Page 136 of Stalkers Anonymous

“This is a hell of a therapy group, Cole.”

“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck with his hand.

He’s nervous.

“Do you want some wine, too?” I offer him my glass.

Cole shakes his head, holding up one hand. “I’m good, but you enjoy. You deserve to relax a little.”

Jessica clears her throat to bring me back. “There are three rules.” She’s holding up three fingers with her free hand.

She goes over the three rules in depth, and I listen to every word. Tyler occasionally jumps in with a clarification, but it’s mostly Jessica running the show.

“Rule three includes you, by the way. You don’t get to keep secrets from us, either, once you’re in. We work together, or we don’t work at all. We all need to be on the same page.”

I stare at the people around the room, wondering how the fuck I ended up in a room full of “recovering” stalkers who are willing to break laws to find the man who hurt me.

Maybe they really are real-life superheroes.

Tyler seemingly reads my mind, because he puffs up his chest and says, “Stalkers, assemble!” I half expect a final member of the group to fly through the window in a Spandex onesie and cape. Jessica’s expression suggests she would welcome the ability to shoot lasers from her eyeballs right about now.

Beside me, Cole has not said a single word since Jessica started talking, because he understands, more than anyone in this room, that this decision has to come from me—and me alone.

I think about Lars Winters. The pain he inflicted on me. The fear leading up to the attack, what I felt during it, and what I’ll feel for a lifetime after.

When I became a doctor, I took an oath to do no harm. I vowed to uphold my patients’ dignity and best interests, promised to bring compassion and understanding to my work. What does that mean in this moment? Am I still the doctor I thought I was—the doctor I want to be—if I give permission for this group to find Lars Winters?

Because the truth in my heart is that I don’t just want him found. I want him to suffer. I want him harmed.

I know it. Cole knows it.

If I let the rest of the Stalkers Anonymous know it, there will be no going back.

I think about the next woman this monster will go after—because there will be a next one. There is always a next one with men like him. She might not be as lucky as I was. She might not make it out alive.

Do no harm. Maybe for the first time since taking that oath, I truly know what it means.

My throat feels tight and tears are forming at the corners of my eyes, so I down the rest of my wine and set the glass on the coaster with a loud clink. “I’m in. I want him gone.”

Chapter Thirty-Four: Cole

“Let’s talk about what ‘gone’ means to you.” Jessica leans back, using her free hand to support her weight.

I’ve been sitting on the couch beside Hailey for forty minutes, and I have done a remarkable job, in those forty minutes, of listening.

“Well, I don’t want him dead. I…just want to rough him up a little bit. Or a big bit. It’s only fair.”

“Noted,” Jessica says, calmly, before raising a finger to every man in the room. “No killing.”

They all have the audacity to look…disappointed?

No. That can’t be right. They’re not really out here killing people, are they?

I don’t know what I was expecting this meeting to be, but from the moment Jessica came at Hailey with a white wine Big Gulp, I’ve been on the back foot. Both women have emptied their glasses now, and while they’re not drunk, they’re definitely feeling something.

“What I want,” Hailey continues, “is for him to feel exactly what I felt in that parking garage. I want him on the ground and overpowered, scared the way he made me scared, and I want him to know there’s nobody coming to save him. And then I want to call the police, and hand him over to them already broken, because I’ve done everything the legal way for months and I still ended up in the hospital. Lars Winters will kill the next woman he stalks if we don’t stop him.”

The whole room is quiet, like everyone is already thinking through the list of things they’re going to do to Winters once we catch him. I’ve already thought it through a thousand times myself. If it were only up to me, he’d be dead, but I keep reminding myself I’m not the one in charge here. Hailey is.