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They mutilated my womanhood – both externally and internally – with a rusty knife. They raped me with their filthy bodies, grimy metal pipes, and broken glass bottles.
Around the clock.
For eleven days.
I was critically ill when Mark rescued me. The field hospital pumped me full of antibiotics and repaired my lacerated vagina and cervix as best as they could, but the damage was done. Mark held my hand when the doctor at Walter Reed delivered the news.
I’ll never be able to conceive.
My womb is like the rest of me – permanently scarred and irreparably damaged.
I spend the rest of the night depleting the room’s minibar, trying to numb my pain.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARK
Saturday evening is, hands-down, one of the weirdest nights of my life.
Tucker and I head to a local sports bar since we’re fending for ourselves. The place is packed, full of braying laughter and boisterous cheers. Huge TVs line the walls, and if not for the closed captions, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what the announcers were discussing. We find a table in the back and I take a seat, leaning my crutches against the wall while Tucker wends his way to the crowded bar to get a couple of beers.
I’m looking at my phone when a woman I’ve never met slides into the seat across from me. She’s wearing a strappy red top with her cleavage popping out. Her jeans are so tight, they look like they’re airbrushed on. She tosses her blond hair over her shoulder and points to my crutches.
“What happened?”
I blink, startled by her bold inquiry. No hello, no “My name is”, nothing.
She raises one over-plucked brow. “Sports injury? Car accident? What?”
I feel like I’m in an alternate universe. I know I haven’t been to a bar in a while, but have things really changed this much?
Her uninvited interrogation irks me, and my response comes out clipped. “War wound.”
The irritation in my voice goes right over her head. She peers up at me through spider-like fake lashes, her garish red lips pouting. “Want me to kiss it better?”
Is this her idea of flirting? Maybe she thinks this is sexy.
It’s not.
I glance toward the bar, wondering if Tucker is somehow behind this. Maybe it’s a prank. But he’s not looking my way. He’s still trying to catch the attention of the harried bartender.
I look back at the blonde. “This isn’t the kind of injury you can fix with a kiss.”
Long red nails scrape over my forearm, and she leans closer, thrusting her ample breasts in my direction in case they’ve somehow gone unnoticed. “Are you sure? I’m quite good.”
“Unless you can regrow my leg, I’m not interested.”
She pales noticeably. “You’re missing a leg?”
“Explosions tend to cause that sort of thing.” When she shrinks away from me, my temper flares. “Don’t worry. It’s not contagious.”
The blonde rapidly withdraws her scarlet claws and scrambles to her feet. “It was nice to meet you. Uh, thank you for your service.” She makes a beeline straight for the exit. At her retreat, my momentary flash of temper recedes, leaving discouragement in its wake.
Tucker tips his head in her direction when he returns. “Who’s the blonde?”
“I thought maybe she was one of your pranks.”
He laughs. “Nope. I don’t know her.”
