Page 32 of Fluffed and Folded

“No, don’t quit,” she said, giving the hem of his shirt a little tug.

“Sheena, you have all the good lines. Apparently you’re going to have to teach me so I’ll have some game, too.”

“Lesson one, always leave them wanting more,” she said, then leaned forward and brushed her lips softly against his. When she pulled back, he tried to follow, but she held up a hand, warding him away. “Go, rest, we’ll talk soon.”

“Okay,” he agreed, not certain if the vaguely dazed feeling was because of her or because of exhaustion.

When he got in his car, drove home, and the feeling remained, he began to think it was because of exhaustion. He barely remembered changing his clothes or brushing his teeth before stumbling to his room. “Bed,” he murmured lovingly. It had never looked so good. He collapsed in a dramatic heap, for his own comedic effect, but then actually did fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, a thing he previously only thought happened in cartoons.

“Eli.”

When Darby said his name, seemingly only a moment later, his brain refused to wake.Nope, not happening, too sleepy.

“Eli,” she repeated, more urgently this time.

He sat up with an annoyed huff. “Darby, should I start being surprised when I wake anddon’tfind you in my room?” His too-heavy eyes finally levered open and blinked a couple of times, trying to focus on the woman who stood at the foot of his bed. There was something off about her, and it took him a moment to realize what. One of her arms was clutched tightly over her body, as if holding herself together.

“I think,” she began, her voice breathless and reedy. “I think…maybe I’m…going to die,” she managed, and then collapsed in an untidy heap at the foot of his bed.

Eli sprang from the bed, too late to catch her. She lay facedown on the carpet, perfectly still and silent. He grabbed her and flipped her over, her face deathly pale in the dim moonlight from the window. “Darby,” he said, shaking her frantically. There was no reply, no movement. His eyes raked her, searchingfor signs of trauma, or at least what he could see of it in the darkness. He saw nothing, but before he could allow that thought to ease him, he became aware that one of his knees was soaked and warm. He eased back onto his heels, raising his knee to eye level to make an inspection. It was too dark to discern, but somehow he knew his leg was now soaked with Darby’s blood.

CHAPTER 18

Eli felt surreal as he waited in the hospital’s emergency room lobby. How did he find himself awake in a hospital in the middle of the night, waiting for word about a stranger who collapsed in his apartment?Because she has no one else.That was the reality he kept returning to, the one that kept him grounded. He was there because Darby was alone. When the medics asked him to provide a next of kin, he’d been unable. Tristan, alerted by the sirens, had let himself into Eli’s apartment behind the medics, and he’d looked to Eli, too, waiting for answers he didn’t have.

“She doesn’t have anyone,” Eli heard himself say. “Just me.” He had glanced down at Darby, barely conscious, moaning in pain, possibly hallucinating, and realized the gravity of the situation: for better or worse, he was now her keeper.

He’d followed behind the ambulance in his own car, making certain to grab his wallet and some clothes, and now here he sat, waiting on word. Tristan hadn’t accompanied him, and why would he? This wasn’t part of the investigation and there was nothing he could do. He glanced at his phone, hoping for divine inspiration. What was his responsibility here? How long should he wait? How vested was he in this?

“Darby?” a man stepped through the emergency room door and called her name. Eli tucked his phone away and raised his hand, as if they were back in high school.

“I’m here with Darby,” he clarified.

The doctor walked over to him and eased into the chair beside him. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“She collapsed,” Eli said.

“Had she been sick this evening?” the doctor asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her. She showed up in my room, woke me up, and collapsed.”

The doctor’s face puckered. “Do you have any idea of any symptoms she had before that?”

Did her mental distress count as a symptom? It was worth a mention, at least. “Physically, I don’t know, she hasn’t said. But I know she’s been having memory lapses, confusion. She’s been blacking out, finding herself places without knowing how she got there.”

The doctor’s frown deepened. “Huh.”

Eli felt disloyal for blurting such personal information, even if the man was a doctor. Mental illness was a stigma; he hoped he hadn’t doomed Darby for some kind of in-house commitment. “Is she…is she going to be okay?”

“We’re running some tests, getting ready to send her for an MRI. We had to sedate her because she’s quite angry, starting to get a little violent.”

Now it was Eli’s turn to frown. “Darby’s not violent.” He didn’t know her well, but he knew that. Whatever was going on with her, it wasn’t the sort of thing that made her dangerous, at least not to others. Rather, he didn’t think so. There was the whole possibility of her being a murderer still on the line, but he was almost positive she had nothing to do with Asher’s death.

The doctor nodded, but Eli couldn’t tell if it was an affirming or condescending nod. “I’m very worried,” Eli added, andrealized he meant it. Whether or not he wanted to be responsible for her, he still didn’t know. But he did know he didn’t want anything to happen to her. The truth was that helikedDarby, could see through her mental fog to the sweet, gentle, and funny person beneath.

“So am I,” the doctor said, which did nothing to alleviate Eli’s anxiety. He slapped Eli’s knee as he levered himself up. “We’ll keep you informed, as soon as we have some answers. I’m going to call a few consults, see if we can figure out what’s wrong with your girl.”

Eli opened his mouth to refute that last statement but closed it again. The doctor didn’t care if Darby was actually his girl, and the truth was that at this moment it didn’t matter. For right now, Eli was all that stood between Darby and complete isolation. His phone chirped, and he was relieved to have a diversion.

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