Friends Without Benefits

My eyes shot up and found Fancy Stalker, who must’ve been neatly tucked behind the door, now shutting it. We were the only two people in the room. I was alone with Fancy Stalker.

And she was holding a gun.

Chapter 26

She was dressed in scrubs and a lab coat. Gone were the fancy boots and clothes. However she still looked impeccable; her long brown hair fell in a sleek waterfall over her shoulders, and her eye makeup was wicked impressive, the elusive smoky eye.

I wondered at myself, that I was noticing her talent for eye makeup while she was holding me at gun point.

“That was too easy.” She cocked her head to the side. Maybe it was my imagination, but her movements appeared to be jerky, sudden, reminded me of horror movies and machines. “For a doctor you sure are dumb.”

I licked my lips since they’d become inexplicably dry and, because I didn’t like sitting while she was standing, I stood albeit very, very slowly.

“Oh. Hi there,” I croaked.

“Stupid.” She sneered, shook her head, then began to screech. “You are nothing! I am going to show him you are nothing!”

“Hello? What is the nature of your emergency?”

I moved my hand to cover the receiver, hoped that she didn’t hear the dispatcher or notice the movement. But I was disappointed.

“I said to put the phone down or I will shoot it out of your hand.”

I flinched, and, on complete autopilot, I dropped the phone.

Her lip curled in a snarl as she abruptly crossed the room and stomped on the cell with the heel of her shoe. Again and again she smashed the black rectangle into the linoleum, small to moderate screams bursting forth—either from effort or just from being a crazy person. She didn’t stop until it was a million pieces of unrecognizable glass and electronic bits.

Then she screamed again, her features feral, spit raining in all directions, “I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”

I tensed, but kept my hands at my sides, fought the urge to cower into a small ball under the disturbing weight of her wild gray eyes and the black revolver.

She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, her eyes trained on me, and a weird laugh tumbled from her lips. I shivered. It was worse than the screaming. I didn’t dare look anywhere but directly at her even though every fiber of my being was urging me to run, escape.

“You know, it was so easy. It was so easy. I know you.” She lifted and pointed the gun at me. I tried not to think about the fact that at any moment a bullet was going to tear through my skin. “But you’re not the type Nico likes. I’m his type, he should want to be with me! Why doesn’t he want to be with me?”

I didn’t move or make any sound in response. Her next words made me jump.

“We went out, did you know that? I thought he liked me, but he used me.” Her voice became smaller, whisper quiet.

“You and Nico?” I couldn’t help my automatic surprise to her statement.

“Yes, me and Nico! Don’t you say his name!” She shook the gun at me, “I’ve been watching you. You only saw me when I wanted you to. I’ve been here.” She laughed again then whispered, “I’ve even watched you undress.”

Nausea rose in my throat, and I forced myself to swallow it back; I forced myself to start thinking of a way to leave this room alive.

“Everyone hates you.” She nodded, her face pinched with bitter superiority. “Meg hates you.”

I choked, and my question slipped passed my lips before I could stop it. “You know Meg?”

She clicked her tongue, obviously pleased that I was surprised by this revelation. “Oh yes. How do you think I’ve been able to move around here so easily? Who do you think cut up your lab coat? How do you think I got those pictures of you and Nico?”

“How? How do you know her?”

“I thought she was you. I followed her to the train. When I approached her, she was disgusted that I’d have confused the two of you. Isn’t that funny?” She waited like she expected me to laugh. When I didn’t her features hardened. “I’m the one who showed her that disgusting video, where you made a fool of yourself by screaming lies at your high school reunion. Pathetic.”

I couldn’t breathe. The room tilted a little, and I fought to stay upright.

“Oh, she thinks I’m harmless. She likes that I frighten you, she doesn’t think I’d actually hurt you. But you and I, we know better.”

“She . . . Why would she do this?”

“Because she hates you! You’re nothing special. You’re small, unremarkable, plain. You have nothing, nothing that he wants. I don’t know why you’re deluding yourself. Why are you doing that? Huh? Why are you lying to yourself, that he wants you? Do you know how sick you are?” She emphasized certain words by jabbing the gun in my direction. I noted that her eyes lost focus, like she wasn’t talking to me, like she was talking to herself.

In my peripheral vision I noted my distance from the coffee pot—filled with hot coffee—and the drawer with the knives. I thought about picking up the chair that was three feet from where I stood and throwing it at her or jumping behind the couch and using it as a shield.

“ANSWER ME!”

I jumped at her abrupt command. Luckily, I jumped closer to the coffee pot.

“Okay. Okay . . . Look. Maybe we, you and I, maybe we could just talk.” I lifted my hands up between us, tried to keep my voice level and calm, instead of panicked and hysterical.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” Again she jerked her head to the side. Two fat tears pooled in her eyes, ran down her cheeks, ruined her smoky eye makeup.

I stiffened. I saw, at that moment, in her eyes that she was seconds away from shooting me. If something was going to happen it needed to happen now.

And, luckily for me, Dr. Ken Miles happened.

“I know you’re in here, Elizabeth. You can’t hide from me all night—”

I heard him before I saw him. He was, again speaking loudly; but this time I didn’t mind. In fact, I could have kissed him at that moment. It likely would have been a peck on the cheek, but still a kiss nevertheless.

She spun toward his voice, and I didn’t hesitate to act. Dr. Ken Miles—Ken—stopped abruptly at the entrance and stumbled back a step, obviously when he saw the gun. His hands flew up to cover his face, and he screamed in a way that reminded me of a little girl.

I felt lightening in my veins, and I used her temporary state of distraction to grab the coffee pot. With strength, speed, and agility I didn’t know I possessed, I bounded to her in three steps and bashed the side of her face with the pot. It made contact with her temple and shattered, hot coffee and glass shards raining down on her like justice.

She screamed. This time it was with pain. Her arms came up in an automatic response to fend off any additional attack and swipe at the wound.

I was surprised that the force of the impact against her temple didn’t immediately knock her out, but wasted no time dwelling on it. Instead I tackled her, and the gun dropped to the ground—fired off one round—then skidded across the floor toward Ken.

“Oh my god!” I faintly registered Ken’s shrieked exclamation as I struggled to keep the crazy woman from throwing me off.

“Get the gun, Ken!” I ordered him as her fist swung around and nearly collided with my jaw, missing by millimeters.

I couldn’t waste time or attention on whether Ken followed through because, in the few seconds that passed since my assault with the coffee carafe, Fancy Stalker had mostly recovered her bearings and was swinging like a champion cage fighter. I dodged a right hook, but then collapsed as her knee connected with my stomach. Her fist pounded my kidney, and suddenly I couldn’t draw breath.

“Stop!” As though from a great distance I heard Ken’s voice, but I couldn’t focus on it. I was in crazy pain. I couldn’t think. I could only roll to the side and hope the next blow she landed didn’t hurt as much as the first two.

The gun went off again, and I winced at the thunderclap, then ringing between my ears.

“I said stop!”

But she didn’t stop. She lifted her fist as though to disfigure my face, her gray eyes beyond insanity and firmly on the line of animalistic. I braced myself for it, for her knuckles. But they never came.

Instead the gun went off a third time, and her left side whipped around, as though she’d been struck. Awed, I watched her stumble backward then fall to her knees. Her eyes were no longer on me. Instead her head was tipped down, her hand covering a spot on her abdomen where blood was seeping through her fingertips.

I blinked at her and time did that thing again, where it both slowed down and sped up. Once minute I was watching her, her movements slow motion almost to the point of stillness. Then, suddenly, I was on my knees next to her fallen body. I’d taken off my lab coat and bunched it up, used it to stem the flow of blood from her side.

There were other people present as well—Dan, Meg, Ken, as well as several ER triage nurses and other faceless colleagues of mine. The nurses immediately reacted, issued orders, pulled me away from her and placed me into the strong embrace of somebody.

It didn’t occur to me to find out who that somebody was until several moments later, after the stalker had been loaded onto a stretcher and carried to the Operating Room. I glanced up at the owner of the arms and found Dan looking at me with plain concern and visible regret.