Author's Notes: This will be slow, a long foreplay, if you may say so, before Lisa and Jackson finally meet. Usually I dive right into the action, but I'm playing around a little with a different style here, different for me at least, trying to develop as a writer. Also, I want to show that life's not easy for either of them, and how it makes sense to what happen when they meet. (Don't even begin to think you know what I aim for here, though! ;) )
/Lots of love, Nic.
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2. The Killer
His body shakes and twists as I shove the knife deeper into his chest, his arms flail and he reeks of sweat and fear. His cheap shirt is stained and crumpled. I've gotten blood on my sleeve and it infuriates me that this fat, ugly, low-life dares to soil ME with his filthy blood. If he hadn't struggled so much this would've been over with by now. Looking at him, at his life, his place, I can't understand what makes him want to live at all.
Well, for fuck's sake, die already!
A pale face and frightened eyes fixate on mine as he tries to get up off the floor and away from the rage that has fallen upon him for unknown reasons to both him and me. His hands keep slipping in his own pool of blood and urine, all of his chins wobble, and the noises that emanate from deep down in his throat are pathetic. I don't know what he did wrong, or who he upset, and I don't give a shit to be honest. He's too old to be in the business, whatever his business was, but not too old to try to save himself.
I kick him in the chest and he falls over on his back, his eyes rolling, showing more bloodshot white than iris. Crouching next to his head, I cock my head and study my handiwork. He's a goner no matter what, but I never leave work half-done. Almost never. I sneer and grab his head in a steel grip. He makes a terrified gargling sound and coughs blood just before I twist his neck sharply to the right, the crack loud and final.
He stills immediately, the battle over, his body relaxing at last. I hold him for a moment longer, relishing in my superiority, my heart rate soon down to its normal beat.
It's over.
As I let go his head falls to the side, his eyes unseeing, his pupils dilated. He wouldn't have had to fight, it was just a waste of energy, the end result is always the same anyways.
Someone's demise.
Blood on my hands.
Literally.
I know what they call me behind my back.
Jack the Ripper.
I know what I've become. What I didn't use to be.
A living nightmare.
I know they hate me. They even fear me. Even the very people who ask for my services and pay me well to do their dirty work.
And I don't fear fucking shit. When you've already lost it all you've got nothing to lose.
Before I stand I yank the knife out of his chest. The sound of metal grinding against his chest bone reminds me vaguely of chalk on a black board. I carefully wipe the blade on his psychedelically blue, pink, and red shirt until it's clean, leaving the piece of cloth even more eclectically tainted than before.
In the hallway I glance in the mirror once, checking for visible stains. There are none. None that I can't hide. I correct my shirt and sheath the blade, then I snap the rubber gloves off my hands and pocket them.
Without wasting another thought on the heap of flesh in the other room I listen out the corridor for a moment. Pulling my fingers through my hair, I then exit apartment 494 in an anonymous complex in yet another dull city.
Done deal.
-
Nightly Thoughts
I think of my father. It still hurts.
He died last year. The most common initial symptom of heart disease is sudden death. We never had a clue. Not until it was too late.
It was my fault of course. He always worried so much about me, too much, and I never let him in. I hated his worry because it made me seem weak and I refuse to think of myself as weak, as if I'm someone to worry about.
He died before I even had the chance to tell him I was pregnant. It saved me from the problem of telling my overprotective dad that I was expecting a baby and that there was no father. But it crushed me nonetheless. I'd rather have had him yelling and barking than the pale, frightening silence in a bed in a private hospital. He wasn't even really there. I was so afraid to see him, even though I knew I had to. And when I got there, my mouth dry and my knees weak, he wasn't even in the room. Someone vaguely reminding of him lay there, but my dad didn't have such sunken features and a caved-in mouth. My dad was strong and alive, funny and serious, intelligent and compassionate.
And worried too much.
I have a feeling he went away right before he died and that he is still out there somewhere, looking out for us, guarding us. I hope he is. We need it.
Dad, I need you.
There's a lot less written in my diary from those first months after his death. Then I started getting really pregnant, as in mentally unable to think of anything but nesting. So I resigned from The Lux. I simply quit. It was easier than I'd have thought even a few months earlier. Pleasing the lot of spoiled, rich, annoying people didn't hold the same appeal as it once had and it felt increasingly wrong. I had to do something before I had a breakdown at work and seriously wounded someone.
Literally.
I inherited some money. He had savings and Mom helped me sell the house. If I use them wisely they'll support my little family of two for as long as needed and more.
So I bought the cabin and we moved to Canada. We live right across the border, on a clear day I can probably see all the way to the other side, but I don't look for it, and it feels a lot safer somehow, not staying in the same country any more as HIM.
Him.
A flash of blue. Of pain.
A note on my kitchen table one night with an anonymous PO Box number.
'I'm Sorry. In case you ever need me.'
I dodge the thought, the memory of it all. I'm good at that.
-
Just a Girl
As I jog down the four floors from the dead guy's apartment, my mind at ease and my steps light, I meet a woman and a small girl. They hold hands and make it slowly up the stairs; the little girl is dressed in a pink skirt and a red jacket. She's maybe a year and a half, or two years old at the most. I'm good with attention to details, but my experience with children is limited to say the least. They're in the middle of a conversation and bits and pieces of it reach me as I fly past them.
I shoot off a disarming smile to the mother, I've found that people tend to rationalize when they remember things; they won't remember a pleasant experience in connection with something unpleasant. She won't connect me with the gruesome murder in her house that she will soon know about. The plump, mousy-haired woman smiles back and her cheeks blush and then we're past each other. I've already forgotten about her when I hear a familiar word.
A name.
"…Lisa…"
I almost miss the next step and have to lengthen my stride in order not to fall. I can't breathe; my heart pounds and my knees feel awkwardly much like jelly.
I'm out of the building and slip around the corner in a matter of seconds. My car is just on the other side of the railroad. I just have to make it across the parking lot and through a tunnel, but my head spins and I'm barely able to control the nausea that rises and sinks within me.
I fall back against a concrete wall and breathe deeply, my neck suddenly slick with sweat.
"Get a grip, Jack," I snarl to myself between clenched teeth.
Slowly the dizziness subsides and I start towards the car with efficient strides. I don't know what did it this time.
That little kid could've been mine!
My daughter should be about that age by now. And then the name on top of that!
Lisa.
Tires on gravel are a bad combination. I probably make deep wounds in the foundation when I rev the engine and speed off. Out of this fucking town. Out of this fucking world of worn-down people and worn-down lives.
Not that the world isn't full of Lisas, or little girls, about a year and a half old, wearing pink little dresses, ponytails, and smiles full of trust. I see them all the time. But I've been feeling particularly moody the last few days since I got the latest update from my snoop.
I tracked them to Chicago. It wasn't hard. She tried to make herself unrecognizable, but come on; I'd recognize her from a mile away anyway. I didn't install any surveillance, though. That part of our relationship is over. Even I have limits.
I went there on a number of occasions. Took jobs nearby. Sat in my car outside her place for hours, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, or the baby. I even rode the bus with her once and she never noticed. I've worked my disguises better, and for longer, than she has. I could almost touch them and my heart pounded so loud that I was afraid she'd hear it.
Someone told me once, at the top of some stairs, that I was pathetic. That was right before I threw her down said stairs.
It pains me to know now how right she was.
You saw right through me, didn't you? All the time.
She looked so tired, so miserable. I knew she mourned her dad, and maybe my part in her situation did feel a bit… awkward. I wasn't quite comfortable with what I had done. I'm still not. So I decided to stretch out. I actually left her a note with contact information.
The next day she was gone.
Really gone.
It's been a year. At first I was pretty sure she'd turn up again. People just don't vanish from the face of the earth. Then, as time went by, I backtracked and checked with my sources to make sure they hadn't been found dead anywhere.
But… no. They're just fucking gone.
And with every passing day my anger grows. Who does she think she is? Disappearing with my kid like that! A man has rights. If she'd just stayed in sight… where I could've kept an eye on them.
But now…
Her dad is dead, so I can't squeeze it out of him. Cynthia Becker, her former co-worker and the closest thing she had to a friend, didn't know shit and had to spend a week in hospital after I'd been convinced. I've been tracking her mother, but after a few months it became obvious that they have no contact whatsoever. So who does she confide in? Who does she trust? She's not an island; every person needs someone, somewhere.
In the beginning I had five men on my payroll, now I'm down to just one. He works on it full time and still the latest report came up with… nothing.
I slam my fist on the dashboard and turn right on the I-29, leaving Sioux Falls behind me. In three days I have a meeting in Winnipeg of all places.
Canada.
