Page 49 of Stalkers Anonymous

As I drive home, I think about the confession I made versus the one I didn’t. Tyler’s right that what happened with Shitbag Steve was different. That was revenge, pure and simple. Justice served outside a system that had already failed.

But what’s happening with Lars Winters…

I’m taking preventative measures, to ensure what happened to Emma won’t happen to Hailey. Just the thought of someone putting a hand on her makes my knuckles go white on the steering wheel.

More than once, I’ve wondered whether Shitbag Steve is alive because some part of my innate humanity spared his life, or because stone-cold logic wanted to keep my ass out of jail. Would I have the presence of mind to make the same decision if Winters puts his hands on Hailey?

That I don’t know the answer should have me worried. But worry is the last thing I feel.

Not when rage takes up all the space left in my heart.

Chapter Twelve: Hailey

The ER at night is an animal of its own. Daytime chaos that primarily consists of minor injuries and routine complaints trends toward the unpredictable and complex as the sun falls from the sky. Sometimes, the department is eerily quiet; other times, it’s filled with the strangest cases of the week.

Tonight is somewhere in the middle. By nine p.m., I’ve treated an elderly woman with unexplained fainting spells, a college student with a pencil embedded in the palm of his hand (“I was trying to catch it,” he explained, as if that clarified anything), and a middle-aged man experiencing chest pain that turned out to be caused by anxiety rather than cardiac issues. He’d been convinced he was dying ever since WebMD told him his headache was a brain tumor. I gently suggested he stop consulting Dr. Google.

“Brigham, you’ve got incoming,” Marco calls from the charge nurse station. “Adult male, early thirties, severe genital pain, suspected foreign body, signs of systemic infection. Three minutes out.”

I freeze with a chart halfway to the printer. “Genital pain and systemic infection?”

“Patient’s febrile. Tachy. Girlfriend called 911 when she found out he was urinating blood and running a high fever.” Marco scrolls down the screen. “EMS is flagging possible Fournier’s risk. Says the patient’s been hiding it for days.”

Days. Fuck.

A chill rolls down my back, making my entire body shiver. Fournier’s gangrene is the kind of diagnosis that makes ER staff exchange the look. Necrotizing fasciitis of the genital and perineal area. Fast-moving, tissue-eating, life-threatening.

Basically, the dude might lose his dick.

“What’s the foreign body?”

“Unspecified.” Marco’s mouth twitches. “EMS said he wouldn’t tell them.”

Awesome.

I move toward the trauma bay and start prepping. Sonography. IV fluids. Antibiotics—broad spectrum, the heavy stuff, because if this is what they think it is, every minute counts. Dr. Chen joins me a moment later, already pulling on gloves.

“Urology’s been paged,” she says. “Dr. Gupta is en route.”

The ambulance bay doors slide open with a hydraulic hiss. The paramedics wheel in a white man who’s pale, sweating, and has his jaw clenched so tightly I can see the muscle ticking. He’s curled slightly to one side on the stretcher.

“Brandon Halverson, thirty-two,” the lead paramedic reports. “Severe lower urogenital pain, temperature 105.4, HR 174, BP 92/58. Reports dark-red urine. Localized swelling, erythema extending into the perineum. Patient confirms a foreign body but declined to specify on transport.”

Of course he did.

“Brandon, I’m Dr. Brigham.” I keep my voice low and even as we transfer him to the trauma bed. He won’t meet my eyes. “I know this is uncomfortable, but we need to know exactly what’s going on so we can help you. Whatever you tell us doesn’t leave this room.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “I thought they would just… pass.”

“You thought what would pass?”

There’s a long pause. A very, very long pause.

“The…packets.”

I keep my face perfectly still. “Packets?”

“Ketchup packets.” His words are barely audible. “Empty ones. Like from a fast-food place. I rolled them up. Tight. Like…like little tubes.”