Gage’s POV
I wake up with a start, sweat pouring down my back as I suck in deep lung fulls of air. The little boy, strapped in that vest still haunts me, and my eyes dart instinctively around the bedroom, looking for danger.
Wiping a clammy hand down my face, I concentrate on my breathing, following the faint voice of my therapist as she guided me through the first panic attack she witnessed during one of our sessions.
‘Breathe Gage, in and out, concentrate on your breaths’ she had murmured as I’d struggled to regain control after she’d probed harder than I was expecting, pushing me back to my time deployed.
In and out, my breathing is slow and steady, my focus solely on the feel of the oxygen entering my lungs and leaving again, in and out, in and out. I can feel the panic subside, my
