Chapter Two: Transmigration
He had locked her in the bathroom while he changed. She could hear the almost jovial humming coming from the man who had died not five minutes ago. She sat with her back against the door, hugging her knees to her chest. Her hands ran through her hair slowly, as if trying to get a bearing on reality. Her compass was spinning wildly, and there was no telling which way was north.
All this time, she was wondering where Dr. Lamb had vanished to. She surely didn't want him bursting in on the half-clothed man who he had declared dead at 10:43. She glanced at her new watch. 10:48. It felt like an hour had been dragged past, but it was hardly five minutes. She knew that Jackson would dispose of Dr. Lamb, or anyone else who happened to walk in unawares. And yet she wondered why no one had come yet to take the body, or to check on its visitor. She cupped her face in her hands, closing her eyes against the facts.
Fact: Jackson Rippner was not, in fact, dead.
Fact: Said man was currently dressing himself through hardly an inch of door.
Fact: She felt like she was going to be sick.
She waited for the nausea to pass, and after only a moment, the door was unlocked, and she felt the support behind her drop away. She looked up at Jackson, who was buttoning his collar close to his neck wound. She felt a stab of remorse, but also a strange sense of accomplishment. I did that she though with a smugness that surprised her. He stared down at her with flattened features. His shirt still held the bloody bullet holes. He quickly covered them by buttoning his dark blazer.
"Have fun?" He asked. Lisa remained silent. Jackson shrugged and looked away to the window. "Fair enough." He seized her by the elbow and jerked her to her feet.
He led her to the window. She knew for a fact that Jackson's room was on the third floor, for she had ridden the elevator up at 10:27. She wasn't looking forward to whatever genius way Jackson had planned to leave through a third-story window. In taking her to the window, he nearly shoved her out through the force he used on her elbow.
"Ladies first," he muttered.
Lisa was given a little surprise to find a camouflaged ladder leaning precariously against the wall under his window. Jackson was leaning against the window frame, breath rattling, with a small smirk. She pulled a frown, glancing the Swiss Army knife in his hand. Lucky for her she had decided to sharpen all the blades before leaving to visit. Lisa levered one skirt-clad leg out the window -a sight that was not wasted on Jackson's clear eyes- then the other. He followed quickly in suit.
She peered around at her surroundings as she descended. They were in a small, walled courtyard. Many windows opened into the courtyard, but she noticed that every window had its curtains pulled shut or blinds in place. She realized that this didn't surprise her. The climb was quick and painless for her, but she could hear the labored, hoarse breathing above her as Jackson followed her down the ladder. Perhaps the stab wound wasn't as healed as he thought it was.
As soon as her feet touched the soft grass, she pushed herself off into a run.
A hand caught her just below the shoulder, and the jolt and the pain caused her to lose her footing, knees scuffing in the fresh-cut grass. She looked up frantically, knowing Jackson couldn't have been that quick, to see a tall domineering man, with dark green eyes and a five o' clock shadow pronouncing his sharp chin. His lips were pulled tight in a sneer.
"How rude of me," Jackson said through a heavy breath as he touched down beside them. "Lisa, this is my associate." She recognized the face as one of the strangers from the chaos that had occurred in the room they had just left. Jackson continued. "He has a name, but I'm feeling it might be better if I don't mention it." He paused to breathe heavily, then smiled to cover up his momentary weakness. "For now, you can call him Dr. Jones."
"What, no whip?" Lisa muttered smarmily, her mind flashing a picture of young Harrison Ford as the famed archeologist. Jackson's grin pulled his lips taut across his cheeks, but his eyes froze to arctic ice.
"Mind out of the gutter, Leese," he bit back. Jones jerked Lisa to her feet by the elbow as Jackson began walking casually across the courtyard. Jones fell in beside him, leaning in close for whispered words that still reached Lisa's ears.
"I've secured an ambulance as well as a driver. I think I need to take another look at your throat." They were silent for a moment, then Jones began again. "We have a two-minute window. I've made sure of the rotation, and we won't be seen if we walk quick enough." They had reached the edge of the courtyard, where the green grass was violently severed by the asphalt of the parking lot, a black sea at calm. Jones glanced at his watch.
Lisa felt quick hands at her wrists, and looked over her shoulder to glimpse Jackson tying her hands together. He was using that bloodied crimson scarf he had used after she had stabbed him. She could practically taste the irony. He was whistling as he worked, glancing down at her with a thin smile.
"Wouldn't want to lose you, would I?" He asked, mainly to himself. The scarf was suddenly pulled tight against her skin, and her blood flow ceased in her fingers as he jerked the scarf into a knot. He leaned close over her shoulder, and she turned her face from him. His voice was thick and foggy at her cheek. "I also wouldn't try to run. You're in heels and my friend Dr. Jones does, in fact, carry a gun. He would make short work of you, I'm sure." She turned her face suddenly, in fear, toward his, meeting a cold smile and a short laugh. "No, no, not to kill you, dear little Lisa." He was close. Too close. "You and I haven't even had our fun yet."
"Let's go," Jones said, taking Lisa by the arm again. The three of them strode into the parking lot, Jackson slipping Lisa's arm into the crook of his own. How sweet they must have looked to a passerby; three siblings, perhaps, come to visit their sick mother. All three looked sober and serious. Perhaps their mother had died. Cancer, maybe, or a heart attack. Jackson's stride, however, was proud, almost holding a bounce to it.
He has his catch, Lisa thought, fighting against the frightened sob that wanted to burst through her. She saw an elderly woman puttering around a red Mercedes, and was tempted to cry out for help. But she remembered the woman on the plane who had almost intercepted the note in her book, how Jackson had intercepted that message. She didn't want anyone like that woman to get involved this time. So far, it seemed as if the only one in immediate danger was Lisa herself, and she was hoping to keep it that way. She had escaped him once.
But he'd cheated death. How was she supposed to compete with that?
"Faster," Jones urged, practically dragging Lisa along. She didn't resist. It would have been very stupid of her, and she was not known for being a stupid girl. Jackson resisted Jones's tug.
"Nonchalant," he said with raised eyebrows. Lisa had a feeling he was also worrying about his breathing. They made it to the ambulance within Jones's time limit, and Jones opened the back to shove Lisa inside. Jackson climbed in after her, followed by Dr. Jones himself. The taller man rapped on the door separating the back from the driver's seat, and the vehicle rumbled to life beneath them. They were soon moving. Lisa wasn't surprised to see that the windows had been covered.
"Sit," she heard Jackson's voice from below. He was sitting on the plastic cushions on the single bench. The rest of the floor space was for gurneys. She stood, holding onto the low roof for support. "I suggest sitting your pretty self in this vacant seat-" He patted the seat beside him, arm draped over the back. "-or on the floor. It's a little harder and colder down there," he added with that grin that she had learned so well.
She chose the floor. Her eyes were at her feet, or she would have noticed the change in those ice-hued eyes. Silence filled the ambulance as Dr. Jones probed Jackson's neck wound, finding medical supplies stocked in the locked cabinets lining one wall of the truck. He applied fresh gauze and a strange-smelling ointment to Jackson's neck, then taped it into place with a satisfied sigh. As soon as the bandages were applied, Jones stood and stepped through the door leading to the cab, closing it behind him.
She hated the silence. She felt nauseous again.
"It's more than a little pathetic," Jackson said through a sigh as he stretched his legs out before him, "that I can't even drive myself anywhere." He was trying to start casual conversation with the woman that had tried to kill him, the woman he had tried to kill. She finally allowed herself to look up.
"You were dead not too long ago," she said as calmly as she could. "You were shot twice and stabbed in the neck. It's a wonder you can walk across the parking lot."
"Is that concern I hear?" Jackson asked, leaning forward with his elbows perched neatly on his knees.
"You should be dead," Lisa muttered, not answering his question. "Your heart monitor-"
"Dear Lisa," he awed, "you surely don't think that I'm capable of stopping my own heart? Hold my breath and slow my pulse, yes, but stop my pulse?" He nodded his head toward the cab. "That is where my esteemed friend Dr. Jones comes in handy, besides bullying my kidnapees." He allowed himself to revel in Lisa's pouting face at this remark. "I don't ask what he does. As long as Jackson Rippner is dead by all appearances -and the flat line was a nice touch, don't you think?- then he's done his job."
Lisa shook her head. Jackson continued.
"It was so nice of you to come and identify me." She felt his eyes following the curls of her hair. "Amazing where some of my people are stationed, isn't it? A hopeless rookie cop losing all of the crime-scene reports, your testimony, all mysteriously lost in an incinerator far, far away. And now those papers, signed and re-signed, proving my death. Now, I could either let them be and assume a new name-"
"Jack?" Lisa shot scathingly. Jackson cracked his neck irritably in the following silence.
"Or I could have them taken care of as well. It's easier to eliminate a paper trail and a few select persons to find a new identity." He tapped his fingers in a tattoo against the back of the seat. "I think I'll have you choose, Lisa, since it was you that brought me to this nice situation."
Lisa sat in silence, listening to the sounds around the ambulance. They bounced through a pothole.
"How many people would you have to kill?" She spoke softly, and Jackson crossed his legs at the ankle as he spread them with his hands behind his head.
"You like my name that much, Leese?" He was cocky, and she knew he loved it. "All right, then. Jackson Rippner remains Jackson Rippner. But what about poor little lost Lisa? How much will everyone miss her?" Lisa's eyes shot to his, malice behind both pairs. "Dear old Dad, of course, would shill out every cent to save his little girl."
"Stop it." She tried to sound intimidating, but her voice came out quavering.
"Mom, well... Mom's been dipping into the sauce since Grandma Henrietta took the big plunge and won't realize you're missing until it makes the national papers. Which it might not, Leese."
Lisa stood suddenly, almost losing her footing as the vehicle hit a bump. She knew she couldn't escape from the moving ambulance, and to do so would be stupid of her. But she had to do something of protest.
"If you're going to kill me, get it over with!" The voice from her mouth didn't sound like hers, but she had said it. Had she meant it?
Jackson looked up somberly, then stood to match her. He dwarfed her by a few inches, and his head scraped the low roof. Like a cobra and its meal, Lisa couldn't keep her eyes from those of her captor as he swayed lightly with the movement of the ambulance under his feet. One long, thin finger tilted her chin up to face him.
"You're important to some people," he said slowly, like to a young child learning something for the first time. "A lot of them are willing to do something to make sure you're safe." His thumb joined his finger on her chin, holding it softly, but she still felt unable to release herself from that grip. "Do you think I'm that kind of person?"
Was it a question? She couldn't remember. Was he asking her or someone else?
He smiled.
"Sit," he said again.
This time, she took the seat. Jackson sprawled himself out on the cold floor and slept.
AN: Wow! I had no idea I'd get such a response! People like me Well, I love all of you, too! Everyone who review, I love you. You are all recieving imaginary e-cookies from me at this moment. Check your imaginary e-cookie-mailbox. They're there. Trust me. Now, for some shout-outs!
The Logical Ghost: I was going to end it with Jackson dying, but it felt like I had to go on. My writer's instinct egging me on, saying, "C'mon, he's too hot to die." I'm glad you like it despite that flaw. And I hope that the new chapter is good enough to keep you for more. I loved getting your feedback, and it made me want to write better.
No One Mourns the Wicked: That's a long name... Can I call you Ashley? Anyway, me being such a big fan of "Conditional" led me to squeal with joy when you gave me your wonderful review. I love that you loved it! Your joy makes me joyful! And do not cry, for the next chappie is here! Oh, and if you haven't found out who Hugh Laurie is yet, check him out on I hope this chapter cleared up a few things concerning his "death" and all that good stuff. Huzzah for suspension of disbelief! Thanks for the fave and for the love! I love the love. I hope this chappie meets expectations.
silentsister: I love literary devices. Especially repitition. Ah, it never lets me down. Ask any of my friends: I use it waaaay too often. As for the fake-out, it wasn't originally gonna be a fake-out, but really was going to die. But at the end I felt I wrote myself into a corner, and suddenly -gasp!- he's alive! At least, that's what it felt like to me. Glad you loved it! Check for e-cookies!
Asanji: Nightmare Before Christmas is my absolutely favorite "cartoon." And I soo had to add it somehow. I guess I thought Jack and Jackson... yeah. Jack is awesome, Jackson is hot. It's all about the same. I've never been anyone's hero before. -blushblush-
A.R. Bellance: Hope this chapter clarifies some of your questions. I wrote a lot of it just for you. If you have anything else you need answered or any constructive critisism, feel free to tell me anything. I'm open about things like that.
Puck the Faerie: As much as I love him, it really wouldn't have worked as a Jackson story. Thanks for the complimet and the reviw: I cherish them like chestnuts. Though that probably doesn't make any sense.
Eccentric Banshee: Congrats on being the first review! -throws a party- I know how you feel about guys like Jackson. I was totally sucked in as well. It would have been hard to keep me off of him the entire flight. I also loved that line, the crack about crying. I tried to make Jackson a bit of a snarky bastard in this one... In a good way. Har har... I hope you like the new chapter! Love!