Whispers in the Dark (KGI #4)(19)

After having her as a shadow in his mind for so long, his head was frighteningly quiet. No comforting presence. But at other times, while he slept, he could swear he felt her. Warm and soothing, easing his pain and anxiety. When he awakened, she was never there. Still, he couldn’t discount the fact that the agony that should have incapacitated him simply didn’t exist.

The medical staff marveled at his ability to withstand and block out pain. What could he tell them? That he’d imagined a savior with the ability to take his pain as her own? They would have carried him away in a straitjacket. He’d probably still be locked up in some damn institution for psychiatric evaluation.

So yeah, he’d kept his mouth shut. During debriefing he’d kept to the facts. He’d been captured, tortured, and he’d managed to escape when they intended to kill him. Swanny must have kept his mouth shut too, because the incident where Shea and her sister had helped Swanny had gone unmentioned. Maybe Swanny himself didn’t even remember what had happened. Or maybe, like Nathan, he thought he was crazy.

Not as easy was answering his brothers’ questions when he was well enough and lucid enough to face them. They’d all hovered in his hospital room. His parents had flown in. The whole damn Kelly clan had gathered and had stayed in shifts until he was finally discharged.

One night when his parents had gone to eat with Rachel, Sophie and Sarah, his brothers had remained behind in his hospital room and they’d asked about the person who’d emailed Donovan. They asked who Shea was and why Nathan had screamed her name.

It was against his nature to lie to his family. He hated lying. But neither was he going to delve into his experience with Shea. She had to be real. How else would Donovan have received the emails he’d gotten? Van had even showed them to him.

He merely told them there was a sympathetic guard who’d promised to contact Nathan’s brother on Nathan’s behalf. Nathan had seen the disbelief in his brothers’ eyes. Questions that burned on their tongues, but they didn’t press. It probably damn near killed them.

As for Shea, the moment they mentioned her name, he refused to respond. He had no ready explanation, no easy way to explain away why he’d screamed for her not to leave him. So he said nothing, and his stony silence became a source of frustration for his brothers.

Nathan sighed as he hammered another nail. He knew his brothers worried. Nathan had changed, but hell, how could he not? How could anyone go through what he’d endured and not be fundamentally a changed man?

It wasn’t like he wanted to be different. He’d love to have his old life back. The same confidence. His resolute belief in his abilities. He’d give anything not to go to bed at night in a cold sweat because he couldn’t bear to close his eyes in case he woke up and was back in that cave being cut into ribbons again.

He hated the panic attacks. The loss of control. His sudden, unexplained fears at the most inopportune times. He’d come a long way since being discharged, but he still battled his demons on a daily basis. There were times, even though he was only six months out from his rescue, when he wondered if he’d always battle them. They seemed as much a part of him as breathing.

As much as he’d feared never seeing his family again, now that he was home, he preferred to spend most of his time alone. They loved him and he loved them, but their worry and concern weighed heavily on him. He couldn’t pretend he was normal. He couldn’t pretend to be the man who’d left them all those months ago to go on another mission. He was changed, and he was still dealing with the effects of that change himself. How could he expect them to accept the change when he hadn’t accepted it?

He didn’t want to push them away—it wasn’t what he consciously did. But he found himself seeking solitude more and more and spending less time in the ranks of his noisy and boisterous family. He missed them and avoided them in equal measure.

He reached for another nail and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his arm, freezing for a moment as the crisscross pattern of still healing scars flashing in front of

him.

He looked and felt like a damn patchwork doll.

Raising the hammer, he started to drive another nail, when a sound behind him stopped him. He turned, expecting to see one of his brothers. They checked in on him daily, whether he wanted them to or not. But it wasn’t one of them standing a few feet away.

He dropped the hammer. “Swanny! What the hell are you doing here?”

Nathan strode over to his former teammate and gripped him in a tight hug. He pulled away, taking note of Swanny’s appearance.

Like Nathan, he hadn’t regained the weight he’d lost in captivity. He, also like Nathan, was heavily scarred. The wound on his face had been deep and long and it snaked over the entire left side of his face. Lines were grooved into his forehead and around his eyes. There was even a smattering of gray at his temples. Hell had aged him and he hadn’t recovered. Maybe he never would.

“I had to come see you, Nate. I had to thank you in person.”

“Come sit down. Want a beer?”

Nathan gestured toward two large boulders that overlooked sprawling Kentucky Lake. While Swanny went to take a seat, Nathan dug into his cooler for two beers. Then thinking better of it, he dragged the entire ice chest over to where Swanny sat.

“How the hell are you?” Nathan asked as he tossed a can in Swanny’s direction.

Swanny was quiet for a moment. “I’m good. Making it. I thought I was more than ready to get out when my tour was up, but now I have too much time to think. It sucks.”