Fear of Flying
Well, I'm trying to set up motivations and opportunities to see the other side of both of these characters but I can't justify a quick change so I hope I can keep everyone entertained until these two can meet in the middle. I don't think either can dismiss the chemistry between them but where will it take them?
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Lisa squealed in surprise and lurched sideways, managing to pull Jackson with her in her haste to put distance between them. He groaned slightly as he rolled, laying his arm protectively across his chest. Pulling back against the cuffs, he stopped their momentum with a jerk. Lisa's eyes were wide and her breath harsh. She was in fight or flight mode.
"Lisa, relax." He put up his hand, placating. "Just stop. I'm not going to retaliate. Relax.." He collapsed back into the straw. "How long was I out?"
Lisa was still pulled taut against the cuffs as far from him as possible, which wasn't nearly far enough in her mind. "Not long, about twenty minutes."
He smiled, "I'm surprised you waited that long."
The killer seemed truly unfazed, not angry at all. Then again he was deadly calm when he terrorized and knocked her unconscious surrounded by no less than a hundred people. Lisa hesitantly scooted to a more comfortable position. She shrugged lightly. "I had the opportunity. I took it."
He nodded. "Of course you did. I wouldn't expect anything less." He closed his eyes briefly then opened them, "You might want to think about risk assessment though."
"What? Are you seriously trying to school me in Assassins 101?"
He continued on as if she hadn't spoken, "Did you take into account that I might react violently if you tried to move against me?"
Lisa swallowed hard but she met his eyes, "I did. It was still worth it."
He smirked, "I'll bet it was.. too bad I was so out of it. You have any pockets?"
"Shut up." Why was it so easy for them to fall into this seeming flirtation? She could understand his previous behavior. He needed to manipulate her in order to keep her under control. But now? Was that all he was doing here and now? What was the point?
The killer scanned the room, his eyes taking in every possibility. "We're in a bad position here. Out in the open like this." He glanced back at the door. "The place isn't defendable by two people."
"Not like we had a lot of options," she reminded him "Hey, look." Lisa motioned to a bank of shelves on the opposite wall.
"What?" he struggled to a more upright position.
"There next to the shelf. There's a faucet. I'm so thirsty. You think you could make it over there?" Her mouth was so dry and that little fright just now hadn't helped.
"Yeah, I'm pretty thirsty too." Jackson got an elbow under him and sat up with a groan. His face had gone pale again.
"Is it bad?" Lisa wanted to smack herself. Why was it so hard to get it through her head that this man didn't deserve any kind of courtesy? She wasn't some naïve school girl. His casual charm was nothing but camouflage meant to lure her into complacency. She was disgusted with herself. He was right all along. Her female driven, emotion based reactions were a liability. She had to remember that everything that had happened between them had been an act. An act that had already broken through her defenses once. She couldn't let it happen again.
"Bad enough," he rasped. He pressed his palm against his chest. "I don't think the stitches are pulled but the wounds are oozing. Too much moving around." He looked her directly in the eyes, "Try not to get any smart ideas Leese. The phone thing I'll let slide, it amuses me, but try anything else, especially when my patience is thin and I make no promises. Do you understand me?
"I understand you too well."
"Good. Now how about a drink of water?" Jackson rocked forward and came to his knees.
Lisa stood and waited. She wasn't about to help Jackson to his feet. They weren't partners in crime, she was his captive. Anything she could do to thwart him and buy some time until she could find help was the plan. Besides, she hardly thought that Jackson would appreciate being coddled, even wounded as he was.
Jackson put his hand against the ground and pushed up... nearly pulling her right into his lap. She went down on one knee and found herself yet again mere inches from the assassin. She tensed and he smirked slightly. Apparently, he wasn't in that much pain that he couldn't play a few games.
His eyes lowered slowly to her lips and traveled up to meet her gaze. "Do you believe in destiny?"
She went completely still at the incongruous query, forgetting about their awkward position. "What?" What the hell was he talking about now? That certainly wasn't a question you expected to hear from someone who prided themselves on non-emotional, fact based, logic. He was doing it again, keeping her off balance and unsettled.
"Part of my job is to assess probabilities and I have to tell you that the statistical probability of our continued association is astronomical. Yet here we are," his breath ghosted her cheek and she shivered partly from fear and partly from something she didn't care to identify.
Lisa swallowed hard, "Are we going to get a drink or not?" Up close, his eyes were almost magnetic in their intensity and she wanted to look away. But she couldn't. She didn't dare. There was no telling what he might do.
A smug smile played upon his lips and he leaned in, any closer and they'd be kissing. "You're in my way."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Jackson leaned over and scooped water into his palm running it through his hair and over his face. That felt much, much better. He leaned back against the wall and watched as Lisa took a turn wiping some of the grime from their trek away. He watched her hands as they caressed up and down her arms.
She definitely wasn't his type. She had that girl next door innocent beauty that he seldom paid any attention to, it wasn't his world. He barely remembered that kind of life. Mostly because he chose not to, there was no reason to add any complications. This woman shouldn't hold any interest for him. She was a pretty girl with green eyes and golden brown hair that lived an average life where nothing more exciting than... well, him... happened. And maybe that's why he was intrigued.
"Wow, that feels so much better. Now if we could only find something to eat," she announced.
"Plenty of hay," he quipped. He liked that little spark that flashed in her eyes when he provoked her.
"Oh, ha, ha. You know your idea of wit is seriously twisted."
He looked away. He'd come up against some seriously dangerous people in his career and he'd always managed to come out on top. He was, after all, seriously dangerous himself. Still, he understood that at some point it would come down to luck and you couldn't factor that into any equation. Someone better would eventually put an end to him. But this? This naïve, incredibly strong willed, woman had beaten him where any number of bad guys had failed. He wasn't sure what to make of it. Oh, he'd had plenty of time to figure out where he'd gone wrong. He wasn't an idiot. But that still didn't explain why she had gotten under his skin in the first place.
At first, he thought it was all ego. His temper had gotten the best of him when he should have walked away. But that didn't really explain all of it. What he had done was so reckless and out of control that he hardly recognized himself. His position demanded that he be able to divorce himself from common emotional failings. His sheer rage at the young woman proved to him the folly of that assumption. Apparently, he could still be reached on an emotional level that he wasn't aware he still had.
Lisa maneuvered herself around trying vainly to keep some distance between them as she rubbed her hand along the back of her neck. He watched as some of the water droplets dripped around her throat and disappeared down the front of her blouse. He remembered the scar hidden just below the fabric. There was much more to her than what you could see.
After he dismissed ego then he considered libido. Could it be that he was merely being led around by his dick? That made even less sense. He enjoyed women as often as he was able, beautiful exotic creatures that would do things that most men couldn't even imagine even in their most pornographic dreams. What possible interest could he have in Lisa? But he did. He was attracted to her and had been since he first started watching her for the Keefe assignment.
He first assumed it was just the idea of being able to corrupt something so wholesome and naïve, at least that's where his fantasies had taken him. But then when he actually met her and saw her strength of character in action he found that he liked her. He liked the challenge her normalcy presented.
"Aren't you going to try your phone?"
He shook his head, "They can track the signal if it's used. It's only as a last resort. If you'd managed to use it you would have brought the bad guys right to our door."
"The bad guys? You mean... like you." she reminded.
"Just like me."
He'd done so many things in his life, some of which, people would find monstrous. But one thing he'd never done was lead a normal life. There were times that night when he was charming his way with Lisa that he wondered what it would be like to have an average life where he was allowed the simplicity of flirting with a girl without an ulterior motive. But it didn't mean anything. It couldn't.
The whole situation had been a clusterfuck from the beginning. A rush job on a high level target. He should have declined. That was all ego. All his carefully laid plans shot to hell when the schedule was upset at the last moment. Keefe was expected to alter his arrival time. It was a common security procedure. He had accounted for that but Lisa's grandmother dying, yeah, that was a problem. There was no one on the team that could handle persuasion without a fist or firearm. That left him to step up and complete the assignment. It was hardly ideal. The whole thing should have been rescheduled but that wasn't an option.
He was already frustrated when got on the plane. Now any fantasies he held regarding the young woman shifted to wanting to break her into a thousand pieces. So maybe he'd been crueler than necessary but he had a job to do and Lisa wasn't cooperating. Given what he had intended to do to her if the plan hadn't been altered and he'd had privacy, well, the mind games wouldn't have been necessary. It would have been sheer brutality followed by a quick death.
"So what now?" Lisa looked around the open space of their current hideout.
Jackson shook himself from his introspection. "We wait."
"For what?"
"Why don't you just let me do the thinking? Don't worry your pretty little head," he condescended.
Lisa put her hand on her hip. "Cut the crap. I know what you're doing."
"Oh? And what am I doing?" he inwardly smiled.
"You're keeping me distracted. You don't want me plotting. Especially when you're not in the best of shape. You're worried that I might be able to get the upper hand."
Her assessment hit far too close to home for his comfort but he was also just the tiniest bit impressed. Pulling on the cuffs he dragged the young woman back over to the make-shift bed of straw. "Lie down."
"Excuse me?"
"Shot, stabbed, remember?" he clipped. "We can't go anywhere until dark and I need to get some rest. Being that we are currently conjoined twins, I sleep, you sleep. You have a problem with that?"
"Other than not wanting to be that close to you, no."
"Well then, you're going to like this even less." He jerked hard on the cuffs pulling her to his side. "We're going to lie down now and I don't want any grief from you, understand? Now lie down on your side, facing that way," he motioned.
"What? No. Why?" she tried to back away but there was nowhere to go.
"Why? Because I'm not going to give you any opportunities to get clever. So you and I are going to spoon. Won't that be special?" his voice held a dangerous insinuation.
"Not going to happen. Not ever." she stated adamantly.
Jackson leaned forward and grasped her tightly around the neck. "I wasn't asking you, Leese. I'm telling you, you will lie down, rather or not you get back up.. is up to you."
Lisa tried to pry his fingers from her neck. He responded by squeezing tighter constricting her air flow. "If you don't want to sleep voluntarily, I can provide assistance."
"Please," she managed to rasp out, "Please stop. Not again. It can't happen again." Hot tears poured down her cheeks.
Jackson's cold expression was unmoved until suddenly comprehension touched his eyes and he released his grip.
Lisa sucked in large gasps of air.
"Lisa, look at me. Look at me." He put his finger under her chin and brought her face up to his. "Listen to me. I do a job. It's business. If I hurt someone it's because that's what I was contracted to do. But I'm a professional. I don't derive pleasure from other's pain. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
She looked into his eyes hoping to reach him, "Do you think that makes you less a monster?"
His expression hardened again. "That mouth of yours.. is going to get you... dead."
"I'm not here because of any job. You already said as much. You want revenge for what's happened. You want to hurt me. So why wouldn't you want to hurt me like this?" she gestured to the straw.
Jackson shook his head slowly, "You really have that low an opinion of me? I'm not some common criminal. You don't think that I have boundaries?"
"And just where would those boundaries be, Jack? You were going to kill two children with that blast at the hotel."
"I might have been the instrument of their deaths but I wasn't the one that wanted them dead. There is a distinction."
"What distinction? That's nothing but an excuse to try and justify your horrific behavior. You couldn't care less if those kids died."
"You're right. I don't care. Just like I don't care if you want this or not. I told you, you have nothing to fear from me, not like that. This discussion is over. Now lie down. NOW!"
Lisa knew there would be no changing his mind. She could only pray that he meant what he said, that he wasn't so vicious. There were a couple of moments on the red eye flight where she thought she could reach him. A moment or two where the situation touched him on a real level. But those instances were far less in evidence than his cold, calculating machinations. There might not be anything human left inside him to reach.
"Lisa.. lie.. down."
She let the tears flow but refused to make a sound. Even if she could manage to overpower him while he was weakened... then what? There was no way to get out of the cuffs and there was no one around. Slowly, she dropped to her knees and lay down. Turning her back to him, she lay out on her side.
Jackson waited until she seemed calm then knelt down. He lay down behind her and pressed in close leaving only a sliver of air between them. He let his arm come to rest casually over her waist. She tensed but he seemed to pay her no mind. He yawned, a small exhalation of sound tickled at her ear. "Relax, Leese, I'm not going to hurt you. Get some sleep, you're going to need it."
She could feel him settle behind her. His breath gradually slowed and she tried to turn her head to get a look. His startling vivid blue eyes were closed. It was hard not to notice how attractive he was, at least on the outside. She chastised herself. His attractiveness was not in question but what lay underneath the façade of charm, the good looks, belied the ugly nature beneath.
Hot tears coursed down her cheeks as exhaustion took her.