Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(10)

The truth was, I missed them.

My adoptive parents had taken me to a counselor who had told them to give me time. Mom and Dad were dubious about that. So was I. I didn’t think time would turn me back into the girl I had been, so desperate to please them first, so desperate to rebel later, the one in glittery tops and short skirts. I was some other creature now. But what?

This is where you come from. This is who you are.

Even the sight of bathroom pipes beneath the sink made me vomit.

I collapsed on the cold tile floor, sobbing so violently that my whole body shook. That was what had changed about me. He had changed me. He’d made me want something I shouldn’t, awoken a slumbering dragon inside me. And now that I had seen Philip, wanted him, there would be no turning back. The sweet family life I had always dreamed of—how would I find it now, with this mirroring darkness inside me? This strange and lonely desire?

I sobbed on the floor, not even stirring when I heard a knock on the door.

Then my brother’s voice, hesitant. “Claire?”

“Don’t call me that,” I sobbed. “That’s not my name. It’s not.”

“Okay,” he said cautiously. He came into the bathroom and knelt at my side. “Okay. Whatever you want to be called. That’s what your name will be.”

It sounded so simple when he said it like that. I could have any name I wanted. Something no one had ever heard of. I could leave Claire behind, the desperate teenager, the name given to a daughter they didn’t want. I could be someone else, someone who didn’t live in fear.

Except all I could see was Philip’s dark eyes when he looked at me the very first time, as if I was something precious he had found. All I could hear was the mocking timbre of his voice when he said my name—the name Shelly had given me.

“Ella,” I whispered.

“Okay,” Tyler said, putting his arms around me, an awkward but sweet embrace. “That’s what it is then. Ella.”

That was who I’d become. Someone who would define herself by a man who didn’t even want her. That was why I stared at the ceiling for hours.

She’s been through a trauma. It will take her time to work through it.

I could hear the counselor like a chorus inside my head. It would take time, and really, that was all I had left. No family except for a brother who wasn’t actually related. No friends except for a call girl who may or may not stay in contact with me.

No one to love, except a man who had sent me away.

We were all human-sized continents, separated by oceans of doubt. And Philip, he was a volcano. He could scorch the earth and then rebuild it anew.

That was what he had done to me. Gone was the rebellious wild child, gone was the broken little girl. In her place was a fresh terrain, fertile earth for something to grow.

I sobbed in my brother’s arms, washing away every trace of the old me, not knowing if there would be anything left when I was done.

Then suddenly I couldn’t cry anymore. I couldn’t even think.

Breath came fast and then not at all. I opened my mouth on a silent gasp.

The world faded to black.

It was my first panic attack, but not my last. I continued having them for years after, even when I graduated high school and started college. Even when I moved out of my parent’s house and into a dorm. They were like aftershocks, painful reminders that Philip had changed me—forever.





Chapter Nine

Three years later

“SO, THE PRISONER’S dilemma.”

“The prisoner’s dilemma is a theory that shows why two rational individuals—two prisoners—might not cooperate, even if it would be in their best interests.” I answered the question dutifully, my mind only half on the walking pop quiz. The other half was focused on the little alcove of mailboxes beside the elevators. My breath came faster, illicit anticipation over something as innocuous as a postcard.

Sloan was my classmate, a junior with an eternal golden tan even in the heart of Chicago. “And Axelrod’s four conditions for the strategy to work?”

“The strategy must retaliate, be forgiving, nonenvious, and…” I would have to reread the chapter in our sociology textbook tonight, but I couldn’t pass up the mailboxes now. “I’m sorry. Mind if I stop here? I’m expecting a letter.”

It wouldn’t have been a letter, exactly. It would have been a postcard, the next in an unsteady stream of anonymous cards. I had been surprised the first time I got the blank postcard, then confused and scared and ultimately charmed. There was only one man who could have sent them, who would have sent them, these smug and mysterious links to a man I shouldn’t know.

Sloan blinked. “Oh. Sure.”

I hadn’t waited for his response. My key was already inside the lock.

The little metal door swung open. I rifled through credit card offers and pizza delivery coupons, heart racing, palms sweaty. And nothing else.

It wasn’t here.

Disappointment was a punch to the gut. I struggled to control my expression.

“No letter?” Sloan asked. His voice asked, From who?

“No letter,” I repeated dully.

It hadn’t come for months now.

Well, what did I expect? For him to pine forever? It was a miracle he’d remembered me at all. I had met Philip in a blur of crime and bad decisions. He’d been handsome and powerful. And there’d been something between us, something dark and curious.