Page 15 of Don't Let Go

“Shh,” I soothed as I loosened the sheet so she wasn’t trapped anymore. Keeping my hand on her shoulder proved a little tougher when she struggled, but then I curled her over against my chest and wrapped my arms around her.

I had to be careful, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her. Keeping my arms loose, I was ready for her to pull away. It had happened a couple of times when she woke and found me here.

Other times?

She rubbed her cheek against my shirt, it was almost like she was burrowing into me. I didn’t mind in the slightest. Flattening a hand against her back, I spread my fingers out.

With slow circular motions, I tried to ease the knots from her muscles. Another little wet gasp escaped her as I settled her more firmly against me. Bit by bit, though, she began to settle.

“There we go,” I murmured, keeping my voice soft and easy. “Go back to sleep. No bad dreams for you.”

The nightmares had been bad before. Since the shooting, they’d seemed to have grown worse. I had to wonder if this was how her mind was trying to process her trauma. Or was it something else?

Was she just retraumatizing herself each night? Was that why the memories weren’t coming back? Or was this just how she dealt with the PTSD? Fuck, I had far more questions than answers.

Her breathing evened out, the rapid gasps fading to longer, deeper breaths. The fact she went almost boneless against me pulled a real smile to my lips. There was something utterly captivating about this woman.

I hated that she’d been scarred by what she’d been through. More than physical scars, too. The wounds they’d inflicted on her had gone deep. Her fisted hand against my shirt relaxed slowly as her leg hitched against my thigh.

Bit by bit, she sank deeper into sleep and I angled my head back against the pillow to stare up at the ceiling. If I turned my head, I could see the camera views on my phone. They were still clear, so I settled for mapping out the information we had so far.

Section Five.

Even the thought of them being involved turned my stomach. Admitting my father had been a part of the effort to set it all up had only been a partial admission. The rest… if they neededto know—ifsheneeded to know—I’d tear open that wound and empty it out for her.

Until then, I could only hope that they were merely tangentially related. They definitely involved themselves in multiple operations, domesticandforeign. But would they take someone and torture them?

The automatic yes my brain supplied offered no comfort. How had my father put it?“There is no honor in war, son. Make no mistake, we are waging war.”

Except, we should never be waging a war against our own people. Section Five didn’t distinguish between enemies foreign and domestic. It just counted all of them as enemies. Treated our citizens like they would foreigners and made no distinguishing calls.

Ugly business.

The shift in her breathing warned me she was waking before she flexed her fingers against my shirt.

“Good morning,” I murmured, keeping my voice low. “Go back to sleep. I’ll keep the nightmares away.”

Her huff defied me and I let myself smile. She couldn’t see it in the dark. It was a good time to just enjoy her reactions. Her absolute impatience with us coddling her amused me, but I found her way of arguing with herself utterly endearing.

Even if I didn’t care for the content of the arguments. Could she trust us or not? The fact shewantedto trust us helped. Now, if she could justletherself trust us. When she pushed herself upward, I forced my arms to loosen further and to stay still.

Iwas not the trap. I didn’t want her to ever associate me with that. Thankfully, she didn’t pull away or try to retreat, she just eased up and stared down at me.

My eyes had mostly adjusted to the dark. I couldn’t make out her features, but I could see her silhouette. I could almostimagine the byplay of emotion flitting through her eyes like storm clouds.

The idea of being a storm chaser had never appealed to me so much.

“This keeps happening,” she said, the sleep absent from her voice though the huskiness was present.

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s why I always take first watch. If you’re going to have nightmares, I’m going to be here to chase them off.”

Another huff escaped her, though I couldn’t quite tell if it was more laughter or scoff. It could be both. Or neither. The fact I wasn’t sure kind of annoyed me. I wanted to know everything about her.

“I’m not really sure we should be cuddling,” she said, speaking carefully like she didn’t want to offend me.

“No?” I wasn’t playing dumb. But I did want to know what she was thinking.

“No,” she said, as though turning that single syllable over and testing the taste of it. “I’m… I’m not comfortable with this. We’re still strangers.”

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