Day-to-Day

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Red Eye!

Chapter Twelve

Jackson leapt into action. He was not about to stand by helplessly again. True, he did not really have any feelings towards this nasty little bitch that he had created with Lisa, but he knew that he had to stop her. He needed her to find Lisa's killer and achieve closure. He had not hid himself for fifteen years so that his daughter could just suddenly decide to take her life.

Lisa would have killed him, had she been alive. She would have enjoyed hurting him if she only knew what he had let their child become. Sweet, innocent little Jack…what had happened to her?

He wrestled the knife from her grasp. Luckily, she had not even nicked the veins of her wrist. She was going to live.

"Please!" she was begging him. "Let me end it! I can't take it anymore!"

"No," Jackson said harshly. "Suicide is not an option. Suck it up."

"You're a bastard," Kyra snarled as the blood from her wrist dripped down onto the sleeve of Jackson's suit. He held both her wrists and was successfully keeping her away from the knife. How she had even come by a knife was beyond him.

"So are you. You're the bastard daughter of an assassination manager and his target. Congratulations—you've won the family genetics lottery," he teased. He knew that she hated him and he did not care.

He cared about nothing any more. All that had mattered to him was Lisa and she was dead now. She was dead, yet he had to carry on and protect their wayward daughter. Jack's problems were probably his fault but he honestly didn't give a shit. He had other things to worry about.

"Yeah? Well your parents weren't exactly winners either, now were they?" she shot back with a twisted smile.

How? How could she have known?

"Who told you?" he questioned, shaking her. "WHO!"

"Mom."

"That's impossible…she died." No, she was lying. Lisa had died that night. There was no way that Jack could remember Lisa before that night—she had only been a few months old at the time.

"I have her journal. She wrote it down, remember? Of course you do because you probably wrote in it too. Do you know how much it fucking sucks to learn about your past from a journal?"

"Where's the journal?" Jackson demanded. "Huh?"

"Locker," she sighed exasperatedly.

He shoved her to the floor and angrily tore through her belongings inside the metal box. Where was it? Where was that blasted journal? He wanted to burn the damn book.

"Looking for this?" Kyra taunted, holding the journal up from her place upon the floor, ignoring the fact that her still-dripping wound was ruining the pages.

"Give me that," he demanded, stepping towards her.

"Um, I think not. You see, this concerns me more than you. It's mine anyways. You know—the whole finder's-keeper's thing? I found it, so I get to keep it? 'Kay?"

"Jacqueline Kyra Reisert Rippner, give me that fucking book this second before I bash your head in!" threatened Jackson.

She was stunned by his use of her full name. Clearly, she had never thought that he knew it. He knew quiet a bit about her. He had spent some time tracking her recently after the rumors reached his ears, even though he not really cared.

He knew if she died, than the secret of Lisa's murder died with her. Whoever was behind the grisly death of his lover knew about his daughter and knew that she knew who he was. Jack was the only witness besides the killer. Only a few months old, and she had been present when her mother had been mercilessly tortured and finally killed.

He had been too late. She was too far gone when he arrived. She could no longer speak since her vocal cords had been ruthlessly slashed to keep her from screaming when he arrived. Her killer had missed the jugular, and she had bled out from the neck wound, gasping and wheezing before that final breath.

It was on the phone that he last spoke to her. Lisa had begged for him to protect Jack then; not to save her, but to save the innocent Jack. But as he looked at his daughter, her cold eyes staring back at him, with each and every move calculated, he knew that Jack was far from innocent. When had his baby girl become a killer?

Kyra flung the book at his dark head and hopped to her feet. Her heels clacked upon the floor as she ran. Loose papers fluttered around him and he chased after her. Had she not learned anything? Jackson Rippner never lost a footrace except for once, but he had gotten his sweet revenge upon her. Lovely, lovely Lisa; his lover and the mother of his unruly child.

You never screwed with a Rippner and got away with it.

With every passing day, I die a little more. How much longer can I take this loneliness? Will he ever come back? Is he dead?

I saw a psychologist the other day. According to him, I'm not in my right mind. He defined my primary problem as Borderline Personality Disorder. He says that my feelings for Jackson are due to Stockholm Syndrome.

How this makes me love Jackson, I don't think I'll ever find out. He told me to come back, but I know I won't. This is my life and I won't pay some over-priced shrink to tell me how to live it.

So what if I'm insane? I don't give a damn.

I love Jackson—that's the only explanation. Otherwise, I would have been able to move on by now. But I can't and I know I never will.

I need him just as much, if not more, than he needs me. It's fucked up, but I don't give a damn. All I care about is him.

And I'll never cease waiting. I'll never give up hope that he'll return. I'll live life daily just in case that by some chance I see him again.

Jackson…please, I beg you, come back to me.

Author's Notes:

Jackson really doesn't know what to think about his daughter. He wants to hate her and blame her, but he can't quite do it. The next chapter will be back to Jackson and Lisa's relationship, in order to move things along to the point of Lisa's death. It looks like the truth about Lisa's death will be in chapter fifteen, but that could change. Next chapter soon! Enjoy!