But Charlie’s different. So weird and wounded and, as he now knows, secretly fierce. It made him lower his guard. He told her things he’d never told anyone else, ever. All it got him in return was a knife to the gut.
Beneath the seat, his fingers brush smooth plastic. The first-aid kit. Finally. He picks it up, drops it on the side of his stomach that doesn’t have a stab wound, and clicks it open. He rifles through it, finding a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, a gauze pad, some medical tape, a needle, and a tiny spool of thread. Everything he needs for a little amateur surgery.
Now comes the hard part. The thing he doesn’t want to do but knows he has to do if he’s going to catch up to Charlie. And he needs that to happen.
He’s not done with her just yet.
Steeling himself with a ragged breath, he pours the alcohol onto the wound and screams through the pain. His hands tremble so much it takes four tries before he’s able to thread the needle. And when that’s done, he grunts, grits his teeth, and begins to stitch.
EXT. DINER PARKING LOT—NIGHT
The diner is dark by the time Charlie reaches it. So dark that she almost misses it in her mad sprint down the road. She’d been looking for its light, not its shape. The neon and pink and blue around the entrance. The gaudy brightness of its sign. The warm glow spilling through the wide windows. All of it is now gone, replaced by an unnerving blackness.
It’s closed.
There’s no one here.
But then she spots a lone car still in the parking lot. The powder-blue Cadillac she’d noticed when they first arrived. She hopes it means someone’s still there.
Charlie moves to the door, her legs heavy and her chest tight. She ran for at least half an hour. The longest she’s ever run in her life.
Despite the cold, her body is soaked with sweat. Charlie feels it underneath the coat. A damp stickiness that makes her shirt cling to her skin. She places a hand on her heart and realizes that she’s still holding the handcuffs. Her grip is so tight around them that she has to force her fingers loose.
Not knowing what else to do, she shoves the cuffs into the front pocket of her jeans. A good idea. They’ll serve as evidence. Proof that Josh had tried to use them on her and that she had killed him in self-defense.
The thought knocks the air out of her.
She just killed someone.
No, she didn’t see Josh die. She couldn’t bring herself to stick around for that. But she knows he’s dead. A fact that makes her look down at her blood-caked hands. She uses the coat to wipe them clean, knowing deep down that it’s pointless. It doesn’t matter that she killed a killer. Her hands will be forever stained.
Charlie tries the diner’s front door. Although the blinds have been lowered over the windows and the sign on the door has been turned to read closed, the handle still gives when she pushes on it.
Opening the door a crack, she looks inside. The only lights she sees come from the dessert case, the pies within still aglow, still spinning, and the jukebox. All the booths are empty. Chairs have been placed upside down on the counter. Under her feet, the floor glistens with moisture. It’s just been mopped.
“Hello?”
Charlie pauses, hoping for a response. When none comes, she steps inside and says, “Please. I need help.”
She turns to the booth she and Josh occupied a mere hour ago, shocked by how much can change in that short span of time. Sixty minutes ago, she was just a scared college student. Now she’s a killer.
Charlie hears a noise from the rear of the diner, just behind the door to the kitchen. She whirls around to see the door swinging open as Marge pushes through it, still in her uniform. In her hand is a wet rag. She sees Charlie and stops just beyond the door, surprised.
“Charlie?” she says. “Sweetie, what happened?”
Charlie can only imagine how she looks to the waitress.
Panting.
Sweaty.
Bloody.
“Josh,” she says. “He attacked me. And I—I stabbed him.”
A bony hand flies to Marge’s mouth. “Are you okay?”
Charlie’s body answers for her. Her legs, numb from shock and fear and all that running, buckle. The rest of her sways. At first a little, then a lot. A sudden, shocking tilt during which she manages to blurt out a complete sentence.
“I think we should call the police.”
“Of course,” Marge says, rushing toward her. “Of course, of course.”
Charlie’s still tilting when Marge reaches her and shuffles behind her, out of view. At first, she thinks the waitress is trying to keep her upright. But then one of Marge’s hands clamps over her nose and mouth.
In that hand is the rag she was holding, now wet against Charlie’s skin, stinking of mildew and something else. Something strong that makes Charlie twitch and grow dizzy.
The tilting continues. The diner doesn’t spin so much as fade, the walls, the floor, the ceiling all turning to mist. The jukebox is the last to go. Its colored lights flare like a match just before it’s blown out.
Then it, too, is gone.
ONE A.M.
INT. DORM ROOM—DAY
Charlie wakes up in bed.
Her bed.
The one in her dorm room at Olyphant. She knows this without even opening her eyes because of the way it sags in the center like a hammock, which always helped her sleep better even though it meant she’d wake with her lower back throbbing.
There’s no throb now, though. She feels like she’s floating. Not in the bed but slightly above it, hovering like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
Someone else is there. Standing by the bed. Smelling like cigarette smoke and Chanel No. 5.
Maddy.
“Wakey wakey,” she says.
Charlie’s eyes flutter open as she takes in the welcome sight of her friend. Maddy’s wearing a Chanel suit. A classic. The kind Jackie Kennedy wore in Dallas, only hers is lime green and the fabric on the sleeve is pilled. In one white-gloved hand is a glass of champagne. The other holds a plate topped with a slice of cake.
“Happy birthday, Charlie.”
Maddy smiles.
Wide.
Her red lips curdle into a grimace that reveals a dark space where one of her canine teeth should be. It’s still bleeding—a steady trickle that overflows Maddy’s bottom lip and spills down her chin before dripping onto the cake in crimson dollops.
INT. DINER—NIGHT
Charlie wakes with a start.