A/N: I know I've said this a billion and a half times in the past, but this is for real pretty intense. I was kind of surprised I wrote this, actually, but the climax had to occur somewhere, didn't it? ;)

Chapter Six

"History repeats itself here today in Miami, Florida. The Red Eye terrorist is back, this time taking over the Lux Atlantic hotel. Our news station, WXYT is reporting live from just in front. It's hard to see anything right now since it's dark outside, but--"

Lisa rolled her eyes at the news reports. The TVs were blaring and the cronies seemed more than happy to see this unraveling on television.

The most hellish day in the world had finally came to a close. It had taken a long time for everyone to settle down. Parents had finally convinced their children to sleep by telling them that it was a giant sleepover and the men in suits were the adults and they tried to gloss over the fact that in this case, the adults all had guns.

Children slept innocently next to their parents. Some of them whispered to each other quietly in groups while others tried to get some rest, too. Most of Jackson's cronies were sitting in chairs around them, either nodding off or talking to one another.

Jackson himself was nowhere in sight, and this worried Lisa more than anything else. She tried to relax on the hard floor of the hotel lobby, but her body was having none of that. She still hurt all over, and her back protested angrily as she rolled over on her back.

Lisa gave up on the battle as her watch turned to 12:59 a.m. At this rate, she'd never fall asleep. She wished she'd brought sleeping pills or something to knock her out long enough that she could avoid the chilling reality in front of her. But of course, yesterday morning she never would have thought any of this possible.

The woman next to her stirred and sat up, too. "You're awake, too?" she whispered. Neither one of them dared do anything else.

"Yeah," Lisa said glumly.

"I can't sleep. Wish I'd fall into a deep sleep, just like Jessica here has," the woman said, fondly stroking a stray piece of hair out of a small child's face. "She's my daughter. Born two years ago. It was such a surprise to me and Harry. I already have two step-children, you know. They're both his kids. One's seventeen. She's visiting colleges. Harry took her out earlier this morning to visit the University of Miami. She really wants to go to school in the south. Margaret hates the snow." The woman laughed and then looked away. "Sorry. I apparently don't know when to shut up. I'm sure you don't care."

Lisa shook her head adamantly. Honestly, she was so happy to be talked to as if she were a fellow human being rather than an animal or a prisoner that she didn't care what the woman talked about. "No, you're fine. What about the other daughter?"

"Oh, she's ten. It's weird, the age differences, isn't it? Well, we make do with what we have. She's staying with her grandmother. Didn't want to come with us, even though we'd offered to take her to Disney World. Come to think of it, I bet her grandmother's spoiling her to death. That's probably why she didn't want to come with us."

Lisa giggled a little and watched Jessica breathe for a moment. It was so peaceful, to watch the child's chest rise and fall. "Well, I graduated from the University of Miami. Your ten year old probably isn't missing much."

"Not a fan?"

"I liked it, I just... I think college students are scary people to anyone, especially ten year olds." She laughed again, and the sound startled her. Lisa had thought she'd never find a reason to laugh again.

"What's that?" the woman asked, suddenly. She pointed at Lisa's elbow. Much to her embarrassment, Lisa noticed her shirt sleeve had risen up over her elbow. "Honey, I think your elbow is broken. I can't really tell because there's no light, but—"

Lisa shook her head adamantly. "I'm fine."

"What happened? That monster didn't hurt you too badly, did he?" she asked, eyes wide with concern. "May I--" she reached out as if to touch Lisa's arm.

Lisa nodded and winced slightly at the woman's gentle touch. "I'm no doctor, but I am a physical therapist, so I work with broken bones all the time. This definitely feels like one. That hurt?"

Lisa winced again, and gritted her teeth. "Not too badly," she lied.

"Yeah, I'm going to look at it again in the morning, but right now I'm going to play it safe." The woman rummaged around in her suitcase and pulled a white box out of it. "I'm so paranoid these days I never go anywhere without a first aid kit." The woman took out some tape, a sliver of wood, and a large white cloth. She began to turn the cloth and wood into a splint. "There," she said once she'd finished.

"Thank you, Mrs.--" she struggled to remember when the family had checked in. What were their names again?

"Call me Julia," the woman said.

They were now attracting the attention of their captors. With one menacing look from a particularly frightening looking man, they both began to settle down underneath their blankets.

"How did you know it was-- him who hurt me?" Lisa asked.

"Honey, I've watched all the news reports. And I've been listening in to their conversations. He's said some things to the others. I don't know if you've heard any of them since we've been here, but Lisa, you need to be careful."

A chill shot through her body like a bullet out of a gun. They were silent for a few moments. Suddenly, the steady sound of breathing told Lisa that Julia had finally fallen asleep.

It took awhile, but Lisa finally fell into a vivid dream. Jackson stood over her, knife in hand, while she watched in horror. She couldn't move or speak. He pushed the knife down, closer to her throat, all the while humming. He inserted the knife deeper and deeper into her skin until she woke up.

Everything came back to her. With one glance of her watch, she knew she'd been asleep for a few hours and hadn't slept well at all. She sighed, not daring to make much noise. A few people were stirring, too.

The cronies weren't bothering to speak quietly at all. Lisa listened, eyes focused on the ornate decorations on the ceiling.

"You've gotta kill the bitch, Mike," one of them was saying. She had no idea who they were talking to, or about. She assumed it was Killmore's wife. But then she looked over and saw Jackson, much to her surprise. He was talking to some of the other men.

Jackson's real name was Mike? Weirdly, it hadn't occurred to her that Jackson Rippner had been an alias, but that certainly made sense. Who the hell named their kid after a famous murderer, anyway? If she'd had any common sense she would have darted out of the Tex Mex and right to security after "Jack... Jack... Jack theee... oh."

"I'm working on it," Jack (or Mike) mumbled.

"You're crap at being a manager," one of the other men said. "She outsmarted you two times."

With a start, Lisa realized they were talking about her. She couldn't think why-- didn't they have an assassination to plan?

"Rough her up a bit. Better her than you, right?" one of the men said darkly.

"Yeah," Jackson said. She saw something move in the darkness, maybe it was his arm.

And then it hit her. Up until now, she'd thought it had just been a battle between her and Jackson. A twisted battle of wills. And now she realized it was between her and the rest of them.

Just when Lisa thought she'd never get to sleep again, she nodded off and did not know how long she slept.

When she woke again, it was much brighter outside. Lisa blinked a few times, trying to figure out why she'd been woken so suddenly. And then she heard the screaming.

One of the men was holding Rebecca tightly. "Someone out here better volunteer to finish off her father, or she'll be the first in a series of deaths here."

Women were crying, men were yelling, and everyone in the room was in hysterics.

"Stop that," Lisa croaked, her voice not working. She stood, walking towards them, almost blindly. "Stop it." It came out much louder, on the verge of hysteria, and she didn't care.

"What do we have here, Jack? You wanna take care of this? It's your girlfriend."

Jack looked at the floor. Lisa felt disgusted and a little embarrassed by this terminology.

"I hate to break it to you, Jack, but now's your chance. How's this? You have an hour to do what you need to do with her and Rebecca goes free. Fair compromise, I think."

"I don't need an hour," Jack said quietly. He cleared his throat.

"What do you need then, fifteen minutes?" The man laughed and Lisa had never heard such a sickening sound. "An hour should get the job done. You know what we want."

Lisa wasn't sure what they were talking about, but given the fact they were about to kill an eleven year old, she didn't care. "I'll do it. Whatever it is."

"Lisa, you don't--" Jackson's voice was hard, the way he always talked to her, but some of the venom was out of his voice. He finally looked up, and those chilling blue eyes looked intently at her. "Don't put yourself through this--"

"An hour," Lisa interrupted, sounding much braver than she felt. "And when I get back, that girl had better be watching whatever she wants on the television."

"Who said you're going to be coming back?" the man asked, smiling.

Lisa trembled, but she did not care-- they released the girl.

"What do you like to watch?" the man asked her. When Rebecca did not respond, he flipped the television to a cartoon. "There. You happy?"

Lisa shrugged and said, "So, what's going to happen now?"

"Lisa, please--" Jackson said with a sigh. Almost desperation.

"Let's find somewhere private," she interrupted again. Quite frankly, she just wanted to get this over with and keep some of her dignity in tact in the process. She opened the door to her office and Jackson followed her reluctantly. Lisa thought she heard a whoop coming from a teenager and it made her feel sick. It was just like the flight attendants on the plane. "Lock the door," she demanded.

"What? I--" he said.

"You stole my keys from me, remember?"

"Yeah," he muttered, shutting the door. He reached into his pockets and locked the door. She heard a click and knew everything was going to be different for her. It was pain and fear and death and the parking lot and she regretted making the deal.

"Lie down." he said firmly. Jackson seemed reluctant to look at her, but the venom in his voice was coming back.

"Why?"

"Don't ask me questions," Jackson snapped, and Lisa knew done being insecure.

"Just do what I say."

"I--"

"Lisa," he yelled, grabbing her good arm and pulling her down, "if you don't do what I say once in awhile--" He put his hand around her throat as she lay there, vulnerable and afraid. Then, Jackson let go, just like that.

He did his work quickly and quietly, tearing apart the splint Julia had made for her. "How convenient," he muttered, as he dropped her arm back down on the floor. Lisa's elbow screamed in protest. Jackson then folded the cloth into a thick triangle and she knew what was coming next.

Sure enough, he tied the cloth around her eyes and demanded she didn't move. He got up and she heard him rummaging around her desk drawer. "You don't have to do this," she whispered, repeating what she'd said over a year ago. "Really, Jack. We could just pretend."

She heard him take something out of the drawer and shove it shut. "You're wrong, Lisa, because as I've told you before, when managers don't please their clients their life goes to shit. It's better me than you getting roughed up, so if you could stop being so combatitive."

"Well," she said, tensing up as she sensed him coming nearer, "you did make me lie on the floor with a blindfold over my face. I'm not exactly pleased about that." He stood over her (she felt his shoes dig into her sides) and grabbed her wrists, forcing them up over her head. Her elbow was pins and needles. She heard the sickening sound of duct tape being unraveled, and felt the tape as he wrapped it around her wrists. Then he moved to her feet.

She couldn't move at all. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked, in horror. It was much more frightening when you couldn't see his face.

"You know, Lise, I'm getting really tired of your questions. I wasn't going to do this to you, but if I have to answer one more question I'm going to go nuts. Sorry," he said in an offhand manner that conveyed to her that he wasn't sorry at all. She heard more tape getting peeled off and knew what was coming. She wanted to scream, to cry, to yell for Cynthia, but thinking of Rebecca and what might happen to her kept her silent. He plastered tape over her mouth and Lisa was immobile and silent.

He reached over and fumbled with her C.D. player. Mozart's Requiem began to play. Oh, yeah, she said, remembering she'd put that C.D. in a week ago. How very fitting. This was Lisa's requiem, and Jackson was orchestrating it.

Again, she felt his shoes dig into her sides. Lisa thought for a moment that he was lowering himself over her body and when he heard the telltale sound of his kneecaps cracking she knew she was right. He touched the side of her cheek with his fingers, chillingly gentle. "I told you you shouldn't have offered to do this," he said gently, fingers moving down her body as if they were an invading army. Of course he rested on her scar; she wouldn't have expected otherwise. "You won't like it. You might say I was bullied into it, but you know what happened? I fell in love with you after the flight, Lisa. Isn't that weird?"

She shuddered at the fact that he didn't call her Lise. For some odd reason, he managed to convey more venom when he said her real name.

"Bet you weren't expecting that."

She heard something else happen and Lisa felt a knife trailing her flesh. As the last crescendo in the first movement occurred--a glorious sound-- he began to alternate knife and fingers in his invasion of her skin. She gasped as she felt him nick her and she wondered if it had been on purpose or not.

Lisa began to force her mind to wander, to build up a defense mechanism against the monster. She remembered her German Music professor. She'd given them the libretto to Mozart's Requiem, translated in English. And then the professor forced them to listen to the piece over and over again to see if the tone of each movement matched what they were saying. No one had understood the point of the exercise, but that kind of thing always ended up on finals. So Lisa had poured over the notes and the piece until she'd had it memorized.

It had become a part of her by the end of the semester. She knew it so well she could feel it and she knew each word phonetically.

As the first movement ended, Jackson caressed her face. His hands were cold and left goosebumps. He then moved to her legs, starting the process over, and paused when his fingers reached a place they shouldn't have.

The final note in the first movement was glorious.

She let the tears fall way into the second movement as Jackson took his knife and nicked her just under her collarbone. The knife almost seemed to caress her skin and another scar would be gracefully forming where everyone could see if she wore a low-collar shirt again.

He took a break, nattering at her about the plane and how they'd first met and she struggled as she heard him sit in her chair behind her desk. He rolled over to her and surprisingly began to untie her hands and feet. They cried out in pain and then, without so much as any compassion, he ripped the tape off her mouth.

"Take off the blindfold," she said adamantly, as the last movement began to blare over the speaker.

He obeyed, surprisingly, and Lisa saw with one glance at her watch that her hour of hell wasn't over yet. They still had fifteen minutes.

Fear threatened to overcome her, and she was so sick and tired of being afraid and crying and not knowing what the hell would come next that she just lay there until he gave her further instructions. He didn't, not for a few moments. Lisa watched him try to catch his breath. She wondered if he was trying to come up with a new form of hell for her.

He wrenched her bad arm up with him and, at this, she cried out. When Mozart's singers sang about an all-consuming fire that never dies with miraculous sound and resonation, he slammed her into the wall by her bookshelf. Something hard and heavy hit her back-- once, twice, no, three times. She fell to the ground, winded, but he kept her up.

"This is why you don't want to mess with this," he said harshly into her ear. She cried, not being able to help herself.

At the last note, resonating clear and powerful, he let her go and stood there. She tried to read him but couldn't. His eyes seemed to convey many things, but Lisa didn't know what he was trying to convey with his expression. Fear, lust, maybe even disgust, it was impossible to tell.

Amen, her brain registered as the C.D. ended.

They both attempted to catch their breath, Lisa sore and shaking and numb; Jackson staring at her. Now, he was looking at her much the same way he had on the plane when she'd asked to use the bathroom and she found him, standing behind her in the aisle.

"You--" she couldn't find the words to describe this. She took the duct tape off the desk and chucked it at his head. She was beyond caring.

He stared at her in surprise, and she thought she was done for, but she was wrong. He changed expression only long enough to flinch, but continued staring at her.

"Why, Mike?" she asked quietly.

"What did you call me?" and his voice was quiet poison, the same it had been on the plane. Just loud enough that it was a whisper.

"Mike." She didn't care anymore.

"Don't you ever call me that again," he said, picking up the duct tape and tossing it carelessly back on the desk. It rattled on his last word, spun for a second, and then fell suddenly to stillness.

"But why?" She stepped closer to him. "We could have faked my injuries. You didn't have to do this."

"But I had to," he said, stepping closer to her, too. He smelled like cologne, an odor she'd come to abhor. It made walking into Elder-Beerman's a nauseating experience. "I can't get you out of my head, Lise. I want you. I had to."

Her stomach turned at this. "There are other ways, you know."

Jackson stared at her for a long moment. "Show me."

This seemed so uncharacteristic of the man standing in front of her Lisa was slightly surprised. She came even closer to him, feeling his suit rub against her body. She smiled for a moment, even. But then the moment was over. She was angry Lisa, the Lisa in her right mind, the one that had to deal with a psycho. "Go to hell," she said, and with strength she didn't know she had, she shoved him over.

He grabbed her heel and she fell, but Lisa turned and grabbed the keys out of his pocket. She picked an especially long one (the key to her apartment) and pointed it at his eyes. "Don't you dare. Your hour is over, Mike. I shoved a pen in your throat. I'd have no trouble ruining your ability to see, too."

Jackson let her go in astonishment, and she ran to the door. With trembling hands, she managed to unlock it. She ignored the applause from the teenager who had made the noises at them as they'd walked into the office.

And then, Jackson stood behind her, clamping down on her shoulder.

"Oh, no you don't," came a voice Lisa recognized.

It was Julia, holding her first aid kit. Rebecca held a thick Harry Potter novel in her hands. Cynthia held a vase with water and no flowers. "I'd let Lisa go if I were you," said Julia.