Page 23 of The Stalker Snafu

The behemoth reached for me, but Noah blocked him with an arm. “I’ve got her.”

“I was just trying to catch the ball. I swear I didn’t mean to run into her. I want to help⁠—”

“You’ve done enough. She’ll be fine.” Noah’s voice sounded harder than steel. “Emma, can you hear me?”

I blinked in the general direction I thought he was in while scrambling to reach back for the bookbag miraculously still on my back. “Yes. Is Henrietta okay?”

He grabbed my arms and held them still, ignoring my concern. “Try not to move too much. Where does it hurt?”

I closed my eyes to the pounding in my head. “Everywhere. Everywhere hurts. Except for my toes, maybe? Yeah, my toes feel okay.”

“How about your neck? Don’t move it, but how does your neck feel?”

I tried to concentrate on anything other than my head, but the constant banging of drums in my skull trumped everything else. “Noah, my head hurts.”

Noah let go of my arms, but I was too sluggish to move them as I slumped against the bench. He slid out of his blazer before tugging off his nice dress shirt—his white undershirt coming with it—and my eyelids fluttered in surprise.

Was Noah… stripping in the middle of the quad? Why did things have to start getting interesting when my head felt like a ripe cantaloupe splitting open?

“Here.” Noah bunched up his shirts and pressed the bundle to my forehead. I hissed at the sting, but he held the back of my head when I tried to jerk away. “Do you think you can stand up?”

“Are you getting naked?” I asked bluntly, unable and unwilling to stop my eyes from trailing down his bare chest. There was still a nosy crowd huddled around us, and I tried to ignore the way they were staring at my head as if mutant cockroach babies were crawling out.

“We’re going to walk to the car together, Emma,” Noah instructed as his hand dropped from my head to loop around my waist, once again ignoring my question. “Can you try to stand for me?”

I could only focus on my stinging forehead and the pulsing in my head, but Noah helped me wobble to my feet. I teetered into his chest with a moan. We made it one unsteady step before his chest rumbled, and a moment later I was cradled in his arms as he took off down the sidewalk. He rearranged my hand to hold his sticky shirt to my head.

Why was it so sticky? We hadn’t had any waffles today.

I stared ahead in a daze as Noah rushed toward the student parking lot. Each step sent a pang reverberating through my head.

Ow.

“Don’t worry,” he said as we reached the lot. “I’m taking you to the hospital. You’ll be okay.”

Alarm bells harmonized with the throbbing in my head, and I recognized them well enough to start panicking.

“Wait, no!” I gasped out, trying to sit up in his arms and failing miserably. I kept blinking, trying to bring him into focus. “No hospital.”

He squeezed me reassuringly as his Audi unlocked with a little chirp. “It’s okay. The doctors will take care of you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I rushed to assure both Noahs holding me, belatedly wondering when he had gotten a twin. “It’s barely a scratch. I don’t need a hospital.”

They shook their heads in sync. “Emma, you have a deep gash on your forehead. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Noahs, no,” I pleaded, my voice borderline hysterical as I gripped the left Noah’s sleeve. He seemed a little more sympathetic to my cause than the other one. “No hospitals, please. I can’t.”

I couldn’t seem to string a full thought together, but a hospital was the last place I wanted to be right now. Hospitals cost money, which I didn’t have. And they did things like call your emergency contacts, which were my parents. That was the last thing I wanted.

“You’re bleeding,” Right-Noah argued as if that was the end of it.

“I wasn’t talking to you! I was talking to the other Noah,” I snapped, turning my pleading eyes back to Left-Noah.

Both Left-Noah and Right-Noah went pale, and they leaned closer to me. “Emma? What other Noah?”

“Please promise me no hospitals,” I cried louder, hoping they could hear me over the obnoxious ringing in my head, which wouldn’t freaking stop. “Please. I can’t.”

Right-Noah looked unsure, but miraculously they both nodded. “…Okay, okay. No hospitals.”