I press my lips together, wanting to tell him he doesn’t have to do this, but knowing that on some level he needs to.

“There were six of us that day, and four of the guys died in under a minute. All that training, all those weapons, but when it’s you and bullets and bad guys, it takes a minute. I play it back . . . I play it back over and over, and I don’t know why they didn’t just kill all six of us then and there. I think they meant to, because Alex and I both took a shot. I got a stupid flesh wound to my leg, another on the shoulder. But him . . . they shot Alex in the stomach. It’s the worst. You hear it’s the worst, but it’s not until you see it that you realize. It’s not until you see the agony on their face that you understand it’s so much better to just take a bullet straight through the heart or between the eyes.”

Alex. That’s whose name he cries in his sleep. I feel a little like I’m going to throw up, even though I know we’re not at the end of the story.

He continues. “I barely registered the pain in my leg, and I turn to open fire before I realize my shoulder’s not moving like it should. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Alex called my name as they moved toward us, and he was just—his face was just stunned. He was lying there in the dirt, lying half on top of Clinksy’s body, and he just looked up at me like, What is happening?”

Paul swallows. “I mean, what the f**k are you supposed to do when your best friend is sitting there, his stomach a bloody mess? What do you say? You’re dying, dude. We’re all as good as dead. And that’s when the jackasses got us. There were only four of them, and I’m humiliated to say that I didn’t act fast enough to shoot when they ambushed me. I got off a couple of wild shots, but the last thing I remember about that deserted road is a split second of feeling like my brain had been bashed in.”

I stand, moving behind him and resting my cheek against his back as my hands wrap around his waist. One of his hands covers mine, and he keeps talking, his words coming a little faster now, as though we’re coming to the end of the story.

“When I came to, we were in a dark room that smelled like shit and blood. I was tied up, and next to me . . .”

Paul’s breathing goes ragged. “Alex is next to me. They didn’t tie him up. Probably because by that point he was . . . there wasn’t much left. I don’t even know how he lasted that long.”

Tears roll down my cheeks at the pain in his voice.

“You know the shit of it, Olivia? When they came at me with that knife, I don’t think they wanted anything but to hurt me. Afterward . . . everyone thought that they wanted something from me. Information, or whatever. But I think they just wanted to make a statement. They were laughing when the smallest one got in my face, his breath smelling like something had died, and put the serrated blade against my cheek.”

My fingers dig into his stomach, and I want to beg him to stop.

“It hurt. That’s such an understated thing to say, considering I just saw my friends die, but when they carved those lines in my face like I was a piece of meat, it hurt. More than the trio of bullets in my calf or the one in my shoulder, that knife hurt.”

I can’t hold back the sob then, and he turns around to face me, gathering me to him like I’m the one that needs comforting.

“How—” My voice cracks, and I lick my lips and try again. “How’d you get away?”

He breathes out a long breath, ruffling my hair. “I wish I could say it was my own ingenious maneuvering, but I was literally pinned there like an animal for slaughter. It was Alex.”

Paul’s voice cracks then. “He was alive. Barely. But Alex was alive. Two of the Afghans had left the room to do who knows what, and it was just the guy beating the shit out of me. The idiot was so busy laughing and admiring his handiwork on my face that he didn’t have a chance to react when Alex grabbed the gun from his belt and shot him between the eyes. The others filed into the room like a couple of clowns, and Alex shot them too. These weren’t professionals, Liv. These were small-time, bored jackals who resented like hell that we were there and used us as entertainment. But it doesn’t matter that they weren’t the smartest or the fastest. Guns don’t care about who’s pulling the trigger, and the bullet in Alex’s stomach ravaged him from the inside out.”

My throat is dry, and not for the first time I think about how little my problems are compared to his. Compared to any soldier’s.

Paul’s hands move up and down my back as he continues to talk. “The papers all say it was torture. They have to, to explain my face, and why we weren’t all left to die on the side of the road. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Not for me.”

“Paul. Don’t minimize what you went through.”

He gives a sad smile. “But I’m alive, Olivia. Don’t you get it? I’m alive and none of them are.”

“What happened . . . after?” I ask. I’m not sure that I want to know, but I do know that he needs to say it.

Paul swallows. “Alex died in front of me. He died with that gun in his hands, and I couldn’t even go to him. I tried.” His voice breaks now. “I pulled and pulled at the damned ropes, screaming his damned name, telling him to hold on, that I’d help him. But I didn’t help him. He just slumped to the ground, blood coming out of his mouth. He just stared at me.”

I’m full-on crying now. This is so much worse than I imagined, and I imagined a lot.