Page 81 of Deserving Lara
Then a loud noise startled her, making her jump. It must’ve been what woke her in the first place. It sounded like a cross between a cry and a scream. Coming up on her elbow, Lara looked across the room toward the sound…and realized the heartbreaking noises were coming from Stone.
He lay on the other bed, tossing and turning as the distressing whimpers and groans came from deep within his throat.
“Stay here,” Owl ordered as he shifted off the bed behind her.
Lara couldn’t move if her life depended on it. She thought she understood nightmares, having had many of her own. But this was horrifying.
Stone’s head thrashed back and forth and his hands were up in a defensive position. He jerked every now and then, as if reacting to some sort of external stimuli…like someone hitting him. No real words came out, at least none that Lara could understand. She wanted to wake him up. Shake him to make him stop experiencing whatever it was his brain was showing him, making him think he was actually suffering through some horrible experience.
But even more heartbreaking was the idea that someone had done this to him in real life. Stone was likely reliving events from when he was a POW. Whatever he was dreaming about had probably actually happened. And Owl had been through it with him.
Owl was standing between the beds now, putting himself between her and Stone. Protecting her just like he had in that basement.
“Wake up, Stone!” Owl called urgently.
His words seemed to have no effect on his friend. Stone continued to thrash on the bed, defending himself from phantom enemies, those awful noises still coming from deep inside.
“You’re safe. We aren’t there anymore. Snap out of it, Stone,” Owl said. He reached down and touched his shoulder.
Which seemed to make him fight even harder.
To her surprise, the easygoing friend she’d spent the last month getting to know morphed into someone she didn’t recognize. Stone instantly sat up, his eyes open but unfocused, and swung at Owl. And he didn’t pull his punch either. He was genuinely trying to hurt his friend. To protect himself.
It was scary. And so fast. Owl managed to block Stone’s first punch, but wasn’t so lucky with the second. The dull thud it made against Owl’s cheek made Lara flinch.
“Stone! It’s me! Owl. You’re good. You’re in Seattle. Wake up!”
The fear and concern in Owl’s tone made Lara want to cry. She was sitting up at this point, feeling powerless to help in any way. She understood now why both Stone and Owl had been so adamant about her not touching Stone if he had a nightmare, and why he had offered to sleep in the car.
It took another minute or two, minutes that felt like hours to Lara, but eventually Owl seemed to be getting through to his friend.
“That’s it, wake up. You’re safe. I’m not them. You’re here in Seattle with Lara and me.”
Stone blinked as he stilled on the bed.
“Will you get the light, sweetheart?” Owl asked, keeping a hand on Stone’s shoulder as he crouched down to seem less threatening.
She did as Owl asked, and winced as her eyes adjusted to the bright light.
By the time she could see clearly again, Stone was completely awake. And he looked…devastated. His hair was sticking up all over his head and without his glasses on, he seemed even more vulnerable.
“Fuck,” he swore as he ran a hand through his messy hair and scooted up on the bed, collapsing against the headboard.
“It’s okay,” Owl soothed.
“Like hell it is! I fucking hate dreaming,” Stone said in a tone Lara had never heard him use before. It was desolate. Defeated.
“Don’t hate the dreams, hate the men who put them there,” Lara said before she thought better of it.
Stone turned to her. He glared for a moment, then sighed, and all the emotion on his face disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place.
Lara took a deep breath and continued. He might not appreciate her thoughts, but she couldn’tnotsay them.
“Hating the dreams is like hating yourself, which makes no sense. You went from having complete control to having none. After watching you and Owl today, seeing how you easily handled that helicopter with confidence, I understand a little better now how going from having such control, to being shot out of the sky and imprisoned, is a hard thing to come to terms with.
“I hated not having control over my own situation…though what happened to me in no compares to what you and Owl went through. Personally, I’m impressed you’re as well-adjusted as you are.”
Stone chuckled. It was a rusty sound and not quite a humorous one, but at least he wasn’t intent on killing Owl anymore. “She doesn’t pull any punches, does she?”
