Page 38 of Daddies' Little Spitfire

"I still get them, but not as much. There are noises or smells that trigger me, pulling me back to whatever was happening," Leo continued to talk. "Those are always bad days and I end up having nightmares that night."

Hedda's eyes got wider as he talked. She knew that military people went through a lot, saw a lot, but she had never seen or heard about it in person. The twins had never talked about it like this before.

"I just want you to know that you aren't alone," Leo said. "Other people have nightmares from traumatic events."

"He's right. I still get flashbacks and nightmares every once in a while," Oliver said.

"But we have a support system that we go to if we are having a bad day. It doesn't mean we are weak. It's okay to lean on people and tell them what's going on. It takes courage to do that and it helps."

She blinked several times, trying to process everything they just said. They still had nightmares and flashbacks. Were they like hers? Did they morph into something else that wasn't real?

"We all have our demons, but we don't need to go at them alone," Oliver said as he continued to run his hand through her hair.

It was like he knew it was calming her down.

"We can be two of your support people," Leo said. "You just have to tell us what happened."

Her eyes went wide, and she pushed out of Oliver'sembrace, almost knocking into Leo. She backed away from them and shook her head.

She wasn't going to tell them what she had done. It was completely different from what they had done overseas. She didn't know exactly what they had experienced or if they killed anyone, but they were fighting for their country to make it safe.

She wasn't and she had still killed someone.

"I don't deserve that," she whispered before she could stop herself. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see their facial expressions.

"You do," Leo said. "Can you tell me why you kept saying 'bloody hands'?"

Hedda gasped and her eyes went wide. Shit.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HEDDA

Hedda shook her head. She couldn't believe that she had said those words out loud.

"I didn't say that," she replied, hoping they would believe her.

She normally didn't have to pay attention to what she said because no one was around her when she woke up from her nightmare. But now, it was a completely different story. How was she going to keep herself from saying things when she woke up?

Leo gave Hedda a look of disbelief. "Don't lie to us."

"Not lying is one of your rules," Oliver reminded her.

She glared at him. She wasn't going to follow those rules. Hedda didn't have to because she wasn't their Middle.

"It was nothing," Hedda said, turning away from them.

She wasn't about to get badgered about what she could and couldn't do. She was her own person and made her own rules.

"We're here for you if you need to talk about anything," Oliver said. "We want to help you."

Maybe she didn't want help with things. She was doing an okay job, before they came, with bottling everything up.

"It's not good to keep everything inside, to internalize it. It might help if you talk about it at some point," Leo mentioned.

Hedda shook her head. She wasn't about to tell anyone anything. No matter how much she wanted to, it wasn't going to happen.

"It's not healthy," Leo said. "Take it from someone who has tried to internalize everything and it almost killed him. I know people who never talked to someone and ended up committing suicide because it got to be too much. We don't want that for you."

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