Alright, I'm posting this next chapter cos I'm at home sick and yada yada. Once again, thanks for the reviews! I love getting them and I really appreciate it. Alright, now for Chapter 4!


Chapter 4

One year later

Light streamed into Lisa Reisart's bedroom. It fell across her white sheets, highlighting the brown head that peeked out from underneath them. The sun slowly rose; gradually highlighting a figure that stood leaned against the doorframe. The figure shifted on its feet and glanced at its watch. It rapped its fingers against the door frame. Lisa stirred in her bed, but slept on.

Jackson Rippner yawned. He watched Lisa turn sleepily in her bed, and vaguely thought that she looked comfortable. Maybe he should go join her… No! That thought was… incorrect. Jackson was now 30 years old, and he had not seen Lisa since that moment he had kissed her. He had kissed her and he had left, afraid of the longing she filled him with, afraid that with her influence, he would not be able to get Revenge.

He had spent the past year running. Somewhere along the way, his company had realized he was alive, and they had not wasted time with a greeting. They had wanted him dead. Jackson had ran and ran, skipping through the country like a rabbit with its tail on fire. He had finally somehow managed to fake his death, and he was proud of this fact. Never mind that he had really almost died in the process.

The fact was, now he really was a free man. He even had a new name: Jackson Montgomery. Needless to say, he liked this name much better than his old one. It had a nice ring to it. And, of course he had a new job… well, sort of. It involved Lisa, and revenge, and that was about it. Jackson was very excited about his new job. He watched sleeping Lisa toss and turn, as if she could feel his gleaming eyes on her back. A sun ray fell on her exposed shoulder, and she shrugged in her sleep and her eyes slowly flickered open.

Lisa looked around her room. It still was painted a very faint yellow, and always seemed to glow in the mornings. Lisa slowly sat up and stretched. Then she saw Jackson leaning against her door frame, and leapt out of her bed just as Jackson advanced towards her. She knelt down by the side of her bed and fumbled for the hockey stick she kept underneath, but her fingers groped at thin air. Jackson's lips curved into a smirk, and Lisa imagined those lips against hers. Maybe a year had passed, and with it many of her fears, but not that kiss. That kiss was burned into her mind and always would be.

"Looking for something?" Jackson asked, and produced the hockey stick from behind his back. He stepped towards the paralyzed Lisa and pulled her to her feet. "Come on now, Leese, you're not still afraid of me?" He gripped her chin in his fingers and brought it towards his face. She just stared back in shock. He didn't like that look. He wanted her to be thinking of that kiss right now, just like he was.

Jackson brushed his thumb over Lisa's lips and watched her eyelids flutter. She opened her mouth to speak and he took it as an invitation for his own, swooping down on her lips and kissing hungrily. He dropped the hockey stick and snaked his hands up her back and underneath her short pink tank top, enjoying the feel of her bare back underneath his palms.

Lisa felt her ability to think clearly fly out the window. She had imagined this moment for the past year, unconsciously dreaming of what Jackson would say, rehearsing each word, questioning why he had walked away from her after that incredible kiss. She could feel Jackson's heart beating against her, and thought of that picture he had shown her a year ago, in which they were the same person. Jackson lips probed and pressed against hers, and in that second, she matched his hunger and wound her fingers into his hair. A little moan escaped her lips, and Jackson chuckled.

"Why, Lisa," he murmured huskily. "One would almost think that you were enjoying this." He traced a pattern on her bare back, and she shivered, but didn't pull away.

"Jackson…" she gulped, and watched him carefully. "Why did you leave, after you—you kissed me?"

"I left because I needed to," he said curtly, and tried to ignore the desperate way she stared up at him.

Lisa had fallen in love with Jackson. She had no idea that she had, and didn't understand this horrible, empty feeling that was growing in her stomach. How could she? How often do people fall in love with murderers? Too many memories had been spent on that kiss, too much time spent on reliving it.

And much, much too much, had been spent leafing through that notebook Jackson had left behind.

Rebellion and pride pulsated in Lisa's stomach and combined with that awful, indescribable, longing to have your own feelings returned, so that maybe, in seeing them in someone else, you can discover just what they really are.

"You said you wanted me to come with you," she whispered, and tried to turn away from Jackson. He felt an odd swooping in his stomach and wondered why she seemed disappointed.

Jackson was at a loss for words. Why wasn't Lisa fighting him? Why wasn't she screaming and yelling and kicking and biting? What the hell had happened? He shook his head. This was so typical. Prepare for something from Lisa, get the exact opposite. Sure, she made routines, and followed them devotedly, but it was the emotions behind the actions that intrigued Jackson.

He cleared his throat loudly. This was, once again, not going as planned. Jackson had looked forwards to tying Lisa up and shoving her into his car. Instead, he had the feeling that if he asked her to come with him, she willingly would. "What the hell happened?" he asked aloud.

Lisa backed away from Jackson and felt his hands slide out from under her shirt. She felt suddenly cold. "What do you want, Jackson?" she breathed. "Why are you here? Are you—Are you going to kill me? Why have you waited so long? I could've been gone ages ago." She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the awful way her stomach was flip-flopping.

He stared at her. She stared at him. Jackson cleared his throat for what felt like the fiftieth time. This—whatever this was—had to be a ploy. Some excuse for time while she waited for the police to come. Never mind that Lisa could not have possibly called the police. Jackson would not allow revenge to escape from him a second time. He wordlessly lifted Lisa into his arms and cradled her, much like one would carry an invalid, out to her car. A note, like the one before, had been left on the counter addressed to Lisa's father. Some of her clothes were packed in her trunk. Her work partners had been told that their manager was on a much-needed vacation.

Jackson started Lisa's car and drove down the road with an oddly silent Ms. Reisart in back. He chewed his lip and thought. What if—no, that was impossible. But still… A new plan for revenge was forming in Jackson's mind.

Love was an emotion believable in books and movies, but never in real life. Real life dealt with facts alone. But Lisa, Jackson thought, seemed to have a little bit of both in her.

It would be the worst revenge ever earned. Instead of simply injuring Lisa, as he had intended to, he would injure her inside, also. After all, Jackson knew how it felt to lose something. And if Lisa could be made to fall in love with him, and then scorned, then that would be the worst revenge of all.

Jackson drove all day, and the smooth leather seat grew damp and sticky under Lisa's sweaty legs. She finally looked around the interior in a sort of shock, seeming to realize what was going on. Lisa then checked the time and saw that they had been driving for eight hours straight. It was already almost ten p.m.; she was hungry and had to go to the bathroom, and she probably looked like shit.

She was tired and frustrated, at herself, for practically willingly participating in this kidnapping, and at Jackson, who had the nerve to bring up these conflicting feelings in a normally strong-willed person. And most of all, she was confused. Lisa was never confused. She normally knew exactly what she wanted, what she had, and what she needed. But Jackson brought out this strange disability in her.

Lisa was so sure she had moved on. She was so sure, so positive, that her rape and the Red Eye no longer affected her. And they really didn't. But then, suddenly Jackson appeared, and it was if those horrible events had just happened yesterday.

"Why are you taking my car?" she asked dully, trying to hide this weakness.

"It would be rather odd to go on a vacation without your own car, wouldn't it?" he answered smoothly.

Lisa blinked. "No, it wouldn't. The last time I went on a plane, I rode a Taxi to the airport…" Her voice died out.

They had arrived at the topic of that Red Eye flight. The air in the car seemed to crackle with tension. The light of the streetlamps over the highway acted as the swinging, bare bulb, light, then darkness, light, darkness, light. Lisa felt her stomach contract, and watched Jackson's shoulders stiffen in the driver's seat in front of her.

"Did you want to talk about that, Leese?" Jackson sneered. "That been on your mind? Don't tell me: you haven't been on an airplane since…" he trailed off as he glanced in the rearview mirror. Lisa was sitting on the edge of the seat behind him, her face set. For a moment he thought she was going to just grab the wheel and steer them both off the side of the road and into the ditch. And then he saw her eyes, and the sadness there surprised him.

" Jackson… That flight is behind me. You didn't harm the Keefe's, and you didn't harm me." Lisa took in a deep breath and admired the way Jackson's knuckles had turned white in gripping the steering wheel.

"What I want to know is, what is this is about? Revenge? Oddly enough, I thought you were beyond that. I guess I was wrong." The sound of her strong voice was comforting and seemed to be coming from somewhere above her body. She slumped back against the seat and left Jackson spluttering in front of her.

Once more at a loss for words, Jackson began to spin the old lever that brought the window down. At ten at night, the air was still heavy and muggy. He struggled with the lever.

Lisa cried out desperately from the back seat. "Don't--! Don't lower the window, it's--"

With a great tug, Jackson unstuck the window lever and lowered it the last two inches. He turned to glance triumphantly at Lisa when he heard a great crash.

"—Broken…" Lisa sighed, exasperated.

Jackson turned to see that the entire window pane had tipped out of the door, falling with a smash onto the pavement, leaving the window frame empty. "What the hell," he muttered, preoccupied with watching the road and wondering about the disappearing window at the same time. He heard Lisa snort behind him. Then she began to laugh.

She laughed and laughed, and soon it became hysterical, and neither she nor Jackson could tell if she was actually laughing or crying anymore. He didn't know whether to join in or to stop the car and hold her. He liked the second option, but inwardly scoffed at the idea of Jackson Rippner—now Montgomery—comforting anyone. Jackson finally heard her gasps subside and turn into quiet, little sharp breaths.

A wrenching began inside of him at that sound. It was so vulnerable, and yet he knew that it was just Lisa, fighting for control within herself.

"You okay back there, Leese?" he meant it to sound sarcastic, but it came out almost caring.

"I'm fine," she replied.

"I don't think you are..."

Jackson took a right off the highway, drove past a McDonald's, Condominium complex, and finally turned onto a long dirt road. The car bumped and rattled over the potholes, and tree branches brushed the sides. Their long, encroaching fingers filled the stuffy car with suffocating darkness.

"Where are you taking me?" Lisa cried, a note of panic creeping into her voice.

She had spent the last seven hours of the journey with the words from Jackson's notebook floating in her mind, wondering if the tinge of desire embedded in the words had come from her imagination. Lisa had dissected every phrase from that book until it no longer held true meaning, instead, the thoughts and questions she had infused it with. It was pathetic, and she knew it. She silently berated herself for her stupidity.

Why, oh why, had she wasted her precious thoughts on him when she could have been planning escape?

Jackson appreciated the panic in Lisa's voice, and decided to draw out that emotion. "Well…" he sighed dramatically and slowed the car. "I might just kill you…

"…But I wouldn't want to do that right away, right? I mean, drive you all the way out here to my lovely home, and then just kill you? That would be kind of boring, wouldn't it?" Jackson stopped outside of his huge house and allowed Lisa to drown in the silence inside the car.

Serenely, he stepped out of the car and pulled open the back door. Lisa sat limply on the seat and stared at him. He reached in and dragged her out, trying to ignore the way her lips trembled and looked swollen in the porch light.

The problem was he wanted Lisa to be strong. He wanted the Lisa that would fight back. This new Lisa seemed tired of fighting, seemed to want to be held and protected. A small voice in Jackson's mind cried, "I can protect her!"

And that's when he received a blinding jab to the groin.

He bent double and gasped for breath. The dimly lit figure of Lisa could be seen running towards the house, and he wanted to laugh. So she still had some fight in her. As it was, he struggled towards her, knowing that she wouldn't be able to get inside the locked house and call the police, or whatever it was she was planning on doing. "Leese," he rasped.

She whirled to face him and began to dart around the other side of the porch. He gathered his breath and took off after her. She got as far as the end of the porch when he tackled her, and both went flying off the edge and into the large lavender bushes that made up Jackson's spice garden.

The sweet and heady scent of lavender clouded up and around them, and Jackson studied Lisa's flushed face. Her hair was un-brushed from that morning, and she still was in her pajamas. The little tank top rode up and Jackson ran his hands over her soft stomach. Lisa shivered and pushed against him, trying to escape.

"Lisa," he whispered, enjoying the taste of her name. He ran his fingers through her tangled hair as the porch light, which was set on a timer, turned off. Lisa made a feeble attempt to push away from Jackson, and the lavender rustled underneath her.

The stars twinkled warmly above the couple and the full moon provided just enough light to see indistinct shapes. Lisa could sense more than see Jackson's lips descending down over hers, and was filled with an intriguing feeling of panic. If he kissed her, she was in danger of falling completely and helplessly under the spell of Jackson, and that could mean living in memories and words, words written on sheet after sheet of paper. But then again, if he didn't kiss her, then… Her swelling heart just might burst.

"Leese…!" Jackson's hands raked roughly through her hair and pulled it firmly back from her face. And finally, finally he bent and kissed her. His lips were hard and desperate and hopeless against hers, and he wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could, enclosing several buds of lavender as well.

Something told them both that this was the last honest action that could pass between them. And even in this hungry kiss, lies were embedded, but they were honest lies that didn't masquerade as truths.

Lisa had thought that a kiss would stop her swelling heart. Her heart burst anyway. And in that last moment of honesty, she freed her lips from Jackson's in the one moment that she could, and she hoarsely whispered aloud those oddly vital words.

"I love you."

Jackson grew stiff above her, and her heart sank and it's dusty, blown up remains fell to the bottom of her stomach. The damage had been done. Jackson's revenge had been achieved.

But he returned to kissing her, roughly and angrily, and he was furious with himself.

Why does love have to be so incredibly… difficult? Why do the awful emotions have to be so simple, and the wonderful ones so complicated? It seems we have to have an explanation for every big emotion we feel, but we rarely question the small, inconsequential ones.

Jackson didn't question enough. He rarely ever knew what he felt; he had turned off his ability to feel so long ago. And Lisa questioned too much.

You might think the two could balance each other out.

You'd be wrong.