there.
I was wrong.
And I could’ve hurt the only person who has ever been able to calm the storm in my mind.
“Can I touch you?” Her soft voice calls my eyes and she holds her hands out to me.
I rush to her and wrap my arms around her waist making sure to not squeeze too hard even though all I want to do is crush her with my apology. “I’m so sorry, freckles. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I am too.” There are tears in her voice. “I had no idea it was that bad.”
“It’s bad. It’s so bad. But with you . . .” I pull away and catch her quivering lips with mine. She tastes of tears and disappointment. My chest aches to fix what I’ve broken. “I’ve never felt better, more whole, than I do when I’m with you. I thought you’d cured me.”
She steps back and drops to the bed, taking me with her. I curl up to her side and throw my leg over her thighs as she runs a hand through my hair. “Tell me.”
“I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry, I just . . . I can’t.”
“Is this the worst?” The methodical scrape of her nails against my scalp has me relaxing even deeper into her hold.
“No.”
She sighs hard and squeezes me tighter to her. “Tell me?”
“I moved down here thinking getting away from the people I love would keep them from seeing what I’ve become. I can’t handle my anger, the paranoia. It never lets up.”
“You said . . . you want to die?”
“It’s true. I wish I’d died with my brothers. The way it should’ve been.”
My voice is sluggish and my eyelids grow heavy.
“You can’t die.” Her arms close tightly around me as if she could keep me here, keep me stable, by sheer force of will.
“No, I don’t think I can.” I’m so fucking tired. I push back the urge to sleep, to slip away and out of Celia’s arms. “Tried. Failed.”
“Is that what happened at the cliffs? Did you jump?”
“Mm-hm. Waves saved me. Brothers saved me. Can’t die no matter how much I want to.”
“I’m glad you didn’t die, Aden.”