I don't write disclaimers because I am Wes Craven and I do own Red Eye. So there. :)

Again, Lisa might seem a little OOC this chapter...she'll start dealing with her feelings soon, promise.

Chapter 2: Road to Nowhere

Lisa pulled into a rest stop. She knew she was about 20 miles from Atlanta, but looking back at the last few hours, she couldn't remember how exactly she had gotten there. She had started driving from Miami and just kept going until she felt her head threatening to drop on the steering wheel. She gripped the steering wheel tightly. Letting her mind freeze over was no better than indulging in her grief. She had to stay focused. If the government was after her, no doubt her name and photo was all over the news and police band. She couldn't risk getting pulled over, and so she had to focus on her driving. But where was she even going?

"We'll talk again."

Given more time, would Jackson have showed up in Miami? Lisa shook her head at her own stupidity, dropping her head against the steering wheel in disgust. Jackson was dead. And if he wasn't dead, then Jim fucking Richards was.

"There was no Jackson Rippner on that flight."

An innocent man."

Lisa couldn't help but wonder how Jackson would react to being called an innocent man. Would he be smug, secure in the knowledge that no one was the wiser? Somehow she doubted it. Jackson would probably be insulted. Hardly, he would probably say, with barely imperceptible scoff and a slight roll of those exquisite- but deadly- blue eyes.

Jackson Rippner.

Did he even exist? Was that even his real name? Lisa reclined her seat, trying her best to get comfortable. Why would Jackson give her his real name? Is it even his real name?

"Do you ever run out of questions, Leese?"

Lisa smiled sadly. Maybe the feds were right. Maybe Jackson was a figment of her imagination. How else was she hearing him say words that had never left his beautiful lips? Exquisite...beautiful...she sounded like a smitten teenager, not a victim of terror. Maybe it was for the best, though. Maybe if she kept focusing on Jackson's good qualities- she ignored the little voice in her head laughing at her for thinking he could have good qualities- she could stop thinking of the overwhelming fear she had felt during that damn flight.

Like in the bathroom. She closed her eyes, remembering how he shoved her up against the bathroom wall, his lips barely an inch from hers. If he hadn't revealed himself to be a heartless monster and really was the charming man from the Tex Mex, that whole scenario would have been played out differently. That searing thrill in her lower belly, her small prayer that he would move just a little forward and capture her lips with his, would have been justified.

But instead, it had just made her feel all the more horrified and humiliated. No, no insteads. What would that have been like? Passion of a different kind, a different kind of pain as he shoved her up against the wall, his intoxicating scent flooding her senses. It could have been something out of a romance novel. Meeting a sexy stranger on a random December evening and then surrendering to her heart- well, sex drive- instead of her mind and letting him take her in a tiny bathroom on an airplane flying somewhere over the country.

"Thanks for the quickie."

Or maybe it would be a bad porno.

She would never be able to explain exactly why, but when she had joined Jackson in the Tex Mex, she had hoped so badly that he was going to be the man to finally help put together a part of her that had been dead and broken for two years. Why she had that hope after mere minutes of conversation, she would never know. She had felt such a strong connection to him, something she hadn't felt with anyone, even before her rape.

Lisa was yanked from her daydreaming when she noticed that a cop car was parked next to her in the lot. Her heart stopped. She noticed there was no officer in the car and dropped down low in her seat. Should she drive away? Lisa started her car, but then hesitated. Either the cop hadn't noticed her, or at least wasn't concerned when he had noticed her, or he was watching from somewhere and waiting for backup. If that was the case, she was dead anyway. She didn't have it in her to pull off a high speed chase. And even with this new surge of adrenaline, she was so tired. She wasn't sure if she could make it to the next rest stop, wherever it was.

Lisa turned the car off again, slumping in her seat. She hardly breathed as she waited to see what would happen. She could move her car to a different spot, but that would be too suspicious. She could leave the rest stop and get off the freeway, but she didn't know how far she was from the next town. Lisa let out what little air was in her lungs when the cop got back into his car, holding a small plastic bag, and made his way back to the freeway.

Lisa knew she had to do something. She had to make herself less conspicuous. And she definitely had to get rid of the car. She knew the feds wouldn't catch on right away that she had taken her dad's car, since it was one of three, but eventually they would figure it out. When that happened, she would never be safe in the vehicle. The longer she waited, the more her face, name, and God only knew what else would be spread across the country.

She glanced in the mirror. Her hair would have to go...red curls stood out too much. She wouldn't have time or the means to actually dye it, but she could probably chop it off herself. She winced, recalling the awful haircuts she got when she was younger. Her mother had tired of seeing her "lion's mane," as she called it, and insisted Lisa keep it short until she was old enough to manage the wild curls herself.

But it would probably work now. A short haircut and maybe a hat to hide most of the red. She glanced down at her body, her skirt that showed off her legs. The high heels didn't help matters. Lisa had never thought of herself as a tramp, but the more she studied herself, the more she became aware that this outfit was designed to stand out and attract attention.

She had at least covered her tank top with a sweatshirt of her dad's that she found in the backseat, but that didn't help much- the blood from her bullet wound was started to seep into the fabric. She had stopped at a Walgreens and wrapped the wound with bandages she purchased, but she knew she had to have her injury looked at. The last thing she needed was to get infected and have her arm fall off or something. She bit her lip and shifted her gaze. The longer she looked at her arm, the more she could feel the pain of the bullet still lodged in her skin. If she didn't think about it, she didn't feel it. But how was she supposed to stop thinking about it?

She scowled, pulling out her purse. $200 from Joe, and only $40 of her own cash left, indicating that she must have stopped for gas one or two times. She didn't remember stopping. Most of the trip so far had been spent in a state of frozen shock. She didn't remember the landscape, other vehicles, or anything other than the hammering of her heart in her throat and the silence of true loneliness.

Lisa thought about her bank accounts. She hardly went out and never took vacations, so she knew she had plenty of money. She cursed herself for not thinking of this earlier. If she withdrew money from an ATM, they would be able to track it. And she could only take out a few hundred at a time. This left her with two options. She could stop at a bank in Atlanta and risk being identified by a teller if her information really was wide-spread already, or keep driving and stop at an ATM in every town to take out money and thus leave a trail for the feds to follow.

Trail to where? Until this moment, Lisa was able to ignore the voice in her head demanding to know exactly where she was taking them. She couldn't keep driving around the country until the feds caught up with her; she might as well have surrendered back at her father's house- another small voice was crushed when it tried to bring up her dad- if that was all she planned to do.

What's the damn plan?

I don't know!

Lisa closed her eyes tightly, hoping that would keep her tears from falling. Tears wouldn't do her any better than questions at this point. What is the plan...?

"Catch up, Lisa! We're going to be late." Lisa looked up from her feet and saw her father walking in front of her, his arms full of sodas and popcorn. How had she gotten to a movie theater?

"Daddy!" She ran toward him, feeling her eyes start to burn with tears again. She followed her father as he disappeared through a door and into a theater. She sat down next to him, watching him carefully place the sodas in their drink holders. "Dad..."

"I heard this movie is supposed to be great," he whispered seemingly not noticing her tears.

Lisa frowned. "Who cares about a movie? How are you here? You're..." she stopped short of saying 'dead,' the word catching in her throat.

"Lisa..." Joe murmured, his eyes boring into hers, "You wanted help. I think this will help you." Lisa wanted to scream at him, but the words won't come out. How would a movie help her? She felt her head turn toward the empty screen as though invisible hands were forcing it and resigned herself to her fate, reclining in her chair. There were worse things than watching a movie, after all.

The movie began. It's boring at first, snapshots of a young girl at graduation, playing field hockey, etc. A wallet gets stolen. A few men as of yet unidentified cart a crate around. Lisa glanced at her dad, who was still staring at her unnervingly.

"Watch the movie, Lisa," he whispered, his dark eyes unblinking.

Hey, that's Cynthia...Lisa recognized the doe eyes, the precious voice. She was handling angry customers. The Taylors. Lisa watched herself talk Cynthia through the problem. Her eyes widened. She remembers this conversation. She felt her heart tighten in her chest. She knew what- who- was coming.

And sure enough, Lisa stopped breathing when she saw those piercing blue eyes appear behind her onscreen self. Jackson...She squeezed her eyes shut. She did not need to see this again.

"Oh, anything but a Bay Breeze." Lisa opened her eyes again as the credits started to roll. She realized that she had been gripping the arm of her chair, but couldn't seem to let go no matter how hard she pulled. She sighed in relief, turning to her father.

"How was that supposed to help?" She moved to get up, thoroughly irate that her father would bring her to this.

"Lisa, sit down," Joe ordered, excitement in his voice, "Haven't you seen enough of these movies to know to sit through the credits? The villain is never dead, you know." Lisa opened her mouth to argue, but again, no words came out. Jackson is dead. She had watched him dying on their kitchen floor and later had been told by the police that he had died at the hospital. He had already been cremated, and no one ever came to claim him. She furrowed her eyebrows and turned back to face the screen, a dull feeling of dread deep in her stomach. Of course the villain was dead.

The credits ended and the screen went black. Lisa's frown deepened. "There's nothing there-" her voice is strangled by a gasp as she turns to face her father. Where her father was, he now sat. Icy blue eyes. High cheekbones that cast shadow on his face in the dim light. Full lips unsmiling. He gripped the wrist that still clung to the arm of her chair, squeezing tightly. His whisper was harsh in her ears.

"We'll talk again."

Lisa woke up with a jerk, her eyes flying open. She whipped her head over to check the seat next to her. Nothing. Just a dream. She held up her right arm and studied her wrist for marks. It had been so real...she could still feel his fingers digging into her skin.

But even as she tried to convince herself, Lisa knew it wasn't just a dream. She had known it all along, somewhere in her heart. Jackson was still alive. And he was coming for her. She shook her head. Even if he meant what he said, which at the time she thought was nonsense, he couldn't come after her yet. Even if he managed to cheat death itself, she had watched him get shot twice. She had seen him with a pen lodged in his throat. He had to be recovering somewhere.

Even with this new thought, Lisa wasn't scared. She was angry. That bastard got her into this mess, and he was going to get her out of it. She ignored the voice, now screaming at the top of its lungs in her mind, begging her to be reasonable, reminding her even if Jackson was alive, he was the last man in the world who would want to help her. He would probably kill her the moment she got within range.

I have no other choice, she rationalized, making her way back onto the freeway, It's either die by his hands or run aimlessly until Keefe catches up to me. She flew down the freeway toward Atlanta, the rising sun lighting her car.

Jackson was alive, and wherever he was, Lisa was going to find him. And when she found him, she would steal him.

How was it? As always, ConCrit welcome! Thanks to those of you who reviewed. It's always nerve-wracking to start a new story and not know how it's going to be received.