Brotherhood Protectors: Protecting Hawk (Kindle Worlds Novella) (A SEALed Fate Book 5) by LeTeisha Newton

Author:LeTeisha Newton [Newton, LeTeisha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kindle Worlds
Published: 2017-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

A whimper in the darkness woke Lana, and she shot up in bed. One time, in the darkened underpass back home, she’d heard a plaintive wail and had found a dog starved and emaciated. The animal whined no matter what position he rested in, his protruding bones pressing his thin layer of skin into the gravel. Lana rested with him until Animal Control got there, and she knew he wouldn’t survive the night. She’d offered to pay for his rehabilitation, not wanting to see the beautiful brindle dog lose his fight for life, but he didn’t even make it to the vet. The only kindness he’d experienced had been those minutes she’d waited with him, rubbing his head as his tail thumped weakly. Lana had cried for days after seeing that. The sound she heard reminded her of that animal. She padded barefoot toward the door, where the muffled sounds filtered through, and pressed her ear to the wood.

“I’m sorry,” Hawk cried.

Her heart broke. Pain throbbed in his voice, and she swore if he’d been awake he would have been sobbing. Her heart ached for the warrior. She’d known he had PTSD but had never been close enough to him while he slept to see evidence of it. The door rattled and she jumped back, but Hawk’s voice came through.

“I shouldn’t have called the strike. No. God, no.”

Agony ripped through the air, and Lana could sense his desperation. The door shook harder, a frantic movement as if Hawk had jerked against it in his sleep.

“Don’t. Don’t fucking tell me I couldn’t have known. He’s a child.”

Lana clamped her hands across her mouth to keep from crying out. What had he done? To a child no less. As a Navy SEAL, Hawk had been on missions that ended in death, but she never would have imagined he carried that sort of pain with him. Her heart went out to him as he continued to mumble and sob incoherently. She raced back to the door, stopping just as her hand gripped the knob. He’d warned her not to wake him up from his nightmares and to call Welsh. As much as she wanted to be there for him, she knew he might need more help than she could give him. She spun around and searched for her phone. He’d given her Welsh’s number just in case, and she was grateful for that now.

“Hello?” Welsh answered.

“Welsh, it’s Hawk. He’s trapped in a nightmare, and he warned me about waking him up.”

“Fuck. I’ll be right there. Stay in your room and back from the door, okay?”

“Of course.”

She hung up and sat on the bed, listening for Welsh’s steps to come up the stairs. He moved quietly through the house, much like Hawk, but this time he stomped his way through the house.

“Hey, Hawk!” he called. The volume of his words surprised her. Wouldn’t that scare Hawk? But Hawk didn’t wake, he kept mumbling.

“Petty Officer Eric ‘Hawk’ Standing, report,” Welsh said, his brogue thick in the night.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.