Disclaimer: The characters of the Stephanie Plum series belong to Janet Evanovich and are used here without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
WARNING: Threat of violence/torture (though in a darkly humorous situation)
Pairing: None
Rating: Suitable for people over 17
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Why Angry Stephanie Should Not Be Allowed In The Kitchen
By TT
Ranger and Joe exchanged a look. Both men had poker faces most people dreamed of having. Currently, fear was plainly written across both faces.
Stephanie had been left little choice but to go to a safe house while Joe, Ranger and the combined team searched for her latest stalker.
Two hours before, they had discovered the name of the stalker.
Ninety minutes ago, the meeting broke up, people were put into place and Ranger and Joe left for the safe house.
Ten minutes before, they had arrived at the safe house.
Two minutes before, they had informed Stephanie.
That was when their worry and concern started. You see, Stephanie responded in a very un-Stephanie like fashion.
She sat quietly on the couch; lips pinched together, hands folded in her lap. Two bright spots of pink on her cheek were the only indication of strong emotion.
It was only when they looked in her eyes that they saw that strong emotion was absolute fury.
The two men exchanged a look, neither sure of how to handle this situation. Neither had ever seen Stephanie react this way. Neither knew what to do.
After a minute of silence, Joe took a deep breath and braved her wrath. “Stephanie?” he asked.
Stephanie stood.
Both men swayed backward, though both did manage to avoid taking the backward step their instinct had demanded. They may both know her well and both be among the more courageous men in Trenton, but, on some primitive, instinctual level, they knew better than to be anywhere near a woman in such a sate.
One look from her left both men frozen in their places. They watched as she walked from the room toward the kitchen.
On the surface Stephanie looked controlled, but the wrath that seemed to roll off of her was more terrifying than anything else they had experienced.
When they heard a drawer in the kitchen being pulled out and the contents dumped on the counter, they finally found their ability to move.
Cautiously approaching the kitchen, they stood in the doorway and took in the sight before them.
Stephanie was standing near the counter sifting through a jumbled mess of kitchen tools, the drawer from whence they had come haphazardly discarded on the floor. She was muttering to herself, her words too soft for them to hear.
As they watched, she seemed to reach the end of her patience. “No. No. No!” she shouted. Stamping her foot, she took her arm and brushed all the implements to the floor before ripping out the next drawer and doing repeating the process with its contents.
The men exchanged a look. Cautiously approaching, Stephanie’s mutterings became clearer.
“Never again. Never again will he do this to me. This time I will ensure he understands exactly what I mean when I say leave me alone. Oh, he’ll pay all right. And he’ll never forget it. A-ha!” she cried triumphantly, holding up an old, rusty-looking potato peeler.
“Babe?” Ranger asked carefully, afraid of what might happen. Potato peelers weren’t known to be deadly weapons, but this was Stephanie. She was capable of the impossible on a normal day. God alone knew what she was capable of in this state. “What are you doing?”
The vicious grin on Stephanie’s face combined with the unholy gleam in her eyes, cause both men to shiver. This time they did both take a step back. “Don’t worry,” she said, reaching out with her free hand to pat each of them on the shoulder. “I’m going to handle this and it will never happen again. Promise.”
That said, she took a step toward the kitchen doorway.
“Cupcake,” Joe tried, using a soothing voice he normally reserved for talking people down. “How exactly are you going to handle this?”
She turned her attention back to the two men, her smile softening, but the anger and something else in her eyes was still unsettling. Reaching out, she patted Joe’s cheek gently. “Don’t worry,” she soothed. “I’m just going to set him straight about this stalking thing.”
“That’s good, Babe,” Ranger said, when Joe seemed incapable of saying anything more. “What exactly are you going to say to convince him?”
Stephanie turned toward Ranger. “Oh, it’s not so much what I say as how I say it,” she told him. “You see, first, I’ll let him know how unhappy I was with his latest little game. Then, as I slowly peel the skin off of his balls with this potato peeler, I’ll explain exactly why he should never, ever, try something like that again.”
End.
End note: though both Ranger and Joe turned interesting shades of green at her words, they did manage to stop Stephanie, get the potato peeler away and help her past her temporary insanity. They then worked together to help her find legal, more productive ways to deal with her emotions about being stalked. When he failed to cooperate with the police after his capture, Ranger and Joe explained, in detail (with some embellishing), exactly what would happen if he didn’t cooperate – namely, he would be left alone in a cell with Stephanie and her slightly rusty (and probably dull) potato peeler. The stalker immediately cooperated.
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