Chapter Ten
I WOKE UP on the little two-cushion couch, disoriented. My textbook was open, one page creased from where my arm had rested. I didn’t remember falling asleep.
What had woken me up?
That seemed important, but I didn’t hear anything. I checked my phone to find a new e-mail about a study group and a text message from Sloan confirming our date. That hadn’t been a dream, then.
Looking forward to it, I texted back, not quite holding in a wince.
I stood and stretched. My attention went to the collection of Chicago postcards tacked to my bulletin board. Each had a different touristy design—the skyline at sunset or the lit-up Navy Pier. Each was blank aside from my name and address.
I studied the nondescript block letters, somehow both aggressive and contained. What had inspired him to send these?
What made him stop?
It was dark outside, grown late, and I hadn’t eaten dinner yet. Somewhere out there, Philip was probably dining with crystal and expensive wine. Meanwhile I’d probably order a pizza with one of those coupons by the door.
A low sound raised the hair on my neck.
Oh God, I’m not alone.
My gaze swept over the small dorm room. From here I could see the tiny bedroom area and the kitchenette. I could see almost the entire space. Empty.
Maybe it was just one of my neighbors getting busy and—
The sound came again, louder. A shiver ran through me. It was coming from outside the room, but not from either side. It was coming from the door.
I crept over and looked out the peephole. An empty hallway bulged in the distorted lens.
Now I was doubting myself. Had I actually heard something? Maybe it had come from the dorm room across the hall. When I first moved here, it had been shortly after my “ordeal,” as my adoptive mother called it. I had jumped at every sound, both real and imagined, more traumatized by my brush with danger than I’d wanted to admit.
My gaze snapped to my phone.
I could call my adoptive mother right now, but I knew she wouldn’t want to be bothered. I could call the building management, but I knew what would happen. The same thing that had happened last time I called them. They’d send my floor advisor to check on me. If there was anything scary in this hallway, she’d have to face it first.
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 fucked 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.