Title: Red Headed Goddess, 10/?

Author: Goddess Evie

Date: September 23, 2007

Category: JJHR, Angst

Summary: Zach continues to get his way with Jessie and Jonny is still searching for her.

Disclaimer: I do not own JQ. I am only using the characters for my own unique story. I am using lyrics for the song "All Around" by "Flyleaf." I just discovered this band and LOVE it. I do not own the song, either, but I do own the CD so I get to listen to it all the time.

Author's Notes: For any of you who have been reading this story and wondering why I gave it an "M" rating, well it's because of chapters like this. And really, this should be the only one, but since I KNEW this was coming from the beginning, I gave it that high rating all the way back then as a warning. For those who have been waiting for an update, you can thank Sigokat and Storytellergirl for getting me to update on this story so much, recently. Reading their awesome stories and getting great reviews and a lot of encouragement from the both has certainly helped to motivate me to keep working on this. I really can't believe it, but we are quickly nearing the end. Just a warning, however, I am not finished pouring on the angst. Oh yes, it gets worse. And on par with all the recent chapters, this one ends with a nice cliff hangar. Happy reading!

P.S. For those of you with sharp enough eyes and good enough memories, there is something in this chapter that appeared in a previous chapter. Can you find it? When you do you are going to smack your head and go "NO WAY!" and call me cruel. I won't argue. I really am that.

P.P.S. I replaced chapter 5 with an updated version that has an extra scene with Jessie. So, go back and check it out and let me know if it was a good edition or just a waste of time!

Chapter 10: I can feel you all around me, thickening the air I'm breathing.

The muscles in Jessie's stomach twitched as the cold knife blade came in contact with her body. She squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered, her every muscle tightening. Slowly Zach began to move the knife upward along her body. No blood was drawn, though Jessie would have preferred that. Instead, she listened to the rip of fabric as he cut the front of her t-shirt in half, exposing her slightly tanned skin and white cotton bra. The knife jerked as it severed the doubled fabric at the collar and Jessie could feel the cool air prickling her skin. As Zach worked to slit her sleeves and completely rid her of the garment, his own shirt brushed against her stomach, making her flinch and cringe.

Jessie's mind was still having a hard time wrapping itself around what was happening. She still couldn't give up the hope that any moment someone would burst through the door and rescue her before this whole thing got too far. Her mind hadn't yet registered that things already had gone too far. It did pick up on the irony of her prayers for a savior not even a day after she had been in a fight with Jonny over her need to be protected.

Jonny…

She'd give anything to see him now, to have him here.

Zach had been silent for a while, but when she suddenly felt his fingertips grazing the skin of her abdomen, making the muscles twitch again, Jessie gasped and opened her eyes. With the gentlest of motions he pushed her split shirt apart so it fell aside, exposing her torso to him. His eyes raked over her body, drinking in every detail with an awed, reverent expression. Feeling his gaze like a one ton weight, Jessie felt dirtier than she did after a long, hot day spent digging through the dirt at one of her mother's excavation sites in the middle of a steamy South American jungle. She watched him as he ran a hand across her stomach and back once and then lean over and place the softest of kisses just below her breasts.

She cried out as if she'd been stabbed instead of kissed, but Zach ignored her every protest. Carefully he hopped off the bed and padded in his bare feet across the room. It was only because she dreaded what more he could have planned for her that Jessie watched him with an overabundance of trepidation. What else?, she wondered as she watched him root around the top shelf of the closet, What else could he have in store for me?

Her mind was overwhelmed enough with what was happening that there was no room to ponder about more. Jessie could only watch as Zach found what he had been looking for and pulled it from the closet. He turned to face Jessie with an eager grin as he walked back toward her, a camera in each hand. One was obviously an old Polaroid with the instant prints; the kind that popped out the photo with the white border that you waved around until the picture developed. The second camera was much more expensive looking and modern, with a large flash and a telephoto lens.

Wonderful. More pictures, Jessie thought, feeling her lower lip begin to tremble, signaling the onslaught of more tears. I should have seen this coming.

Zach tenderly set the more expensive camera on the floor and opened the lens and flash on the Polaroid. He took his time finding the right angle before he snapped a picture. Grabbing the small, plastic square as the camera ejected it, he flopped it around as he one-handedly closed up the Polaroid and set it down, reaching for the higher quality camera. Anxious to see the picture he had taken, he looped the camera's strap around his neck and inspected his work.

Jessie watched the lust filled grin spread across Zach's face as he scanned every detail of the photo. She might as well not have even been there in real life, with the way his eyes devoured the picture. Finally he looked up at her, the grin he wore becoming more exaggerated, and moved to place the photo on the dusty bedside table. Jessie was glad she was unable to see it.

Zach took more time turning on the second camera. He flipped the flash on and let it warm up, lovingly uncapped the lens, skillfully adjusted the focus and settings. Jessie watched his every movement as tears once again streamed silently from the corners of her eyes.

"Amazing," Zach breathed, pausing in his handling of the camera to watch her; the first words he had spoken since he had first tried to kiss her. Jessie didn't want to know what was so amazing to him, but he continued on without so much as a care to how she felt, just like he'd been doing all along. "Your eyes make emeralds seem like dull rocks when you cry."

Jessie closed her eyes to spite him. The light filtering through her eyelids brightened in quick flashes as she heard the click of the camera going off with every picture he took. She turned her face away from him again, trying to foil his plans however she could. When she tried to turn her body away as well, he pressed her hip down with gentle pressure as he had before and went back to snapping pictures.

Even after the clicking and flashing came to a stop, Jessie kept her eyes closed and refused to look at him. She already knew what he was going to do next. He had made his intentions quite clear. Still, she couldn't help a cringe when she felt his weight on the mattress again, or a strangled moan as he kissed her neck and slipped his hands along her body.

"I hate you," the words came out of Jessie's mouth icy and cold.

Zach's mouth came off her shoulder and she could feel him looking at her, even as he smoothed his palms up and down her stomach. She still couldn't bear to look at him. She didn't want to have to anymore. Hate hadn't really been a strong enough word. Loathe. Despise. Spurn. Those were getting closer to the truth, but Jessie didn't think there was a word in any of the languages she was fluent in strong enough to describe how much she detested Zach.

"But I love you," he replied softly, as if that made everything he was doing alright.

Jessie wanted to vomit, hearing those words. She felt his lips brush softly against her cheek, ghost along her jaw to her ear where he nibbled on her lobe. Every cell in her body rejected the contact, and she wished she could just sink into the mattress and disappear. One of his hands left her body and then she gasped as something cold slipped along her skin between her breasts

The shock made her look. Zach had slipped the knife beneath her bra, the flat of the blade against her chest, and with wide eyes she watched as he turned the knife so that the blade lifted the strip of fabric slightly. He paused for a moment to breath, and then with a sharp tug broke through the cotton with the knife. Quickly he cut away the straps and pushed what was left of the undergarment away to completely expose her.

Jessie found herself short of breath, struggling to inhale and exhale. With a satisfied sigh Zach leaned over her once again, his hands shooting up along her skin to firmly cup her breasts. His mouth crashed down on her shoulder, kissing and licking down her body. Jessie couldn't get enough oxygen in her lungs to do more than whimper her protest. It was pure torture the way his fingers kneaded her body and his mouth was never satisfied. His ragged breathing grated in her ears, quickening with every kiss, every lick. She felt the bile rise in her stomach as she realized she could feel him, hard and stiff, against the inside of her thigh.

It was when he traced his tongue along the curve of one breast that Jessie lost it. Lost all hope that anyone would ever come for her. Lost the patience her father had taught her to have to find that just right moment that would allow her an escape. Even lost, perhaps, a little bit of sanity.

At the top of her lungs she yelled and screamed at the man touching her and kissing her and ignoring her orders and pleas to stop. Half English and half Spanish, her angry cries continued, calling him every name she could think of in both languages, and struggling against him. Not that it did her any good. Zach had already shown that he was stronger than he looked and not to be deterred from his goal. Despite the way she thrashed about, he continued to worship her in this sick way of his.

And no matter how he sugar coated it, rape was still rape.

He took his time trailing his mouth and hands over her chest, moaning with pleasure as he played out his sick fantasy. Jessie continued to yell at him the entire time, struggling against him where she could. Tears were streaming from her eyes again and her voice was starting to get hoarse when he finally pulled away from her and unsurprisingly grabbed for the cameras again.

Jessie gave Zach an angry glare as he snapped a picture with the Polaroid. He lazily and wordlessly drank in his progress so far with a worshipful eye that made Jessie's skin crawl with the linger sensations of the ways he had already touched and violated her. The knife he had used to cut away her clothing lay on the mattress next to her, mocking her. There it was only inches away, and she had no way of using it to free herself. Even suicide would have been better than this, but she had no way to plunge the blade into her heart.

"I suppose it's just the nature of a goddess…to look beautiful even when she's angry," Zach said, his gaze flickering between Jessie and the picture he had just taken of her.

"Shut up," she bit back, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment.

He placed the photo onto the night stand with the first one and rejoined her on the bed, laying his body on top of hers. He wove his fingers into her hair, making her look at him and forced more kisses onto her. He flicked and pressed at her lips with his tongue, but she would have none of it and kept her mouth firmly shut. Unsatisfied with her resistance, he moved his hand to press his fingertips into the hinges of her jaw just so. Her mouth popped open easily granting him the access he desired, and Jessie instinctively screamed again as his tongue invaded her mouth. With the way he had his fingers pressed into her jaw hinges, she didn't even have the satisfaction of biting off his tongue.

With all hope gone, Jessie found her will to fight fading as well. She tried to renew it with thoughts of her father and mother and Dr. Quest. Hadji and Jonny. By now they had to know what had happened to her and most likely what Zach was now doing to her. She had no doubt that Jonny had tried looking for her. Maybe he still was, searching wildly for her whereabouts. But it was too late. Zach was getting exactly what he wanted.

Close enough to touch.

She remembered that line from his first letter vividly, a vision of the words scrawled across the paper appearing before her eyes as she screamed and yelled past his searching tongue and forceful mouth. Her body fought to pull away from his searching, caressing hands, his gentle and adoring but ultimately unwanted touch. This Helen had, without a doubt, been captured and taken unwillingly away from the people she loved.

Seemingly satisfied for the moment with kissing her, Zach sat up again and grabbed for the nicer camera without even moving off of her. He snapped more pictures of her, the lens of the camera zooming back and forth as he manually operated it. Jessie automatically flinched with every click, pulling at her restraints unsuccessfully. The camera flashed continuously, and Jessie wondered if Zach would eve get tired of taking her picture.

However, when he finally put the camera down and returned his mouth and hands to her body, Jessie suddenly wished he'd just go back to the picture taking. It was light years better than having his mouth on her breast and a hand between her thighs. She cried out wordlessly with every touch, an instinctual protest to the undesired attention. He had to know that her yelling and even occasional moaning were not from whatever pleasure he thought he was giving her. He had to hear the pain in her screaming. Wasn't her very vocal rejection of him registering in his mind?

No, he wasn't dumb. All he had needed to take down the great Jonny Quest and Jessie Bannon and get his hands on his so-called goddess was a can of pepper spray. He knew she didn't want this, the selfish bastard. For all his talk of her being his goddess, the only thing he really cared about was getting off on her. Lying underneath him, half naked, his hands and mouth all over her body, Jessie thought he was doing a pretty good job of getting exactly what he wanted.

He slipped a hand between her breasts, down along her flat stomach and to the top of her jeans. With a quick movement, and a whimper from Jessie, he popped the button.

JQ

Even with the GPS program on his phone attempting to give him directions, Jonny was lost. He had traveled the directions easily at first, along the main roads and through middle class neighborhoods. However, once he had entered the older part of town, the poorer part of town, the GPS had begun to fail him. Most of the houses were in a sorry condition. Peeling paint, missing roof tiles, brown grass with large patches of dirt and toys scattered across them. Many of the houses had chain link fences housing mangy dogs and there were even some with bars over the windows and metal screen doors with heavy locks hiding their front doors. This wasn't a part of Rockport that Jonny was familiar with, and he wasn't sure why Zach would have brought Jessie here.

The worst part was that a lot of the street signs were faded or missing, making his job of finding the right address that much harder. Nor did most the houses have visible numbers on them, if any at all. Twice the GPS system had lead him down dead ends. The first time he had backtracked and found a new turn to take, hoping it was the one he had missed. The second time he'd been forced to find a street sign he could read, re-input his present location and the address Zach's mother had given him and start fresh, losing precious time.

Jonny's phone suddenly beeped at him to take a left and he scurried to follow, praying this wasn't another dead end. He cruised slowly down the street, every window in his car open…just in case. When the phone in his hand suddenly instructed him to turn left into a driveway, Jonny looked at the house across the street, searching for the address number. It took him a moment, but after inching forward a couple of times, he spotted it beneath the cobwebby porch light, painted the same color as the house itself.

Jonny parked immediately and jumped out of his car, then made himself slow down and close the door quietly. He listened, but he didn't hear anything other than a dog barking in the near distance, maybe a couple of blocks. He crossed the street at a jog, then walked up the driveway at a more cautious pace. Mostly hidden from the street by the dangling curtain of branches from the neighboring yard's weeping willow tree, a rusty brown van with no windows in the back was parked in the grass. Jonny spared it only a glance before moving on up the driveway and down the walk.

He had to remind and then force himself to breath as he reached the front door. This had to be the right place. He still didn't hear anything from inside. The wind rustled the branches of the trees up and down the street, starting that damn dog barking again. Jonny placed his hand on the door knob and began to twist. It twisted easily beneath his hand.

He heard something from inside the house, making his breath catch in his throat and his hand pause on the knob. He focused on listening, waiting for the sound to come again. He heard it more clearly this time, definitely a scream of some sort. It was coming from the back of the house.

There was no doubt in Jonny's mind that it was Jessie.