Page 18 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

As he watched his only friend—his family and a man he thought of as an extension of himself—die, a scream pierced his ears. The waitress who’d just stepped outside the cafe with Sean’s refill dropped the cup, spilling soda all over the ground. She spun around to race back into the diner when another blast ripped through the air.

Jonah finally began to topple over then. As he fell, he watched a bright red spot appear and grow on the waitress’s back as she, too, fell.

The world veered sideways.

Right before he landed, the third bullet entered him. This one burned and screamed through his organs until everything went blank.

Jonah jerked awake with a gasp. Body tense and mind racing, he stared up at the ceiling of his hospital room until he could orient himself. Tears filled his eyes, and dry pain crowded his throat. He shoved the damp moisture off his eyes before one of his hateful nurses came in and found him sobbing like a baby.

He hated sleeping these days. Bad dreams always came whenever he lost consciousness. Haunting memories he refused to grasp. Filling his chest with more hospital air, he pushed the disturbing images from his mind and tried to focus on the here and now, which honestly wasn’t all that much better.

When he couldn’t help it a minute longer, he glanced over to check the time on the wall.

Fuck. She’d lied to him.

The little redhead had completely deceived him. Jonah had actually believed her when she’d told him she would come back today. He’d even eaten all of his breakfast, lunch, and dinner to please her. But with dusk filling the sky outside, reality told him she wasn’t going to show. It didn’t matter that he’d waited and watched for her all day. Didn’t matter that he’d kept his promise and eaten all his food just as she’d asked him to. She obviously wasn’t going to keep her promise.

Damn it. He was such an idiot. He’d seen it in her eyes; she hadn’t wanted to come back. The girl was a terrible liar. So, why had he anticipated her return so much?

Probably because she’d been the only thing to give him any kind of hope since he’d woken in this bed. He didn’t even care that he knew she hadn’t told the truth. The parts about her that had been honest were just so…honest. Pure. Heart-felt. It made him wonder why…but then the whys of it really didn’t matter now. She wasn’t coming back.

Clenching his teeth, he fisted his hands and muttered, “Screw it.”

Frenchie, his physical therapist, had told him not to try to stand. Jonah hadn’t walked yet because his damn PT had only worked and stretched his muscles every time he’d stopped in to check on Jonah. He wasn’t even planning to allow Jonah the opportunity to try until he returned in another two days.

Well, Jonah didn’t want to wait two days. He didn’t want to just lie here with his heart cracking open because some tiny, blue-eyed redhead had lied to him. He just wanted to get away for a few minutes. Escape.

Blowing out a deep breath to bolster himself, he tried to swing his legs over the side of the bed to set them on the floor. But he’d grown so numb just lying there that it felt like he was moving two concrete blocks. Clenching his teeth, he ignored the heat rising to his face as he strained, ignored the pain exploding from every bullet hole in his body, ignored the nurse who walked into his room, carrying more medicine.

She skidded to a halt. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going for a walk,” he grated out, glaring at her from narrowed eyes and clenched teeth. “I need to walk.”

“The hell you do.” She hurried forward to set the tiny cup of pills down before turning to him, arms already raised to restrain him. “You’re not supposed to get out bed yet, Mr. Abbott.”

“Well, I am anyway. I need—”

“No.” She grabbed his arms. “Before your therapist left today, he said you could try on Wednesday with the walker. That’s soon enough.”

He glared and batted her away. “Let go,” he warned. “I’m trying this. Now.”

“No, you’re not. There aren’t enough people in here to help if you can’t do it.”

When he ignored her and attempted to stand anyway, she pushed him right back down. He growled and resisted, causing a jagged pain to shoot up his leg. He gasped but kept struggling. “I just want to try. I need t

o try.”

The damn nurse didn’t seem to care what he needed. “And you will. In two days when your therapist and a roomful of assistants are here to help you.”

“I don’t want to wait. I don’t need help. I just want—”

“And I really don’t care what you want.” Well, at least she was being perfectly honest with him. No one in this hospital seemed to care what he wanted. “You’re waiting.”

“God…damn it!” Using his feeble strength to break free of her, he failed miserably, only hurting himself more with each twist of resistance. “Let me go!”

“I need some help in here,” she yelled toward the doorway.

“You need to back off.” Jonah’s IV tore from the flesh in the back of his hand as he struggled. He just about had the upper hand when the wild-eyed nurse dug her nails into his thigh wound, subduing him.

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