Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(12)

And if there wasn’t anything scary, if it was my imagination again, the PTSD I didn’t want to acknowledge, well then everyone would know how f*cked up I was inside.

No, I had to be overreacting. This was nothing. There was no one in the hallway. And even if there was, it would be some drunk guy, passed out on the wrong floor.

I’m a normal college student, I reminded myself. I’m not afraid of anything.

Both of those things were lies, I was neither normal nor brave, but at least I could send a drunk frat boy on his way.

I opened the door a crack. Nothing.

Relief filled me, and I opened the door wider.

A body slid inside, slumped over without the door to support him. A short scream escaped me before I caught myself.

He was wearing a three-piece suit stained with blood, his expression slack, eyes glassy with pain and delirium. Philip.

Oh God, he was hurt. Really badly hurt if he couldn’t stand up. Horribly hurt if he’d ever have come to me of all people. I didn’t have time to process the shock of it, of seeing him again. I had to get him out of sight. If he’d been injured like this, someone was after him. Someone would want to finish the job.

“Come inside,” I whispered urgently, pulling his arm.

All that earned me was a weak groan.

Panic beat in my chest. Was he losing consciousness? Was he dying?

I managed to sling his heavy arm over my shoulders, staggering under even that much weight. Christ. Awake he was pure packed power. Half-conscious and injured, he was like a pile of steel bars—unmovable and unwieldy.

“I’ll never forgive you if you die on my doorstep,” I said.

Something like a grunt escaped him—it might have been a laugh. Either way, he surged up, tapping into some deep well of energy or survival instinct. His effort and all my strength pushed us through the doorway and into my dorm room. It had seemed small before. Now it seemed tiny as we bumped into walls and staggered to the bed.

I wanted to lay him down gently, careful with his wounds, but in the end we both fell under his weight, tangled on the bed in a heap of exhausted limbs. With a coarse shove I managed to get him on his back so I could shut the door.

The hallway was just as empty as when I’d found him. There was a little smear of blood on the doorjamb. It turned a mottled brown when I wiped it with my shirt.

That would have to be good enough for now.

I just hoped no one had followed him. I just hoped no one found him.

And I really hoped no one found me.





Chapter Eleven

I HAD IMAGINED so many ways that I would meet Philip again. A chance encounter in a coffee shop. Or more romantic, he might seek me out, impressed and enthralled by the young woman I’d grown into. Having him half-dead outside my door was never what I’d pictured. The reality disturbed and confused me—but most of all it spurred me into action.

I dug around the bottom of the small kitchen cabinet until I came up with a dusty first-aid kit. I’d thrown it into my shopping cart during a trip to Target, alongside the blue daisy comforter set on my bed and the sunshine yellow bath mat in the bathroom.

There were bandages and ointment packets and a very long pair of tweezers. Shit.

Philip hadn’t moved from where I’d dropped him on the bed. I knelt at his side. “Philip?”

He didn’t stir.

“Philip, I really need your help with this.” My voice was shaking. I wanted to be cool and confident in a time of crisis, but I was coming apart here. It felt surreal to even see him again, much less be responsible for keeping him alive.

He let out a low sound. A groan? Was he in pain?

Of course he was in pain, and the expired acetaminophen in this pack wasn’t going to help.

I clasped his hand and shivered at how cold it felt. “Philip, can you hear me at all? Because I’m…I’m afraid. I don’t want you to die and if you’re seriously hurt, I need to call 911.”

If I were a different girl, a more normal girl, I would have already called. But I knew that if Philip had come here, he didn’t want to go to the hospital. He would only have come here to stay off the grid.

He might not have been safe in the hospital—unconscious and unable to defend himself if someone came looking. He didn’t trust cops, and after my experience three summers ago, neither did I.

Still, I couldn’t let him die. If he was this bad, he needed a doctor—maybe a surgeon. I’d rather they saved his life than watch him bleed out on my bed. My hands were already groping at my cell phone where it had fallen on the floor.

I was shaky, but at least there were only three numbers to dial. Nine, then one, then—

Something firm and rough squeezed my wrist, and the phone sprang from my hand. I gasped a little at the pain and surprise of it. My gaze rose to meet dark eyes, still hazy with delirium, but determined too. “No doctors,” he said, his voice thready.

“I don’t know how to help you,” I whispered.

His hand tightened on my arm. “No.”

I wanted to call anyway, to find some help, someone who knew what they were doing. Normally he could overpower me, but in this state he couldn’t. Three years ago I’d been helpless, and now I was right back where I started. Call 9-1-1.

“Half-dead and you’re still bossy,” I murmured instead, reluctant agreement.

His eyes shut in relief—or maybe just pain—and his hand fell away. God, what did I just promise? I had brought an injured man inside my dorm room and agreed to harbor him.