Chapter Eight

Lisa ran as fast as she could after Jackson.

For some reason, even though he was only walking she couldn't catch up, no matter how hard she tried. She finally stopped, breathing heavily. I can't catch up to him, she thought.

"You've got that right."

She turned around. Jackson was standing behind her.

"You still haven't figured it out, have you?" he said. "Look at the facts, you know what it is, you just can't accept it."

Lisa stared at him. "Can you please tell me?" she pleaded quietly.

Jackson shook his head. "This is a battle you'll have to fight," he said. "I'm only here to give you directions, and my directions are look at the facts. It's all there in front of you." He smiled at her, but it wasn't Jackson's smile. It was a kind smile. A smile she had seen before...

"You're figuring it out, aren't you?" Jackson asked quietly.

Lisa shook her head. "I don't understand," she said hopelessly.

"You do. You just can't accept it." Jackson looked at her, his cold eyes boring into her. "Maybe you've known since the first time you met him."

Lisa couldn't decipher what he was saying. "Who?" she asked.

"Now that's something you'll have to figure out for yourself," Jackson said, the kind smile gone. He turned around and walked off, but this time Lisa didn't want to. She realized she didn't want to know what he was talking about.

---

Lisa woke silently, her head throbbing. Migraine, she thought, groaning. She got up and looked through her bag for aspirin. when she found it, she silently popped a pill in her mouth and swallowed. She walked over to the desk and grabbed her water bottle. She took a quick drink and sighed. Why today of all days? she thought sadly. She was supposed to meet Ben today for lunch. She would have to call him and call it off until next week.

Just as she was about to grab the phone, it rang, making her nearly cough the pill back up. Silently hoping it was Ben, she picked it up.

"Hello?" she said.

"Lisa...Lisa Reisert..."

Lisa looked at the phone. "Who is this?" she asked, confused.

"Lisa..." the voice said, "I've made a terrible...terrible mistake..."

The voice was familiar to Lisa. "Please tell me who you are," she said, more firmly this time.

"Lisa," the voice said, "you have to...have to get out of there. You have to-"

The voice cut off.

"Hello?" Lisa asked. No one answered. "Hello?" she asked again, but still no one answered. Uncomfortable, she put the phone down and sat on the bed. Who had that been? Why did they want her to leave? She was safe here. She winced as another wave of pain hit her. She rubbed her forehead, close to tears. She started to dial Ben's number, but pain hit her once again, and she dropped the phone. I've never had it like this, she thought, but her line of thought was shattered. She couldn't think straight.

Silently, she hit the floor, tears running down her cheeks. She tried to dial Ben's number again, but she couldn't remember it. "What's going on?" she said aloud, because she couldn't think without feeling as if a knife had just been lodged into her head. She silently started to call "911." No, she thought, that's the American emergency number. She had no idea what London's was.

Before she could think, her vision started to fade, and she fell to the floor, unconscious.

---

Lisa felt herself coming to by degrees. What happened? she thought. She rubbed her head, which, thankfully, didn't hurt as bad as it had earlier. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes in thought. I've never had a migraine that bad before, she thought. Why today of all days? She tried to stand up, but was too weak. She fell back on the ground, groaning.

Suddenly she looked around, taking in her surroundings for the first time. She felt terror grip her when she realized where she was. Or where she wasn't.

She wasn't in her hotel room.

Fear giving her the strength to move, she got up and looked around. She was in a small, dingy, one-room apartment. Her eyes traveled around. She could see two doors. She walked over to the first one and tried to open it. Locked. She went over to the second one, which opened. She saw it was a small bathroom. She closed the door, shaken. She went over to the only window in the room and tried to open it. It wouldn't budge. Looking more closely, she saw that it was nailed shut. She leaned on the wall and slid down. She had to think carefully now. What had happened the night before? She had gone to dinner with Ben, then fallen asleep...

A wave of horror hit her. She remembered going to the bathroom right when the food had come. Ben would have had plenty of time to put something in it, maybe a drug or something. But why? Why would he do something like that?

Inside, she knew the answer. It had been obvious the entire time, just like the Jackson in her dreams had told her. Why hadn't she seen it before? It had all been staged, just so that Jackson could kill her. Ben had been working for Jackson the entire time.

No, Lisa thought. He couldn't be. He was too kind, too wonderful...but she realized that had been the point all along. Just so that Jackson could get his revenge. Just so that he could torture Lisa for what she had done to him.

Then she heard a voice, one that she had hoped never to hear again, one that she could never get out of her head, for the three months since she had heard it...

"Hello, Leese."

Standing in front of her, looking very much the same and as menacing as ever, was Jackson.

---

Okaaaaay...remember when I said that Ben wasn't evil? Well, I may or may not have lied. I'm still trying to decide what's going on. I wrote this chapter just out of the blue, and I really hadn't planned for Lisa to encounter Jackson this soon. But it's happened, and I'm happy with this chapter, despite my brain screaming to rewrite it. Like I said in the last chapter, I probably won't be able to update until next week. Who was the man who called Lisa? You won't know for about a week. I think that's why I wrote the chapter the way I did, just to torture you all. So bye for now!