CHAPTER 8
As Griffin kept watch over his prisoner, two things happened in quick succession. Roland took some loud ragged breaths as he regained consciousness and the heard the steps to the basement creak. He recalled how the top two steps had always creaked whenever he tried to quietly sneak downstairs to watch some TV after his bedtime. He could tell it was only one person so he very much doubted it was the Paladins. Still, he positioned himself in a shadowy corner so as not to be taken by surprise from behind. He watched the exposed staircase as feet appeared.
His mouth hung slightly open as Her boots slowly crept down the stairs followed by her black-clad legs with the stitching repairs he had made to them long ago. She had found him. He had no idea how in the hell she had known where to find him yet here she was.
She finally stepped onto the cracked cement floor and stopped short as she saw Roland tied to a chair and struggling to fully wake up. She instantly sensed a presence and knew Griffin was still there.
"Stop lurking in the shadows and show yourself, you coward," she stated in a monotone.
"Stop being such a cow and maybe I will," his disembodied voice came from the corner. Victoire smiled and faced said corner. She had missed his sass. After a few beats, Griffin stepped into the meagre light of the basement light bulb. The sun had set long ago and provided no light even through the broken panes of glass.
Roland gave a groan and glared at them. Neither Jumper looked at him as he spoke up. "Did you really think –"
"What I want to know," Victoire cut Roland off, still staring at Griffin, "Is why you think you're entitled to end this fucker's life."
"He killed my parents," Griffin growled, still keeping his eyes on Victoire.
"He killed mine too."
"I've wanted to kill him longer than you."
"I've wanted to kill him more than you."
Griffin scoffed. "I highly doubt that."
Victoire crossed her arms, angling herself between Griffin and Roland. Her body language initiated a silent dare to Griffin resulting in a stare down.
Victoire finally yielded and sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Look, all I want to do is inflict some serious pain. If you want to kill him, you can but only after I've finished with him."
"Oh, don't mind me. I'm only the one you're going to murder in cold blood," Roland muttered. The Jumpers ignored him.
Victoire could tell Griffin was weighing his options. On the one hand, he could just kill Roland, be done with it and let Victoire vent her disappointment. She would get over it. On the other hand, he could let her torture Roland to the breaking point and he could finish him off. He had no intention to torture Roland; that wasn't his style but as long as he was conscious, Griffin would still be able to see the light leave his enemy's eyes as he killed him.
"Fine," Griffin acquiesced, "But don't you dare land the killing blow or I will end you."
"Fair enough." The pair shook hands.
Griffin took to leaning against the wall again to watch the show. Even thought he was slightly disturbed at her love of torture, he loved watching his woman do her thing. Of course, if she got carried away, he would be there to stop her.
Victoire advanced on Roland and searched him first. She found nothing on his person except the hunting knife sheathed in silk that he used to kill Jumpers. It was exactly the same as the one he had lodged in her leg in Aspen. She peered at the knife and saw trace amounts of dried blood from some poor soul who hadn't been lucky enough to avoid Roland Cox. She fixed her cold, dead eyes on the man who had killed her parents and then tried to kill her.
"Do you really think killing me will solve anything?" Roland sneered.
"Maybe. Maybe not. But I'm willing to try anything right now," Victoire smiled innocently, "Then again, I'm not going to be the one to kill you, darling."
"Even if I die, others will rise to hunt you down like the demons you are. The Lord shall strike you down as He does with heretics and killers. 'But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur'." As he recited Scripture, Roland surreptitiously struggled with his bonds.
"Jesus Christ," Victoire turned to Griffin, "The amount of bullshit that comes out of this asshole's mouth is astounding."
Griffin smirked. "The next thing you know he'll be spouting shit like 'love thy neighbour' and 'thou shalt not kill'." Victoire giggled.
Victoire took Roland's knife and quickly stepped up to him. "Scream for me, gorgeous," she whispered. She grabbed his ear and quickly sliced it off as close to the skull as possible. Blood gushed out of the gaping wound and Victoire tossed the ear behind her casually. To his credit, Roland only gave a muffled groan through gritted teeth.
"Turn the other cheek, Mr. Cox," she said cheerfully. Victoire circled him and performed the same act on his remaining ear. The resulting sound issuing from Roland was only slightly more pleasing but he still wasn't screaming. Victoire glared.
"Maybe I should take the nose. You won't need it anyway." She sliced the knife down the front of his face and took the nose with it. This time, Roland screamed. Victoire threw her head back and cried out with delight.
As she continued to remove body parts she deemed unnecessary, Griffin looked on with morbid fascination. Roland was now writhing in pain and was covered in blood while Victoire seemed to be getting off. Griffin was getting turned on and by God, this was not a good time. Trying to compose himself, he paced a little ways into the darkened basement.
Roland sensed through the cloud of pain that his attempts at freeing himself were nearing success. He needed to work fast; he was losing feeling in his fingers. From what he could feel, the plastic crime scene tape was stretching just enough to let him free his hands.
Without warning, Roland launched himself at Victoire, tackling her. The hunting knife skidded across the floor and Victoire's head struck the concrete with a sickening crack. Before Griffin could even react, Roland had dragged Victoire by the hair so that he was close enough to regain the knife. He was using Victoire as a shield and held the knife edge to her throat; hard enough to cause blood to bead on the edge of the blade. It mingled with the blood that continued to pour out of his mutilated face. Before Victoire's dazed mind could process what had happened and thereby Jump out of his grip, Roland had moved them both to the wall where an electrical socket was exposed. The Paladin removed the blade from Victoire's throat and forcing her hand to grip it by placing his own hand around hers, careful not to make contact with the metal. He thrust the blade into the socket and an electrical current ran through Victoire making it impossible for her to Jump.
Griffin cursed. How had he let this happen?! He had let his guard down and now Victoire's life was in jeopardy.
Victoire refused to cry out as her muscles spasms made her body quake.
"Griffin, save yourself for Christ's sake!" she ground out while trying to jerk herself out of Roland's iron grip.
"It's you or her," Roland stated, looking rather pleased with himself. "Let's see how noble you really are."
Victoire knew it was all over. She knew Griffin would throw her under the bus any day just to have a go at Roland. Her only regret was that she never told him she loved him and how much he meant to her. She had been so alone for almost a decade except when she was with him.
"You bastard," Griffin growled. He could easily save himself and Jump away but as soon as that thought crossed his mind, he nixed it. He couldn't leave Victoire alone with Roland; it would be signing her death warrant and her blood would be on his hands. He would never be able to live with himself after that.
He was finally in a position to save someone he felt connected to, someone he cared about. He could easily Jump behind Roland and snap his neck. The only problem with that plan was that he would not get the satisfaction of seeing the life leave his eyes. He had come too far to kill him so simply. Did he love her enough to let go of his life-defining rage for Roland Cox?
What it really boiled down to was the question of who was more important to him: Victoire or Roland? Either choice would be so easy to execute. He had to make a decision.
"Let me go, Griffin," she said softly despite the tremors wracking her body.
Griffin looked once into Victoire's eyes and knew what he had to do. He Jumped behind Roland and snapped his nemesis' neck. He felt Roland's body go limp and sag to the floor. Victoire fell on top of the Paladin in exhaustion, her nerves nearly fried. She looked up at Griffin with unfocused eyes. He knelt beside her and the eyes he loved rolled up into her head as she passed out.
Victoire woke to the sound of a heart-rate monitor and the pungent smell of antiseptic. Ugh. She was in a hospital. Almost immediately, she recalled the events that had led her to this moment. How Griffin had given up his life-long pursuit of dealing Roland a slow and painful death in order to save her. And yet she had been so certain that he would give her up only to kill Roland at a later date.
The hospital room was dark with nothing but the dim light of the moon filtering through the windows. Victoire sat up, feeling mildly dizzy and a little nauseous but otherwise fine. She pulled the IV out of her arm and the heart monitor off her finger causing a flat line to register on the machine. She leant towards the end of her bed to grab the chart. She understood very little as it seemed to be in Russian. She couldn't even read the name she had been given. After sliding it back into the metal slot from where she had grabbed it, Victoire swung her legs over the side of the bed and found her clothes stashed under her bed. She drew the pastel striped curtains around her bed to get dressed; she wasn't going to change in a room full of other patients, awake or not.
She heard the door to the room open and quickly Jumped away to the place she identified as 'home'. She showed up in a familiar cave lovingly known as 'the lair'. She sat on the couch and waited for Griffin to come home.
When Griffin finally did come back, it was to find Victoire trying – and failing – to play Grand Theft Auto. She was making some noises of frustration and he smiled to hear it. He had been slightly worried when he had gone to check on her in the hospital only to find she'd vanished but it hadn't taken him long to figure out where she'd go. He was right. He coughed to make his presence known.
Victoire nearly jumped out of her skin and stood to face him, giving him a sheepish smile. In the background her forgotten avatar was easily nabbed by the police car chasing her. She was careful to keep the couch between them as a buffer. She didn't know how she should act or how he would welcome her, if at all.
"Uh, hi," Victoire said uneasily.
"Hi," came Griffin's brilliant reply.
"Did you bring me to the hospital?"
"Yeah. You passed out right after..." He looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Right after you saved my life. Thanks for that, by the way," she gave a small smile. He shrugged but returned her smile. "Why did you save me?"
"Because you needed it," he shrugged again.
"Very true but you could have just left me there. I'd like to know why you didn't."
Griffin sighed. "I didn't want to get into this but...here goes: I honestly did think of leaving you at first. Don't give me that look," he chuckled, "I know that would be your first reaction too. It's why we've stayed alive for so long. Life expectancy of a Jumper is roughly 10 years old so every day we live we're defying the odds. The way I see it, I could save your life and kill Roland in a very anti-climactic way or I could let you die and kill Roland the way I've planned on doing it for most of my life.
"The reason I saved you is because even though I couldn't watch Roland die with the life leaving his eyes, it would have been a far worse fate to never again see the life in yours."
Overcome with the foreign feeling of love, Victoire silently rounded the couch and wrapped Griffin in her arms and he immediately reciprocated.
"The way I see it, you saved my life in that cave during the Paladin raid in South America and I saved yours. We're even," Griffin grinned.
"Fair enough." Victoire leaned against the back of the couch as Griffin stood before her, resting his forehead against hers.
"So I was wondering, did you want to stay here? With me?" Griffin asked her.
Victoire now felt elation. "Of course I'll stay here with you! But you should know that...I love you as much as my black little heart is capable of love. So if you can't handle that, then you can pretty much go to hell." She could only let her defenses down so much. She knew she couldn't ever let the down completely. Not even with Griffin.
"Yeah," Griffin smirked, "I figured you loved me. I mean, how could you not?"
Victoire smirked right back and punched him in the arm. "And you're okay with that?" she asked.
"Sure. After all, I kind of love you too. Just a little." But by the way he smiled at her, Victoire knew that he loved her as much as he could.
Both of them were too broken to love completely but they loved with all they had in them to give. Now, two years after the death of Roland, Victoire and Griffin had relocated to a different lair after having been discovered by a small Paladin group. A wandering tribe in the Sahara had ratted them out in return for some fine camels.
Despite that minor setback, the Jumpers lives remained virtually unchanged. They patched up each other's wounds, physically and emotionally as best they could. Some scars were deeper than others but at last they could take solace in the comfort of an identical soul. They were the same person, from their emotional baggage right down to the clothes they wore. Two distorted pieces of a whole. They found that living together proved to be a practical and enjoyable thing. They were partners in both work and play. And, while Victoire still enjoyed torturing her kills and Griffin preferred his own method of going in with guns blazing, they made it work.
They filled their days by tracking and killing the remaining pockets of Paladins. The organization seemed to be failing after the death of Roland and it became increasingly easier to hunt them down and finish them off. The main pockets of resistance were in America's Bible belt and in Vatican City where religious congregations excelled. But, as religious fervour seemed to be on the decline all over the world, the job got easier to handle. The fear of losing the other, while always at the back of their minds, was less present due to the lack of skill of their adversaries.
Of course, there was more to their life than work. Every now and then, Griffin would try to trap David Rice in an electrical tower just for sport and Victoire would give him a score based on planning, execution and originality.
Victoire had just finished with her shower and wrapped a towel around herself when she stopped dead as a strange thought occurred to her.
"Jesus Christ, Griffin, I don't even know your last name!" she laughed.
"Yeah. I don't know yours either. But who can think of last names when you're looking sexy as hell in that towel." Griffin sauntered over to her, obviously about to tug the towel away from her.
Victoire grabbed the collar of his standard black t-shirt and dragged him to the double bed they now shared (they had, in fact, destroyed the single cot Griffin used to have in his old lair. It hadn't lasted for even the shortest amount of rigorous activity). Victoire quickly had her man pinned beneath her and slid her hand up his shirt to rake her nails down his chest.
She looked down at him with dark, lust-filled eyes and whispered the four words that always promised a night of mind-bending sex:
"Scream for me, gorgeous."
He did.
