His shoulders tighten a little and his gaze slides to the door. Depending on what he tells her, some of this is a story that belongs not only to him, but to Jake as well. Telling Veronica means giving up some of their past, but she needs to understand why it's not safe to come at him, at night. "We had a mission in Bolivia to paint a drug lord's mansion and blow it. We had locked in the targets when I saw all the niños pequeños."

"When we called it in, a man named Max jammed us, refused to let us stop it from happening. Twenty-five children, all there. We couldn't let that happen and so we rescued them, barely escaping ourselves. The helicopter couldn't fit us and them." Cougar inhales sharply and realizes how much he's said. It makes his throat ache with grief and he's not sure how much more he can say.

"Why don't you kill him in the dream? Is it because you don't want to? Because you love him or you don't want to kill?"