Control
Maya sat in one of the grand chairs in the living room of Jack's penthouse. The dress she had worn throughout the span of the grand ball lay strewn across the magnificent couch just to her left and the gorgeous siren say in nothing but her lace lined, ebony bra, matching thigh high stockings, and her heels. She perched with her back straight against the regal furniture, legs crossed over one another, censoring her bare lower half from the rest of the room.
The silence in the room could have been sliced through the middle with a kitchen knife. It was heavy throughout the space, thick and anxious. Maya tapped her slender fingers along the sharp of her chin and breathed in a slow breath that filled out her lungs to their full extent.
Heterochromatic eyes settled on her from across the room.
Jack was smart to keep his distance.
He may have loved the gorgeous, blue haired woman sitting idle in his home…but that didn't mean she was any less wild than the first moment he'd set eyes on her.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Maya whispered finally, her words cutting the absence of sound like the crack of a whip.
"That isn't exactly something you bring up in casual conversation pumpkin." Jack sighed back, his voice low.
The CEO ran a slow hand through his brunette locks and continued to watch the siren warily.
She refused to meet his eyes, the beautiful woman choosing to stare off at the fireplace instead.
"We agreed to keep personal lives out of this. You know that. I mean, everything is different now kiddo…I was going to tell you." Jack reasoned cautiously.
"I understand that." Maya snapped.
There was a pause as the siren seemed to try and collect her thoughts, chasing them around like lost marbles that had clattered to the floor below them.
"But she's…she's a siren? How could you not tell me you had a daughter…and that she's a siren?" Maya hissed.
"Not many people know Maya." Jack began but Maya abruptly cut him off.
"Why because you keep her locked away!? Like some animal?" Maya spat, her eyes flashing with rage as she looked to Jack for the first time since they had returned to the penthouse together.
Jack clenched his fist in anger and sneered his lip up slightly.
"You don't know a goddamned thing about that Maya. I have to keep her controlled. I have to keep her contained…for her safety…and everybody else's." Jack snapped, rage bubbling up from the deepest depths of his gut.
Maya's eyes flashed and her jaw clenched tight.
"Because she is powerful she is considered dangerous to you? So you control her? Just like everything else on this damned planet? Is that it? How dare you Jack…how…how fucking dare you." Maya snarled.
Jack's fists clenched at his sides, his neck ringed with red, the anger washing through his skin like hot waves.
"I have to control her Maya! I have to because she can't control herself!" Jack spat his voice rising slightly.
Maya's fingers stopped their rhythmic motion against the chair arm.
"She had a collar around her damned neck Jack! Like a dog! A damned dog! Is that what you are going to do to me eventually? Slap a collar around my neck then start telling me to sit and fetch?" Maya barked.
Jack was nearly shaking with rage, his eyes wild as he carded vicious fingers through disheveled chocolate locks.
"Just shut your damned mouth for god's sake! You don't know what she can do, you don't fucking know what it's like to see her lose control!" Jack yelled as he crossed the room in a few short strides, finger nearly jabbed right against Maya's nose.
Maya sat bolted off the chair she sat upon, kicking both heels off in her wake and shoving past Jack's shoulder.
"Fine. I won't say another goddamned word." Maya snarled over her shoulder as she grabbed a silken robe from the hook on the wall and slung it over her thin shoulders.
Maya's fingers curled around the front door to the penthouse, pausing only to look at Jack for a mere second.
"Where do you think you're going?" Jack snapped at her.
"For a walk." Maya hissed.
"Dammit Maya you're so…so…" Jack yelled his voice quivering with white hot anger.
"So what Jack? I'm so what? Just fucking say it!" Maya nearly screamed her tattoos glowering dangerously in the low light of the room.
"You're so fucking stubborn! Stubborn, naïve, frustrating, the list goes on! Where the hell do you even want me to start!?" Jack bellowed back throwing his hands out in a jeering manner.
Maya simply stared at Jack with tight lips before ripping the door open and slamming it satisfyingly behind her
Jack pulled at his hair and let go of a frustrated yell. The wild anger bubbled up through him, pressing him to lash out blindly. Everything was shades of red as he let his fist loose, only to connect with the wall. The pain that shot up through his knuckles was barely registered through the rage. His heart thundered in his chest as he let his now throbbing fist drop to his side. His breath came in ragged, short, shallow pants and his hair fell in wispy strands over his perfect mask.
The CEO took several steps backward, allowing his still shaking body to slump down onto the nearest couch with a great sigh. His heterochromatic eyes flicked to the now closed door and then down to his dress shoes that he had not yet removed.
"Goddammit…" Jack whispered to himself, cradling his head in his cupped palms.
She just didn't know.
She didn't understand.
Angel had to be contained.
Angel had to be controlled.
Jack had seen what her powers had looked like when she'd lost control of them. He never wanted to see such things again. He'd tried to shove those memories into the back of his head and lose them completely…for so long he'd just stored them away like old luggage. But here it all was, rolled out across the carpet like fresh flooring, new and bright. All of it was just as painful as he remembered.
It was all just as clear as he remembered.
Angel was scared, her powers were getting stronger, flared by emotions such as fear, sadness…anger.
She was so angry. She hadn't meant to. He knew that she hadn't.
Her mother was simply trying to calm her down, she was just trying to protect her daughter. Jack could clearly see the scene playing out before him. Angel so tiny and so frail her powers consuming her, eating her alive in a fit of emotion that she could not control. His wife had gone to her aid, determined that she could ease Angel back into an even state. She was her mother, she could fix this.
But she couldn't.
Angel had unknowingly unleashed her powers on the very woman that had given birth to her.
Jack could only watch as blood was spilled across the floor and the woman he loved more than life itself fell in a limp heap, eyes wide and glassy. He'd run to her, screamed for her, held her as she went. He'd felt her hand slip from his, slick with blood, going limp in his grasp. All the yelling, all the begging, all the words…they had done nothing. She was gone, and he was helpless.
His daughter, his love, his Angel…had taken the woman he had built a life with. In one fleeting second everything he'd had came crashing down around him like broken glass.
He'd had to take the necessary actions after that.
Angel had fought against the restraining chair, and the collar, and the wires, and the eridium that was pumped into her to keep her from breaking lose.
He'd had to do it.
There was no other way.
She was strong, and she was contained.
He'd done it out of love.
He'd done it out of necessity.
Or so he told himself, over and over again.
Maya's bare feet slapped the cold flooring beneath her as she combed the long hallways, robe hugged tight around her slender form. The building was so different in the throes of night, shadows playing over the walls, tiptoeing around corners like living things. She could hear her heart beating in her ears, still rushing from the fight she'd left behind. Her skin still prickled with Jack's words, the velocity of his anger, and the sting of the harsh comments. There was still an unsettling fire burning within her from it all.
Maya paused for a moment as she wandered into what appeared to be some sort of sitting area. There were huddles of modern looking couches and healthy plants that obviously were imported from other planets. Nothing that gorgeous ever grew on Pandora.
The blue haired woman gently padded to the nearest foliage, hands outreaching to brush over its broad leaves, feeling the waxy, cool texture beneath her finger pads. She sighed at the feeling and allowed her eyes to close for a moment.
Such a gorgeous living thing it was, green and beautiful, once growing wild on some foreign planet most likely. Maya could only assumed Hyperion had ripped it up by the roots to get it here, maybe stolen seeds, shipped in a box on a rattling ship across the stars. And now it was here. It was here for its beauty, not allowed to be wild, but forced into captivity because Jack desired its looks.
Maybe that was all she was too.
Her and this lovely little plant may not have been so very different after all.
Maybe Jack just wanted to keep her, to capture her, in ways without chains, without collars, without bindings. He'd coaxed her in with smooth tongue and talented fingers. He'd played her emotions like a violin, the music ever sweet and ever soft. So tempting, so dangerous, and she'd gone so willingly, so stupidly. All he wanted to do was domesticate her. Just like this plant, just like Pandora, just like…his daughter.
Maya felt her breath catch and her finger paused their motion across the wide leaves.
That same tender, calm voice that had once guided her in her early journeys on Pandora…was not some AI program as she'd thought. She was a living being. She was a siren…she was Jack's offspring.
Maya felt betrayed. She felt hurt, her heart sore and confused.
She'd known Jack had been married. But she'd never thought much of them, they were long over and left in the past. But here were new developments that brought those old relationships into very new light. She didn't know how to feel. She didn't know how to take it in.
If Jack could cage his own blood…what was keeping him from caging her in the same way?
Maybe that was what he had planned all along.
The mentions of emotion, of love, it was all just a pretty collection of lies to coax her in. And now he had her eating right out of the palm of his hand.
Maya suddenly felt a wash of panic run cold through her veins.
She should go.
If Jack planned to capture her, to use her and harness her siren powers…she should leave.
Maya suddenly felt the push and pull of weighing options.
If Jack had really wanted that…why hadn't he done it yet? If he'd really wanted to use her powers, he could have done it a very long time ago…yet he had not.
The young woman folded her arms across her thin chest and gently made her way to the massive picture windows looking out over the span of Opportunity. The night was gorgeous. Elpis shone brightly down on the landscape and all the stars flickered across the heavens like glitter that had been spilled over the heavens.
Maya pressed her slender palm on the glass, finding it to be cool to the touch, made that way by the night air on the other side. What a pretty night to be so sad. What a pretty night to be this angry. What a pretty night for such mean words and raised voices.
Love was madness. All of it was so wrong and right at the very same time. It was stress enough to finally let those emotions in...and now all this? It was honestly more than she could handle.
She shook her head slowly.
Suddenly there was the soft click of soles to her right. Maya did not look in the direction of the sound, simply stared straight ahead, eyes lost in stars and fresh anger still dwelling in the hard of her bones.
Jack stood several feet from the siren, giving her space as it was needed.
"Maya…" Jack whispered softly, his voice strained with exhaustion.
Rightfully so, the hour was late far passed four in the morning and they were both so very tired. The night had not been easy on the two of them. What had started as such a promising event had turned into such an ugly thing.
Maya said nothing, arms still stiffly folded, allowing Jack to flounder over his words helplessly. Jack buried his right hand in his trouser pocket and sighed lowly.
"I shouldn't have acted like I did pumpkin. I shouldn't have said those things to you." Jack began, stumbling slightly.
Apologies were not exactly something that he excelled in.
Handsome Jack did not apologize.
But for the siren, for his siren…he would.
"No. You shouldn't have." Maya whispered, her voice fogging the window slightly.
"So what is this Jack? You just said you loved me to lure me in? So you could control me too…?" Maya questioned, not in anger, but in genuine concern.
The words washed through Jack like ice water dumped into his lungs.
"No Maya. I said I loved you because I do. I love you so much siren…there is just so much you don't understand…" Jack breathed.
"Try." Maya replied coldly.
"Angel has to be contained Maya because she can't control her powers like you can. You are older, stronger, and wiser. Angel is less so. Her powers are too unpredictable…I only do this because it had to be done." Jack began to explain.
"It had to be done…really?" Maya snarled as anger began to work its way up within her once more.
"Yes. It had to be done, so she wouldn't harm anyone again…I couldn't let that happen…not again." Jack whispered, his wet eyes dropping to the floor.
Maya turned her head, listening intently, confused by the moisture in the corners of Jack's eyes and she shiver in his tone.
"She killed her mother Maya. It was an accident, her powers just got out of control, her emotions drive her and that makes her dangerous. Her mother just wanted to save her, and Angel was too strong. She died in my arms…" Jack breathed.
Maya stood there, her fingers feeling numb, her stomach sick as it twisted in her gut.
"Jack…I…I didn't know…" Maya said softly.
"No. You didn't. I know. But that…that is why things have to be this way." Jack continued, sadness and shame clinging to his every word.
Maya closed the gap between them, fingers coming to slide up the front of Jack's undershirt gently.
"I'm sorry." Maya whispered.
"I'm sorry too." Jack replied.
And so they stood there, in an embrace that was both understanding and sad.
And the stars glittered.
And the moon shone.
And the quiet consumed.