Alright, I've finally figured out what I'm doing! I've decided to continue this story and not do this chapter as a sequel; I've changed a lot of things I was going to have in this story. So here is finally the next chapter!


Chapter 9

One month later

Lisa had woken up that morning after to find a cold bed and an even colder life, as corny as it sounded. She didn't even bother to think. She went back to work the very next day, numb and unfeeling. Her mind oddly refused to recognize what had happened, and it would've probably stayed in that dormant state if it wouldn't have been for that damn broken pipe.

She arrived at work on time. Cynthia waved warmly, albeit frantically, to her from the reception desk. Lisa stared at her numbly. She felt raw and exposed and foolish. She had known this would happen. Oh, she had known. She was so stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid. Her brain fought for words other than this and lost. Stupid.

"I'm so glad you're back! Where have you been?" Cynthia cried as Lisa stepped behind the desk and began to punch her password into the computer. "I've really needed you; we've got O'Hannessy coming on the sixth and only three weeks to prep for him! Oh, I'm so glad you're back, I know what happened with Keefe was so long ago but I still get creeped when--"

"O'Hannessy?" Lisa interrupted dumbly.

"Yes! The Secretary of State? I'm supposed to start setting up stronger surveillance in his suites immediately, but I'm so swamped here, could you please…?"

"Sure." Lisa nodded. Stupid.

Cynthia paused for breath and peered at her curiously. "You know, I'm really glad you're back. But are you alright? You look really--"

"I'm fine!" Lisa hurried off down the hall and towards suites 601 and 602. She finally reached the elevator and sagged against the wall. And still her brain refused to think. She reached the suites and then realized she had completely forgotten to bring her laptop. Ding! Went the elevator as she arrived back downstairs, grabbed her bag from the manager's office, and then started back up in the elevator again. Finally she reached the suite and sank down on one of the queen beds inside. She would have to have plumbing and appliances checked tomorrow, and then maybe on Tuesday she could get the new cameras installed and running, if Blake, the surveillance manager, was going to be working… She typed him a quick notice. On and on the list went, and Lisa was so thankful for the fact that her mind didn't need to think about him that she didn't even notice the little droplets of water falling on her.

She'd have to move the Meriweathers to around the corner of the hall, and then she could have the whole hallway free for Keefe—What? Not Keefe, Jacks—O'Hannessy. O'Hannessy. She was just tired, that was why she couldn't think, thank goodness for that water to wake—water? Lisa's head jerked up and to the ceiling. A large dark spot was growing in the tiled ceiling by the second, water dripping from the center. Slowly, as she dumbly watched, the center of the wet spot began to bow in the middle, and a crack began to appear from which more water dripped. The pipes…! Was Lisa's last coherent thought before a mess of mushy tile and water dumped right onto her head. She gasped, stricken, and her mind finally woke up and she began to cry, soundless tears that she could no longer ignore.

Cynthia gasped as she was confronted with a sobbing and very wet Lisa in front of the main reception desk. Customers stared curiously. Surely that mad woman didn't work here.

Two minutes later someone was sent to see to the busted pipe in the ceiling of suite 601 and some other lucky person was working alone at the Luxe Atlantic reception desk. Lisa was wrapped in a towel and sitting numbly inside her office. Cynthia handed her a microwaved and lukewarm cup of tea and Lisa stared at it.

"What happened?" Cynthia asked softly. They both knew she wasn't talking about the pipe. And Lisa told her the whole story, finishing with the fact that she had admitted she loved him and he had left her the very next day; in fact, before she had even woken up. Cynthia stared at her.

"He's the guy that tried to kill Keefe?" she asked incredulously.

Lisa nodded miserably. "But his company thinks he's dead now, and he told me he doesn't work for them anymore, so…"

"So." Cynthia tried to nod. "So. So… So he said he loves you?"

"It was probably just his way of getting revenge," Lisa said bitterly. "You know, get her to say 'I love you', sleep with the girl, leave the next day. Revenge."

"Oh, Lisa," Cynthia reached out and gave her an impulsive hug. "I feel so horrible for you. I don't know what to say. This is like some awful soap opera or something."

Lisa smiled weakly. It was an odd relief to think again, and to know that she wasn't filled with just these thoughts, but that she had someone else to talk about them with.

And so a month passed after that first day back at work, in which Lisa had a considerably less amount of weight on her shoulders than she might have. Cynthia was a better friend than Lisa could've imagined, and she grew to rely on her and trust her, the most she had ever trusted anyone. Jackson was not often in her thoughts; she tried not to think of him at all. Certain things would remind her of him, however, things like rainstorms and smooth wooden floors and lavender bushes and notebooks. But she had gotten over her rape and by God; she would get over Jackson Montgomery. Never mind that she knew her reasoning made absolutely no sense. It was much less painful.

It was the day that O'Hannessy, the secretary of state, arrived, that things fell apart.

--XvXvXvXvXvXvX--

Jackson woke up that wonderful morning after expecting to have Lisa asleep beside him. Instead, he was in a cold and airless moving thing that seemed to have been once a U-Haul. His wrists were chained to a metal bar on one side of the metal box he was enclosed in and he wondered briefly if this was what furniture felt like. His mind couldn't seem to wrap itself around the fact that Lisa was gone. She had just been there, and then—oh God, what if she had been killed? Where the fuck was he, anyway? And—

His company.

That was the only explanation possible. They had discovered he wasn't dead, after all, and they wanted revenge. All at once Jackson realized how very stupid revenge was. His mind was filled with Lisa. Was she alright? Was she alive? Had she woken up, alone, betrayed, hurt, and hating him? And everything had just begun to work out! Anger and disappointment bubbled up inside of him and he banged his feet against the cold metal floor and roared out, "Come and fucking kill me, you bastards! Come and fucking kill me!"

Actually, that was what he wanted to say. That's what he was dreaming he had said right now, a month later.

Jackson sat straight up in his bed in the wonderful headquarters he had used to believe was a home, and sweat beaded up on his chest and upper lip. Alertly he surveyed his surroundings. He was in a bleak room, bleak only because Lisa wasn't there. Life was bleak without Lisa, a dull existence that had been exactly what he had dreaded. A life without feeling, eternal coldness. He was in what might've been a nice hotel room. Across the room sat a large television and a dark green couch. Around the corner were a bathroom and a kitchenette.

There was a reason Jackson was imprisoned at headquarters. Dr.—or no, he wasn't a doctor, he was just a fool—Jones had never been the type to cautiously plan something out. He had received orders to get Jackson to headquarters, Jackson was just across the street, hence the job could be done in a couple seconds and Jones could go back to doing whatever he did. Jackson hated him. He had been drugged and shoved into a truck and sent back to a job he didn't know how he could've ever loved by that awful, idiotic, blundering, moron. When had Jones started working for the company after all? It must've been sometime after Jackson's botched job.

Jackson ran his hands through his hair until it stood up straight. How could he have ever loved this life? He didn't think he ever had. Maybe he had been fueled by revenge all along. Who knew? It didn't matter now. What mattered was that Lisa would be killed if he tried to leave. If she wasn't already dead. But it wasn't worth risking, besides the fact that he would be killed as well. He looked at the clock by his bed. Five-thirty a.m. Time to get up. The job was going into play today. He would finish it, and then maybe they would let him go, maybe just go see Lisa. Just see her, his mind repeated. Just see her. He forgot to care about any other lives beside his and hers.

--XvXvXvXvXvXvX--

Lisa stood with her clipboard and special key outside the side doors of the Luxe Atlantic, used for VIPs only. It was five-thirty a.m. and she inwardly cursed the schedules of the secret service agents protecting O'Hannessy. Did they really think getting here so damn early would stop anyone from hurting them? If someone really wanted to, they would, after all, Jackson had nearly succe—

"Hello, welcome to the Luxe Atlantic," she said smoothly as a whirlwind of bodyguards and such swept past her, somewhere in their midst the Secretary of State. A tall man stopped in front of her and she thankfully lead his 'party' to the suite. Her head was pounding like a drum. Why, of all days, did today have to be the one month anniversary of when Jackson had—Don't say it, she reprimanded herself. Don't even think it. He doesn't matter. He doesn't matter! But why… why had he left? Why? It tortured her, because a little part of her believed that he really had loved her, hadn't ever meant to leave, and she worried. For some reason the fear of his death was stronger than the fear that he had really just wanted revenge all along. But no, that was just Jackson through and through, she shouldn't imagine any of that, reality would eventually hit her and she could not let it hurt her.

Unfortunately, reality was due to hit her sooner than she expected.