Page 1 of Montana Freedom

Chapter1

Daniel Clark

The early morning was still cool despite the late spring season. The sun was up but hadn’t yet made its way over the mountains. It would heat up later, and then I would once again long for the sun to set so we could get some relief from the heat.

But right now? It was beautiful.

And peaceful. I usually liked to sleep a little later than this, but today, I needed to clear my head, and walking was the best way to do it. I could go to the gym and burn off steam, but that didn’t feel right. I just…needed to move and let my mind wander and try to let go of the images in my head.

It wasn’t as if nightmares were uncommon among those of us who lived and worked at Resting Warrior. That was kind of the whole point of the ranch, a place where those with PTSD—both military-centric and not—could come to recover in the peace and beauty that was Montana.

I’d had nightmares since I’d left the service, but those had been repetitive and manageable. After a while, though they were still bad, they seemed like a simple part of life. The ones I was having now were different. They brought me out of sleep, covered in sweat and panting with adrenaline, reaching to save someone who wasn’t there because I didn’t have the closure of knowing whether they were all right.

Every night for the last six months had felt like some variation on the same theme. Bursting into the house we’d raided all those years ago, trying to free people who’d been captured, but when I went to let them out of the cage, it washer.

Brown hair and big eyes, one brown and one blue, staring at me, desperate and grateful as I freed her from that fucking rusted metal cage. And then she was gone.

Or she was already there, in the cages with all the other people, looking at me and calling out for help, and I was stuck in place, knowing what was about to happen and that it was already too late for me to save her.

I stopped, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. I couldn’t get the sight of her out of my head. She was real. I was the one who’d let her out of that cage six months ago. I’d led her to the paramedics, and then she disappeared entirely. As if she’d never existed and I’d made her up.

Now she was my own personal ghost.

Logically, I knew she was probably fine. I’d missed her leaving or being taken somewhere. She was a trauma victim. Getting out of that place as soon as possible would have been good for her. But no one knew where she went. I’d checked. None of the Resting Warrior men had seen her go anywhere, none of the paramedics or police. If she’d vaporized right in front of me, she would be just as missing as she was right now.

Still, it was all too similar to my past, and I was exhausted, constantly waking up in a panic and reaching for her, trying to get her out before the explosions hit.

Not once had I been successful in my dreams, and lately, those were shaking me more than I wanted to admit.

After all this time, I’d thought I was better. I’d moved on, done the work, rebuilt myself, and accepted my self-imposed punishment as a way of life. I’d let people die, and nothing in the world could make up for it. So I helped them now. I didn’t take things for myself. Some people, Dr. Rayne included, thought my minimalism, celibacy, and denial were too much. Maybe they were.

But that way of life was the only thing that felt right all these years.

How could I let myself indulge in any kind of pleasure when my mistakes had robbed twenty people of their ability to do the same? Atrocities happened in war, and I could do nothing to stop them, but I could make up for my part in them. For me, I didn’t think there was another way forward.

The soft sound of crunching dirt made me look up from where my gaze was focused on the ground, and I saw Liam walking toward me. He was farther out on the ranch than I was, and earlier. He didn’t live on the property, and it was a bit of a running joke on the ranch that Liam always showed up at the exact last minute for everything. So why was he here so early?

All this time, focusing outward gave me the ability to read people. I could simply look at them and figure out what they were feeling, and, if I pushed, get them to open up or admit what was really bothering them. Liam’s shoulders were hunched, gaze as focused on the ground as mine had been moments ago. It didn’t seem like he realized he wasn’t alone.

“And here I thought I’d be the only one out here this morning.”

I was glad I said something. Liam stopped and startled, suddenly focusing on me. It took him a few seconds to come back from wherever he was in his thoughts and place me here. Then he smiled, but it wasn’t a normal Liam smile.

He was the joker of the ranch—the man who brought lightness and levity to everything, no matter the situation. Sometimes a little too much. The man standing in front of me right now was anything but light.

“I needed to get out and clear my head.”

I nodded. “Know the feeling.”

We stopped when we reached each other, standing and turning to look at the still-brightening sky on the other side of the mountains.

Among the men who lived and worked here, Liam and I weren’t particularly close. He was younger than me by nearly a decade, and a world of age, experience, and trauma stretched between us. There were similarities too, as with all of us, but our pairing felt the least natural.

“You all right?” I asked him.

“Sure.”

I chuckled. “That’s an answer I’m certain everyone would accept.”

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