Lisa awoke to the sound of beeping. She didn't open her eyes, afraid of who she would see when she did. She didn't know where she was, but she knew that she wasn't home. A few seconds later, she was enveloped in a wave of possibly the worst pain she had ever been in. Every inch of her skin stung like it was on fire and every muscle in her body was sore. The bottom of her feet sent a shooting pain all the way up her leg. Her head throbbed and with every throb, a certain part of the back of her head sent excruciating pain into her brain. She lifted her hand, despite the protest her skin was yelling, and touched the back of her head. It was bandaged and even the slightest touch made the throbbing worse. She opened her eyes and saw that there was dried blood under her finger nails and her hands had an odd brownish color to them. Then it hit her. She was in a hospital because of last night. She remembered last night and the grief over took her pain. Natalie. I am so sorry. She thought. She laid her head gingerly back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Even though her eyes were closed, it didn't stop the tears from falling. "Ms. Resiert?" said someone.

Lisa opened her eyes and saw a motherly looking nurse at the door with a police officer next to her. "Ms. Resiert, I am going to need you to answer a few questions for me," said the officer. Lisa nodded and the officer pulled up a chair and sat next to Lisa's bed. "What happened last night?"

Lisa sighed and said, "I was woken up by a sound and Natalie screaming for help. I ran down stairs and saw an intruder by an open window with Natalie in his arms."

"Did she struggle at all or did she let him take her?"

Lisa got offended. "Of course she struggled! Do you think that she wanted to be kidnapped!"

"Just protocol questions Miss."

"But when I got down there he had already injected her with something and she was limp. He jumped out of the window and when he saw me following him he threw a rock at the window and I was going to fast to stop."

"That is where you got your cuts from?"

"Yes. I tried to stop him and get Natalie, but he knocked me out before I had a chance to get to her."

"Where did the blood on your hands come from?"

"I tried to gouge his eyes out, so that might be it."

"What is your relation to Natalie?"

"I am her adoptive mother."

"Did you see the man who took her?"

"No, the only thing I saw was his green eyes. He looked Caucasian, but he had clothes covering most of his face and body."

"Are you sure it was a 'he'?"

"Well, he was built like it. He had broad shoulders and looked about six feet and two inches tall. That is all I can remember." Lisa remembered it all very vividly. Even just as she was about to pass out, what he had said right before he drove off had stuck in her mind like a splinter that wouldn't come out, "You are lucky that Rippner wants his revenge. If I had my way you would be dead."

"Can you describe Natalie for me?"

"She is five foot nine, built like a soccer player, bright blue hair and brown eyes, Caucasian female. She had on a black shirt that said 'The Killers' and green pajama shorts that said, 'Green Day' across the back."

"Did you get a look at the car they were driving?"

"A black SUV."

"Okay." The officer wrote something on the clipboard he had been writing on while she had been interrogated. He stood up and patted Lisa on the shoulder, "I am terribly sorry for your loss and the entire police force will try our hardest to bring Natalie back."

Lisa gave him a weak smile and said, her throat constricting, "Thank you."

He left and the nurse by the door walked in and gave Lisa a 'hang in there, sweetie'. "It's time for your last dosage of pain medication and you are free to go."

The nurse walked out of the room and brought back to Lisa her clothes from last night and a small paper cup with three Advil and one tiny white pill. "What is this white pill?" Lisa asked the nurse.

"It's Valium. It is a really low dosage, 1 milligram. The doctor prescribes it to almost anyone who had suffered the loss of a child. I suggest that you don't try to drive for the next few hours, though. It can make you really dizzy and can cause major fatigue. But then again, it is different for everyone. Here is your prescription for 30 tablets and three refills."

"Thank you," Lisa said as the nurse walked out of the room. Lisa's clothes from last night was her night gown, so she figured that she would just go straight home and change before she did anything.

The hospital called a cab for her and the cab drove her to her house. There were police men and CSI workers around her house along with her father and several reporters. As soon as Lisa stepped out of the car, she was bombarded with cameras and microphones while her ears were assaulted with the 'clicks' of cameras going off and people shouting stupid questions at her like, "What happened to Natalie?" Lisa squinted and tried to get around the reporters. She didn't want to be on national TV in her night gown. "What did the kidnapper look like?" one of the reporters yelled. Lisa ignored all of the questions and accusations. "Do you think the court will revoke your adoption rights?" That one caught Lisa's attention. Before she had a chance to say anything, three police officers, her father, and her lawyer pushed through the crowd of reporters and escorted Lisa into her house.

Once safely inside the sanctity of her quite house, she hugged her father and started to cry on his shoulder. "She is gone, dad! I am never going to see her again!" Her father helped her to her bed. Within a minute, she was asleep. But it was not a peaceful sleep. She had terrible dreams of Natalie mutilated and in a ditch somewhere and her ghost coming back to her saying, "You let him take me! You don't love me!" The ghost got closer and pushed Lisa off of a cliff. Just as she was about to hit the ground, Lisa woke up in a cold sweat, warm tears on her cheeks and obscuring her vision.

The next few days went on like this. Lisa was in a constant grief ridden state, crying every time she would come across one of Natalie's things. Lisa's father's house was only down a few streets, but he was with her most of the time. And what the kidnapper had said kept turning in her mind like a record that wouldn't stop, "You are lucky that Rippner wants his revenge. If I had my way you would be dead."

Then one night, Lisa had another dream. But this one was different from them all. It was so lifelike that is was almost as if she was doing it in real life.

She was lying on a strange bed, one she had never seen before and she was in a room she had never been in. Jackson was lying on top of her and they were kissing. She could feel every inch of his skin against hers and they were getting into it. Then all of the sudden, Jackson stopped. He looked Lisa dead in the eyes and said, "Lisa, you have connections with a contract murderer, why don't you use them more often?"

Lisa's eyes opened suddenly and she knew what she had to do.

"LISA!" screamed the reporters when she got out of the car. She was at the Miami State Penitentiary. "Why are you here? Where is Natalie?"

"Lisa will not be disclosing any statements at this point and time," said her lawyer. Lately he had taken to following her everywhere because the reporters had gotten brutal with the questions and accusations. Lisa had on a hat and large sunglasses. She hadn't bothered to do her makeup and the endless nights of no sleep and tears had done a number on her face and eyes.

Once inside the closed doors, Lisa asked the front desk if she could speak with inmate 108. She was led to a room with a glass wall dividing the room. She turned to her lawyer and said, "I don't want anyone in there with me and I don't want to be recorded or filmed, do you understand me? I don't want anyone to ever know what went on in this room except for me and the inmate." As her lawyer left she sat down in the chair provided and waited. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the uncomfortable metal chair. This was the only moment of peace she had had in a while.

"You look terrible," said a voice she had lately been hearing in her dreams. Lisa went stiff and opened her eyes. There were the two blue eyes that had haunted her for so long. The blue eyes that belonged to the terrifyingly beautiful face of Jackson Rippner.

"Long time no see Leese. Where have you been? It's been almost a year and you haven't come to say hello to your loverboy." He put a hand over his heart and put on a face of fake sorrow, "I'm hurt."

Lisa's voice had left her. She had come here to see him, to talk to him; but to actually be so close to the face that she had fallen in love, or perhaps lust, with was just so shocking for her unbalanced emotional state right now. Jackson saw her open wound and dug at it.

"I thought after that amazing kiss on the plane, you would come back for more. Or was that brat you adopted getting in the way?" Jackson hated seeing her like this. He would do anything to end her suffering, but he couldn't let her see that.

This remark jumpstarted Lisa's voice. "How dare you talk about Natalie like that!"

"Oh my," Jackson said, faking surprise. "It seems that I have struck a nerve."

Lisa was about to go all off on Jackson but the little voice in the back of her head repeated what the kidnapper had said, "You are lucky that Rippner wants his revenge. If I had my way you would be dead." And besides, she didn't want to make him mad. Then he wouldn't cooperate. "Jackson, I need your help."

Jackson was completely taken aback by what Lisa just said. "Excuse me?"

"I… need your help. I need your help to get Natalie back." She looked down at her lap and said, "As you probably know by now, Natalie was kidnapped a few days ago." For the most part she was looking at her lap so Jackson wouldn't see her crying, but some of it was so she wouldn't have to see his face.

"What do you want me to do about it, Leese? I am in jail, remember?"

Lisa looked him straight in the eye, "Well, I figure if a pen in your throat didn't stop you, then jail would be a piece of cake."

Almost subconsciously, Jackson brought his hand up to his throat. "You want to see the mark you left on me Lisa? Because you know, every time it stings, I think of you." He pulled down the front of the orange jumpsuit to reveal a perfectly round red mark in the middle of his throat. Lisa looked at the wound and tears fell from her face, but not for Jackson, for Natalie. She looked back up at Jackson with red puffy eyes and said,

"Please Jackson. I miss her so much. I just want to know she is safe. I would do anything … anything to bring her back home."

Inside Jackson's heart was breaking right along with Lisa's. But not for Natalie, for Lisa. He hated seeing her like this. His face softened and he said, "I am sorry Lisa, but there is nothing I can do."

She became silent and got up off of the chair. She had her hand on the door and Jackson called out, "Lisa."

She turned around and he said, "I'm sorry."

She just nodded and walked out of the room.

"Come on, Rippner. Time to go back to your cell," said the guard.

"I want to use my weekly phone call," Jackson said.

"Follow me." The guard led him to the phone booth in the back of jail house. "Ten minutes."

Jackson dialed a number he thought he would never have to dial again. "Hello?"

"This is Rippner. I need you to commence operation 666."

"Don't we need the bosses okay?"

"The boss isn't going to be in charge for long if you get the drift. Get the best guys out here; I need you to commence this now."

Somewhere out in the middle of Nevada Natalie woke up and it was dark. It took her a while to realize that she was blindfolded. She had no idea where she was and all she remembered was waking up with a man above her head. She screamed for Lisa and the man picked her up and put his hand over her mouth. She kept screaming for Lisa, but then the man put a syringe in her neck and she blacked out. She was sore and her head felt like it had been bashed in more then once. She was gagged and tied to a chair. She heard someone open and close a door. "Well hello beautiful," said the person who had opened the door. She heard footsteps and someone uncovered the blindfold. The first thing that she saw was two bright green eyes.

As Lisa walked into her bedroom, she thought all hope was lost. She thought she was never going to see Natalie or Jackson again.

Even though it was only five o'clock in the afternoon, Lisa felt a sudden wave of fatigue. She changed into her comfortable cotton Victoria Secrets nightgown and turned down the covers on her bed. She turned on the TV only to find more on the investigation of Natalie's kidnapping. She turned it off and laid her head on the pillow. She fell into a fitful sleep of bad dreams of Natalie and passion filled dreams of Jackson.

At around 3 AM, Lisa had another bad dream, but it was life like, just like the one with her and Jackson. Natalie was gagged and tied to a chair in a room that Lisa had never seen before. The man in black had a knife to Natalie's throat. She had deep cuts all around her and blood splattered everywhere. She was screaming out in pain, yet it was muffled by the gag. "No!" Lisa screamed.

Then the dream changed and they were in a different room. Natalie, Jackson, and the man in black were there. She was a few yards away from Natalie who was being backed into a corner by the man in black who had a gun. Lisa started to run towards her to protect her. The man in black yelled at Natalie, "I WILL finish what I started 16 years ago!" Jackson ran out of nowhere and jumped in front of the gun. The man in black shot and Jackson was the one who took the bullet.

"NO!" Lisa screamed. She fell to her knees and screamed for the loss of Jackson.

Lisa opened her eyes and gasped for the loss of Jackson in the dream and then tried to scream because the real life Jackson was on top of her. He was dressed in the same outfit as he was on the plane but all she noticed was those eyes. He put his hand on her mouth and said, "You said you would do anything to get Natalie back and this is that anything." He put a syringe in her neck and as the world dimmed she saw his eyes and heard him say, "I'm sorry Lisa."


Hello! Thank you all for being so patient with me! I have a good reason for not posting, though. Those of you who read Love of Fear, by yours truly, you already know the reason, but for those of you who don't, I had my very first speech and debate meet a little while ago and I was gone for a couple days. But, I won first place in my dramatics! I am so happy! So thank all of you for being so patient with me! Thanks to Silver Anarchist, BregoBeauty, Andraya TheLat (special thanks to you for the Spanish lesson!),Silver Arrow112, and Mini Nicka for reviewing! I would be nothing without you! Extra large e-milky way and a free copy of Shakira's new album!

Love,

Celia