Chapter 8: The Fight Club: Vicious Retaliation
The ambulance lights painted the sterile hospital walls in frantic, swirling shades of red and blue. Each pulse felt like a hammer blow against Mark’s temples. He sat on a hard plastic chair in the emergency room bay, the curtain pulled mostly shut but not enough to block the sounds of other people’s crises. The smell of antiseptic couldn’t quite erase the phantom scent of blood that clung to the inside of his nose.
Bettina lay on the gurney, pale and shocky under the harsh fluorescent lights. An IV was taped to the back of her hand, the clear fluid dripping into her vein. A young doctor with tired eyes was carefully cleaning the bite wound on her inner thigh. It was uglier under the bright light—a brutal, purpling crescent of broken skin and deep puncture marks, already swelling.
“This is a significant deep tissue injury,” the doctor murmured, not looking up from his work. “Human bites are notoriously dirty. We’ll need a full course of IV antibiotics and a tetanus shot. There’s a lot of crush damage here.” He probed gently and Bettina flinched, a sharp hiss escaping her clenched teeth. Her fingers dug into the thin mattress.
“She was… like an animal,” Bettina whispered, her voice raw. She looked at Mark, her eyes begging him to confirm it. “She just snapped. After everything she’s put us through… the penthouse… she just lost it.”
Mark nodded, his throat too tight to speak. The penthouse. The words landed with a dull thud in his gut. That was a box he’d tried to keep locked shut for years.
Detective Chen slipped through the curtain, her presence making the small space feel even smaller. She leaned against the wall, observing, her gaze taking in every detail: Bettina’s pain, Mark’s pallor, the vicious wound.
“The penthouse,” Chen said, her tone neutral. “You’ve both mentioned that. What happened at the penthouse?”
Bettina’s eyes welled with fresh tears. “It was a company event. Years ago. Wanda… she made a pass at Mark. A disgusting, drunken pass. When he rejected her, she became fixated. Humiliated. She’s been trying to destroy him, and me by extension, ever since. It twisted her.”
Mark looked down at his hands. That wasn’t the whole story. Not even close. He remembered the rooftop, the city lights spread out below them like a thrown handful of jewels. He remembered Wanda’s sharp, knowing laugh. He remembered the weight of a different secret, one Bettina had crafted and he had agreed to carry.
“Is that why you think she attacked you today?” Chen asked.
“What other reason could there be?” Bettina’s voice gained a fragile strength. “She cornered me. She said… she said she was going to finish what she started. That she’d make sure Mark was ruined. Then she just… lunged.” She gestured weakly toward her leg. “She did this. I was just trying to get her off me.”
Chen nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. She turned her focus to Mark. “Mr. Mark, when you arrived at the scene, you said Wanda was ‘on top’ of Bettina. Can you describe her position exactly?”
Mark’s mind flashed back to the moment he’d burst into the bathroom. The image was a chaotic smear of color and motion. Wanda’s small form, yes, but was she on top? Or was she scrambling away? He’d seen the blood on Bettina’s leg, seen Wanda’s face contorted in a final, silent scream. The rest was a blur.
“I… it happened so fast,” he stammered, rubbing his forehead. “There was so much blood. Wanda was… right there. Over her. Bettina was screaming.”
Chen didn’t push. She just made a note on her small pad. “We’ll need your clothes, Mr. Mark. For evidence.”
A nurse came in with a stack of folded green scrubs. Mark took them numbly and went to the small, attached bathroom to change. Closing the door, he braced his hands on the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He looked ancient. The blood on his hands was gone, scrubbed away at the scene, but he could still feel it, a sticky, invisible film.
He thought of Wanda’s neck, the awful, wrong angle. He thought of the weight of the cane in his hand, the solid, polished oak. Had it been in the cabinet? Or had it been in Bettina’s hand when he’d first pushed the door open? The memory slithered away from him, elusive and treacherous.
When he emerged in the scrubs, feeling exposed and ridiculous, Chen was gone from the bay. Bettina was alone, her eyes closed. She opened them as he approached.
“Mark,” she said, her voice low and urgent, stripped of its performative weakness. “You need to get it together. Your story is my story. Our story. We survive this together, or we don’t survive at all.” Her gaze was like laser sight, pinning him to the spot. “Remember the penthouse. Remember what we did to get out of that. This is no different.”
He did remember. He remembered the cool precision in her eyes then, too. The way she’d laid out the plan, turning Wanda’s drunken advance into a weapon against her. They had lied in perfect unison, and it had worked. Wanda’s reputation never recovered.
This was different. Wanda was dead.
Before he could answer, the curtain rustled again. It was Howard, his face ashen. “The cops… they’re talking to everyone,” he blurted out, his voice trembling. “They’re asking about the cane, Mark. They found it. In the cabinet where you…” He stopped, his eyes wide with a fresh wave of panic. “Detective Chen, she’s asking why it was wiped clean.”