Page 66 of The Lightkeeper

“I didn’t—I didn’t even feel my back at first. All I saw were the other injured—all I saw were battlefield wounds.” I blinked back tears like I could still feel the smoke in my eyes. “Shrapnel and mangled limbs and blood. Lots of blood.”

Tears streamed down her face, but I didn’t stop. She’d wantedto stay—wanted it all.I warned you,I wanted to remind her.I warned you from the start.But even if I did remind her, I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. She’d still stand here, patient and observing, waiting to hear whatever I was willing to tell.Waiting to understand.

“I was trained in emergency medical care for these kinds of situations. Homemade explosives—IEDs—are common currency in the Middle East. The key is pressure—to stop the bleeding. So, that’s what I did. What I told everyone I saw to do. First responders aren’t the paramedics, they’re the people. The crowds. The laymen who were already there and able to help.”

“Who helped you?”

My chin dipped. “I don’t know.” I gulped. “I didn’t realize how bad my back was—how much blood I lost until I passed out. The next time I woke up, I was in the hospital. Again.”

My head started to spin. The memories were like a tornado trying to tear me to shreds. And then her hands were on my arms, turning me to face her, and I had no strength to fight.I didn’t want to fight,I realized. I wasn’t afraid of the story, I was afraid of the things it did to me.

“Kit…”

“Two and a half months in the hospital. Two skin graft surgeries for the burns on my back—some of the worst out of all the survivors. The hearing loss—that took the longest to recover. The doctors weren’t sure it would. While I was in the hospital, they’d have to write everything down—I would, too—in order to communicate. Even after…” I let my head sway. “It was close to six months before I could hear like normal again.”

Her lip quivered.“Is that why you’re here—why you live at the lighthouse?”

Always observant. Always questioning.

“It was easier.”

“For you?”

“For them.”

Understanding widened her gaze.

“Between what happened in my unit and this… I wasn’t… I wasn’t okay. I felt…” I sighed. “I felt like I’d been broken into a thousand pieces of sand—sand that my family kept trying to help and shape back into a man, only for another wave of pain or memories to wash it away again. They loved me. Would’ve done anything to help—wanted to do anything to help. But there was nothing to do. I wasn’t… fixable,” I rasped, my voice cracking. “When I found myself wishing that my family loved me less, I knew I had to leave.”

She ducked her head for a second, and when she lifted it back up, a tear had landed on the inside of her glasses.“So, you moved here and shut yourself away.”

Carefully, I reached up and slid them off her nose, taking my time to wipe away the droplets and then replace them.

“I’m not the only creature that lives out here,” I murmured lowly. “You of all people know that best.”

“But don’t you want more?”

“More what?” My jaw locked, pain whipping the words from my lips before I could stop them. “I have my life, which is more than some walked away with that day. I have family. My art. My lighthouse. There is no more.”

She flinched—ever so slightly, but the impact of my words was unmistakable.

“There’s no more I can give,” I clarified. Of course, there was more to life than those things, but not my life. I was barely able to offer the remains of a son, brother, a grandson to my family.What could I offer her?

I sucked in a breath, the thought cinching me like the warnings of a trap.This was how it started.Wondering what I could offer her when the only thing I had that wasn’t broken, damaged, or uncertain was a warning.

I was nothing more than a lighthouse in the storm. A lonely tale. A persistent caution.Come close at your own risk.

“You should go back downstairs.”

Her tongue slid along her bottom lip. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Aurora…”

“Tell me you want me to go, and I’ll leave.”

I groaned. “You should. You’ll be sore.”

“Should isn’t the same as want,” she countered with a husky version of the tone she used to correct me when I’d called sea stars starfish.

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