Delayed Penalty (Crossing the Line, #1)(5)

Well, it's probably around zero degrees, and you are in fact freezing your balls off.

She didn't respond, not even the slightest movement. Stepping back away from her, I tried to think of what I should do.

Do I call the police? Do I take her to the hospital?

Just when I was about to call the police, the girl moaned softly before something that looked like blood mixed with vomit poured from her mouth. I reached out quickly, intending to help her, but then she went limp again, her face pressed into my hand.

I had to get her help now. I thought about calling Leo or even the police, but then I just decided to hail a cab and get her to the nearest trauma center.

As carefully as I could, my strong steady arms wrapped around her tiny frame. Shrugging out of my jacket, I used it to cover her from the waist down. I found a cab within a minute when the driver saw me struggling to hold a limp body. I wasn't sure what luck I'd have at finding a cab at two in the morning while holding a girl's body. They would think I was either a murderer or looking to score on some innocent, passed out girl.

Trying to open the door to the cab, her head flopped to one side against my shoulder. I'd never carried a lifeless figure before, but it was surprisingly difficult trying to keep arms and legs from spilling out of my grasp.

"Hey, what's wrong with her?" the cabby, a darker skinned man, asked, his eyes reproachful. "You hurt her like that?"

"No, it wasn't me," I answered flatly and immediately, not appreciating the accusing tone when I was trying to save her. "She was beaten by someone and left in the alley outside Redfish."

"Hospital?" was his next question.

"Yes—JHS." I wasn't sure how exactly to hold her, but I tried to keep pressure on the gash on her head, which appeared to be where most of the blood was coming from. I struggled to keep her covered since she was, in fact, nearly naked. Within minutes, my designer suit was ruined, as was my jacket. Right about then it hit me. I was wearing a lot of this girl's blood, had no idea where she'd been, and I had scrapes on my knuckles from the fight.

Great logic. Rescue a girl in the alley and then wipe her blood on you. Idiot.

The girl remained limp in my arms, blood pooling in her mouth, seeping from her lips every so often. The smell, pungently overwhelming, was making me sick, but the adrenaline took precedence and had me focused on getting her help.

The cab took us to Polk Street, more specifically, John H. Stroger Hospital.

The cabby came around the side, opened the door, and then helped me get the girl inside the emergency room.

"Help us!" I called out when the automatic glass doors opened.

Immediately, a few nurses were there with a stretcher, allowing me to free my arms. Though I had spent my life roughing up two hundred pound defensemen on a daily basis, holding this barely hundred-pound girl for the last twenty minutes had left them shaking and feeling jellylike.

The nurse, a larger woman worn beyond her years with her hair tied back in a tight ponytail, eyed the blood on me, along with my tattered appearance from the game. My black eye and swollen bottom lip wasn't helping me defend my innocence in this brutal attack.

"Are you responsible for this?"

"No!" I shouted, becoming defensive, pushing forward to follow them to where they were taking her. "I found her in the alley. I brought her here."

"I've heard that before," she replied with a superior calmness. "Don't go anywhere. You'll need to be questioned," she snapped, pushing the stretcher through the metal doors into what I assumed would be the trauma center. I followed, regardless of where they were taking her. I had to know she was going to make it.

"I'm not going anywhere," I replied, watching the girl twist to the side and vomit again before her body wilted back.

"Is she going to be okay?" I asked. My focus remained on the quick movements of the doctors hovering over her.

They were all yelling orders. Frantic movements, quick decisions, and fast hands scrambled to save this girl. Time passed quickly but just as slow. The world stopped and voices faded. I didn't know this girl, but I couldn't watch her die, not after trying to save her.

Pushing myself back against the wall, their efforts seemed empty or bare as she made no response. Her heartbeat was faint, fading in and out from the extreme loss of blood. The doctor hovered above her, stopping the chest compressions he'd began when her heart gave way the first time.

Horrendous didn't do this justice. This was unspeakable and revolting that one person could do something of this nature to another human being.

"What are you doing? Don't stop!" I told them, looking into the eyes of the subdued doctor. "Help her!"

A taller, lanky man stepped forward. His arms reached for my shoulders, trying to console me. "Sir, she's not going to make it. Her heart isn't..."

My head shook violently against his dejected words, refusing to believe him. "I've watched you torture this poor girl for an hour, please...just...try...one more time," I begged.

Another doctor who'd resumed compressions shocked her again. This time they got another jolt of life from her, faint, but it was there.

The doctors scrambled into gear and pushed me toward the door. "You need to leave."

With one push I was out the door and standing in the hallway, left wondering. How did I even get here, and why was I focused so distinctly on this, on her? What was it about her that held me here?