Page 70 of Entangled in Them

Chapter Thirty

Dillon

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KODEE SHUT THE OFFICE door and turned to us. He rubbed both hands over his face. “I wanted Rue out of this for the moment. Everything was getting too emotional, and we need to think clearly.”

I had the horrible feeling everything was falling apart, like the floor beneath my feet was suddenly not as solid as it had once been. I couldn’t stand the idea of living without either of them, and now there was the possibility we’d have to choose? How could we do that? While I’d never want to see Rue getting hurt, there had to be a way around this.

“We just need to make sure Ryan doesn’t fall asleep with her,” I said.

Kodee shook his head. “It can’t always be helped, though. Sometimes we just drift off.”

“It’s going to have to be helped,” I insisted. “We’ll have to make sure we don’t. There are four of us. I’m sure at least one will be awake to give Ryan a kick and send him to another room if he falls asleep in the same room as Rue.”

I glanced over at Ryan. He looked crushed, like someone had hollowed him out during the night and then folded him in two.

“This wasn’t your fault, man,” I told him. “You went to war and saw and did some hideous shit, and it’s affected you. But you’re not to be blamed for it. Any of it.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t even matter. I hate myself for putting my hands on her.”

I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around him, my fingers in his hair, my bicep against the back of his neck, holding him tight.

“She knows you didn’t mean it. She cares about you. We all do.”

He sniffed and shook his head against my shoulder. “I should leave. She might not have much more time with the rest of you, and I don’t want to be the one to deny her that.”

“She feels the same way about you,” Kodee said, his arms folded across his chest. “She doesn’t want to deny you of us either.”

“But she’s not the problem here, I am.”

None of us said anything, knowing there was truth in his words.

“I don’t care,” I said eventually. “Neither of you are leaving. We’ll figure this out. Fuck, we’ll lock you in one of the bedrooms overnight if we have to. We’re not letting you leave us.”

We’d been in our office, trying to figure this out, but I didn’t want to leave Rue on her own too long. She’d been through a shock.

“I’m going to check on our girl,” I told Ryan and Kodee, and then turned and left the workspace and stepped back out into the rest of the apartment. I’d expected to find her in her customary position on the couch, her legs tucked up under her body, but the spot was empty.

I frowned. “Rue?”

I checked the main bathroom, that we’d now come to consider as hers. It was empty.

“Rue?”

Unease twisted in my gut. Picking up my pace, I went from bedroom to bedroom, praying I’d find her curled up on one of the beds, but, just like everywhere else in the apartment, all the rooms were empty.

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