Page 236 of Scars of Fate

“You need a medic.”

“We don’t have one.”

“You have me.”

There was no arguing with the look in her eyes.

I sat.

Wynn opened the medical kit.

Her hands trembled as she cut away the bloody fabric.

“It went through the muscle.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Stop saying that.”

“What?”

“That you’ve had worse.”

Her voice cracked.

“Your body is covered in scars from things I never knew happened.”

“Wynn—”

“You came home with broken bones. Knife wounds. Bullets. And you told me everything was fine.”

“I was alive.”

“That wasn’t the same as being fine.”

I watched her clean the wound.

Tears gathered in her eyes.

“What should I have said?”

“The truth. That you were hurt. That you were afraid. That sometimes the mission nearly broke you.”

“I couldn’t bring the battlefield home.”

“You brought it home every time you walked through the door and refused to talk about it.”

Her words landed harder than Minser’s bullets.

She wrapped the bandage around my arm.

“I didn’t need you to protect me from knowing you were human. I needed you to trust me enough to let me see it.”

I touched her cheek.

“I’m trying now.”

“I know.”