Chapter 12: Planning Perennials
July, 2012
It was summer, but Lisa had felt cold for months. Now, however, she felt warm again as she lay wrapped in Jackson's arms. The sterile white bed sheet covered them modestly and it smelled like bleach and fresh, non-descript soap. She had missed Jackson—that was a no-brainer—but what she didn't anticipate was the epiphany of how desperately codependent she had become upon his presence in her day to day life.
After she had kissed him, they eased into the bed, sliding under the covers without a word. They didn't have much to say after the weeks of silence, yet their ability just to be together in the quiet spoke volumes. Jackson's face was buried in her neck, so much that her mind questioned if he could even breathe, but he seemed content enough where he was. The hard bulge pressing into her backside reminded her of how long it had been since they had participated in their mutually beneficial activity, the encounter she couldn't call making love, but was unable to refer to as sex. He wasn't pressuring her for anything on this night, even though she knew that a part of them wanted to give into their baser urges. Lisa wrapped her hands around his in front of her to hold his fists close to her heart.
"You asked me about my parents' divorce," she softly broke the stillness, conjuring in his mind a conversation that occurred weeks ago. Her words were unexpected and out of place, but Jackson let her have her say. "They divorced before I was attacked. My dad knew it was coming. And my mom knew that my dad knew."
There were very few times in his life that words had failed him, but Jackson found himself at a total loss for words. The faint sound of his appalled hiss was all Lisa could hear as a response. Her father was Company, so it made sense that they would use his daughter against him, but for Joe to stand there and let it happen, for him not to retaliate…that took Jackson by surprise. Then again, based on Jackson's experience with parents and the misery that they would put up with, part of him wasn't all that shocked. He had pondered Joe's possible involvement when he rested on the dreadful bed of his prison cell on one of many sleepless nights, but he had brushed it aside when he considered what a typical father would do. A typical loving father who was responsible for bringing harm to his own child would not rest until all dangers were eradicated and his child was safe again. Lisa's father had merely become overprotective and even then, it was only on a verbal level, it seemed. Jackson had made a baseless leap when he assumed that Lisa's father would have protected her had he known and that belief had proven to be erroneous.
"What makes you say that?" Jackson lamely asked with an inadequate attempt at sugarcoating. He was a master manipulator who could make people think and feel as he wanted, but ironically enough, he was not good at making people feel better when it was what he wanted for himself rather than for the job.
"The signs were all there." Lisa's voice droned with a perfect balance of cool indifference. She couldn't seem to care one way or another anymore. It was all useless facts to her, a catalog of history that she knew by heart, but never considered. It was the book of her life that she herself wrote, but she had never read it for comprehension or self-analysis.
"They were relatively happy and then they weren't. My mom convinced my brothers to move away and they did. She moved away and tried to get me to go, and I didn't. She kept trying and I didn't budge. Dad stayed in Florida despite hating it and preferring Texas. I was attacked and…and there was no going back. I didn't see the pattern then, or maybe I did and I just didn't want to. Either way, I see it now. They knew something was going to happen to one or all of us." Jackson's arms got a little tighter and she felt his body tense. Even his fists locked safely inside her hands started stiffening in controlled anger. "Was it just me?" Jackson wasn't sure what she was asking, so he said nothing until she elaborated. "Was it just us or was that typical Company technique? Did they do that to others?"
Jackson's jaw hurt when he moved to speak because he had held it in place with such contained resentment. Lisa's rape had been an unfortunate event, a situation that disgusted him and made him long to take care of her, not because she needed his masculine protection, but because he could not handle the notion of her goodness being stripped away by the world. Knowing her father and the Company were responsibility made him want to seek vengeance on a much less evolved scale. He wanted to rip the flesh from her father's face for allowing his daughter to come to such harm. He wanted to burn alive every member of the Company, even the janitor. Her mother was no saint; she had abandoned her daughter to save herself. If she wasn't already six feet under, she would also be on Jackson's secret fantasy kill list.
He wished that this could be avoided, but she needed to hear the truth. "Most agencies, legit and otherwise, discourage relationships and families. They're liabilities and are more trouble than they're worth. They're distractions. The Company, though…they encourage families. They tell younger members that having the spouse and kids will help keep them grounded and sane. It's not until after the family puppy is nailed to the white picket fence that they realize how stupid they had been to have kids. Each kid is born with a target on its head and the Company aims the proverbial gun at it until they have absolute, unconditional control of the operative."
Jackson had never given consideration to any of this one way or another, but now that he was saying it, he grasped how unsavory the business really was. What was once mere logic to him was now associated with an emotional reaction and he comprehended just how susceptible he was to their methods. He had been invincible and unreachable for years, but now they would perceive him as having a weakness: the golden-brunette goddess in his arms.
The key word in that notion was "perceive."
"My dad knew." Her question was a statement and it was so brief that it could have been taken in a number of ways. Her dad knew— that families were encouraged?—that families were a weakness?— that his wife and kids were targets?—that he had done something to make his family a target and still he did nothing to save them?—that Lisa had been raped, not as a random woman, but as a placeholder to send a message? Did he know all of this or some of it? Were his hands as soiled as Lisa believed?
"Do you think he knew from the start?" Jackson turned the tables back on her.
Lisa closed her eyes. "I hope not." It seemed strange to both of them that she would hope for the best after so many months of hopelessness.
"I'm sorry," she impulsively inserted in the conversation. "For not trusting you." Jackson didn't react and he did his best to ignore her. He didn't want to hear it. "I've trusted all the wrong people my entire life. I should've trusted you. You've proven yourself to me countless times and that's more than anyone else."
"I was wrong for being upset with you," he conceded. It was a rare admission of wrongdoing and it would never happen again. "I was the one who told you not to trust me, and when you didn't, I turned on you."
"I turned on you first."
He smiled to himself.
"I shouldn't give you or anyone else my trust," she decided then and there. "But you've earned it, so now it's yours. You're the only one that I trust. Completely."
As Lisa rolled over in her sleep to face him, Jackson took the opportunity to sneak his arms away from her and slide out of bed. She never noticed it. He retrieved his iPad from the dresser top without having to feel for it in the dark and headed down the stairs with stealthy precision.
He was a Manager and he had a job to do.
Jackson huddled in a corner on the dining room floor. The light from the iPad's display cast a subtle electronic blue hue in the room. The beam of color ricocheted off his sharp cheekbones and shadowed his wide, cold eyes. He was the villain of the movie and this was his cinematic moment to physically display the evil lurking in the vacant compartment that should have housed a soul. The only thing missing was a loud cackle of laughter while rubbing his hands together and plotting his foul deeds.
His fingers expertly dashed across the screen, navigating him to his desired online location: Weisz's Doughnut Hut. For weeks, he had searched for the Company's current check-in website for Managers who needed to make contact in a non-phone capacity. Since his last official job, many of the old online haunts had been retired, so he had to use some creative thinking. After Googling until he just couldn't Google anymore, he struck gold. The Company was fond of using websites that connected historical figures with unconventional modern comforts, such as food for order online and delivery within minutes. Weisz, Houdini's real last name, and doughnuts had come up on a search quite by accident, but when he visited the site, he found the standard clues that told him it was Company.
Jackson followed the link to the "Order Online" page. In the space provided, he specified his order: a baker's dozen doughnuts and their corresponding holes, no flavor added, arranged on a platter ready to serve at a small social event. Will pay in person upon pick-up. Contact Andrew J. by cell, he typed before looking down at the burner phone he had purchased a few weeks prior in New Jersey on one of his two day excursions away from Lisa. He entered the number for the phone at the bottom of his "order." He proofread his writing before hovering over the "Submit" button with the cursor. He was about to change everything that he and Lisa had fought so hard to achieve all this time. He was about to transform who he was at an elemental and fundamental level for the second, perhaps even third time in his life. He was about to set up himself and Lisa in a way guaranteeing that both would walk into this inevitable trap, but only one would walk out if he or she were lucky.
He hit the "Submit" button. Jackson wasn't gullible enough to buy Lisa's guilt-driven apology. He knew the truth. Lisa thought he was a murderous monster even after all this time together. Jackson would show her who he really was and she would regret everything she ever thought she knew about him. He would show her where she could put her trust.
Lisa woke up before her eyes had the energy to open. She yelped and jumped back when she realized that Jackson was sitting on the floor next to her side of his bed. He was staring straight into her now-open eyes with his relentlessly intimidating gaze.
"What the hell? Jackson!" She scrambled to sit up, instinctively pulling the thin white sheet with her to cover the invasion of her privacy that she felt at this moment. He glared at her with an unreadable expression and his eyes unblinking as they scanned her in the inhuman way that she had become oddly accustomed to yet had not seen in some time, not even when they were avoiding one another.
"You should go shopping," he unpredictably insisted in a neutral voice.
"What?" she questioned, squinting her sleep-filled eyes in confusion as she pushed her hair back with one hand. It had grown longer again, about the length that it was when she and Jackson had first met.
"You hardly ever get out of the house."
"People know what I look like."
"Me too. But that doesn't stop me."
He had her there. Most people didn't follow the news—as evident by the state of the world today in which people walked around like malfunctioning cyborgs, constantly connected to news, but not to any information of consequence beyond the trivial. She would be nothing more than a pretty, ordinary woman, or a nobody who looked like a very famous former somebody. She was a mirage, an image that would come and go in the world, and if she kept her composure and behaved like she belonged, no one would think twice about her.
"Are you afraid of going out alone…in daylight?" Jackson probed, willfully treading on dangerous territory.
"Yeah," she admitted softly, "but not for the reason you think. Frank recognized me. After all these months, he figured it out."
"But he had months. The moron working the register at Macy's won't know you from any other ditz."
"You're such a sweet talker."
"I try," he assured her with the hint of a twinkle in his eye. "Go. Have fun."
Lisa tilted her head, momentarily directing her vision upward as she contemplated his command. "You're trying to get rid of me."
"Of course I am," he agreed without hesitation.
"Why?"
"We were compromised when Frank found us," he noted simply. Lisa sat still, patiently awaiting the rest of the answer. "I've arranged for a secondary safe house and I need to make some last minute preparations. I'd like peace and quiet while I do it."
"I'm not a nuisance," she rebuked him, rightfully suspicious of his true motives.
"As long as you're near me, you're a distraction. I need my head on the job."
Lisa picked up a blouse off the rack and analyzed it a moment before returning it to its proper place. Most of her shopping in the last year had been online and it had always been simple shopping. Plain shirts, ordinary pants, and practical accessories had become her new wardrobe now that she was no longer obligated to follow the protocols of the Lux Atlantic. Still, ironically enough, she had managed to maintain a uniform of sorts while on the run for her life. Even attempting to find girlish enthusiasm in her solo shopping excursion was proving to be impossible. The department store was full of life as kids screamed and giggled, parents chatted, and young girlfriends dished and backstabbed. Bright colors were everywhere, reiterating for her society's insistence that she adopt the season's designated style, if it looked good or not. The more she walked around in the moderately illuminated store, the more claustrophobic she felt. The indoor mall offered few windows and the voices around her were growing louder with every breath she took. She finally escaped into the open mall itself and she was grateful for the skylights on the ceiling.
With hands free of packages, Lisa zigzagged her way through rude shoppers who refused to practice courtesy and step aside. She felt like everyone was bumping into her and she desperately tried to remember if the world had always been so ill-mannered or if this was a new development. She was surrounded by zombies whose heads were down, their eyes completely absorbed by the content of their cell phones as their fingers clumsily pressed at keys and apps for no purpose other than addiction and appearances. Elderly couples walked apart from each other enough to block the entire walkway as they loudly complained about everything from politics to high prices.
Lisa settled for hanging her head down and crossing her arms. She had never noticed how filthy the world was. The floor was grimy and people were coughing and sneezing without covering their mouths. What could they possibly have in the middle of the summer? Kids were shoving food into their mouths with their dirty hands and teens were sharing one drink with the entire group.
When she finally reached the food court, Lisa cut through the mob-like crowd that stood while temperamentally demanding instant service and she broke out into the outside world. She was about to take a refreshing deep breath when she spotted the dozens of cigarette smokers propped up against the wall on either side of the door marked "No Smoking for Twenty Feet," each one rebelliously blowing white clouds at her. She held her breath and hurried out into the parking lot, not caring that she had to walk to the complete opposite side to reach her car.
She broke into a run.
Lisa shifted the car into park and stepped out. She had ended up in Central Park in New York. It was crowded, as always, but at least it was open enough not to suffocate her. She pushed her sunglasses closer to her face, fingered her hair loose from behind her ears as to better conceal her identity, and started strolling down the sidewalk like she belonged.
It was a typical summer weekday and kids were running around everywhere, getting into everything they could find. The playground was good enough for the little ones, but the bigger ones who had no idea of something constructive to do ran in haphazard patterns on and off the sidewalk with no clear destination or agenda in mind. Older couples had to brace themselves and cower back to avoid collisions with them. Lisa didn't move for the misbehaving youth, opting instead to steady herself and let two of them slam into her. They pushed past her after the momentary setback without so much as an apology, but they did take the time to give her The Look for her rudeness at being in their way.
Kids were products of their parents and that told her everything she needed to know about the missing parents of these particular brats. She and Jackson were far from a typical couple and they knew that children were off the table for many reasons, one of which being their inability to raise a mentally sound family in the presence of parents who were not quite stable themselves. Lisa now recognized what a pathetic excuse that was. Anyone could have kids. Anyone could be parents. Good parents were those who tried. Good parents were honest and protected their children. They loved them unconditionally, but established firm boundaries. If anything, she and Jackson were more than qualified to be parents because they had mastered all of those skills in abundance.
She had no clue why she was thinking about having children with Jackson. She didn't want kids with him, but she didn't not want them either. It just wasn't an issue for her at this stage in her life. The idea wouldn't have entered her mind if it hadn't been for Jackson panicking about her alleged pregnancy a few months prior. At the time, she had been too distracted by poking fun at him for his reaction that she didn't have time to actually process it all for herself. What was he really afraid of: a baby or a commitment? Would a family really be such a weakness for him, even now, after everything? The end was near. Things were closing in. A breaking point was about to occur and split a crack in the foundation of everything they had been running from and fearing all this time. After they settled their unfinished business with the Company, would normalcy be in the picture?
Lisa took a seat on a warm metal bench that overlooked a pond in the park. A few people were rowing boats in the water, but most were on blankets in the plush grass around the water with picnic baskets at the ready. These people were not unlike her, or even Jackson. They all had multiple selves, multiple identities, yet they managed to keep them separate so they could relax with their families and clear their minds of stock stress, corporate mergers, that big murder trial, the advertising proposal due to the committee, the life and death operation that was going to happen first thing tomorrow morning, and so on. Why couldn't she and Jackson live that life? Avoid terrorists, avoid the law, and celebrate over spaghetti and wine before a night of lovemaking. This was starting to seem more doable and less unattainable, but the more that happened, the more Lisa accepted that she was willing something into being. It was impossible because Jackson had said it was impossible. End of discussion.
The house was a safe house. Jackson had built it for the purpose of hiding out from whomever or whatever that threatened his life. Neither of them had ever slipped and called it a "home." Never. It was always "the house" when they mentioned it, and now that Lisa thought about it, she was reasonably sure that she hadn't even considered it their "home" in the privacy of her mind. He had made it clear that this was a temporary situation, regardless of how long the time period was that they used to define the term "temporary." She had foolishly assumed this house was their Dreamhouse, and that Barbie and Ken could live Happily Ever After in it. She had been outside of the house's protection so few times that it had become her own little universe that she shared with Jackson, and no one could take away that world from them. The house was all she had. She had no home of her own, no place she could trust to keep her safe and warm. This house did just that.
She had dragged him into her delusion and now that he was speaking up and reminding her of reality, she was starting to resent him and second guess everything. He cared for her, sure, but it ended there. She was a pleasant companion, a pair of warm breasts to fondle and a body he could fill to end the lonely ache that even he was too human to completely ignore.
Jackson himself had said it best: "You know how I think of you."
She had been such an idiot.
Jackson started speaking when he heard the subtle click on the other end of the line.
"Do you see her?"
"I do," the voice said.
"Then consider that your proof of life."
"She gave me quite the chase."
Jackson's eyes narrowed. "Where are you?" he inquired.
"Central Park. She didn't stay at the mall long. Didn't even buy anything. Now she's in the park, people watching."
Jackson was bothered by this, but he pushed that aside. He didn't have time to care about Lisa's melodramatic emotional problems. "She's alive and unharmed, as you requested. Now, let's talk about my end of this."
There was a long hesitation and Jackson could imagine the owner of the voice rolling his eyes at Jackson's persistence. "You'll get your…reward," the voice choked out. "After I get her," he added firmly.
"It's not a reward," Jackson corrected. "It's a blank slate."
"Forgive me for having trouble believing that you'll just let her go so easily."
"I don't have to let her go. I just have to walk away. If that's good enough for me, then it should be good enough for the Piper."
Lisa returned to the house about seven that night. Jackson was sitting at the dining room table, his body rigid and proper in one of the hard wooden chairs that they so seldom used. Somehow in the darkness, she could tell that he was staring blankly ahead, completely entranced by his thoughts. He didn't see or hear Lisa, even though she was far from quiet as she entered the house and approached him. She came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, gently massaging the cramped muscles. He finally snapped out of his reverie, visibly flinching at her touch.
"Where were you?" Lisa asked, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. She was going to live the lie as long as she could, no matter how stupid she would feel when the charade ended. "You were a million miles away," she answered her own question.
Jackson hoarsely coughed out a small laugh. He pinched his nose and roughly rubbed his tired eyes. "I was…thinking," he said pitifully.
She kneaded the tightly knotted muscles in his neck and shoulders, but they refused to loosen under her relentless ministrations. "It must be bad," she mused under her breath. "You have got to relax," she insisted, leaning over to place a series of warm kisses on his hot neck. She stopped rubbing his shoulders and let her arms drop forward to wrap his neck in her loose hold. Her mouth inched up to his ear and her tongue traced it before she playfully nipped at it. She felt Jackson tense in her arms and ignored it, but when he started fidgeting anxiously, she stepped back. "What's wrong?" she demanded nervously as Jackson stood up from the table with his iPad in hand.
"I'm tired. I just need to call it a night." With that, he hurried out of the room, leaving her in the darkness of the bottom floor with his pounding footfall up the stairs as her only company.
The small tremors of someone entering her bed awoke Lisa from her deep sleep. She had been dreaming, something she had not experienced in ages, it seemed. She had no memory of the dream when she was pulled out of it by the stranger's intrusion in her bed, but she felt comforted by the forgotten fantasy all the same.
Jackson's heavy arm slipped around her waist and his hand sneaked under her shirt. For some reason, his hand loved to rest on her stomach. The warm, soft flesh under her shirt was his favorite place to touch, sometimes just to feel her and sometimes to trace slightly ticklish patterns with his fingers. Occasionally his hand drifted lower to rest on the gentle slope of her lower abdomen and other times he went up to just under her breasts. She never asked why. Every man had his own thing, and leave it to her peculiar man to have an unusual fixation. She could feel him trying to carefully spoon his body into hers without disturbing her slumber too much. She assisted him by sliding herself back into him.
"I'm awake," she pointed out the obvious.
"Sorry," he automatically responded. Apologies, no matter how casual, always seemed strange coming from him. He never felt he had a reason to apologize because he never regretted any of his well-planned actions. It came across more as manners from play-acting rather than authentic regret and remorse.
"Do you want to talk?" she offered, knowing the answer would be negative.
"Nothing to say."
"There's always something to say. Something's bothering you and it's bad. I think I have the right to know."
He exhaled as he hid his face in her neck. His hair felt long on the skin of her neck and shoulder, and she made a mental note to nag him about cutting his hair.
"You've never seen me prepare for a job," he told her, his breath hot and moist on her skin. "I become…tense. Obsessed. Absorbed. It's like I leave my body so I can seek out cognitive clarity. I did that today. But now you're back and I'm having trouble readjusting since the job isn't over yet."
Lisa understood. It made perfect sense to her. Jackson was a very dedicated man who, when focused on a goal, was completely lost to the world and even himself. She didn't know how to deal with that and she was glad that she had left him to his own devices during the day.
"What can I do to help?"
He squeezed himself closer against her, now possessively draping his leg over hers. "Let's leave." Lisa didn't expect that as his answer. "Just for a few days. Take a vacation. Enjoy ourselves. Get away from that fucking wall and just…breathe."
"And then?"
"And then we end this. We take what we have to the Company and negotiate."
"I thought they didn't negotiate."
"Not with words. We'll have to make a sacrifice."
Lisa was stunned speechless and a chill of fear raised every hair on her body. "What are we going to sacrifice?"
"Them. We send a message that we aren't to be touched."
"We're not killers." She wasn't sure what had gotten into him. Was he feeling defeated? Was he losing his mind?
"No. We're survivors."
The next morning, Jackson woke Lisa by stirring her from her cozy little nest under the covers. She felt warm and even in the summer, a warm bed was her preferred way of waking up.
"Pack your things. We're taking a trip."
Lisa plopped backward, her head slamming into her pillow with such force that it buckled up on the sides around her face for an instant. She groaned. The sun was barely up and her eyes weren't focused enough yet to view the blurry digital red numbers on her clock. She grabbed the sheet and stretched it over her head.
"If I pack for you, you'll arrive at our destination wondering why you don't have any clothing in your bag."
"Do we have to leave this early?"
"Yeah, we do, Leese. Get up or I will get you up."
She peeked out from under her cotton-blend sanctuary, her eyebrow raised suggestively. "I bet I could get you up first."
Jackson shook his head. "Tsk," he scolded. "You had your chance." He clutched all the covers in his fist and jerked them off in a swift motion before scooping Lisa up into his arms and hurling her over his shoulder. She squealed, in both panic and delight at his sudden aggression, as he carried her off like a caveman. He navigated them into her bathroom and she could tell he was turning on the shower. Just as quickly as he had grabbed her, he deposited her in the bathtub and pulled the knob to turn on the showerhead.
As freezing cold water rained down on her, she vowed vengeance.
They had been driving for a few hours at a casual pace. Jackson was apparently keen on appreciating the ride as much as the destination. His gaze wondered comfortably as his steely blue eyes took in all the sights, even when it was nothing more than acres of trees. Lisa let him have his solitude—they were alone, but together. She had attempted to nap at the start, but something in her gut told her that Jackson required her unspoken support.
He had vaguely described his job planning mannerisms and based on her knowledge of his eccentric behavior, he would need her now more than ever. From behind her dark sunglasses, she would sneak glimpses of his set jaw, tight lips, narrowed eyes, and furrowed brow. The tension in his face came in waves and flowed away just as easily as they had appeared on his chiseled features. The small cluster of muscles at his jawline would tighten when a new thought entered his mind and that was his tell. When his jaw clinched, a type of darkness would sweep over him. She could see strategies play out before his eyes and numerical probabilities took dominance over any human bias that he may have been hindered by during this planning process. Occasionally his lips would move, soundlessly speaking to an unseen enemy. His shadowed face would turn cool and blank as he practiced his unspoken speech as not to give away anything. When he had told her about doing his homework, she figured it was research and contemplation. Lisa would have never guessed that Jackson actually put into application his plan, experimenting with his strategies as if he were on Star Trek's Holodeck. It was all a program that could be reset, reviewed, and repeated as many times as necessary to get it right. He could, quite realistically, be prepared for any possible scenario.
Jackson's lips stopped moving and he sighed, shaking his head in a movement so slight that Lisa would have missed it if she had not been staring at him directly. He wrapped his chin in his hand and leaned his elbow against the small width of the door at the base of the closed car window. His fist eased upward, covering his now-motionless lips. He repositioned his right hand on the steering wheel, grimacing in disappointment at himself for his faux failure.
He felt Lisa's eyes on him and he finally acknowledged her. "Sorry," he disingenuously offered. The only purpose the impassive apology served was to fill the awkward air with something to break the ice. For Jackson, being seen in this state was like being caught singing naked in the bathroom, or perhaps worse. He was vulnerable right now as he attempted to gain a firmer footing than his enemy and that made him unaware of his own surroundings as he became lost in a world of hypothetical situations and impossible odds.
Jackson's eyes were back on the road. Lisa cleared her throat. "You're stressed about this one, aren't you?" He shot a quick glance her way. "This job," she clarified. He looked toward her again. "This is the one, isn't it? This is the big one."
"It is," he monosyllabically concurred. If only she knew.
Lisa peered out the window with a curiosity driven by boredom. The neatly mowed grass of civilization had been replaced gradually by picturesque tall grass littered with bright wild flowers leaning lazily in the gentle wind. "What's the plan?"
"Nothing set in stone yet, but I have ideas."
Lisa dropped her head back against the seat, her eyes still trained on the flowers. They were wild, unwanted, and usually killed by most people for being undesirable and not good enough, but they held strong against whatever nature blew at them and they never lost their flower-dignity. They might have been reduced to living away from the world as outcasts who embraced their exile, but they knew it was the only way to survive. And they weren't alone. They were with their own kind. They might have been different types of flowers, but they were all weeds and they were all in it together, surviving, not fighting.
"I thought when we figured out about my dad and Keefe that we would just—I don't know. Go public? Call Keefe? Threaten the Company with exposure?" She rolled her lazily relined head toward Jackson, patiently awaiting his response.
"We've only scratched the surface with the wall. We've figured out a ton of connections, but it's pointless. We've put together all of the puzzle pieces, but we're standing too close to see what picture the completed puzzle makes. We need that picture. Otherwise, we're just bluffing."
"Bluffing—wasn't that Plan A?"
"It is. But you can't bullshit someone without a pile of shit."
Despite herself, Lisa smiled at Jackson's crude turn of phrase. He was usually classier than that, opting more for an intelligent line than a plebian slur of ignorance. Still, it was amusing for some endearing yet juvenile reason.
He continued speaking, unaware of her secret smile at his unintentional display of charm. "We know the hierarchy of the Company well enough to make a power play, but we have to give them something that would make it worth their effort not to kill us. We have to show them that we are a threat only if they choose to make us one, that if they leave us alone, we'll leave them alone."
"You're going to call for a truce?"
Jackson shrugged. "'Truce,' or 'don't kill us and we won't expose you after we kill the Piper.' Same thing," he oversimplified.
Lisa's mouth dropped open. "Www—wait…we're, we're going to kill the Piper?" she sputtered.
"If we have to. I prefer that we talk about this like grown-ups, but if they want to go there, we will. I like keeping all of my options open, even the less favorable ones. As long as I get the job done, my success will justify the means."
Lisa exhaled slowly through her still slack lips. She had completely missed Jackson's pronoun switch from "we" to "I." She was too awe-struck by the magnitude of the situation that she was just now able to semi-clearly see. Lisa didn't know what the big finale of their story would be, but now she was starting to see the big picture and she didn't like it. It scared her. It scared the hell out of her.
Her own mortality had seemed inconsequential for so long. Because she had felt apathetic toward life for many years, it suddenly seemed like she had been awakened into a world of nightmares that she could not conquer, and failure was as frightening an option as success. She and Jackson had been in hiding for barely a year and now it was over. Everything was ending. The world was ending. Unfortunately for Lisa, she was pretty sure that no one else noticed or cared that the sky was falling down on her. Assuming that she survived the final battle between good and evil (or maybe it should be "the final battle between slightly soiled and evil"), there was nothing for her to go back to, no world that she could call her own.
She was one of those wild flowers. She was strong and beautiful off on her own with another wild flower, but in the real world, she was just a weed to be pulled away from the proper flowers.
Lisa had dozed off somewhere along the way. She awoke to find Jackson (now wearing his sunglasses) taking a swig from a bottle of water. "Where are we?" she groggily croaked, amazed at how sleep-filled her voice was. It was still daylight, but the sun was fading fast.
He handed her an unopened bottle of water that he had bought for her apparently not too long ago. The bottle was still cool and condensation soaked its outside. The car's gas gauge revealed the tank to be just a bit below full, suggesting that he had purchased the water when fueling the SUV. "Almost there," was his cryptic answer.
"You can't tell me?" she pressed.
"You don't need to know. Just enjoy the trip. Clear your head. Don't think about the job. At least not yet." He shoved his left hand through his hair, pushing the long dark mass out of his face. He had worn his hair a little on the long side for most of his life—long enough to be individually distinctive without losing professionalism—but now, after becoming accustomed to Lisa's meticulous short cut, a little extra length was starting to annoy him more easily.
"It's hard to 'just enjoy the trip' when all I can think about is the shootout we're going to have with the Piper at the O.K. Corral," she disclosed. A few large rocky hills were visible outside the car now, and the land was lusher and greener than she could ever recall seeing anywhere else for a long time. Given the length of the trip thus far, they had to be in Virginia. "There's no other way around it, is there?" Jackson's jaw tightened again. He didn't want to talk about it. He was allowed to think about it, to dwell on it until he was ill, but she couldn't speak it aloud. It was too real when she spoke it aloud. "He wants us dead. There's no other way around it," she answered for herself.
Jackson exhaled loudly through his nose and shifted in his seat. "Maybe he doesn't want us dead. Maybe we can offer a suitable alternative."
"'Suitable alternative'?" Lisa repeated with a laugh.
"Let's be rational for a minute here, Leese," Jackson began patronizingly. Lisa crossed her arms at his tone. "Death is a solution for a problem in this business and we are each a problem. I'm a defective employee who fucked up an important assignment. You're a little more complicated than that. Let's stop thinking about what they want to do to us and start thinking about why they want to find solutions to our problematic status."
"I'm not following you." Lisa took off her sunglasses and turned in the seat to get a better view of her partner.
"We've stared at that damn wall until we can't even close our eyes without seeing it imprinted in our vision. And we've made a lot of assumptions because of that," he said, patiently explaining himself in slow, deliberate detail. "I contributed a fairly-complete map of the Company's hierarchy and tactics, a history of some of the more important jobs, and a list of who's who—but with a few major exceptions, such as the Piper. You listed everything about your family tree, your job, and your encounters with Keefe. We've been assuming all this time that they want you dead because of what you know. Frank spent fifteen minutes in front of that wall before pointing out something that you and I never considered in one year. What if they don't want you dead because of what you know?" Jackson turned to address his final words to her face. "What if they want you dead because of who you know?"
Lisa was unresponsive, holding in all reaction and awaiting further explanation.
"Think about it. You've known about your father and Keefe's involvement with the Company since you were a child. You may not have realized you knew it, but you did and that was still a potential threat to them. The Company handles those threats immediately. They don't hope for the best and let it slip by. It wasn't until after the four of us became intertwined in this mess that they decided they wanted you dead—and even then, it was six years after the fact."
"What are you saying?" Lisa directly asked, not sure if Jackson had more explanation to give or if this was the part where she was supposed to understand it on her own. Either way, she was ready for the joke's punch line.
"I'm theorizing here," he put forward as a small disclaimer. "What if Keefe has become a threat to the Company, more now than before, because of some new development? What if he has just now become too untouchable for them to reach? What if the only person who can reach him is an old friend and co-worker, the retired former agent whose daughter was dragged into this mess, not once, but twice before? And what if that agent refuses to take the hit on Keefe?"
"Then that agent's daughter is again brought into the mix. The agent kills Keefe, the daughter lives; he doesn't kill Keefe, she dies," Lisa provided. "My information on Keefe and my dad is inconsequential by itself because I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I tried to go public or report it to the authorities, so I'm meaningless by myself. But if the Company needs my dad to do something—"
"—Then you are the ideal motivation to encourage his brief return to work from retirement. That's why they let you live all these years unharmed. That's why they've used you twice before and now a third time. You're their leverage over your father."
"And you?"
"I'm still just the guy who fucked up the job. The only difference is now I'm fucking it up even worse because I'm helping you."
Lisa massaged her forehead, pinching her nose between her eyes. "This is crazy," she muttered. "We've been looking in the wrong direction the entire time."
"Not necessarily," he countered. "Samuel told me they were going to kill you."
"Yeah, because of what I knew. And that's not the case. Samuel was wrong."
Jackson shook his head. "He wasn't wrong. He was just the victim of time. We've had a straight year of uninterrupted time to figure this mess out and he only had a few days. He went off the practical assumption that they wanted you for what you know. The important thing is that Samuel knew they wanted you dead. He told me that so I could get to you first. Not only did he figure out what you are to me," Jackson said, carefully skirting the issue, "but he knew that the only way I would survive, the only way the Company could be brought down, is if we work together. You're the bait, Leese, for your father, Keefe, and me. You're the incentive for Daddy to do his job and you're the threat to the Company's stability. I'm the delinquent who knows who they are. Taking down the Company is a two-man job—"
"—And Samuel knew we were the only two who could do it. Samuel played matchmaker to a match made in hell." It was Lisa's turn to shake her head, exasperated and overwhelmed. "That's a mighty big theory you have there, Jackson."
Jackson laughed, for the first time in what seemed like forever. "That's what all the ladies say."
After about a total of nine hours on the road, they finally reached their destination as the late afternoon was starting to fade away for yet another evening to reclaim dominion. Lisa wasn't sure how to react as the rather unmaintained farm house was revealed to be their vacation getaway.
"Does someone live here?" she wondered aloud, taking one step out of the car, but still clinging to the inside of the door. "Maybe a chainsaw-wielding psycho…?"
"Nope. I found it online last night. I rented it from the owner for the week," he responded, slamming his car door and walking around to the passenger's side. "No television. No internet. No cell phones. No—" he began, claiming Lisa's hand into his own before pulling her away from the car and closing the door, "thoughts of any kind. Just peace and quiet." Lisa couldn't recall seeing any other roads or buildings within miles of this place, and the house itself was at least half a mile from the main road. "Just you and me," Jackson added.
Lisa slid her hand out of his, hoping it wouldn't send the wrong message. "What is this?" He didn't respond, but instead gave her one of his inhuman glares as he attempted to decipher her strange, emotion-riddled language. "You've been running hot and cold. One minute, you can't stand for me to be near you, the next you can't wait to wrap your arms around me. This is more than a vacation. Why are we out here? We're in the middle of nowhere! We could have stayed at the house and faked a trip like we did at Christmas. Why here? Why now?"
Jackson pressed the trunk button on the car remote and collected their bags from the back. He unconcernedly dropped Lisa's on the dirt driveway at her feet. "You know the end is here. Things are about to change and there is no going back. I don't believe in regrets or unfinished business. I plan to leave here with my affairs in order because we don't know what will happen in the next few weeks."
"That's what I am to you? An affair to put in order?" She felt like she was beating a dead horse, always playing the same old song, doing the same old dance. They had been through this game before and each resolution to it was more ambiguous than the one prior.
"You still don't know what you are to me, do you?" Lisa remained quiet. "Then I guess you'll never know." He turned toward the house and left her standing in the cloud of dust from his dragging footfall.
Jackson found the house key taped under the unpainted wooden porch swing and charged into the house as if he had been there a thousand times before. Lisa took her leisurely time as she grabbed her stuffed backpack and stumbled distractedly toward the house. The structure was old, probably from the 1930's at least, and she was sure that the center frame of the house may have been built at the turn of the century or earlier. The paint was probably fresh twenty years ago, but now it was nothing more than uneven white chips here and strips there. It was a two story home that was slightly wider than a perfect square. There was little to no creativity in its design or outside decoration. It was practical and, at the time, probably cheaply made to serve a purpose rather than to make a statement. As she stepped onto the porch, the wood creaked unstably beneath her feet. She couldn't wait to hear the decrepit sounds the second floor made. Wondering if one would be in a collapsing building was a great way to relax and enjoy a vacation.
Jackson dropped his bag in the living room. He stood in the kitchen and surveyed the cabinets and the refrigerator. Lisa was just grateful to see that they had electricity.
"I paid extra for her to fully stock it for the week," he commented. He shut the refrigerator door and leaned back against the kitchen counter. "The property is approximately one mile wide and we have free reign of it. A lake runs through it about six hundred feet behind the house. It's clean and suitable for swimming. There's a barn that I'm sure you can explore, but I can't think of any reason you'd want to."
"Especially after that episode of The Walking Dead," Lisa quipped. Jackson's lip curled in the faintest hint of a grin, but it almost instantly vanished. "I think I'll just go upstairs and pick a room…leave you to your thoughts."
Jackson ignored her as she returned to the front of the house to take the stairs. He walked down the hallway located under the stairs and entered what he claimed as his room. He jerked his clothes out of his bag in waded-up handfuls at a time until he found a t-shirt and his sweat pants.
He had to run.
Usually he ran at night when the world was scary and lonely, when his thoughts were erratic and distracting, but now he was compelled to run as the sun set upon him. It was symbolism that had subconsciously driven him to run at this time given that the sun was setting on his time with Lisa and on his life as he had redefined it after all that had happened in the last seven years.
The constant question that he had pondered when he went out for a run was if he was running toward or away from something. The answer was no clearer now than it had been a year ago or on the prison grounds, but the evidence all supported the notion that he was running away from something. Lisa was no longer in front of him. A future, however bleak or unconventional, was no longer an option. In a few weeks, he would either be dead or wish he were dead, or he would be back in a life that made him as much a victim as a villain.
As he jogged slowly down the steep hill that led to the lake, he considered his options. He was going to play all sides and there was no way that it would end well.
Jackson picked up the pace to a mad dash. At the start of his stay with Lisa, the mantra that he had repeated both in his mind and aloud to her was how this would not end well. In retrospect, his words had been very prophetic, or perhaps they had merely been a self-fulfilling prophecy that he had condemned himself to experience. It was times like this that he wished he had been a normal person, someone who could selfishly want something for himself, such as a life with Lisa, and then just make the simple, stupid decision to do it and to hell with the consequences. Living a life of such foolish emotion-based action was apparently successful enough that everyone in the world kept doing it day after day, year after year, generation after generation—everyone but Jackson.
Their year together had definitely sent them for a ride full of ups and downs, but he preferred to think of it as more positives than negatives. Lisa had started out as a disease that ate away at his brain as he watched her for eight weeks. In prison, she had morphed into a Fury, a haunting Wraith whose constant wails and screams taunted him for his crimes against her. In their house, Lisa became his partner. Sex was of lesser relevance to him, as it was a trivial physical impulse driven by human hormones that served as a bonus only, so calling her a partner in that way was a non sequitur. She had become his partner by changing enough to meet him halfway and by provoking him to change himself enough to meet her the rest of the way. They worked, fought, flirted, played, cooperated, schemed, laughed, cried, screamed—and all of it was together. He had known for so long that they were the only ones in the world who could understand one another and it was truer now than ever before.
Jackson knew that Lisa was looking for conventionality. He knew that she wanted to hear him say "I love you" and act like a typical boyfriend, husband, or whatever she wanted from him, but he couldn't do that. He could not conform to such standards because they were a falsehood that he didn't comprehend and he would not pretend to be something he wasn't, not even for Lisa. He was a man of logic and action. His feelings for Lisa were in every single aspect of his being and if that was too subtle for her to recognize, if that wasn't good enough, then she had successfully destroyed her own chance for a happy ending. There was nothing the Company could do to her then because she would have already lost.
Lisa didn't bother changing out of her jeans and fitted navy blue v-neck pullover, but she did remove her sneakers and socks, and pull her barely shoulder-length hair into a messy pony tail. She dug through the upper cabinets and found a bag of microwave popcorn, and then she hunted through the lower cabinets until she found a microwave in storage. She removed the semi-heavy appliance from the cabinet and put it on the counter. The popcorn was just starting to pop when Jackson loudly entered the house. As per his routine, he locked the door and then did a quick survey of the door and windows. He left for a few minutes and Lisa figured he was checking the rest of the dimly-lit downstairs for security purposes.
At first, she didn't say anything as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and started downing it, but when he was a little below half a bottle without stopping, she had to intervene. "You're going to make yourself sick," she maternally warned.
He abruptly stopped. Water dripped down his sweaty chin as he pulled the bottle away and recapped it. He struggled to steady his breathing. "Says the woman eating popcorn for dinner," Jackson shot back as he returned the bottle to the refrigerator shelf and wiped his lips and chin with the back of his arm.
"Want anything to eat?" she meekly offered. Lisa removed the popcorn from the microwave, her fingers playing "Hot Potato" with the corners of the steaming bag before she dropped it onto the counter.
"Not hungry. I'm going to take a shower."
He had barely turned away when Lisa's hand on his soaking wet t-shirt stopped him. He looked over his shoulder, not dignifying her with a full turn. She took the initiative and moved to stand before him. "I don't want our last days, weeks, or whatever to be like this. Jackson, I'm sorry." She sighed softly as she felt the burden lift from her shoulders. She wasn't quite sure why she was apologizing or why it felt so relieving, but she had been compelled to do it.
"Why are you apologizing?" Jackson asked, his eyes squinted in confusion. He tiled his head to the side, his analytical glare penetrating Lisa to her core.
She sighed again. She put her hand to her forehead, hoping to hold back the throbbing stress headache that had been forming for about an hour. "You think that I don't understand what you're feeling right now…what you're constantly thinking about," she began, her arms helpless at her sides. Her hands moved confidently to her hips, "but I do. You've had jobs before, but I haven't. I need your help in this. I need your patience," she said, her hands reaching out, but falling back to her sides when she realized how stone-like he stood before her.
"When have I been anything other than patient with you?" he questioned, his mind instantly pulling-up images of how he more than accommodated her for her issues regarding men and sex, how he avoided saying things that would upset her given their history, how he refrained from talking to her about things that might hurt her until he confirmed them as true or determined that she was able to handle it. "Don't you dare apologize to me, Lisa. Just keep your mouth shut. This isn't about the job and you know it. All you're doing is making yourself feel better because you won't close the gap between us when time is running out and you want to pin that on me so you can justify why it hasn't happened." There, someone said it. He hadn't planned to say it. It hadn't even been formed into actual words in his head, but it still came out.
Lisa knew it was true and that made it hurt worse.
Jackson knew it was true and that gave him strength to resume speaking. "I've made every move," he stated with one arm stretched out so his index finger could stab at her accusingly with each point he made. "I've made every gesture, every step forward. It was all me, Leese! I've never pressured you. I've avoided saying or doing anything that would cause you pain or distress, but that's not enough. You're so goddamned focused on what I'm not and what you and I can't have that you don't know what we actually do have!"
He was angry. She hated when he was angry, but this time she was actually glad for it, perhaps even comforted by it. She almost felt like she needed the cold splash of truth in her face. Unfortunately, there were two sides to every truth. Lisa's eyes were tearing-up and her lips were red and starting to swell. She sniffed. "And what might that be? Let me guess: if I don't know, you aren't telling me?"
Jackson snorted and linked his arms across his chest protectively. He hung his head down so he could watch his feet as he considered what to say. He finally looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and brimming with tears that he would never shed. Lisa didn't have that luxury of dignity, as tears were now freefalling down her burning flushed cheeks. "You know what I am," he sensibly began with a slow articulation of his words. "Take me as I am or throw me away, but don't hold me responsible for not being something that we both know I can't be."
"Why can't the same apply to me?" she yelled, now empowered by anger. "Why do you hold me responsible for what I can't be?" Jackson stared her down, his face completely unreadable. That scared her more than when he was angry. "I was raped, Jackson! My body was captured and violated in the worst way possible. You can never understand that! Never! And then when I thought I would be okay, that I could just compartmentalize and move on, you came into my life and fucked it up even more!"
"There it is," Jackson declared, nodding to himself. She was right. She was as over the assault as she could be, but his original encounter with her on the Red Eye flight was something she would never let rest. "We can't get past that—"
"We can," she interrupted. "I have. For the most part, at least. You can turn so cold, so detached, that I don't know if I have Jackson or Jackson Rippner. You might think you're giving me all of these clear and obvious signs, but you're not. You're always so blunt and logical, but you never, ever, ever get to the point when it's about us." She took a breath for the first time since she started screaming. Lisa continued, this time in a lower voice. "I understand who you are and what you've been through. We're both damaged. But that excuse will only take us so far. We have to heal. We have to get over it, but it takes time. I try to let you in, but you won't, and you won't even begin to let me in. We're in the same book, Jackson. We're even in the same chapter most of the time, but I don't think we've made it to the same page yet."
He remained still and when no reaction came from him, Lisa started crying again, but this time her tears came with loud bursts of emotion.
He blinked hard to clear his own eyes of fluid. "Don't cry, Leese," he said tenderly despite shuffling awkwardly. That made her cry harder. "Don't," he repeated over and over, shushing her and muttering soothing words. He inched closer and she stepped back. He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her against her will into his arms. In a matter of moments, her protests were long forgotten as she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. He rubbed her back, still whispering attempts at calming her. Tears brewed in his eyes once more, but those too were blinked away.
"I don't want to be an affair you have to settle," she mumbled into his shoulder. It took him a few seconds to translate her words from Hysterical Woman Talk into English, but he got the idea. "I don't want to lose you. I don't want this to end."
"A resolution is necessary, regardless of how things are resolved," he paraphrased an oft-quoted saying.
Lisa lifted her puffy face from his shoulder so she could be face to face with him and remain firmly in his embrace. "There you go again…saying something without saying anything."
"I'm saying what I have been saying the entire time: this won't end well."
Lisa lifted one of her hands from his neck and placed it firmly over his heart. They both looked down at her hand as if expecting to see magic sparkle from it as the curse was broken, but no such luck occurred. "It won't end well," she concurred. Their heads lifted and their eyes met simultaneously in total sync with one another. "So we need to make the most of what we have right now."
He stepped out of the shower and heard voices coming from the living room. Without bothering to dry off, he slipped on his jeans and carefully made his way down the hall. When he reached the threshold of the living room, he peaked in and found Lisa, now in a pair of solid colored purple pajamas and her hair loose on her shoulders, curled up on the couch with her popcorn as she watched television.
"False advertising…I thought there was no television," he criticized, making his presence known. "Popcorn, a shabby building, cheap beer, and The Princess Bride. What is this, a frat house? And here I was coming to rescue you from intruders," he muttered, turning to go back to his room.
"You're not going to join me?" she proposed timidly, her eyes taking an appreciative view of the muscles on his scarred back.
"In a minute."
As promised, he returned a few moments later, his hair towel-dried and pushed back carelessly by hand rather than comb, and his jeans now replaced by his dark blue pajama bottoms and a gray t-shirt. He plopped down onto the couch, turning so he could lie on his side with his arm pillowing his head in order to see the television better.
"Popcorn?" Lisa offered.
"Nah," he declined, nabbing the beer bottle from her hand and taking a long swig before returning it to her.
Lisa took one last sip of beer before she put it and the popcorn bag on the floor to the side of the couch. She kept her head forward, but she turned her eyes on Jackson. He watched attentively as "The Battle of Wits" unfolded on the screen. He could seem so normal, so much like "a real boy," but he was still Pinocchio, a wooden puppet who was part of the world but not of it.
He could feel her intense examination of him. "Are you stalking me?" he asked in a hushed whisper, never showing any hint that he was anything but completely focused on the movie.
"A little," she admitted, unable to hold back a small smile at his ability to catch her in the act. "I just want to memorize you, right here, right now, watching a silly movie and just being normal."
"Yeah, that's not creepy at all," he kidded. She playfully smacked his leg, earning an "ow!" for her efforts.
Lisa slid onto the floor and scooted over so that she could lean against the couch face to face with Jackson. "Assuming we survive, what happens next?"
"That's a loaded question."
She mutely nodded, her expression not unlike that of a child prepared to argue the impossible with his dying breath. "I know you well enough to know that you've already played out at least fifty possible scenarios and I want to know what happens after that."
"Forty-nine end in one or more funerals," he deadpanned, directing his eyes toward the television in lieu of hers.
"And number fifty?" she pressed. Jackson's piercing blue eyes locked on hers. He bit down on his lower lip and his hard outer shell softened. He reached out and stroked her hair, and his palm came to rest cupping her cheek. She leaned into his hand, her eyes closed.
"I would give anything to be able to ride off into the sunset on a white horse with you, but we have to be realistic. It's not going to happen."
She sighed and opened her eyes to be wide and full of hope. "But if it could—"
"If it could, then what? We'd get married, have a bunch of kids, attend school functions, fight over bills and which brand of peanut butter tastes better and me coming home suspiciously late after work at the accounting firm. We'd grow old and sit in the nursing home telling stories to the school kids on field trips about how I met you when I terrorized and threatened you on the plane. 'Oh yeah, Mr. Rippner, I read about that on Wikipedia!'"
"That's rather bleak…"
"We aren't those people," he exhaled, rolling his eyes up to stress his point. "We're the ones who kicked a beehive and are going to be running from the bees for the rest of our lives. Even if we attempt to be normal, what happens when Jackson Jr. gets kidnapped on the way home from school or if Little Lisa hits the teen years with hormonal vengeance and she runs away with the love of her life who happens to be a Company junior agent?"
"Who said we have to have kids?" she countered.
Jackson grunted disapprovingly. "It may not seem like a sacrifice to you right now, but soon enough, it will. You'll want a baby or it will happen by accident, and you'll be beside yourself with happiness. You might even be able to carry it to term without something happening to you, but after hours of excruciating labor, your precious baby is put in the hospital nursery. Unfortunately, the nurse who was paid to look the other way never saw the Company agent who waltzed in the front door and smothered your child."
His cautionary tale worked. She didn't want to have this conversation anymore. She couldn't hear this. She leapt up, but Jackson was on his feet and he grabbed her arms, forcing her to stand before him. She tried to jerk away, but his hold was so firm that she was sure she would have bruises tomorrow.
He let go of her arms and cupped her face, leaning his forehead in to touch hers. "This is realistic. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to warn you. I have too many marks on my head to be with you and you're too important for me to allow you to be a bigger target than you already are. I am saying 'no' to everything I want because I can't risk what will happen to you or your chance at a normal, happy life, and I am not about to take a chance at having a kid who will end up as fucked up as me."
Lisa recalled his response to her assumed pregnancy a few weeks ago. He had not been angry, but it was more of a case of shock and perhaps even melancholy. Whatever was going through his head at that time had been even more of a mystery to her than usual, but there was one thing that was apparent: he hadn't forced the issue. There were no lectures, no demands of an abortion, no mental or emotional attacks. If anything, it seemed like the urge to be protective was starting to sneak into his mannerisms without even realizing it. She remembered the panicked expression on his face when she suggested they practice their fight skills together. If he hadn't wanted kids, all it would have taken for Jackson Rippner to solve that problem was one "accidental" move in just the right way.
"You want kids," she accused suddenly, removing his hands from her face.
"What?" he stammered, taken aback by her sudden accusation. He took what he believed were a few casual steps back, but they seemed more like stumbles.
She moved in, forcing her close proximity upon him. "You're acting like you're trying to talk me out of wanting kids, but now that I think about it, I've never been the one to bring up that topic—"
Jackson laughed nervously. "I definitely don't want kids," he insisted.
Lisa smiled as she nodded in agreement while going along with him in appearance only. "Is that so?" she asked dubiously.
Jackson huffed and shook his head at having to even dignify this accusation. "You're the one who keeps getting sentimental about our future and you're the one whose Biological Clock is apparently ticking. Don't think I didn't notice how sappy your voice was when you asked me if I wanted a baby." Lisa mentally gave him credit for that one. After all that business about Jackson and Frank thinking she was pregnant, she had gotten weak and humored the idea, and she had been silly enough to actually ask Jackson about it. "You're thirty-four and the Clock's ticking."
"My Biological Clock?" She snickered. "Okay," she tried soberly. "I admit it. I do want kids—one day, but not today. Now, back to the sound of clocks ticking, what about you, Big Ben? You're thirty-six and more than a little emotionally constipated, but can you look me in the eye and honestly say that you don't want a baby?"
Jackson's jaw clinched, a small sign, but Lisa caught it. She knew she had him. He squared his shoulders, crossed his arms, and looked her dead in the eye. "No," he said firmly. Lisa knew he expected her to interpret that as the answer: no, he did not want a baby. The master of words also said "no" in a way that could mean no, he could not look her in the eye and honestly say it, and Lisa, after having enough practice translating Jackson's language, knew he was taking a shortcut. He most likely had no answer and judging by the slight terror that had jarred his senses during the "pregnancy scare," maybe the answer frightened him as much as the prospect of a family.
"What I would like to know," he began to change the subject, "is why we're even discussing this matter. We're not really married, Leese," he reminded her with raised eyebrows.
"You don't have to be married to be in a relationship," she said to him as if he were the dumbest five-year-old on the playground. "We are in a relationship, right?"
There it was again—the nervous laugh. "We're partners. We work together. We keep each other safe. We solve problems. We have a job to do and this was our cover."
"Our cover, huh? And what about when we were under the covers?"
"Sex."
"Nothing more?"
"Of course not. It was mutually beneficial."
"Just like when you cop a feel—"
"I don't cop—"
"Or when we sit and talk for hours about everything but our work—"
"It's cold comfort—"
"Or when you go out of your way to keep me safe, on the inside and out—"
"I need you mentally focused—"
"Or when you just hold me for hours, without sex, without work, without any gain for either of us…when you bury your face in my neck and stroke my hair, telling me your deepest secrets that make you vulnerable to me…and you repeatedly tell me, and even Frank, that I have a deeper meaning to you than anything else in your life." She closed in on him so that her chest was touching his. She reached down and took his left hand in hers, raising it for him to see. "You wear your fake wedding ring every day," she poignantly pointed out to him.
He swallowed hard and tugged his hand from hers. "It's the job. I prefer to stay in character."
"You've never been Jack Roberts behind closed doors. Never." It was startlingly quiet, the kind of quiet that happened in a scary movie right before something jumped out. "Face it: you're in a relationship with me," she established in a sing-song voice. "And you like it," she added with an impish grin.
"Fine," he finally permitted. "We're a couple. We're in a relationship. We're official. We'll go steady and dance at the prom. I'd give you my letter jacket if I had one," he mocked. "But this is still a job, a dangerous one at that. And it won't end well. There is no happiness to be had in this relationship," he argued, practically choking on the word.
"For you, apparently." She pressed her hands to his chest to feel his heart beat and reassure herself that he was real and that this year had not been a bizarre dream. "What about my happiness? What if my happiness is being with you?"
"You call what we have happiness?" he dryly chuckled.
"It's different, but it fits. It's right."
That caught him by surprise for some reason. It seemed that saying their relationship was a "fit" was like a married couple saying that they each felt the comfort of an old pair of shoes: they fit and they fit the right way.
"You don't get a say."
"But you do?"
"No. Neither of us do. All of this has been out of our hands since before we even met."
Their week was spent wrapped in each other's arms and reminiscing about their times together, the good, the bad, and the ugly. On the last day there, Jackson decided it was time that they pay a visit to the lake. He had jogged by it several times, but one time was in the poor light of dusk and the other times had been in the dead of night.
"Why do I have to come along on this field trip?" Lisa whined. Jackson held her hand while she stepped over a fallen tree.
"I'm scared to be alone in the big bad woods. You never know what will happen out here!" He spun around and picked her up over his shoulder. It didn't take a scientist to figure out where this was heading. While she was kicking and hitting his back with her fists, he somehow managed to pull off her shoes and throw them aside.
"Don't you dare! Don't you—" Her warning was cut off when Jackson threw her off the small grassy cliff a few feet above the water. He kicked off his own shoes and jumped in the water after her. When he came back to the surface for air, Lisa was waiting to slap and splash him. "You asshole!"
He chuckled and enjoyed the moment, not ashamed of how proud he was of himself. "You need to lighten up," he diagnosed. She was about to complain further when his mouth captured hers and his arms held her hostage in the warm water. She moaned into him and he took that as an invitation. Her arms encircled his neck. He reached under the surface of the water and started seeking the zipper to her blue jeans.
"What are you—" she muttered between kisses.
"It's the end of the road for us. Don't you have a bucket list?" he inquired quickly before finally going under water to rob her of her jeans. He broke the surface and tossed them to shore, followed a few seconds later by his own jeans and t-shirt.
"You have a bucket list?" she repeated disbelievingly. "And even better, the list includes skinny dipping with me?"
Jackson tugged at the bottom of her t-shirt, but she held it down with her arms. "No," she insisted resolutely. It took Jackson a moment to process that she had only revealed her scar to him in the sanctity of the bedroom, typically with dim or completely absent light. Now they were in the great outdoors in broad daylight. There was no one around to see, yet it felt oddly public. He hadn't anticipated this response and now that he was in the situation, Jackson felt like a complete jerk.
"It's me," he whispered, his hand rubbing the back of her neck to help her feel safe and protected. "There's no one else—just you and me," he assured her.
"I'll see it. And you'll see it."
"You'll look in my eyes and see nothing else," he ordered reassuringly. "And I'll look at you and see only you."
The sound of the lake moving lazily and the rustling of the leaves made Lisa glance up at the top of the trees. She opened her arms, giving Jackson the invitation to take off her shirt. He took the soaked material and threw it with the rest of their discarded clothing. Jackson's hand claimed her chin, pulling her attention to him. "Your body is strong and beautiful. It's yours and mine alone."
Lisa nodded, both in understanding and obedience. The mood had started out so light and had now become so dark. "You'll do anything to get into my pants," she teased.
Jackson smiled like a Cheshire Cat. "Actually, I'll do anything to get you out of your pants," he corrected.
She splashed him.
After an hour of goofing around like crazy teenagers, the two came to shore in only their drenched undergarments. "This was a brilliant plan," Lisa ridiculed him as she collected her soaked clothes that hadn't dried in the least. "I suppose we have to walk back to the house like this."
Jackson picked up his balled-up, waterlogged shirt. "Or we could go over to the picnic basket and towel off," he commented casually.
Lisa smiled broadly. "You planned this, all of this?"
He shrugged it off and started walking toward where he had hidden their picnic site.
"I don't suppose you brought any dry clothes," Lisa wished as she dried the excess water from her skin before using the towel to squeeze it from her hair.
"Where's the fun in that?" He sat down on the large blanket that was spread out on the grass. The food basket was just to his left.
"You're right," she concurred. "Who doesn't love sitting in wet underwear in the middle of the woods during an impromptu picnic?"
"That's the spirit," he commended, watching as Lisa's svelte body sat down deliberately close to him. They both looked forward, taking in the beauty of nature. Given their lives before all of this, they seldom had the time to appreciate, much less experience, nature in such a firsthand way. The birds were chirping, mystery insects were making their individual respective sounds, and the lake's water gently lapped against the green shore. Beautiful white flowers grew in abundance in the woods, wild and unhampered.
Jackson's eyes were drawn back to Lisa when he realized that she was unhooking her bra. "You're not the only one with a bucket list," she purred.
They spent the day at the lake showing the local animal population how it should be done. Their movements were slow and deliberate. Inhibitions were forgotten, trust was given, and a rhythm uniquely their own was discovered after so many attempts over so many months. They remained naked under the sun, protected from the world only by one another's arms for most of the day. Their bodies were usually joined either in the moment or in the calm after in which neither wanted to break their connection. Few words were said, but stories were exchanged as their bodies shared hopes and fears, and pasts and futures, all in a present that probably should never have been in the first place.
That evening, Jackson and Lisa returned to the house to prepare for the next morning. They were exhausted and sore, but both were content as they went through the house, picking up after themselves and packing their belongings. Every now and then, Lisa felt Jackson staring at her and she would smile shyly. Her smile had regained its endearing glow, the same glow that he had seen when she had opened up to him at the bar in the airport seven years ago.
Jackson's cell phone vibrated. He hadn't been sure if the farm house would be able to receive a signal, but he definitely had his answer now. He looked up and spotted Lisa cleaning the kitchen. "Hey, Leese, I'm going to go double check the lake—make sure we got everything," he hollered into the kitchen.
"Alright," she trustingly responded.
Jackson left the house and answered the call. "Yes?" He walked as quickly as he could into the woods behind the house, hoping he was out of sight and hearing range.
"Are things in order?"
"They are."
"Any problems?"
"None."
"Good. I look forward to resolving our business."
The phone line went dead and Jackson ended the call on his side. He ran his hands through his hair anxiously as he paced back and forth. He dialed a number and waited for the answer.
"King," came the now familiar voice over the line.
"There's been a change of plans," Jackson told him decisively. "You're not getting anything from me and you're not getting Lisa Reisert."
There should have been a moment of shocked hesitation on Agent King's part, but it was almost as if he had anticipated the double-cross. "What the hell are you playing, Rippner?"
Jackson squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them hard with his thumb and index finger. "Lisa Reisert is going to get what she deserves."
"That's unacceptable. We had a deal. I arrange for your pardon and—"
"Cut the crap, King. We both know that was just the line your people tell my kind of people. You're not getting her and you're not getting me."
"So you're picking the bad guys over the good guys?"
"I'm picking me."
"And throwing Lisa Reisert to the wolves. They will kill her, Rippner. If there is any shred of human decency in you, you'll—"
Jackson laughed. "I'll what? Do the right thing?" He scoffed. Then he sighed. Then he paced. Then he ran his hand through his hair again. And paced again. And put his palm to his forehead. And closed his eyes. He finally stood still, his head calm and clear. "Joe Reisert is retired from the Company. Secretary of Homeland Security Charles Keefe was Company too."
This stunned King into a few moments of silence. "Joe Reisert, as in father of Lisa Reisert?"
"One and the same."
"Does she know this?"
"I give you the name of the Secretary of Homeland Security and the best you can do is worry about the potential for a domestic fallout between father and daughter? And you wonder why I'm taking my chances with the bad guys."
"Give up Lisa," King pleaded. "She was your hostage, but now she's a target for everyone. Don't gamble away the life of an innocent woman."
Jackson had heard enough of this. Lisa had lied to him. Betrayed him. Destroyed him. But worst of all, Lisa Reisert had never trusted him. It was time. She had to learn that every decision came with a consequence.
"She'll get what she deserves. Don't worry. I'll see to it."
TBC…