Disclaimer: The only people I own are the lady who screams in this chapter, Will Tusen from the first chapter, and Peter Atolo (who you get to find out who he is, finally. Aren't you soooo excited? Admit it, you are. So excited in fact, that, if you're bothering to read this, I bet you're wishing, right now, that I'd just shut up and get on with the story. So I shall)

Chapter 7

"So, what's up with you and Batman?" Lula and I were walking through Macy's. I actually had no money, but I'd just wanted to get out of the Rangeman building.

At Lula's question, I shrugged. "Nothing. He's off saving the planet right now, and I have a stalker, so it was the logical solution that I stay in his luxury jail until he gets home."

"Back up. What's this about a stalker? You never said anything about some stalker." Lula looked at me accusingly. I explained. "Hunh." She didn't seem to know what else to say, so we walked along in silence for a moment.

After an uncomfortably long silence Lula spoke again. "So, what happens when Batman gets back? You gonna live with him?"

I shrugged. "I really don't know. It depends how soon we catch my stalker."

Lula grinned. "If I was you, I'd do whatever I could to keep your stalker free."

I didn't have to think of a response because, out of the corner of my eye, something moved and then Lula slumped, hitting the ground. A woman screamed (why, I wondered?), but I was quickly distracted from that by a quiet voice in my ear. "Finally, gorgeous, I got you all to myself." I spun around but someone pressed a stun gun into my stomach and as I blacked out, all I saw of my stalker was that it was a man.

I woke up later (I have no clue how long I'd been unconscious) and found myself handcuffed to a bed. For a brief second, I wondered if Tank had brought me back to Rangeman and handcuffed me to Ranger's bed as he'd threatened to do. Then I realized that, not only was this not Ranger's bed, or his apartment, but also, the man who'd stunned me had been my stalker, not Tank.

This last realization was confirmed as a door opened and a man I recognized vaguely stepped in. Peter Atolo. Wanted for rape, murder, and grand theft auto. I'd gotten him on a distraction. Now that I thought about it, he'd called me gorgeous on the distraction job too. I should have remembered that. Hopefully someone would, but I doubted it.

"Hello, gorgeous. Nice to see you're awake." From his tone, I wasn't going to enjoy my awake-ness as much as he was. "I'm sure you're wondering why you're here." I sort of was, but I could sort of guess. "Thanks to you, I had to spend some time in jail before I got rebonded. I almost didn't get rebonded, in fact. I figure turn about's fair play."

"So what was with the roses?"

He smiled, but it wasn't a nice smile. A lot more scary than a nice smile. "You weren't direct with me; you did you're little seductress thing first. So, I figured I'd return the favor and court you before capturing you."

I looked at him skeptically and when I spoke, it was very sarcastically. "Wow, thanks. I appreciate the effort." I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic too, or if he was actually crazy and thought I'd like being 'courted'.

He grinned and, if it weren't for the knife I'd noticed in his hand, you might imagine we were just enjoying some playful banter. "I thought you might."

He walked towards me and I shrank back against the pillows. Probably Ranger would get here before anything bad happened, right? Except that he wasn't even in the same city. Damn him! If I got hurt, I was going to blame him. Maybe. Except that he had tried to protect me, sort of indirectly, by giving orders to stun gun me whenever I was brought to his apartment for safety reasons. It was my fault that I'd stun gunned Tank and ran off. But really, had I been expected to sit around?

My thoughts were cut off (literally) as I felt a sharp prick at my stomach. I winced and looked down at the site of the pain. Somehow I hadn't noticed before that I wasn't wearing a shirt and was, in fact, just sitting there in my bra. But now, as I watched him make a short, shallow cut near my belly button and the blood well up and drip slowly down my stomach, I was very aware that I was shirtless.

I looked up at my tormenter questioningly (and, truth be told, blurrily; my eyes were currently filled with tears). "Every time you stop paying attention to me, I'll hurt you. Since your Rambo boyfriend interrupted our night last time, we should cherish our time together now." Yep, he was definitely insane. He was halfway interested in 'our night together', and halfway interested in revenge. Not a good combo, from my point of view.

"Now, are you hungry, gorgeous?" I blinked at him in surprise.

"Uh…sorry, what?" I definitely wasn't following this line of conversation.

"Well, surely you don't think we'll have sex without a date first. That would be cheap, don't you think?" I just gaped at him. Yeah, definitely insane. "And I do intend to for us to have sex, gorgeous, make no mistake about that."

Luckily, I wasn't forced to reply, because he got up and left. He came back a short time later with a large tray. He set it on a table that I hadn't noticed before. Then, he set two places, set his large knife (which, I saw, had had my blood cleaned off of it) at what I guessed was his place, and then came towards me. I noticed that he had a gun in a hip holster. He unlocked the handcuffs from the bed and pulled me towards the table. There was a small metal loop on the table and he cuffed me to it, palm up. He sat down across from me and gestured to the food.

"Eat up. It's excellent, I assure you." Then, he picked up his fork and took a bite of chicken. I considered grabbing the knife with my free hand, but then I remembered the gun. Suddenly, as I watched, the knife was lifted up and brought towards my arm. I tried to pull away and then remembered the cuffs. I couldn't escape, and just watched, biting my lip to keep from crying out, as he made another small cut, this one on the underside of my arm. When he took the knife away, I looked at his face, aware that tears were running down my face. I refused to make any sound, however. He looked at me sternly. "Eat. Ignoring the food is as bad as ignoring me."

I nodded silently and took a bite of food. I didn't pay attention to what I was eating. I could feel blood running down the sides of my arm, but I tried to ignore it. We ate in silence for a while before he spoke.

"While we're in bed, I trust you to pay attention to me. If you somehow manage to ignore me, even there, however, I'll use this knife again. Since ignoring a man in bed is a lot worse than not eating, I might not just make these tiny little cuts like I've been doing. And I'll use the knife on whatever is available at the moment." He shot a pointed look at my breasts and I swallowed audibly. "Do you understand what I'm saying, gorgeous?" I nodded again. He frowned. "It isn't very enjoyable for me to be the only one speaking. Say something."

I had several choice things I'd like to say to him, but I was pretty sure now was not the time. "Um…" I didn't know what to say. What could I say? "Nice weather we've been having lately."

He gave me a look. I'm not exactly sure what kind of look it was, but apparently my attempt at conversation wasn't good enough, because the knife flashed and I now had a little, bleeding equals sign on my arm instead of a minus. Tears came back to my eyes. Ranger better find me soon.

Tank's POV

I was a dead man. There was no way I could survive this if we didn't find Stephanie. Or rather, if we didn't find her unharmed. Lula had come to Rangeman a few minutes ago and informed me that Stephanie had been kidnapped.

My head was pounding from hitting the cement after Stephanie stunned me (not that I was letting the pain show), but it wasn't even close to the top of my worry list. I looked down at the cell phone in my hand, dreading the call I knew I needed to make. Finally, I just took a deep breath and speed dialed number one, feeling sick.

"Yo." Ranger didn't really scare me, but right now, just that single word made me want to throw up. Of course, I was really worried for Stephanie, too.

"Uh…hi, Ric. We…uh, sorta have a problem." I tried to pull myself together. All these uh's were just going to tip him off that something was really bad.

"A big problem? Can't you handle it?"

I took another deep breath. "It's Stephanie." Judging by the quick, almost inaudible intake of breath, which anyone else would have missed, he wasn't excited to hear that Stephanie was in trouble. No shit, Sherlock. "I'm just going to start at the beginning. A few days ago Stephanie called and needed my help. She has a stalker who was sending her roses and semi-threatening notes, as well as pictures of her throughout the day. I brought her to your apartment and told her that if she tried to leave someone would stun gun her. So, she of course, tried to leave earlier today, and I stunned her and put her back in your bed."

"Tank, why didn't you tell me any of this before?" Ranger interrupted me before I got to the worst part.

"Because she made me promise not to. I wouldn't have promised, but she wouldn't have told me otherwise. I knew that if it was a problem big enough that she would call me, it was worth finding out about, so I promised not to tell you unless it was something you absolutely needed to know."

"Ok…so, what happened to put this into the need to know category?" He was trying to keep his voice casual, but I could tell he was getting nervous.

"Well…so, you know how I said that I put her back in your bed? Well, she stayed there for about an hour or so, I'd say. Then, I was sitting in the control room. Actually, I'd been sitting there pretty much since her first attempt to get out, but I was there still. So, I saw her on the camera, because the whole building is monitored." He knew this of course. I was rambling, and I think we both realized it. I was trying to postpone the inevitable. "So, she got in the elevator, and then she pushed the button to go to the parking garage, because that's where she wanted to go. Well, actually, she wanted to go to Lula, who was parked outside the parking garage, waiting. So, she pushed the button and then the elevator started going down, because that's what it does when you tell it to go down." Ok…I was sounding pathetic. Time to pull myself together. "Anyway, so she got to the garage and started walking across the parking lot. Wait, let me back up. When I saw her leaving, I got up and grabbed the stun gun and—"

"The point, Tank." Ranger's voice was low and deadly.

I was dead.