Her boots tapped deftly on the sidewalk as she approached the building, scanning the front in a nostalgic confusion she couldn't pin.
"You like that dress, don't you?"
"I like this dress very much."
Grim recognition washed over her face and her stomach sank in the worst of ways. She hadn't realised that she hadn't been this side of the bridge for the better part of a year until now- probably in a subconscious attempt at self-preservation. So much for that. She looked up at the lettered banner framing the doorway and felt a none-too-strange pulling in her chest, and reluctantly moved towards the deep mahogany of the doors.
The distant tinkling of a bell peppered the rest of the ambient restaurant noise with a refreshing top note as Jessica crossed the threshold, hands plunged into her hoodie pockets. Her eyes scanned the room with dread, and she shook her head briskly, eyebrows furrowed, to redirect her attention.
'This isn't a pleasure cruise- stick to the plan.' she reminded herself internally.
Straightening her back, she put on a forced smile, matched imperfectly with the cold, dull look glazing over her eyes. She approached the hostess's stand and tilted her head just enough for her hair to fall on her shoulders gently in an attempt to soften her demeanour. Outwardly, anyway.
"Didn't this used to be Il Rosso?" She asked cautiously, looking around, eyes clouded with suspicion.
"Niko opened 4 months ago. A table for how many?" The young woman her opposite asked absently, shuffling a collection of loose papers and menus. She glanced up at Jessica, scanning her face but not registering any of the information her eyes offered.
Her face fell, relieved. She certainly wouldn't have won an Oscar for the performance she was bracing herself to make.
"For none, actually," Jessica replied flatly, realising that the young woman would be no more helpful even if she did a tap dance. The waitress looked up, attention captured, for the moment.
"I was wondering if you had seen this girl," she continued dryly, pulling a creased but glossy print photograph of Hope from her pocket and presenting it to the woman.
"She would have been here on-"
"Tuesday. I remember." Her face turned sour as she processed the picture. Jessica raised an eyebrow.
"I guess she was a good tipper for you to remember her,"
The woman scoffed, pursing her lips. "Hardly,"
Okay, she was officially interested. Judging by Hope's credit card statement, she had spent more than a sushi roll's worth- and with no tip? Goddamn New Yorkers. Jessica made an effort to open her face, softening her glare to invite the woman's elaboration. Surprisingly, the waitress changed course, face going slack everywhere but the eyebrows, which were knit together in a muddy mix of dread and fear.
"They aren't coming back here, are they?" She demanded, craning her neck to search the street over Jessica's shoulder.
"'They'?" She asked, voice dropping slightly. The woman looked to her side, eyes lighting up with the passion that could only be inspired by a situation so unbelievable that it was stupidly laughable.
"She was with a man. The two of them practically turned the restaurant upside down. He was the worst kind of customer," she grimaced. "He had his heart set on a table in the back, but I already had a couple seated there. I don't know what it was about him, but I just felt I needed to give him that table right away."
Jessica's heart stopped for a moment, and she exhaled sharply, eyes darting across the restaurant's interior until they landed on the sickeningly familiar table for two at the back, washed in a pool of harsh, purple light.
"She will have the salad, no dressing, and we will both have the Pasta Amatriciana. Make it fast." He ordered absently, squeezing a quartered lime into his drink with a furrowed brow. She watched the venom of the juice trickle into his soda water, leaving a milky trail until it dissipated into the syrupy mirage hiding under the ice. Her face rested blankly at his glass, and he raised his gaze to settle on it, a look of displeasure flickering across his own.
"That's no way to behave when I take you to a restaurant like this," he snapped coolly, watching her look up and meet his gaze expectantly.
"I bought you this dress, I got us the best table in the house, and you want to sit here frowning the whole night? That simply won't do."
She cursed internally- she knew better than to drift away like that. He hated it when she wasn't "present". Of course, she was never really "present" at all. She sat curled up behind a glass wall in her mind, pounding against the surface and screaming to be heard. By present, he meant her undivided attention, and her accordance meant that maybe, if she was lucky, he wouldn't feel the need to command her for a merciful few hours. She held out a weak hope that if she just pretended to be happy to be there, maybe he would forget for long enough that she could break free. But, he never did.
"Let's have a smile, shall we?" Every thought in her head fought against herself for a fleeting moment, but suddenly all she wanted to do in the world was smile for him. Her lips parted sweetly, flashing her top row of teeth at him under the purple light they bathed in.
"That's better. What's the point of having lips that beautiful if you don't use them?" He grinned mischievously.
"Maybe we can find another use for them later, huh?" She recoiled mentally, stomach sinking with the habitual anticipation of his usual fantasies.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you Jessica." It was a question, but it wasn't really. Nothing was ever a question with Kilgrave. 'What do you want to eat?' Rhetorical. 'You'd like the lamb tonight, wouldn't you?' A statement.
Her smile widened to allow words to slip through like honey, sweet and dripping with sugary pleasantries.
"I'd like that." She would not like that, at all. In fact, she would like more than anything to let her fist collide full force with his sharp, stubbled jaw. Well, maybe not more than she'd like to leave, and for him to forget her entirely.
"I thought so." He raised his glass to his mouth and took a sip, shifting his body outward to cross his legs. The rich fabric of his slacks gathered at his knee, rippling the lavender pinstripe.
"I hope you're not neglecting that wine. That's a beautiful bottle." She found herself curling her hand around the neck of the crystal glass and raising the rim to her mouth. He still hadn't asked her to stop smiling, so the wine had to slip past her grin for the fruity bitterness to wash over her tongue. She felt a twinge in her chest and she blinked it away.
Kilgrave always loved her eyes- their depth, their innocence, their honesty- but he felt a pang of betrayal in his stomach when she smiled. Her mouth was painted into a lovely crescent, but her eyes remained flat and dead. That transparency was a double-edged sword. No matter what sweet nothings she whispered at his demand, her eyes spoke the truth to him louder than anything. 'I don't want to be here. I don't want to be with you.' He frowned uncomfortably into his glass and quickly averted his glance upwards to the violet blown glass encircling the light above them.
"Somebody bring us our dinner; and another mojito, with lime."
Within seconds their plates were placed gingerly in front of him, and he polished off his glass in time to replace it with a perfect replica. He ran his eyes over Jessica hungrily- taking in her collarbone, the curve of her neck, the porcelain skin of her cheeks, and the stiff purple flowers of fabric that climbed diagonally up her shoulder, and imminently around her waist from the back. He had picked the dress out specially for that night's dinner, and she had (he liked to think lovingly) chosen a silk tie in a matching plum for him, in turn.
Jessica hated it when he looked her over like that. She felt like a display in a window, or a cut of meat, and it made her want to turn her insides out. If she saw a creep looking at her like that in the street, she would have his arm pinned behind his back and his cheek smashed against a car windshield faster than he could say "nice tits".
"You like that dress, don't you?"
"I like this dress very much." His face fell into a satisfied grin.
"Happy one-month anniversary," he whispered in a velvet murmur, meeting her eyes and feeling that pang of remembrance again. He knew she would grow to be fond of him, but it would take time. A month was a considerable while, but he could be patient. Especially when the prize was as spectacular as Jessica. It may be years even, but he hoped she would grow to love him on her own, sooner rather than later. He had confidence in the final destination, anyway. How could he not? What woman wouldn't kill to be where she was? Staying in the most luxurious of hotels, wearing the most expensive clothing, and eating the most decadent food. Not to mention being gifted these luxuries by a handsome and endearingly mousy man such as himself. Hell, he would fall in love with him if he were Jessica. She'd come around. One day, he would look into her eyes and see the love to finally match her words. Er- his words, but let's not split hairs.
"Now, smile." Her face had settled down at the command (or, as he preferred to think, "suggestion") to drink her wine, resting at present as a tense grin. At the words, she felt her head dip to the side and her lipstick-brushed mouth pull tightly once more.
'Fuck him and fuck his anniversary. I hope he chokes on that pasta.'
Within a number of repulsive hours, they would return to their hotel room, and she would be made to present the lingerie set that he had "requested" she select for the occasion. It was only during the following series of events that Kilgrave wouldn't notice her shutting down and retreating into the glass box in her head. Maybe he didn't care, but more likely, he didn't remember to look into her eyes and see the glassy, empty darkness. He probably didn't notice the salty content of her waterline spilling onto her cheekbone either. Neither did Jessica.
"And the weirdest part was," the waitress continued, "that he ordered some pasta dish from the restaurant that used to be here. And, I could hardly believe it, the chef actually tracked down the recipe and made it. Pasta Am-"
"Pasta Amatriciana," she whispered, feeling her vision begin to blur and her stomach plunge like a stone. She spun on her heels and began to hastily make her way to the door, all the while glancing around her frantically as if she had seen a ghost. The waitress stood rooted in place, staring in disbelief at the table as if she had relived that fated Tuesday night.
The little bell rang again as Jessica stumbled out the door of the restaurant. The voices of passing strangers and /him/ whirled in her head like the static in between radio stations. She felt sick. Most importantly, she needed to get out of there. The pit of her stomach lurched as her world seemed to crash inward on her with the force of a bus. Kilgrave was alive. That was impossible. She had seen him die. She had read his death certificate. Yet, either a ghost had staged a re-run of their one month "anniversary" with Hope, or her worst fear had been confirmed.
"Main Street. Birch street. Higgins drive. Cobalt-" her voice broke with a desperate sob as she choked on her breath. Purple flooded her vision. Her head felt like it was underwater and she was holding her breath- her face was radiating heat and the pounding of her heartbeat worked in slow motion to poison any chances of forming a coherent thought. Jessica felt like she was spinning, and before she had time to let the blood hit her brain, the sound of her own boots hitting the pavement echoed around her like thunder. She was running- listing to the right- but running. God knows to where, but she needed to be as far away from that restaurant as possible. But, all of a sudden, she froze. Hope. Kilgrave had her, in the same bear trap that Jessica had relived every day for the past year. She reached blindly into her back pocket and fumbled for her phone, pulling up the Shlottman's number and slamming her finger onto the "call" emoticon. She needed to warn them, first and foremost. Secondly, she needed to disappear. Venezuela, Hong Kong, Canada- she didn't know- but she needed to be there, like, yesterday. And, she needed money. Goddamn payroll, goddamn waiting period, goddamn everything. Goddamn New York City. The place where everybody and nobody bustled aimlessly and determinedly around to everywhere and nowhere. Yet, in the sea of a million faces, she just happened to catch a glimpse of the smug, wicked grin of the devil himself. Worst of all, she suspected with a sinking heart that he had caught a glimpse of her too, and the devil never gives up on a broken soul.