Page 37 of Daddies' Little Spitfire

He kept his arm firmly around her as she relaxed into his embrace. She didn't have enough energy to fight him again. It had taken a lot out of her the first time and she hadn't had time to recover yet.

"Can you answer the question?" Oliver asked. "I would love to know the answer so we can help you."

"We really want to help you," Leo added.

What was she supposed to tell them? Lie to them and tell them it was her first nightmare? Or say she had too many to count and that was why she didn't fall asleep anymore?

She had no doubt that Michael told Leo and Oliver she wasn't sleeping. He was a tattletale and she didn't appreciate that. It wasn't his information to give them.

But she also figured they probably knew she wasn't sleeping much by her appearance. She had bags under her eyes, dark bags. It wasn't a pretty sight but Hedda wasn't going anywhere or trying to impress anyone.

"You can tell us anything," Leo gently said. "Whatever you tell us will always be kept to just us. We don't want to break your trust."

Hedda closed her eyes and thought about it for a second. Would it hurt her to tell them that she had multiple nightmares and that was it? She didn't necessarily need to go into detail about what it was about.

She wouldn't be able to hide the fact that she was having nightmares if she fell asleep again. Hedda couldn't remember a time, since she got to Missouri, when she didn't have a nightmare when she fell asleep. It just wasn't possible.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Yes this was your first one or yes you've had multiple?" Oliver gently asked.

"I've had multiple."

She opened her eyes and saw Leo giving her a sad smile. She didn't like that look on his face.

Sympathy.

Hedda didn't deserve it. Especially from them but they didn't know that. They didn't know she had killed someone.

"How long have you gotten them?" Leo asked.

She shook her head. She wasn't going to reply to that. They probably already had a guess in their head so why did she need to answer?

Hedda also knew that if she continued to answer their questions, they were going to ask more and more and shewouldn't be able to stop. She needed to stop now before they got on a roll. Before they cornered her into an imaginary wall and she couldn't escape.

She didn't want to feel like a caged animal. First sign of her feeling like that and she was going to fight tooth and nail until she could get out.

"Heddy," Leo said. "Can you please answer the question?"

Oliver started to run his hands through her hair again, trying to get her to relax. She didn't want to relax right now. If she did, then her defenses were going to be down and they could get any answer out of her.

Unless that was what they were trying to do.

Her eyes went wide and she pushed at Oliver's arm still wrapped around her.

"You're okay," Oliver said. "No one is going to hurt you."

They could hurt her. Did they know that? They could easily hurt her by letting her get attached and once they found out about her killing someone, they would let her go.

That would devastate her.

She shook her head again. She wasn't going to answer the question.

Leo sighed and crossed his legs Indian style on the floor. Oliver still had his arm wrapped around her stomach and his other hand was running through her hair.

"I used to get nightmares almost every night when we came back from our tours," Leo said.

Her eyebrows raised. She didn't know much about their time overseas and she was never comfortable asking about it.They hadn't offered the information and she had wanted to be sensitive about their feelings.

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