Sometimes you just know when shit is not right.

I'd been pre-occupied and an all-around bitch ever since Aiden had decided to show his asshole-true-colors. Actually, he'd thrown up warning flags from the minute I’d met him. Only my lust and desire for some sort of personal connection muddied the waters I usually have no trouble swimming in.

But I knew the minute I opened my front door that there was somebody in my house and things were about to get worse. As it had been my usual state over the past week I'd been distracted. I’d been thinking Aiden. I missed him. I missed him in my life. I missed his body in my bed. I missed his hands all over me.

He’d been pretty clear a couple of days ago the we had no future and that I’d spent the past few weeks concocting a fantasy in my head that he’d wanted to be the one that I could build a life with. I had thought that Aiden was the guy who could accept me. Everything about me. My long hours at work, my dedication to my kids and my kink. I’d been wrong. It had come down to the moment of truth where he was confronted with what it really meant to be with me he couldn't do it.

It didn't make him a bad person.

My kink didn't make me a bad person either.

It just meant that we couldn’t find a place where we would work. People spent a lot of money and time on my couch to learn the lesson I’d just learned. I just needed to move on, I needed to stop thinking about it and I needed to stop thinking about what we might've had if it had been different.

All of this had been stewing in my brain when I’d opened the front door and found Davina sitting on my couch. She looked gaunt, spent. She looked like a woman who was at the end of her tether. And I meant the tether that kept her chained to any level of sanity.

As a psychiatrist, I tried not to think in terms of crazy or any other kind of slang to describe mental illness but sometimes it was the only way to sum up the depth of instability. I took one look at her face and I knew that if I looked up the phrase “bat shit crazy” in the urban dictionary, Davina’s picture would be right next to it holding the gun she had pointed at my heart.

I took a step back on instinct trying to put whatever distance I could between me and the woman was clearly going to kill me but she was one step ahead of me.

“Don't move,” she said. “Don't move you home-wrecking little cunt.”

Her hand shook, the gun unsteady, but it remained focused always on me. I looked around me, searching for a place to escape. But there wasn't any place for me to run to, no place to hide in my front hall. Built like a bowling alley, the distance between us was a straight shot. Even if I bolted with all I had in me, there was no way to get past her and no way to get back out of the front door. My only choice was to go forward but my feet wouldn’t move in that direction. It was walking straight into a loaded gun and I wasn’t the crazy one.

“Davina put the gun down. Somebody's going to get hurt. We can talk about this,” I said, trying to use my best shrink voice. It was calculated to keep her calm and her finger off the trigger.

It didn’t work.

The shot she pulled off was brittle and terrifying as it cracked across the silence of my home. I ducked, getting as low as possible while keeping my eyes on her. Talking wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to act. Whatever I was going to try it wasn’t going to talk her out of whatever decision she’d made. But right now, all I had was my voice and years of training and a prayer that it would work.

“Davina put the gun down.” I slowly inched forward, eliminating any sudden movement which might make her pull the trigger again. If I could get to the living room without a bullet between my eyes, I could run for a place to lock myself behind a very sturdy door. “Davina listen to me, you’ve already killed two people. You don’t want to do it again.”

She just stared at me as if she was trying to process the information and I wondered what in the world could possibly be going through her head right now.

“Davina listen to me. I’m sure my neighbors heard the shot and called the police. You already killed two people and this will only make it worse. The cops aren’t going to let you shoot me. They’ll have to hurt you and I don’t want that. We were friends once. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Her voice was calm and steady, her laugh brittle and off-killter. “We weren’t friends. If I wanted to keep my husband I had to let him fuck you and you had to try and take him from me.”

I shook my head, continuing my slow journey towards the living area. “I didn’t. You know me, I’d never do that.”

She wasn’t listening to me, her rambling was a constant loop of nonsense and pain.

“He wanted you. I didn’t kill you right away because you said no but I know you are part of the problem. I can’t let you do this to someone else, some other woman.” I groaned and swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat. She thought shooting me was part of a larger crusade and that meant I was screwed. It wasn’t about me, I was just the first step. “Nathan broke his promise and some other man at the club will do the same. They just want to fuck younger, prettier women. It’s just an excuse.”

I held my hands up and realized just how futile how cliché it was. But I was so close the place where I could run and I just needed to keep her talking.

“Davina, I know I know he broke a promise to you and I’m so sorry. But I turned him down because you are my friend and I would never hurt you like that. Don’t punish me for something I didn’t do. Please.”

“I don't care Carla. I don't care,” she chanted, shaking her head back and forth with vehemence. “I can’t have you here anymore. You can’t be here. I tried to be sexy like you. I tried to be funny and smart but all he could see was you and how I wasn’t you. I lived up to my end of the bargain but he wanted you.”

I smashed myself against the wall as I neared the end of the hallway, sliding towards the opening. I closed my eyes, counting off in my head as I willed my legs to move and take me to a place of relative safety. I envisioned the large, heavy island, knowing that if I could get behind it then I could make a run for the bathroom.

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

I ran.

The shot went off behind me, spraying drywall all over the side of my face as I bolted for the kitchen. I hit my marble floor on my knees and slid behind the block of wood and granite. I dug in my purse for my phone and dialed 9-1-1 and left it on the floor wedged under the lip of the cabinet. I couldn’t trust myself not to turn off the call with my trembling fingers and this way the call would remain open for them to send help.

I peeked over the edge of the countertop as the voice of the operator rang out through the speaker on my phone. Davina stilled at the moment the noise broke the relative silence of fear and ragged breathing. I was scared and worried that I was out of options, so I went for broke and yelled.

“Davina Marsden is trying to kill me. My name is Carla Androghetti. Send help now!”

She decided to come at me then and I jumped to my feet, and circled in the opposite direction, keeping the island between us. I spotted the drawer holding the knives and yanked it open, grabbing the biggest one I could find in a glance. I ignored the cuts on my fingers as I pawed through the drawer and the thought that I was literally bringing a knife to a gunfight made me snort out a dark laugh. I gripped the weapon as tightly as I could in hands slick with sweat and held it in front of me as I faced off my enemy.

She lunged at me, firing off another shot that went wild and hit somewhere behind me and I took the opportunity to slash the blade against the skin of her forearm. Blood was everywhere and when she cried out, I struck again and again. She dropped the gun and I took off at a run, headed straight for my bathroom.

I slid on the marble floor but I kept going, throwing my body into the opening and shoving the door closed and slamming the lock home with a speed that surprised me. It was a thick door and I hoped it would hold for a little while, at least until the cops arrived. Shots hit the door and I flinched, covering my body as much as I could. The bullets buckled the wood but didn’t penetrate but I couldn’t count on that for long. I had no idea how many bullets she had or how long I’d be trapped in this room.

I looked around for a better place to hide, wedging myself in the narrow gap between the toilet and the sink cabinet. Davina banged on the door, screaming like the crazy woman she clearly was and firing shots at random. Every word that left her mouth was coated with frustration and desperation and I covered my ears to block her out. It was cowardly but I just couldn’t listen any longer. I knew that I would never ever get that the sound of her frantic high-pitched screaming out of my head. I held the knife out in front of me as a talisman against her particular brand of evil, her blood running down my hands and making it difficult for me to keep hold of the weapon but I wasn’t going to let it go.

I sunk to the floor, my knees pulled up against my chest, shaking and trying not to cry while hoping and straining to hear the sounds of the police or somebody coming to help me. I thought of Aiden and that night on his roof with the Nats playing in the background while he made me feel accepted and wanted. I thought about the future I thought we were going to have together and the way it had all blown apart.

I didn't regret my time with him, didn’t regret taking a chance. Not on him.

Davina’s screaming faltered and then there was a crash and more voices. Shots. More yelling. Male voices yelling at her to get down on the floor, to put the gun down. I stayed in the bathroom huddled against the cabinet unwilling to open the door just in case my frightened hysterical brain had somehow fooled me into believing that help had finally come.

And then I heard his voice.

Aiden.

Aiden calling to me through the door, banging on the wood and shaking the handle, begging for me to open the door and let him in. I wanted to move but I couldn’t. So, I waited where I was because I knew he would come and get me and hold me and make all of this horror fade away. I knew he would do this because while he couldn’t have a relationship with me, he would never let me get hurt or suffer alone. He was a cop down to his marrow, pledged to protect and serve. Even if he couldn’t love.

“Carla! Carla! Baby can you hear me?” He banged on the door and shook the doorknob again. “Baby, it’s me. It’s Aiden. Open the door.”

 I couldn't move but I heard myself cry out. I was painful and completely involuntary. It was broken and scared and I guess he heard it too because the next thing I knew he was breaking down the door and looking down to where I was huddled with the knife clutched to my chest. He knelt down in front of me, his hands extended in a calming gesture.

“Carla, baby, give me the knife. We’ve got Davina and you’re fine. It’s okay. Just give me the knife.”

I stared at him. I couldn't really comprehend what he was saying I just wanted it all to be over. I felt lightheaded, the adrenaline rushing out of my body and I held the weapon out to him, watching in a daze as it fell from my grasp and clattered to the floor. Aiden kicked it to the side and then he was pulling me close, into his lap as he settled back against the wall.

My face was pressed against his chest where I could feel the steady frantic beat of his heart, feel the warmth of his body, and smell the lingering scent of his aftershave and the detergent he used on his T-shirt. Familiar. Safe. His lips pressed against my temple, soft and gentle and kind as he murmured nonsense over and over.

“It’s okay, baby. We have Davina and she can’t hurt you.”

I held on to him letting the tears fall as chaos continued outside the broken door.