The pain in his voice startled me. I kissed him awake from the nightmare, and he hugged me to him so tight, I’d been a little afraid. When his heartbeat calmed, I settled against his chest and felt the vibration of his voice against my cheek. It was sometime after sunrise, and I traced the tattoos on his arm, staring at the light spilling through the crack in the shades over the window as I listened to him talk. “We were both sent in on the same mission, different teams. Mine went in after Jason’s. When I got there, there wasn’t much left but rubble and bodies. When I found him, he was holding his stomach where a piece of shrapnel went almost clean through.” My throat closed in on itself at the pain in his voice, and I held him closer because I worried my own heart would burst. Roxanna said Leo didn’t speak about that day, and I wondered if he’d been carrying the nightmare inside, alone, all this time. It made me sick to my stomach.
