Hey. First off I want to say thank you to all of you who have reviewed my story so far, I am very appreciative! I had a little bit of writer's block with this one, but I don't think that it was quite too bad. Well, here it is, Chapter 3. I hope you like it. ^__^

Chapter Three: When We First Met

Lisa glanced in surprise and gratefulness at the young man who helped her calm down an angry man waiting in line for his flight. The first thing she noticed about him was his height, how he was taller than her, but not too much so that it was a great difference in between their heights. Next were his smooth-looking brown locks of hair, just a few shades darker than her own honey-colored brown curls. She noticed that he had a good build, even under his clothes. He didn't look overly-muscular or anything like that, but he did look strong. And finally, when he turned around to look back at her, she couldn't help but be absorbed by his light blue, crystal eyes. They were entrancing. His voice, his looks, his eyes, everything about him, even the very air around him, held power and strength and, she had noticed something else but hadn't realized what it was at the time—not until later when his true intentions came out—that he also held terror.

At first glance—and, she had to admit, her first impression—he seemed like the perfect man. He defended her, a stranger, and he was kind to her. If only she had known what would happen oh so soon.

The first thing that Lisa registered was the bright light pounding on her eyelids, trying to get in. Bringing her hand up to shield her eyes, Lisa slowly opened them, blinking a few times to bid the sleep away.

She looked around to realize that they were on the outskirts of a city, far enough from the center so that she couldn't draw someone's attention so that they could help her, but close enough to be surrounded by civilization.

"Where are we?" She heard her voice croak, and winced at the sound of it. Did she always sound this bad after she had just woken up?

She was still in the car, and was still sitting in the seat next to Jackson Rippner, tormentor extraordinaire.

Without even turning to look at her, Jackson replied, "That's not important."

Lisa snorted. "Right," she retorted, "who would want to know where they are?"

"I don't appreciate you mocking me." Jackson told her.

"And I don't appreciate you kidnapping me." She snapped at him, turning to face him.

Lisa could visibly see Jackson's jaw clenched. "Tell me why every time I'm with you I feel like I'm talking to a five-year-old." It was rhetorical, of course.

"Then take me back if you don't want to be around me. I don't see what you need with me, and since you won't tell me anything, then I can assume that I'm not needed." Lisa said. "So take me back."

"Now Lisa, you know I can't do that."

"Well I don't see why the heck not." She muttered to herself. She looked over to the clock in the dashboard to see that it was four forty-five in the afternoon. She sighed and turned to stare back out of the car window, her arms crossed over her chest.

Lisa felt disgusting. Not only had Jackson touched her multiple times, first to get her into the car and to tie her up; and secondly to move her to the front and unbind her a little, but also because she hadn't taken a shower since the day that he had kidnapped her and she was still wearing the same clothes. She didn't know how long it had been, exactly, but she knew that she really wanted a shower, badly, and she could feel her stomach starting to demand food, but—thank goodness—it had yet to grumble. She would be so embarrassed if Jackson knew that she was practically starving. He already had enough power over her as it was.

It was a good other hour of silence, though, before Jackson finally turned his car into a motel in a small little rest-stop town a ways from the city they had just been in earlier. Lisa looked at it with excitement. Sure, going to a motel was not the most exciting thing in the world, and it was made even less pleasant when you were most likely going to share a room with Jackson so that he could keep an eye on you, but she would finally be able to get a shower. Lisa made sure to hide her happiness from Jackson, though. She didn't want him to see it.

Jackson parked the car in the parking lot and undid his seatbelt. He turned in the car to face her and said sternly with a serious expression on his face, "Now, Leese, we're going to get a room and stay in this town until tomorrow. You had better not try anything, understand?"

Lisa gulped and nodded under his fierce and smoldering gaze. He was really being serious. But then again, this was Jackson. He was always serious.

Jackson stared into her eyes for a second more before he got out of the car, closing his door quietly yet quickly at the same time, and walked around the front of the car to the passenger's side.

Jackson opened the car door and leaned over Lisa to unbuckle her seatbelt. Lisa's heart fluttered and her lungs seemed to stop working. That always happened when Jackson got close to her, even when his intents were violent—she just didn't feel her heart fluttering underneath all of the fear when he was being violent.

But in a flash Jackson was standing back up and Lisa's heart was beating normally again and her lungs were working, allowing her to breathe. She swung her legs out of the car—with great difficulty, mind you, and tried to stand up out of the car—

—and fell right back down again on her butt, which was already still somewhat sore from earlier. Lisa tried her hardest to stifle a groan, remembering how Jackson had been annoyed earlier from her constant groaning. But, seriously, it was his fault she was groaning. However, Lisa snubbed that thought before she got off again on a long rant inside her head how everything was his fault and he wouldn't even let her slightly complain about the pain that he was causing and had caused her.

Jackson sighed and undid the bind around her hands. While untying it, though, he didn't look once away from her eyes in a warning glare. After he had untied her hands, he bent down and untied her ankles. The millisecond that every part of her was free, Lisa wasted no time in bringing her leg up and hitting Jackson in the groin.

Jackson doubled over in pain on the asphalt of the parking lot and Lisa hurriedly crawled over to the driver's side of the car so that she could exit out of that door and make a run for the motel to get them to call the police.

As quick as Lisa tried to be, just as she had opened the driver's door, however, she felt a hand grab her right ankle and pull her back. Lisa was about to scream when Jackson's hand covered her mouth and he had a murderous look on his face.

Jackson had let go of Lisa's ankle by now and his hand found its way around her throat. "Don't you ever do that again!" he growled at her. Lisa's hands flew up to Jackson's hand that was around her neck and choking her. She tried to pry it off of her, but it was no use. Jackson was just way too strong for her, and she was weakening by the second.

"Nighty-night, Lisa. Sleep tight." Jackson taunted her with a menacing voice and a wicked smirk.

Everything went black.

"Thank you." Lisa told the handsome young man she had just met.

"Oh, not at all," he said with a charming smile. "I was just back-up. You got the ball rolling."

She smiled and laughed a little.

They engaged in a short conversation, and he invited her to the Tex Mex to grab a drink with her. He was oh so charming and kind. Later she would think what a good actor he really was. He would be great if he ever went to Hollywood.

She declined him with excuses, and he seemed to understand that it might be awkward.

Just as Lisa was walking away from watching a young girl tell her mom that she'd be fine on her own on the plane, she caught sight of the young man sitting alone at the Tex Mex. He had just ordered a drink and Lisa was seriously thinking about joining him.

After changing her shirt that had iced mocha all over it, Lisa walked back out and as she walked past the Tex Mex, she spotted the man again. Her step faltered and Lisa took a great leap of courage and walked over to him, deciding to join him.

They chatted a little, and then the man said that if he could guess what drink she liked, then she had to order it.

And after a few missed guesses, he hit the nail, a grapefruit Sea Breeze. Lisa's heart had clenched momentarily and she immediately turned to the bartender and asked for a Bay Breeze. She didn't like that he got it right, even after a couple wrong guesses. Her eyes shifted over to him to see what he would do.

They got talking a bit more, exchanging a little information on each other.

And then she had gotten her Bay Breeze. And wow, had that tasted strong!

They had told their names then. Jackson. Jackson Rippner. Even though he was slightly creepy and there was definitely something off about him, something that Lisa couldn't quite pinpoint, but knew somewhere down deep, she had felt her heart flutter just by looking at him. Jackson Rippner. She couldn't stop saying his name in her head. She liked it. It had a nice ring to it, it sounded somewhat unique to her, in a way.

And then she thought of something.

Jackson Rippner. Jack the Ripper.

That wasn't very nice of his parents at all.

Later, she would come to realize how much that name fit him. Jack the Ripper.

Lisa opened her eyes slowly. Her head swam and her neck hurt. She tried to think back to what had happened. She remembered Jackson. He was angry at her trying to escape. She could feel his hands on her neck all over again in memory, and instantly thought that she'd have a pretty bad bruise on her neck—she was sure of that. His other attempts at strangling her in the past had left bruises which had taken quite a long time to heal.

Lisa tried to bring her hands to feel around her neck.

Only she couldn't.

Metal clinked and she was stopped. There was a cold feeling against both of Lisa's wrists and something cut into them, making her gasp.

Lisa turned her head back to look up at her hands which were held above her head. Each was encased in a single handcuff. There were two sets of handcuffs, and the handcuffs that weren't around her wrists were encircling a bar of the metal headboard of the bed that she was currently "resting" in.

Lisa's mouth fell open. She tugged at her wrists and the metal dug into her flesh even more, stinging it.

"The handcuffs aren't going to break or anything, you know."

Lisa turned her head back down and looked across the room from where she was. Jackson was standing in front of an open door, the mirror inside all fogged up. Lisa's jaw dropped even further and her eyes widened.

Jackson was standing there, wet hair dripping water that cascaded over his pale, muscled chest and abdomen. The water then traveled further only to disappear into a fuzzy white towel that was wrapped around his hips. Jackson's arms were up as he tried to dry the top part of his shoulder-length soaked brown hair—which now looked rather black or at least a very dark brown—with a white towel that matched the one around his waist.

Jackson looked at Lisa curiously. She still had her mouth dropped and her eyes were still wide as she gazed as Jackson's barely covered, very well toned body. At first he didn't understand why she was like that, but after a second he understood.

It was when Jackson chuckled with that evil yet oh so seductive smirk of his that Lisa finally turned away, a firm blush on her cheeks—she was sure. "Put some clothes on." Lisa told him. "Not everyone wants to see that."

"You must not be a part of everyone, then." Jackson said with that same smirk.

Lisa was sure that her cheeks were getting even redder. Darn him and that smirk and that voice and those eyes and that body—darn every part of him! He was made to ruin her from the inside out!

And he was loving every minute of it—the nerve!

"Just put some clothes on," Lisa said stubbornly. "Please," she added.

"Alright, alright," Jackson chuckled, "you old spinster."

Lisa felt her cheeks flare again. Spinster! How dare he?! He was older than she was most likely, yet it was alright for guys not to be married but not for girls to be unmarried?! What an arrogant, conceited, self-centered, rude, egotistical, haughty, bigheaded, proud, overconfident, vain, smug, stuck-up, self-satisfied, high and mighty jerk! He deserved to be taught a thing or two.

In fact, Lisa thought with a smirk, he deserved to have his butt handed to him again by her or another person of the female population like she had done before. Maybe then that would fix him.

But only fix his insides—there wasn't a thing wrong with his outsides.

Lisa turned her head and looked back toward the bathroom door to see that, in her thought ranting, Jackson had changed into some clothes and was now standing in the exact same spot as he had been standing previously, fully clothed. Either she had had a very long thought rant or Jackson was just a very fast dresser. Lisa didn't really want to think about the latter of the two because then that meant that she would have to fight against envisioning him naked, even though she had seen quite a bit when he was only wearing a towel, she had still missed the vital…structures…and if she envisioned him naked then that would mean that her mind would use the long-unused imagination that she had.

Lisa could see Jackson's lips moving but wasn't paying enough attention to actually understand the words in the voice that she was hearing. Snapping herself out of her rather disturbing—yet somewhat intriguing—thoughts, Lisa blinked a few times and said, "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I didn't quite catch it."

Jackson had a visible look of annoyance on his face, but he repeated anyways. "I said, 'We'll be leaving by tomorrow morning.' And I don't think that I need to remind you that if you even so much as try to scream or attract someone's attention, you'll be seeing black for a couple days, and wake up to find some pretty nasty bruises. Got it?"

Lisa glared at Jackson, because, really, what else could she do, lying here chained to the bed? "Just don't try anything. Don't forget that I can still kick your butt." She said. Juvenile, yes, but it just came out without her even thinking about it.

Jackson snorted and walked over to the window—the blinds all closed, naturally—and lifted one up a little, peeking through. "Don't kid yourself. You can't do me any harm while you're tied to the bed like that."

True, it would be hard to fight Jackson off with her hands should he choose to get violent, but her hands were the only things tied. Her legs weren't, and were free for the usage. "Let's not forget our little…fray that happened not too long ago in the parking lot." She said with a smirk.

Jackson turned suddenly to look at her, his face blank. For emphases, Lisa slid up her legs so that her knees were sticking up in the air. "You were bested by me before, two months ago. What's to say that you won't get bested again?"

A dark look flashed over Jackson's face briefly, before vanishing back into the blank expression he had worn just seconds before. "I swear," he said, briefly gesturing to her legs with his hand as he slowly walked over to Lisa, his eyes never leaving hers', "if you ever pull something like that again, I can guarantee that you won't see the light of day for a very, very long time. And besides, before, two months ago, was a fluke—a one-time thing. It won't be happening again, I'll make sure of that."

"Careful, Jack," Lisa said dauntingly, playing with his hated nickname on her tongue, "history always finds a way to repeat itself."

And in a flash, Jackson was sitting on the bed beside Lisa, leaning over her slightly, his hand pulling down the fabric of her tank top a little over her right breast—just enough to show the angry scar that gleamed like fire compared to the rest of her very pale skin. When Lisa had realized what was happening, Jackson was gazing at her scar with a smirk. Lisa looked down at his hand—well, as best as she could—horrified when he started to lightly stroke it with his thumb.

"You sure you want to be believing that?" he whispered dangerously, his eyes trailing up to meet Lisa's terrified ones, the smirk making his eyes glint with what could only be taken as evil—by Lisa, at least.

It only took Lisa a second or two, before everything finally settled in, and she got over her shock and horror.

Lisa's face scrunched up in anger and she sneered at him, flailing her legs everywhere like a tantrum-throwing child, twisting and turning her body this way and that, trying to get Jackson away from her.

"Get away from me!" she screeched at him, her wrists yanking against the handcuffs. "You monster!"

Jackson jumped back away from her quickly, his smirk smaller, but still there. "Still a sore topic, I see."

"I HATE YOU!" screamed Lisa. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"

Jackson flew to her, covering her mouth with his right hand and using his left arm to try and hold her down. "Lisa," he hissed, "keep quiet!"

Jackson's hand snapped away from Lisa's mouth as a look of surprise and anger crossed his face. "You bit me!" he could scarcely believe that she would do that. Lisa glared at him angrily, trying desperately to burn holes through his very being, but also failing terribly.

A slap could be heard as Lisa's head flew to her right, a red mark on her left cheek. Tears welled up behind her eyes and she bit her lip, as if trying to distract herself from her cheek's stinging.

Jackson stood up from the bed, glaring at Lisa, and walked back to the bathroom, grabbing a band-aid. Lisa had quite a hard bite, breaking the skin of his hand with her teeth.

When Jackson returned to the room, after rinsing off his hand, rubbing disinfectant on it, and putting a band-aid on, Jackson saw that Lisa was still in the exact same position as he had left her in—she had moved a muscle. Circling around the bed toward the side where Lisa's head was turned, Jackson caught something, a glint on her cheek caused by the light. Upon getting closer, Jackson realized that they were tears. Lisa was crying. She wasn't shaking, but she was still biting her lip and her eyes were closed, and the water making its way down her cheeks in droplets were unmistakably tears.

The events since her kidnap were finally starting to sink in.

"Leese," Jackson called softly, and Lisa trembled a little before opening her eyes and blinking back her tears. "Look at me, Leese."

Lisa hesitantly obliged. She turned her head slightly to look into his eyes dead on. Jackson didn't fail to notice that her eyes were red, her lip was bleeding from her biting it so hard, and her cheek was starting to bruise. She wasn't going to be fighting him anytime soon, he knew. Her spirit had left her for now, and so had the will to stop him.

Jackson sat down on the edge of the one and only bed, beside her, and looked over at her face, his hands in his lap. Jackson's own face was schooled to be blank, emotionless. This girl was his weakness, and he knew it. And one day, he felt like she would be his undoing as well. Jackson moved his right hand toward her face, and she flinched away, scrunching her eyes up, preparing for the blow.

Jackson felt a little twinge of something, deep down. He surprised Lisa by gently rubbing the blood off of her trembling bottom lip with his thumb, unknowingly sending tingles down Lisa's spine.

"Leese, tell me," he spoke softly, and Lisa had to open her eyes to make sure that it was still Jackson sitting in front of her, and not someone else. "When we first met, what did you think of me?"

Lisa could feel heat rise to her face as she closed her eyes at the memory. She was somewhat glad that she had a bruise on one of her cheeks, because it would make it all that much harder for Jackson to see that she was blushing. "I thought what you wanted me to think." She whispered. "You were too good to be true. After all that had happened to me, you seemed like a man that I could grow to like, to trust."

"And then I threw it all away." It was a fact, not an opinion.

Lisa nodded, her lip still trembling at the feel of Jackson's thumb on it.

Truth be told, Lisa had thought about what they could have been had Jackson not turned out to be a psycho-killer—they both had. And although each time the topic came up in Lisa's head, she had denied it severely. Jackson had not bothered denying it. Yes, he knew that they could have been well together. They were alike in many ways, more than Lisa would surely like to admit.

Jackson removed his thumb from Lisa's bottom lip—after which, it had stopped trembling—and stood up, walking away from Lisa and toward the small desk in the corner of the room of the motel that had been given to them. He sat down and pulled a laptop out of a bag that Lisa hadn't noticed before.

As he started typing away, working on something probably for work, Lisa turned her head away from him and closed her eyes, not going to sleep, but just resting. She needed to think, think about what was going on, and how she was going to get away. She listened to the rhythmic sounds of Jackson's pounding away on the keyboard. He was quite the fast typer.

Before Lisa knew it, her thoughts had taken her to what Jackson had said just a few minutes earlier. When she first met him, she had felt like maybe he was the one, the one who could bring her out of her miserable routine that she had gotten herself into. Maybe he could save her from her loneliness, and her fear and worry and pain. Maybe he could erase her memories of that one dreadful day in the parking lot that haunted her still.

But, as Jackson had said, he had thrown it all away: Her feelings, her hopes, and their possibility. Lisa wondered what Jackson had thought when they first met. Granted, he had been stalking her for eight weeks prior to their first "meeting," but he hadn't actually physically talked to her, or stood right in front of her. Bitterness swept in as the realization struck—and it struck hard. She was just a job; she had just been another meaningless job to him, another dollar in his wallet. He didn't feel anything for her, no matter how soft or gentle he could seem at times. He was a good actor; he had already proven that before. And she didn't feel anything for him either.

Another silent tear escaped her eye and cascaded down her cheek.

Not a single thing.

Ooo. I don't know about you, but I think she's lying to herself, about more than one thing too. ;)

Let me know what you think. I tried not to make any mistakes, but if I did, I'm sorry. I'm always happy to hear theories or suggestions. ^___^

Until next time.

Ciao.

Love ya, mean it. :)