Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. The fictional band Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, the song "Point of No Return," and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

Author's Note: Potentially heavily triggering content. For those of you who might need to skip the most graphic part, stop reading at the end of the first section (Hyde's POV) and resume reading at: ["Back on me, back on me," Dale said.]

CHAPTER 65
UNBLINKING EYE

May 27, 1995

Foster City, California

Jackie's House
…

Jackie had asked Hyde to keep his eyes on her. He angled his body away from the coffee table, where she'd spread out xeroxed newspaper articles and a VHS tape labeled DF. She was standing, and he was standing, but so much adrenaline pumped through his system that sitting would've been better for him. Anticipating the worst never got easier, despite ample experience doing it.

Jackie adjusted her pajama top so that the neck hole was properly centered. She glanced at the coffee table and said, "None of what I'm about to say is meant to hurt you."

Intellectually, he understood, but his muscles braced for impact.

Her gaze drifted to the wall. "After we ended, I wasn't interested in relationships. Finding someone like you—" a small, sad laugh made her stomach bounce—"I didn't bother trying. Guys hit on me. My first semesters of college, I went out on a few dates, but they never led anywhere. Then I met Dale Fischer.

"He was so … alive, you know?" Her lips rose in a half-smile, as if the memory were a good one. "Tuned in. Passionate, ambitious. …. So ambitious, Steven."

She finally looked at him again. Her smile was gone, and he pressed his fists into his thighs. Pain darkened her face, like the beginnings of a storm. But whatever came, he wouldn't abandon ship, even if it meant drowning.

"It was the opposite of you," she continued. "The opposite of Michael, too. Dale knew what he wanted and how to go after it. His dreams weren't out of reach because he had a long grasp. Too long.

"We began dating halfway into our sophomore year..." She lifted her shaking hand to her forehead and ran trembling fingers through her hair. "Wow, and I really have to sit."

She dropped onto the sofa. He sat with her and kept space between them, but she moved closer until her body was flush against him.

"I need this here," she said, pulling his arm around her shoulders, "okay? Just so I know you're with me. That I'm here and not there."

"You got it." He shifted his arm so that she could lean on him if she wanted. She did and laid her cheek on his chest. Their closeness calmed his breathing, reminded him that he was with her and not wandering fifteen years of road without her.

"Dale and I dated," she went on. "He was a film major, particularly interested in horror movies. He used to encourage me to get into acting, but I was a communications major. I thought I'd host my own talk show someday, like Pam Macy does now." She shrugged, and that sad laughter reentered her voice. "I mean, why get paid to pretend being someone else when I could just be myself?"

He squeezed her shoulders gently. "That's Jackie freakin' Burkhart for ya."

"Right? But he kept pushing and pushing until I had to threaten him with one of my classic ultimatums: drop it, or I drop you."

Her fingers gathered the material of her pajama bottoms at her thigh. "'But unlike you, he didn't take my threat seriously. Or maybe he took it too seriously. … 'Came to my room with booze and trust.'"

She'd quoted Hyde's lyrics from "Point of No Return," and the words formed a calcified lump in his throat. Swallowing it down was futile. It simply reformed.

"Summer after our junior year," she said, "he invited me to a beach house in Oceanside, California. Just for a weekend." She sat up from his chest and moved a few inches away. His arm slid off her shoulders, but she grabbed his hand and held it on her knee. "But what he didn't tell me—" Her voice was becoming strained. Her back was rigid, and she clutched his fingers tightly. "What he didn't tell me was he'd invited his friends, too, and they'd all gotten there a day before me."

She stood from the sofa. A chill set into his skin at her physical absence, but he stayed put as she snatched the VHS tape off the coffee table.

"He had one of the first camcorders," she said, "and he recorded what happened that weekend. This tape was the point of that weekend." She popped the tape into her VCR but made sure it didn't play. "You can say no, but I'd like you to watch this with me. It's unedited and three hours long."

She sat beside him again and gripped the VCR remote. "I've seen it before more than once—and I lived through it. I've processed a lot out in therapy but not all. Again, you don't have to do this. But if you do, say stop at any time, and I'll stop the tape." She pointed at the coffee table. "These articles will fill you in on whatever you choose not to watch."

Hyde had no intention of not watching. That tape held answers to questions he'd asked the cosmos for sixteen years. Jackie sharing it with him was the ultimate act of trust, but he rose from the sofa. During his first visit to her house, he hadn't given the bar any thought. Now it was a problem. "Got any booze?" he said. "'Cause if I'm going to see your hell—"

"Oh!" She rushed passed him to her her wine cabinet. She removed several bottles from it and put them in the safe-keeping of her security team outside the house.

While she did that, he went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He brought it back to the living room, where Jackie and the xeroxed newspaper articles were waiting for him. He piled the articles neatly and set them aside. Reading what happened to her would give him too much distance from it. He needed to experience, in some small way, what she'd experienced. To do what he should've done sixteen years ago.

Jackie's image flickered on her big-screen TV, appearing years younger than her current age. She stood before an archway in a dimly-lit room, and a glass of what resembled Coca-Cola dangled dangerously from her fingers.

"You can stop this any time, too," Hyde said. Present-day Jackie was next to him on the sofa, holding the VCR remote tightly.

"I couldn't then, and I won't now except for you."

Hyde had no plans of stopping the tape. On the TV, twenty-two-year-old college Jackie said to some unseen person, "Are you filming me? I'm not exactly sober..." She drank from her glass and giggled. "More like totally buzzed."

Her arm waved at the archway behind her. She was presenting it to the camera. "Welcome to Million-Dollar Homes," she said. "I'm your home—I mean host, Jackie Burkhart."

The image tilted, as if the camera were being handed off to someone else. College Jackie gestured to herself and grinned. "Are you gonna join me? Come join me!"

"Jackie," a male voice said off-camera, "what's the date?"

"The date?" She took another sip, finishing off her drink, and shook the glass at the camera "Gonna need another—what did you call this thing?—to remember that."

"Satan's Handshake," the male voice said. "What's the date?"

She blew a raspberry but said, "July twenty-ninth."

"And the year?"

"Dale, don't be an ass. I'm not that drunk."

"What's the year?"

"1983! Okay? It's July twenty-ninth, 1983." She swatted at the camera. "Vince, turn that off already."

An off-camera thud sounded on the floor, and her head jerked to the right, but she was yanked partially out frame to the left.

"What are you doing?" she shouted, and the camera got her back in frame. A young white guy, taller than Hyde but with a skinnier build, had twisted her arm behind her back. A white woman, heavyset with curly hair that hid her face, rushed to Jackie's other side. She seemed college-aged, too, and forced Jackie's other arm behind her back.

"Stop!" Jackie said on the tape. "Get off—" The end of a thick rope swept the floor by her feet, but it rose into the air as the man wound it around her wrists. "Dale, this isn't funny!"

A snicker disrupted the audio. It had to be from the cameraman, Vince, and Hyde gripped his knees. In moments, Jackie's wrists were tied together, but the image on the TV paused.

"Are you okay?" Jackie said beside him.

Hyde's heart was pounding, and his hands had enough energy in them to punch a hole through the TV screen. If this was just the beginning of what Jackie had been through … "Fine," he lied. "What about you?"

"Scared—about you seeing what happened." She lowered the VCR remote to her knee. "You'll never think of me the same way again."

"Jackie, whatever those assholes did to you, you're still you." He laced his fingers together on his lap, to keep himself from reaching toward her. "My ma gave me my first blow job when I was twelve and raped me afterward. She did it again and again 'til I was around fourteen. You haven't left my side, man. You don't think less of me."

"I think more," she said quietly and the tape resumed.

On the TV, Dale Fischer brushed his thick black hair from his eyes and nodded at someone off-camera. Another college-aged white guy entered the frame, with broad shoulders and an obvious beer gut. He helped Dale and the heavyset woman lower Jackie to the ground. Jackie let out grunt as Dale sat on her stomach.

"Holy shit." Hyde covered his mouth as Dale bound Jackie's ankles together with that same, thick rope. "What the fuck is this?" Hyde whispered behind his fingers. "What are they—"

"What the fuck are you doing?" Jackie said on the TV. Dale and his cohorts stepped away from her but remained on camera. "What the hell do you want?"

"Your death," Dale said. "We're going to kill you."

Jackie squirmed on the hardwood floor. She was trying to gain traction, maybe to get on her knees. "Are you making your senior-year project? I told you I'm not doing this—"

The heavyset woman shoved her down. "Stay."

"Fuck you, Brenda!" Jackie continued to struggle, and Vince's throaty laughter overtook the audio.

"You don't have to do anything, Jackie," Dale said, "except die." His voice was calm and silky, and it raked against Hyde's ears. "Actually, I'm not being completely honest. First, you're going to experience a lot of pain. Then you'll die." He turned his attention to his beer-bellied, broad-shouldered cohort. "Paul?"

Paul pulled a bandana from his jeans pocket. He knelt by Jackie's head, folded the bandana on the floor, and secured it around Jackie's face as a blindfold. Dale gave him and Brenda a signal, and they disappeared from the frame.

"If you don't let me go right now," Jackie said, "you're gonna regret it!"

She rolled onto her stomach and began to rise to her knees, but Dale stepped on her back and pushed her down. "This is nothing personal," he said. "I've just always wanted to kill someone. It could've been anyone—" he pointed toward the camera—"like Vince, but then who would run the camera?"

Vince's throaty laughter answered, and the image on the tape rolled before cutting to an art deco clock. According to it, the time was 11:17—at night, Hyde assumed. The camera panned down, past two small paintings, a stretch of white wall, then to Jackie. She was just as tied up as before, just as blindfolded, but propped up against the wall.

The camera seemed a lot steadier now, as if it were on a tripod, and Dale's voice said off-screen, "This is your last day alive. What do you have to say?"

Even with the blindfold, Jackie's scowl was obvious. "I don't believe you."

The tape cut again, back to the art deco clock. Supposedly, twenty minutes had passed, and the camera panned back down to Jackie. Her neck was bleeding from three scrape marks. Her breathing was ragged; her hair was a mess on her head, and she sat against the wall at an angle.

"Pause it," Hyde said, and the image froze. The bastard had roughed her up—Dale and his asshole-friends. Hyde glanced at Jackie. She was beside him, safe. Her neck wasn't bleeding. This events on the tape had happened twelve years ago, but Hyde's heart pummeled his chest all the same.

She let go of the VCR remote and grasped his hand. Gently, she placed the back of his fingers where her neck had bled. "Brenda," she said. "Her nails dug into me while I fought her. I really did try to fight, Steven."

"Don't have to convince me." His thumb skimmed along her jawline, and she didn't flinch from his touch despite the rage building in his body. "But you had to convince someone else."

"We'll talk about that later." She released his hand and pressed play on the VCR remote.

Dale repeated his question off-screen: "This is your last day alive, Jackie. What do you have to say?"

College Jackie sucked in a breath and slumped forward a little from the wall. "Fuck you."

Hyde's scalp, cheeks, and neck burned. He'd watched over half the tape, with minimal breaks, and his nails had torn up his skin. For over thirty hours, Jackie had been forced to piss and shit in a bucket, to drink water she didn't want but needed, to stay silent, to answer Dale's questions. The blindfold had been removed several times to show her a variety of weapons: a butcher's knife, a pistol, a plastic bag.

The blindfold had been removed again, just a moment ago, and Paul smacked a hammer against his palm. "Bam! Right in the skull."

"Just do it already!" college Jackie said, and Hyde asked present Jackie to pause the tape. The effort was difficult. His body had grows heavy. His bones were cast-iron, but his core was a furnace, stoked by fury and hatred—and love. It gave him the strength to support his own weight and to keep watching. Because he had to keep watching until the end.

Jackie cupped his raw cheek. "We should stop," she said. "You've scratched yourself up. You're—you're even bleeding a little."

"Don't stop for me. This is nothin' compared to what you've been put through."

"Let me at least get you something to put on your skin."

"Later," he said and slid his hand over her fingers, the ones cupping his cheek. "I'll be all right. This is temporary. It'll heal." He withdrew his hand and looked back at the TV, at the frozen image of the younger Jackie. If he thought about her too long, about what she'd suffered and why, he'd probably wreck the coffee table. "Keep it goin'."

"You don't really want to die," Dale said when the tape resumed. He replaced the blindfold over Jackie's eyes. "You're still fighting. I'm going to make you beg for this, Jackie. That way, when I do kill you, it won't be considered murder but a mercy."

The tape cut back to the art deco clock. Another three hours were gone, and the tape cut to the archway of what Hyde had learned led to the beach house's foyer. Paul and Brenda entered the shot with Jackie hoisted on their shoulders. They lowered her to the floor near the house's front door, and Dale joined them.

"Forced entry?" he said to Brenda.

She nodded. "Forced entry."

"Forced entry?" he said to Paul.

Paul grinned sadistically, and Hyde's teeth clenched. "Forced entry," Paul said.

"Forced entry," Vince whispered from behind the camera, laughing quietly.

Dale wiggled his fingers in dismissal, and Brenda and Paul walked out of frame. Dale was wearing a denim vest over a skull-and-crossbones T-shirt. It was his third wardrobe change since taping began, and he pulled a folding knife from his vest pocket. He flipped it open and tapped Jackie's socked foot with his shoe.

"Don't say a fucking thing unless I tell you to," he said. He bent down and cut the ropes binding her legs. "You see how fast those came off? I used a very sharp knife. Please imagine what it could do to your body if you make a wrong move." He knelt beside her head next and yanked off the blindfold. "Look up. What do you see?" He waited for a response. When none came, he said, "It's in your better interest to answer, Jackie."

"The front door," she said. Fatigue and fear were plain in her voice, but so was annoyance. She hadn't broken yet, and Hyde's breaths grew short. Worse had to be coming.

Dale stood up and eased his hand over over the doorknob. "You're inches away from freedom. All I have to do is cut off the rest of your ropes with this—" he held up the knife—"and open the door. Do you want me to do that, Jackie?"

"Yes," she said and coughed. "Please, let me go."

He turned the doorknob. The door opened an inch, and he slammed it shut. "Not just yet, but I'm not going to lock it. Just think: inches away from freedom."

He folded the knife and stuck it in his vest pocket. He passed the vest to someone off-camera.

"But—" The voice sounded like Paul's, but Dale put a finger to his lips and crouched by Jackie's side.

His back blocked her from view, but the camera moved to get a better shot. Both Dale and Jackie were visible now, and Dale stroked Jackie's cheeks. "Do you love me?" he said. "You should answer truthfully."

"I did before all this."

His index finger dipped behind her earlobe. He caressed the back of her ear, a move that used to turn Jackie on when she and Hyde were dating. "Do you trust me?"

She wrenched her head away from him. "Fuck no!"

"I'm about to prove you wrong."

His hands kept stroking her face, her neck. They moved lower to her breasts, touching her through her shirt. She kicked out with her legs, but he managed to pull her jeans and panties down just enough.

"Pause!" Hyde said hoarsely, and the TV image froze yet again. His heart was beating so damn fast that nausea choked his throat. He blinked his wet eyes until his vision unblurred. He knew what was about to happen, what Dale was going to do. "Is this something you need me to see?"

"Yes," Jackie said. Her own eyes were full of unshed tears, like his. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Don't." He reached out his hand for her to take. She grabbed it tightly, and he held hers just as tightly. "Play it when you're ready."

She did, and Dale straddled college Jackie's hips and began to rape her. It was slow and partially obscured by shadow, but only the heartless and dimwitted would deny what was being filmed.

"'The more violent you make it, the better,'" Dale said. "Isn't that what you always say?"

"Rougher!" she shouted. "Not—"

He mashed his mouth against hers. Her teeth sank into his bottom lip, but his yelp of pain was mixed with laughter. "Did she draw blood?" he said and glanced back at the camera. His tongue swept over the small wound. "Fantastic!"

He resumed his assault on her, harder now and more obvious. "Too bad you're not naked," he said and kissed her throat, leaving smears of blood on her skin. "The camera would love your body—"

"Stop!" College Jackie slammed her socked feet against the hardwood floor. "Stop, stop, stop!"

But Dale violated her relentlessly, eliciting screams that melted into cries that melted into begging for her life that melted into screams again.

"You're almost convincing me," Dale said and grunted like a goddamn beast eating its kill. "Can't believe I found a girl who likes to kink it up … and, fuck, do you like it kinky."

Two powerful thrusts pushed Jackie's body backward. Her head banged into the front door, and her cries became a whimper. Dale whispered something the camera didn't quite pick up, but after ten seconds, he started to groan.

Jackie became silent in contrast, unmoving. Dale collapsed on top of her, and her foot twitched.

He lay there for what seemed like hours, but the VCR counter ticked up only a few numbers. "So … damn … good!" he growled and rolled off her to the floor. "So good."

His hand slipped into the waistband of her panties. He stood up afterward and waved two glistening fingers at the camera. "Oh, yeah, she came." He glanced back at her. "Didn't you, baby?"

The image zoomed onto Jackie's body and captured her breathing. Her chest rose and fell like a choppy sea, and the camera moved to her face. Sweat coated her forehead. Her eyes were closed, and tears clotted her lashes, but she shouted, "Shut the fuck up!"

"Back on me, back on me," Dale said. The image zoomed out and focused on him. "I'm her boyfriend, so she let me do that. She let me," he repeated, as if he were trying to reassure himself. "She's letting me do all of this. I have her signed release form." He gave her a thumbs-up. "Great performance for the movie, Jackie! It won't save your life, but great performance."

His attention returned to the camera, and he slashed a hand across his throat. The image cut to a different scene, but the TV screen filled with blue. Present Jackie had pressed the stop button on the VCR remote. She was saying Hyde's name over and over, but his mind barely registered it. His gaze was fixed on the TV. The blue turned red, and when it returned to blue, his knuckles throbbed with searing pain. They were bleeding, and he couldn't move his fingers.

The space in front of the sofa no longer had a coffee table. The xeroxed newspaper articles littered the floor, and his own voice ripped through his memory. He'd been whisper-shouting curses. His throat hurt, but his hands and mind hurt worse. He remembered now, and his eyes flicked to where he'd thrown the coffee table, several feet from the front door and upside-down.

Two of its legs were broken and splintered but not fully detached. The table's surface resembled the face of the moon; he didn't have to turn the table upright to know that. His fists had smashed into it repeatedly, just as they'd done to Kelso's skull sixteen years ago. Just as they'd do to Dale's when Hyde found him.

"Steven!" Jackie shouted. "Come back—please!"

He turned toward her and time slowed. Jackie's face was red from screaming, from crying. She was standing far away from him, behind the bar.

"I'm back, I'm back," he said with what little breath he had. He brushed his shaking, painful hand through his hair. "Holy fuck, did I hurt you?"

"Scared me, not hurt. Do you have the presence of mind to go to the kitchen? Because you need ice packs."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Ice packs, Steven. Now."

He bolted to the kitchen, doing as she'd ordered, and got himself two ice packs. He covered them with paper towels then wrapped them around his hands. If any bones were broken, Ro would be pissed. Playing guitar wasn't going to happen for a while.

A slow walk back to living room didn't clear his head. His mind was fucked-up like the coffee table. The only conclusion he'd drawn so far was that Dale Fischer needed to die. Watching the rest of the tape wouldn't change that, but his frenzy should've alerted her security guards. He opened the front door and signaled Alice, the head of the night team.

Her focus shot to his hands. "They're going to need X-rays," she said, inexplicably calm.

"Why aren't you hauling me off the freakin' property?"

Alice's light brown skin took on a golden tone under the front door lights. "Ms. Burkhart told us not to. We've already been inside and watched you destroy the coffee table."

The information whirled in his flooded mind. "Huh."

"Everything all right in there, Ms. Burkhart?" Alice called past him.

"Yes!" Jackie said. "I'm safe."

Alice jutted her chin at Hyde's hands. "You should go to the hospital before sunrise. Those are already swelling."

"Thanks for the advice," Hyde said, but he had more important injuries to deal with. "I'll let you get back to work."

He closed the door, and images of Jackie in that beach house tore through his skull. His fists clenched harder around the ice packs, sending a shock of pain through his nerves. The tape had less than a half-hour left. He could get through it. Jackie had gotten through so much worse.

The VCR remote was on the couch, intact, but Jackie remained at the bar. She was seated behind it now. Though a few stray tears escaped her eyes, her voice was steady when she next spoke: "Can you watch the rest of the tape without wrecking any more furniture?"

"I sure as hell hope so."

"Try."

He sat down alone on the sofa. Jackie was staying a safe distance at the bar, a smart move. He pressed play on the VCR remote, and the tape continued. The scene had cut to the outdoors. The footage was fuzzy and relatively dark, lit only by the beach house's exterior lighting. A beat-up car. was waiting in the driveway. Shadows crossed in front of it, but a bright flash illuminated them: Dale was shoving Jackie into the car.

Another bright flash evoked a comment from Vince off-screen: "Careful where you point that thing!"

"It's heavy!" Brenda's voice said. "You want to carry—"

The scene cut to the interior of the car; it was lit by the car's dome light. Dale and Brenda had Jackie sandwiched between them on the backseat. The blindfold covered Jackie's eyes again, but her wrists were now bound in front of her. Abrasions made her skin red and raw, where the ropes had cut into it.

"Your end is so very near, Jackie," Dale said. He withdrew the pistol from his vest pocket and pushed the nozzle into her chest. Hyde wasn't that familiar with guns, but Dale's reminded him of the one Burt Reynolds used in Sharky's Machine.

The car hit a bump in the road, and the image jostled. The frame jerked to Paul, who was behind the steering wheel. "Drive better, asshole," Vince said off-camera.

Paul removed one of his hands from the steering wheel and flipped him the bird. "Shut up and film."

The image returned to the backseat. "Think about this," Dale said to Jackie. "You're never going to see your parents again or your friends. Who are you going to miss the most? Who's going to miss you?"

"No one," Jackie mumbled.

"What was that?"

"No one!" she said, and her voice splattered into a wet sob. "No one's going to miss me."

"That's right," Dale said. "Your death will do more good than your life ever did. Your body's going back into the earth, deep into the earth, where it'll rot into something useful. Take solace in that."

Jackie bowed her head. Her sobs were inaudible, but she was definitely crying. The image zoomed to her face, and Vince's voice said, "Take off the blindfold. We can't see her tears," but no move was made to uncover Jackie's eyes.

Hyde paused the tape. This Jackie had finally broken, believing no one cared about her life, and Hyde's pulse slammed into his temples. His failure to control his rage had led to this tape being made, but he couldn't change that. He could only fight to do better. That was what Ro had beaten into him, and Jackie was alive. Not just living but alive, and no one would deprive her of that life again.

The VCR clicked, drawing Hyde's attention. The tape had resumed on its own. The camera lingered on Jackie's blindfolded, crying face before cutting back to the outside. Brenda seemed to have improved her lighting skills. The scene was better lit, although still dark. The white noise of ocean waves rose and fell in volume. Jackie had been taken to the beach, and she was in the shot alone.

She stood on the sand. The blindfold was gone, as was the rope tying her wrists, and she held onto a shovel. The fuckers were making her dig her own grave. "Go on," Dale's voice said off-camera, and she glanced left, maybe toward the ocean.

"How far do you think you'd get before I catch you?" Paul's voice boomed. He had to be standing guard, off-camera. "Dig already!"

Jackie stuck the shovel into the sand. She was still crying, and Dale mocked the sound. Another shock of pain issued from Hyde's knuckles. He released the ice packs, but smashing his fist through the TV wouldn't get him to Dale.

"Keep going," Dale said when Jackie stopped. Her arms had to be sore from being tied behind her back for days. "This won't end until you've created your final resting place."

She shoveled more sand. It was damp. They had to be close to the ocean. Any grave she dug would be washed over by high tide.

Dale walked into the frame. "Okay, that's fine," he said. Jackie had moved enough sand to fit the length of her body, but the hole wasn't very deep. "Give me the shovel." She let him take it. "Now lie down."

She sank to her knees in the shallow grave.

"Lie down," he repeated. She did, and he shoveled sand onto her legs. "So, this is how it ends for you: buried alive. Pathetic."

He covered her a little more then wedged the shovel into the sand. "That should do it, right?" he said to the camera.

"It better," Vince's voice said. "We've only got two minutes of tape left."

"Damn." Dale wiped his brow. "I'm exhausted. Shit." He went back to Jackie. She hadn't moved from the grave. "You can get out now."

She didn't respond.

"Jackie—" he bent over her and offered his hand—"I wasn't ever gonna kill you."

"What?" Her voice was wet and tiny, but it had enough power to disintegrate Hyde's veins.

"I had make all this seem real for the movie. Authentic," Dale said, and she lifted her arm toward him. He grabbed onto her hand and pulled her from the grave. "You did so fucking great, baby. I knew you could do it!"

He enveloped her in a hug, but the image cut to blue. The tape had stopped, and the VCR whirred as it sped into an automatic rewind.

Hyde looked at the xeroxed articles scattered on the floor. The story hadn't ended with the tape, but he couldn't read. Couldn't move. His blood no longer seemed to be pumping.

"Steven?"

Jackie's voice jump-started his heart. He turned toward her, but she was a blob of colors. He wiped his wet eyes on his shoulder, but it was futile. His defense mechanisms were shot, leaving his body seething with emotion.

The blob of colors grew bigger. "Is it safe to come closer?"

"I'd cut off my own dick before I hurt you—" His throat clogged with spit and snot, but he swallowed it down. "You were tortured. You were goddamn tortured—"

"You don't know the whole story."

"I know enough. Saw enough." He ignored the pain in his knuckles and pulled his shirt to his face. He scrubbed his eyes with it, his nose and cheeks. His tears refused to fuck off, but his shame and grief had to be put aside. Jackie's feelings were the priority. "If you need me to read those," he said and pointed to the articles on the floor, "I will."

She gathered the articles but left them on the other sofa. He expected her to keep her distance, but she sat beside him and put the ice packs over his hands. "You obliterated my coffee table."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Everything in this room is replaceable except you."

He swallowed another slick throat-clog. "Or you."

Her gaze fell to his hands. She touched his thumbnail, and he ached to check her over, to make sure the bruises Dale put on her body were truly gone. But they'd sunk past her skin and embedded in her soul. She'd shown him as much.

"Do you think they're broken?" she said.

"Don't care."

"I should take you to the emergency room."

"They won't be any more broken in a few hours. Did you..." The pressure inside him wrung his vocal chords into silence. He had no clue how to talk about what he'd just watched, if she wanted him to. He coughed, hoping that would loosen up his voice. "What do you need me to do here, Jackie?" he said, sounding like he'd just smoked sixty cigarettes.

She raised her finger to his eyelashes. One of his tears latched onto her knuckle. The move was uncomfortably intimate, but he didn't flinch. "Keep seeing me," she said. "Even after you read the other side, don't stop seeing the Jackie you've helped convinced me is the real one."

His eyes shut at her request, but his view of her had never been more crisp. She was braver, more resilient, than anyone he'd ever known.