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 fucking 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.

Sonofamotherfucker.

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 pussy, 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 pussy?” 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 fucked 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.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re living a cursed life, Caleb. You have a great family, a woman who loves you, a strong career.”

“And when will the other shoe drop?”

“Why does it have to?” He leans forward in his chair and pins me in his gaze. “You did your job, Caleb. You saved Brynna and her daughters from an intruder. You did what you were there to do. You kept them safe.”

I stare at him as images from that night race through my mind. Telling Bryn I was leaving. The shattering of the window. Fighting that motherfucker who came to hurt them, and aiming my pistol at his head and pulling the trigger.

“I would die to keep them safe,” I whisper. “But I was so horrible to her. The things I said, telling her I don’t love her. It was the only way I could think of to push her away.”

“Don’t you think she’ll understand that when you explain it to her? From what you’ve told me, she sounds like a reasonable woman. And you’re facing your demons to keep them in your life. You’re making progress.”

“Well, the first step is admitting there’s a problem, right?” I ask sarcastically.

He smirks and shakes his head. “Have you spoken to the family members of the men you lost that day?”

I sober and blink at him slowly. “Not since their funerals.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Call and talk to Bates’ and Marshall’s wives and Lewis’s mom, just to hear them tell me it should have been me and hang up on me?” I ask incredulously.

He shakes his head. “No. Call them. That’s your last lesson from me, and then I’m sending you home. You will need to continue to see someone for a while, but you’re going to be fine, Caleb.”

Home.

I stand and stare down at the doctor, uncertain about this last task. The talking and rehashing of the mission was hard enough.