Page 44 of Entangled in Them

Chapter Nineteen

Rue

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A THUD, FOLLOWED BY a cry of rage and anguish, jolted me from sleep. The cry was so filled with hurt, it hit me like a physical pain of my own, like someone had punched me in the heart.

I was out of bed in an instant. How long had I been asleep? It didn’t feel like long, but I’d all but passed out after being with Dillon. Now I was wide awake. I’d put my panties back on before leaving the bathroom, and of course I’d never taken the t-shirt off, so I didn’t need to worry about not being dressed.

Working purely on instinct, following the direction of the noise, I left the bedroom, ran across the apartment, and burst into Ryan’s room, where I was certain the cry had come from.

At first, I didn’t see him—the room was dimly lit—but then I spotted him on the floor, the king-sized bed between us. What was he doing on the floor? Was he hurt?

Tentatively, I called out, “Ryan?”

“Go away, Rue.”

There was pain in his voice, and not only that, but something deeper. Grief.

Ignoring his request, I crossed the room and rounded the bed. He was on the floor on his back, his hand covering his face. He was naked except for a pair of small, white Jockey shorts.

My mind blurred. Something was very wrong, and for a flash of a moment, I thought perhaps I was still asleep after all, and now I was in the middle of a nightmare.

“Ryan? What—?”

“Leave me alone!” he roared. He snatched his pillow off his bed and threw it at me, but I batted it away.

With my hand clutched to my mouth, I couldn’t help but stare. From just below the knee, the lower part of Ryan’s right leg was missing. The remaining stump was covered in vicious red and white scars, knotted and ridged. More scars ran up the inside of his left leg, too, and the calf muscle on that leg appeared indented, as though someone had scooped out a chunk of his leg and then forced the skin to grow back across it.

I dropped to my knees beside him.

“My God, Ryan. What happened?”

He shook his head, not looking at me. “It happened in the Army. I got taken down by an IED when I was in Iraq. It was hidden in the footwell of a vehicle I got into.”

“I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

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