Page 123 of Stalkers Anonymous

The police interview takes at least an hour. I describe everything I can remember about the attack, but it’s hard. Details are fuzzy. They tell me he escaped before they could search the parking garage thoroughly, but they have security camera footage that proves it was him.

The officer says there’s already a warrant out for his arrest.

“We’ll find him,” she assures me over and over again.

I’ve heard that before.

It’s well after midnight now, and I’ve been admitted for the next twenty-four hours at the very least. Rachel has been called. She’ll be here soon. The resident on shift—Kim, whom I’ve worked with a hundred times—has dimmed the lights and brought me water and told me to rest, which is something I tell my own patients. Until right now, I’ve never appreciated how impossible that instruction actually is.

I lie in the hospital bed and stare at the ceiling.

The police have been “on this” for months. I filed the report after he keyed my car. I filed after the brick. I filed after the hospital threat. I got the restraining order. I did every single thing they told me to do.

He still found me. He still caught me alone. He almost killed me tonight in a place I went because I wanted to stop being afraid.

The system doesn’t work. Not for me. Not for this.

Somewhere under the painkillers and the ringing in my head, I think about Cole.

Not the way I’ve been thinking about him for the last twelve weeks. Not the soft ache of missing him, not the grief for what we could have been, not the contradiction I’ve been trying to sit with in Dr. Martinez’s office.

I think about what Cole would do, if he knew.

Cole would know where Lars Winters runs to when he’s hurt and bleeding and looking for somewhere to hide. Cole would already be in his car. Cole would find him before the cops do.

Cole wouldn’t stop until Lars wasn’t a problem anymore.

That is the thought that echoes in my mind, and I’m too full of hospital drugs to pretend I don’t hear it.

I was right to question Cole all those weeks ago. I was right to be angry. I was right to ask for space.

But I was also relying on a system that has failed me at every single checkpoint. I’ve been polite. I’ve been patient. I’ve filed my reports and sat through my hearings and done everything the way the law said to do it. And I am still lying in this bed with three broken ribs and a concussion, because Lars Winters does not care about paperwork.

Cole doesn’t care about paperwork, either.

For the first time since I closed my door on him, I want that. I want someone in my corner who doesn’t care about doing things the legal way. I want someone who will put their hands on the problem and not ask permission from a court.

The man who terrified me with how far he’d go to keep me safe is the man I need right now. And I am done pretending I don’t know that.

Chapter Thirty: Cole

I’m on my third lap around the neighborhood when my phone rings.

It’s past midnight. I’ve been running for an hour. The cold air helps refocus my mind when it’s stuck on Hailey.

I slow to a walk and pull the phone out of my jacket pocket, expecting Tyler. My check-in for tomorrow morning is twelve hours from now, but Tyler has a habit of calling early when he can’t sleep.

It isn’t Tyler.

The screen reads Hailey.

I stop walking, feeling nothing but dread. If she’s calling me this late after all these weeks… I know it can’t be good.

I let it ring three times because I don’t trust my own voice. On the fourth ring, I clear my throat and answer it.

“Hailey?”

“Hi.”