She hates this bullshit. She's not even sure why she comes.
Well, no, that's not completely true. She comes for Gordon, because he needs her. She's not as visible as his cane or his prosthetic foot, but he still needs her.
She knows he's in deep, swimming with the sharks, and that his messy divorce dragged him even deeper, into man-eater territory, but everything else he keeps from her. Some of the people here tonight, sitting in the rundown church and expressing their feelings, think they're related, some think she's his patient, and some think they're fucking.
Only two of these statements are true.
They're not related, though she can see why people would think they are. They both have the same soft blonde hair, the same shade of blue diluting their irises, and they both have attitude, the quiet and deadly kind.
She sits with both hands beneath her ass to stop her touching her scars, but the position is casual and its taken years to perfect. In the old days she'd just scratch and scratch and scratch at her neck, at the saw marks there. There are other scars, crisscrossing her back, her shoulders, her arms, her legs, with the worst dissecting the tattoo across her lower back.
She'd loved that tattoo.
But still, even if she's a bit more than a wreck inside, she doesn't show it on the outside. Not like the others. She and Gordon have a...thing for control, and her control extends to outwards appearances, like not picking at her scars and refusing to say more than two words at the meetings.
Some of the others think she's just quiet, wrecked from her trap too much to talk like a normal human being. The truth is she just observes while others keep flapping their gums.
Flap, flap, flap.
Like this guy – Bobby – who's turned up twice before, both times with one hell of an entourage, and flaps like she's never seen before, about rebirth and freedom. But she'll admit it, it took her a couple of hours to figure out he's never even heard the gravelly grit of Jigsaw's voice on tape before.
And those scars on his chest, the ones she's seen on TV as she passed by the electronics store on the way to Gordon's place, she wonders how he made them. Did he actually put hooks in his pecs just to make it look like he'd been inside a trap? She seriously doubts it, with all the make-up and the hairspray she wonders if he's ever even felt pain before.
The TV camera next to her flashes its red light and more than half the group flinches. She barely manages to restrain her own reaction, wincing at the buzzing noise that had rung in her head and the red light that had flashed to tell her 'you can stop now.'
She's barely listening to Bobby's bullshit, only catching a few words here and there, because Jerome across from her is staring. He likes to stare, especially at her.
She says nothing, just shuffles in her sneakers and cargo pants, itching to teach him a fucking lesson.
If only Jigsaw were still alive, he'd take him back and finish the job.
Jerome had been made sicker, not better or freer, and...what the fuck is Sydney saying about her no-good boyfriend now? The girl's hamming it up for the cameras for sure, because she's seen Sydney after a meeting, shooting it up out back and crying, and she's never said she felt good about it all before.
Sure, she'll admit it got her off of her ass and doing something about her problems, but it was forced, violating, and she can only thank Jigsaw for so much. She'll never thank him for the damage he inflicted on her, only the realisation that she didn't have to live in fear. Gordon did the rest.
She looks up.
Speak of the Devil...
He's limping like usual, but his cane's keeping him steady and she can see the effort it's taking him to stay composed in front of the audience they have tonight. He's grown a little soft around the edges, mainly from her chicken pot pie, but she likes him that way. Healthy. She likes him healthy.
She hates to think of him how he was when she first came to the meetings, not that she was very focused on him at all back then. He's always been their leader, and if someone has a problem then they go to Gordon.
Bobby didn't go to Gordon, just turned up and started preaching to the fucking choir, and for that reason, among many, many others, no one likes Dagen. Except the ones that need cash and think that if they get on TV someone will pay them for their survivor story.
They'd stolen her story, the shitty drama channels taking her trap and turning it into some heart-breaking, stupid, twisted, fucking sham. She can remember it now, tuning in lazily, needing something on in the background to help her sleep, and hearing a mangled version of her name being sobbed out.
"Ness, I love you! I have to do this for you!"
"No! Johnny! Don't do it! I'll throw myself in! You have to survive, you have to go back home to Hannah, you have to go back home to your children!"
God, it makes her sick thinking of how she sat up in bed to see some two-bit starlet pathetically pulling at the chains on her feet while begging her attractive older brother not to throw himself into the grinder behind him for her.
Yeah, like that happened. Like her brother had thrown himself in to save her. Like he hadn't planned on killing her right from the start.
Because that's what happened after waking up to find her feet locked and chained through a hole in the floor, the rest of the chains feeding through to wrap around her brother's feet. She woke up, she had a panic attack, and after panting through the video of Jigsaw telling them the only thing that would release the key in the plastic case far above their heads was blood, all the blood from one adult body, her brother threw her into the cluster of manically whirring buzz saws behind her and left her to drain through the holes in the floor beneath them.
But he'd misjudged, not giving enough slack in the chain to throw her in all the way, and so she was cut again and again, screaming and bleeding, and then Jigsaw's words rang in her mind and she'd found the strength to do what she had never been able to before: stop her brother from bleeding her dry.
"Aren't you tired, Jessica? Tired of the money he squeezes from you to fuel his habit and his alcohol addiction? Tired of the long weeks he makes you work at that sleazy bar for him? Tired of the nights he breaks into your home and tries to rape you? You were nearly a lawyer, Jessica, and an excellent one at that, but it seems your family commitment and loyalty runs far too deep, and so it's time to cut...the cancer...out..."
A large hand on her shoulder brings her out of her daydream to see that Gordon's beside her and patiently waiting. The TV crew's packing up and Bobby's leaving. Everyone else has either left already or is hanging around the cameramen, asking about their stories.
"Come on," he tells her, and she lifts herself out of her seat, flexing her numb fingers.
Once they're away from prying eyes, out of the chapel's back doors, he stops and takes one of her hands in his.
"How do they feel?"
"Fine," she manages.
He lifts an eyebrow. "And it's working for you, the restraint?"
She nods, tucking her hair behind her ear and lifting the hood of her jacket. "It's fine."
Gordon leaves her hand and goes for her back, gently leading her out into the parking lot. Jerome is on them as soon as they're out the door, but he stops his advance as soon as he sees Gordon's with her.
"Shit."
Gordon's hardly fazed by the greasy man's sudden appearance. "What do you want, Kessler?"
"N-Nothing, Doc'. Just...uh..."
Gordon nods, lip curling. "Oh, I see." He pushes her forward a bit. "You're here for, Jessica, aren't you? I thought everyone knew she was off limits..."
Jerome's eyes flicker with fear at the implication and he looks about ready to shit himself when a knife slips from his sweaty hand.
Gordon glances down, eyeballing the shining switchblade glinting in the dim parking lot lights, and then he looks back up, letting out a breath through his nose.
"It seems as though you're a little slow on the uptake, Kessler."
She watches as Gordon beats Jerome to a bloody, quivering mess with the heavy handle of his cane, before tugging her away.
"Go home," he tells her, eyes on Jerome. "I'll be along."
She's not nervous, not like the first time she saw Gordon snap. She's used to it now, and she can understand the difference between blinding and unpredictable anger – the kind she saw the day it was announced that Jigsaw had been found dead – and cold, unfeeling malice. When someone threatens him, threatens her, or goes up against him on a less than acceptable level, he snaps. He turns into this man that has nothing to lose and all to gain.
In one way, she loves it. She loves feeling safe, feeling like she's under his wing. In another way, she despises it, because she knows Jigsaw made that man.
She knows what Gordon used to be like because she met him once before, in college. He was always so straight-laced, so obviously above everyone else, and, in a strange kind of way, his trap brought him down to earth. It's so hard to tell that they're the same age, because – and she thanks her mother's genes for this daily – she looks like she's barely out of her twenties.
Everyone thinks she's so young, so naïve, except for Jigsaw and Gordon. They both saw her pain, and in one way or another they eased it.
The thing she struggles with most about Gordon is this world she lives in, this constant haze of black and white and grey. There is always so much grey. She doesn't know whether Gordon is the person she sees him as, or whether she's too fucked in the head to notice he's gone completely off the rails.
It's so hard for her to judge what's wrong and what's right, but all she knows is that Gordon feels good. He makes her feel like there's something left to look after, and even though she knows he doesn't tell her everything and that he seems to have some kind of operation going down with one of the big guys from the group, she knows he cares about her.
She hears his key in the door as she dishes out the pot pie, wiping her hands on her pants as she calls out, "It's ready."
His cane clunks heavily against the floorboards as he enters the kitchen, eyeing the room and her battered dining table.
"We need to get you out of here," he tells her for what feels like the sixtieth time.
They hardly ever come to her place because of the kind of guys the building contains and rough neighbourhood surrounding them. It's cheap and dirty, and pussy is the currency most preferred by the men of her acquaintance. Ever since Gordon she hasn't needed to worry about fucking for things she needs, but she still remembers how she actually got the apartment in the first place and it makes her wince.
He sits and they eat, talking about the group and the next session and if Bobby will come again.
"He will," she mutters. "We're great filler for his news segments."
Gordon cleans his fork. "He needs us more than we need him."
"Think half the group disagrees with you there."
He's quiet for a minute or two, and she wonders if he'll be able to get the blood out that's staining the cuffs of his shirt.
"I want you to come in on something, Jessica."
He stares her straight in the eye and she knows he's serious. He's finally unveiling a little more of himself, of his plans, to her.
"Okay," she says. "Shoot."
"I have some...information," he breathes. "This information could be used to remove something, someone, from an equation, an equation I am very invested in."
He must mean Jigsaw, because it's the only thing they're both invested in, the only thing he could possibly want her input on.
"Is it the copycat?" She asks.
Gordon ignores her question. "If I give up this information about this person, it will bring someone else into the spotlight, someone I need to see dead. But the first person...I swore to protect them. Is it breaking my promise to bait that person to get the other?"
"Will the first person get hurt? Will they die?"
She sees his jaw clench. "I think so."
"Then it's breaking your promise," is her conclusion, as she scrapes the dish of the last of the pastry.
He throws down his fork. "Fuck."
She eyes him again, beneath her long fringe. "Let it play out, Lawrence. Patience."
His eyes are nearly black in the dim lighting. "You know, he used to tell me that – patience. Patience is hard, and you have to earn it. I've earned it. I've done years of waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
His thumb comes up to rub at his jaw. "We're going to follow someone, Jessica. I need your help getting into certain...places."
She'd thought – hoped – that Gordon had meant something a little easier than what he really had in mind. She'd thought that he wanted her to distract a guard, pick someone's pocket, not climb in the back seat of someone's car and have them drive her into the abandoned warehouse off of the docks.
It's going to be dangerous, Gordon had said. Yeah, no shit.
The guy whose car it is is big, hooded, and buff. She's a little afraid he'll need to get the toolbox off of his back seat and find her cowering there instead. The muscles she saw have definitely never been used for honest purposes. The Glock on his hip didn't give her any happy thoughts either.
She's waiting for a call from Gordon on her cell, and when she gets it, she needs to get out of the car and open the security gates to let him in.
She glances down when she feels a buzzing against her thigh. The screen is bright and the words are clear: Gordon calling...
After three rings, it shuts off. She scrambles clear of the seats and leaps for the door lock, ready to get the hell out of this place. A couple of tugs and the button pulls loose, then she's running free across the rainy and windswept forecourt.
She reaches the gates, and hurries inside the unlit booth to the right. The controls are rusting but she manages to pull the lever far enough that the gates open shakily, parting in the centre to admit Gordon and another hooded figure.
Gordon's frame fills the doorway of the control booth. "Everything went smoothly, I trust."
"Yes," she murmurs, eyes travelling down his arm to whatever's in his hand – it's...hairy. "Lawrence?"
He throws it to her, and in the darkness she can just make out what it is. She wants to drop it, but Gordon's piercing gaze won't let her.
"One last battle, and then the war is ours," he tells her. "Put it on."
The pig mask is cloying and sticky as her breath quickly heats the space between her face and the fleshy rubber. Gordon pulls her hood over her head, before reaching down and picking up a rusting pipe. He puts it in her hands.
"When he comes out, you use it. We need him down."
She doesn't have long to think, because soon enough Gordon's pulling her out of the door and taking her and the other masked guy, who she thinks might be from the group, towards the warehouse. They pass a few stacked crates, the wind covering their crunching footsteps, and then bam.
Fire lights up the sky, an explosion rocking the ground beneath their feet, and then she can see him, the guy she was in the car with earlier from the police station. His face is clearly visible now, but she barely has any time to reel at the fact that it's the wanted Mark Hoffman, because it's her turn again and as she approaches him, pipe raised, it all passes like a speeding bullet.
"Wait here," Gordon tells her, and she does.
The factory's parking lot's flooded on one side – poor surfacing, she thinks – and the rest is potholed and marked from years of neglect and abuse. She watches Gordon follow the still-masked man who carries Hoffman on his shoulder, sidestepping the potholes as he does.
The rain beats down on the roof of the car and her jacket doesn't feel like enough to stave off the cold creeping through her bones.
Is this it? Is this really it?
She wonders if capturing Hoffman, drugging him, doing God knows what to him will stop him, and if he really is the copycat that carried on Jigsaw's work after Kramer died. He has to be, because there's no other reason why Gordon would target him. They've all been out for revenge on the one continuing the kidnappings and traps.
But Gordon's face...Hoffman's look...it points to something else, something bigger, and she's not sure she'll like what it is.
He returns sooner than she expected, wet and rain-marked.
"It's done," Gordon tells her, as he shuts the driver's side door. "He won't be making any more of those abominations again."
He must mean the newest streak of traps, but there's something in his eyes that makes her pause.
"Lawrence?"
"Hm?"
"Why did he go to the police station earlier?"
"To kill Jill Tuck."
Jigsaw's wife. A wave of coldness washes over her.
"And...you said that you would only go after Hoffman if the other person was threatened, that you made a promise to someone? The person you needed to protect was Jill? Jill Tuck?" His eyes sweep over her, her mouthing lips, her wide eyes. "Who did you make that promise to?"
But she knows that answer, knows it like the smile on Gordon's lips: obvious.
"He found me, Jessica," Gordon tells her quite plainly. "Jigsaw. He let me call him John. He found me on Death's door and he healed me. I'd won my game, I wasn't his concern anymore, but he still saved me. Do you know how that feels? I'm sorry. Of course you do."
He's referring to himself, to him saving her, and she feels realisation set in. If Jigsaw saved Gordon the way he saved her, then...does he feel about Jigsaw the way she feels about Gordon?
He looks out of the window and nods as if he heard her question. "I chose you. We won't leave each other, and we can carry out a far greater legacy than John ever imagined."
He's only wrong about one thing: she chose him.
Author's note: Just a foray (: I'm grateful for any input! Thank you for reading.