Safe with Me (With Me in Seattle, #5)(67)

Look how well you’re surviving down here, *.

I slam into my apartment and flop onto the couch, staring at the ceiling and listening to the air conditioning unit click on. It’s only May, but it’s already warm in southern California, even late in the evening.

I wonder what the weather is like back home.

I pull my iPhone out of my pocket and bring up the weather app. It’s already set to Seattle.

Sunny and mid-sixties.

Nice weather. My girls would like to go to the park in that kind of weather.

My girls.

God, I’m such a f*cking mess. I chose to leave, knowing that they loved me.

I chose.

Because staying would only end up hurting them.

You’ve earned her.

I scrub my hands down my face with a long sigh and squeeze my eyes shut. I miss them. I thought it would get better with time, but the truth is, it only gets worse. Every day is it’s own special sadistic kind of torture and I’d give anything to be with them.

All of them.

I f*cked up big time.

I stare down at the phone and bring her number up, along with her photo and stare down at it, my thumb hovering over the number and debate about calling her.

I need to hear her voice.

More than that, I need to feel her. Hold her close and breathe her in.

I need it so bad it hurts.

Instead of pressing the button to call, I lay back on the couch and stare at her sweet face, her big brown eyes, long dark hair, and remember what it’s like to feel her close to me while I sleep.

How safe it feels to fall asleep near her, where the nightmares stay far away, and pray it’s enough to keep them at bay because I didn’t get drunk enough to numb myself tonight.

Liquor is the only thing that numbs my brain of thoughts of Bryn and the nightmares.

***

Where are they?

“Brynna!” I scream and run through her house, up the stairs and back down again, room to room, trying to find them.

They’re screaming and crying for me.

“Daddy!” Maddie cries hysterically.

“Caleb, help us!” Brynna calls out.

Bix is barking frantically, not his alert bark, but a full out attack bark.

Glass shatters.

Gunshots.

“Daddy!”

I can’t f*cking find them!

I run back up the stairs, but when I get there, I’m somehow in the kitchen. I need to get upstairs. That’s where the crying is coming from.

“I’m coming!” I yell and run for the stairs again, but when I try to climb them, I’m moving in super slow-motion, not able to move fast enough to get upstairs.

“Daddy!”

Now their cries are coming from the kitchen, but I can’t turn around to get back there.

Fuck!

Suddenly, everything is dead quiet. Even Bix has stopped barking, and I can hear quiet sobs coming from somewhere, although I can’t tell where, I just know that I can’t move fast enough to reach them.

“Daddy,” Josie whispers.



I wake with a start, gasping for breath, sweat running down my face.

Sonofamotherf*cker.

I jump from the couch and run through the apartment, frantically searching, before it occurs to me that it was a dream and the girls aren’t here.

“That American Dream that y’all fight so hard for over there? The freedoms that you would die to protect? They’re yours too, you know.”

Damn right they’re mine.

They’re mine.

I pull the business card from the redheaded bartender out of my back pocket and dial the number.

It’s time to fix this shit and go home.

***

“How have the nightmares been in the week since you’ve been coming to me?” Dr. Reese asks calmly.

“I’ve only had one,” I reply and lean forward in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees.

“That’s an improvement.”

I nod and sigh. “Still not great in crowds.”

“Have you been in a large crowd of people lately?” He asks with a raised brow.

“I was at the grocery store on a Saturday. It was crowded.” I shrug.

“And what happened?”

“I left.”

“The crowds may always bother you, Caleb. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder never really goes away, you just learn to manage and live with it.”


“PTSD is another term for *, doc. Let’s not sugar coat it.”

His eyes narrow on me for a moment before he frowns and sits back in his chair.

“Are you saying that if any of your teammates…”

“Brothers,” I correct him.

“Brothers had survived that day on that mountain, and were currently going through what you are, you’d call them a *?” He tilts his head, watching me carefully.

“They didn’t survive because I couldn’t keep them safe!”

“Caleb, it was the four of you against more than fifty heavily armed men. How in the world do you think you could all survive that?”

“It was a f*cked up mission,” I mutter and scrub my hand over my mouth.

“Agreed,” he nods. “But your lack of intel didn’t kill your men, Caleb. The enemy killed them. You know this.”

“I know.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted it. “But why did I survive? I’m the cursed one, doc.”