The staunch smell of sweat and booze filled Jackson's nostrils as he walked out and faced the crowd. His charisma carried him to the microphone dead center in the middle of the stage. This was his throne, it made him king. These people, they paid money out of their own shallow pockets to see him and three other drunken guys dance around on a dirty stage with instruments they barely know how to play. And their desperation for new material and a big performance, their desperation for him made him their god.

"Jack! Jack! Jack!" he hungry crowd screamed as soon as they glimpsed him walking.

Jackson cringed, he hated that nickname with a passion. At first, Jackson Rippner was just a stage name, just a joke. But it had slowly become him and Jack was just the shredded remnant of his pathetic past. Time didn't take away the sting of being reminded, no matter how buzzed he began every show.

"Hey, Miami!" Jackson slurred, though his effort to sound enthusiastic was immense. "How are you doing tonight?!" His effort slowed though his volume didn't lower. "Welcome to Hell!"

He took a swig from the beer that was clenched in his hand as tightly as the microphone was as his voice was drowned out as the crowd roared, revved up and ready to hear the lyrics he wrote on napkins in the middle of he night when the pills weren't enough and his girl of the night was asleep. The guitars slammed on and his mind and body went to autopilot and he was free for the next few hours.

Just before his mind shut off for the set, he thought one thing that might send him to a certain psychiatrist again:

He was a lowlife and he was loving it.

"Where the hell are you going?" Tyler's voice boomed in Jackson's ear as he walked out of the door.

Jackson didn't even look back as he swung one leg over his motorcycle and put on him helmet, hiding his expressions from his band mate. The show had ended about twenty minutes and already, Jackson was feeling stifled by the low that had come after the high of the adrenaline during the show. It was that point that he was looking for anyway anywhere that would keep that high up for another while before he fell asleep or the morning came. Whichever happened first.

"Manager says you gotta be there to sign shit for the fans. You missed the last one and boss wasn't so happy." Tyler insisted and went to put a hand on Jackson's shoulder. He had second thoughts and his arm fell limp to his side.

"Tell him I got sick. Puking my intestines out in the bathroom again. Believable, isn't it?" Jackson shrugged and took his lighter, flicking it on and off so he didn't need to face Tyler's skeptical face.

"You don't mean that, Jackson. I know you don't. You never lie."

He had a point, he really did. And Jackson almost felt a pang of guilt when he heard those words. Almost.

"Fine. Tell him I had to run. Important business. Nothing he needs to stick his fat nose into." Jackson said, his voice hardening at the mention of his manager. Tyler took it easy n that subject, there was an obvious animosity between the two opposing men.

"Sure. Just don't kill yourself, man. None of the rest of us have a pair of pipes like you do." Tyler's hand pats Jackson's shoulder before he starts to walk away. "and we can't have the Rippers without out Jack."

The oddly comforting words stay with Jackson as he takes off on his motorcycle, racing through traffic with a dangerous speed and more liquor in his system than to go unnoticed by authorities for too long. It was a fuckin miracle he'd gotten his fa without them on his tail.

Until his swerve got a little too, well... swervy, and the red and blue flashing lights with their accompanying alarm sent him straight to the side of the road. The profanities that left his mouth would make a sailor blush with embarrassment.

"Hello, Officer... Reisert." Jackson slurred, sounding ten times more intoxicated than he was. If he was going to be caught, he might as well go all out. Live.

The middle aged officer's lips formed a straight line of disappointment as he assessed Jackson in front of him. Joe Reisert was a man with high hopes for humanity that saw the worst in the breed most of the time. But that didn't stop him. He couldn't leave his daughter in a world he thought would ruin her, no matter how many times she had already been tainted.

"Sir, have you been drinking?" Joe asked Jackson, perturbed by the parasitic grin that played on the younger man's lips while his blue eyes did all the real talking. Joe already pegged him as a guy who would barely be scratched by an arrest or a DUI. He'd have bail money within the hour.

"Yes, sir. Yes, I have. Would you like something? I've got..."

And that's all Jackson could say before he found himself in the back of the cop car with Officer Joe Reisert and his daughter, Lisa, in the front.

"Have you thought of doing something with these?" Jackson asked, holding up the handcuffs and shaking them around. "They're horrendous and completely clash with my outfit."

"Really? It seems to fit quite well with your personality?" Lisa retorted, staring Jackson in the eye. It wasn't brave and it wasn' fearless. It was a facade, and she looked as though she were pulling back into herself. Why she spoke, Jackson couldn't figure out.

"Leese, don't talk to him." Joe told her sternly, though a fatherly concern in his tone. He was glad his little girl didn't get mixed p with men like this.

"Leese, you might want to listen to your dad. He's got the right idea about guys like me." Jackson said, hoping to get her to turn around so he could see her once more. She did and he gave her a little wink with his powerful eyes, knowing that she was captured in that one look. No one could resist his eyes. Jackson, the one with the blue eyes, the one with the power. That's who he was.

She was Lisa, the one with the red hair and the tortured soul, the one with the scar on her chest that she hadn't noticed he could see. She was Lisa Resiert, Officer Joe Reisert's daughter.

And he was in the back of the cop car. But he was curious about her.

They were pretty much locked in a consistent staring contest for the next moments, as if they were predator and prey in reversed roles. Even with the handcuffs, he had put her under his spell. Or at least he thought he had. When he thought about it too much, he could almost convince himself that she was trying to be tough, like her father. Trying to scare him away from her.

Oh no, they couldn't have that.

"Don't flirt with my daughter." Joe's voice thundered in the car and Jackson jumped, startles. Maybe he really did have too much to drink.

"Yes, sir." Jackson cursed the fact that he could only shove so much sarcasm into those two words.

But he was still curious about her.