After the fog lifted...
Jessie stood in the living room of Sal's apartment. The smell of maple bacon hung in the air and she could hear him moving around in the kitchen. She took a few steps forward and peaked around the corner. Sal was pouring pancake mix on to a griddle while putting bread in the toaster. Smiling, she completely turned the corner and watched him.
"Hey, Sal.."
Sal turned around. "I didn't hear you come in." He said returning her smile. He wiped his hands on a dish towel, hugged her and kissed her cheek.
Jessie hugged him back, wrapping her arms around him. "I love you, Sal. I'm sorry...I'm so sorry."
"It's alright." He told her, letting her go and taking a step back. He reached over and wiped a tear from her face with his thumb. "It's okay Jess, don't worry about it anymore."
She nodded under his hand.
"Okay then." He smiled at her and walked back to the griddle to flip pancakes over. "Can you get the O.J. and a couple glasses from the cabinet?"
Jessie did as he asked. Pouring them both some juice, before sitting down at the table.
Sal put a plate with pancakes and bacon in front of her, then reached into the cabinet above his head and took out the syrup. "Here ya go kid." He put it down in front of her and sat down with his own plate. "You don't look too good. When was the last time you really slept?"
Jessie shrugged. "Couple days maybe."
Sal shook his head "Not good, Jess. You need to get some sleep. A sheet of paper has more color than you. Make sure you bring some sunscreen to the track, so you don't burn." He looked at her smiling. "Although sunburn would at least give you some color."
"Ha ha very funny." It felt good to joke around with him again and she couldn't help but laugh.
"I'd ask you to stay with me tonight...you always sleep well here, but I'm sure with your big brother in town, you wanna stay home."
Jessie nodded, then realized what he said. "Wait...what?"
"When I talked to your Dad this morning he said John and his team came back with you. He did, didn't he?"
Jessie nodded but was confused. "Yes, but that was weeks ago."
"You really need to get some sleep, kid. I spoke to your Dad this morning while you were on the plane. How is John? I can't remember the last time I saw him...he was probably eight or nine." He was watching her as he spoke and she looked lost and confused. "You sure you wanna go to the track? You can just crash here for a few hours, then we'll head over to your place and hang with John. How's that sound?"
Jessie started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Sal, when I said I was sorry earlier...what do you think I was apologizing for?"
"For your Dad laying into me for leaving you alone the other night after Blue won his race, but like I said, don't worry about it. After I told him you weren't as alone as you thought you were..." He winked at her. "Cause I had a couple guys looking out for you, that you didn't know about, he cooled off a bit. So we're good, okay? No big deal."
Jessie's eyes widened as she realized what day it was. What day it was going to be...the day Langston, Krieger, and Lewis killed Sal. She jumped up almost flipping her plate, but Sal quickly leaned forward and pulled it away before it could turn over.
"What's going on?"
"We need to go right now." Her voice shook as the panic inside her grew. She started to pace anxiously. "We have to go now."
"We still have two hours until the first race...relax...sit down and eat." He got up for more juice. "Besides, I promised your Dad I would bring a couple of my boys with us...he wants to make sure you're safe, so we have to wait for Taylor and Collins."
"Let's wait in the lobby then...we could wait for them at the bar and have some drinks."
"Look, kid, I like a drink as much as the next guy but ten in the morning is a bit early for me...and you, so you might as well sit down and finish your breakfast...we're gonna wait right here."
"Sal please, we have to leave." She stopped pacing and nervously looked towards the front door. "They're coming for you...they're gonna kill you Sal...please, let's just go."
"Is this about what happened to Susan?" Sal sank back into his chair and sighed deeply. "Jessie, no one is coming for me today or any other day, okay? Don't worry about me, no one is gonna hurt me."
Jessie shook her head. "No, you're wrong...they're coming to kill you. I saw it. I saw what they did to you-"
"Jessie it was just a dream. You were upset about Susan and you dreamed-"
She was being punished for what she said about Sal...about him getting what he deserved and how it was not enough. Her subconscious was not going to let her out of it...and it was not going to let her save him. The panic inside her was growing fast. She was going to have to watch him die...that's was she deserved. Frustrated, she slammed both fists on to the table.
"Goddammit Sal, it wasn't a dream!" She shouted at him. "We need to get out of here now!"
"Alright, that's enough!" Sal yelled as he stood up, losing his temper with her. "I was cutting you some slack because you don't look well, but I've had enough. Sit down!" She didn't comply, so he took a step forward and tried again. "Jessie. Morgan. O'Doyle. I. Said. Sit. Down."
Jessie grudgingly sat down and opened her mouth to say something but the anger in Sal's face quieted her.
Sal leaned forward and put his index finger and thumb almost together. "I am this close to saying to hell with going anywhere and keeping you here to get some sleep. I don't know what's going on with you...I'm sure it has a lot to do with what happened to Susan...but you're gonna settle down right now, understand me?"
Jessie nodded. resigning herself to his fate...and her punishment.
"Good." He sat back down. "Now, we're going to finish eating and when Taylor and Collins get here, we will go. I don't want to hear another word about leaving before then."
"Sal..."
"I mean it, Jessie."
Jessie looked down at her plate, defeated. She just wanted to tell him she was sorry for what was about to happen, but it would've been useless. He couldn't understand.
They sat in silence. Sal finished eating his breakfast, while Jessie sat pushing hers around on her plate. He sat back in his chair and watched her.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you...I shouldn't have done that. Jessie looks at me." When she looked up he smiled reassuringly. "Stop worrying. Everything's going to be okay."
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Sal reached over, picked up Jessie's plate and put it on top of his, stood up and put both in the sink. Jessie started to tremble inwardly and her stomach started to churn.
Sal put his hand on her shoulder as he walked by her to answer the door. "The boys are here. We'll leave soon..."
"It's not who you think it is." She whispered sadly, as he headed for the front door. Jessie stood up and called out to him, stopping him halfway to the door. "Sal wait! Don't answer the door! It's not who you think it is...please."
Sal shook his head. "Again with this? You know what, I'm just gonna have them watch the building and we'll stay here so you can get some sleep. I'll call your Dad and let him know what's going on."
The doorbell rang several more times as the person on the other side grew impatient.
"Okay, okay," Sal said as he reached for the doorknob...
"Sal don't open the door! Don't!" Jessie shouted in her sleep.
Startled when Jessie shouted, John jumped up nearly dumping her on to the floor. He held on to her and pulled her up so she was sitting against him. Holding her with one arm, he pushed the hair out of her face with the other.
"Hey, hey...Jessie wake up..." John patted her cheek. Seeing the anguish in her face and feeling her tremble, he shook her gently. "Jessie c'mon, wake up..."
After Sal opened the front door, Jessie heard him start to say something, then there was a thump followed by laughter. When Roy Langston stepped through the doorway, Jessie froze and found it hard to breathe. She watched, helplessly as Krieger and Lewis drug Sal's unconscious body behind them as they followed Langston to the kitchen.
"No..." She said weakly.
"Hey, kid..." Roy Langston greeted her. "I gotta tell ya, I did not expect to see you here...but hell the more the merrier. You just let your Uncle Roy handle this and we'll make sure Sal gets what he deserves, okay?"...
"No don't...don't hurt him. I didn't mean it." Jessie pleaded in her sleep.
"Jessie wake up...it's just a dream..it's not real. Wake up." He took her hand in his and squeezed. "I'm here with you...it's only a dream..let it go."
"So where should we start?" Langston asked Jessie as they watched Krieger and Lewis tie Sal to a kitchen chair. "Duct tape his mouth, Lewis." He looked over at Jessie. "I don't want him talking to you and spoiling our fun."
By the time Krieger and Lewis were finished securing Sal to the kitchen chair he had regained consciousness. He struggled with the ropes that bound him and tried to talk through the duct tape.
"Look who's awake...now we could get started." Langston grinned devilishly. He placed a large duffle bag on the table and opened it. "My goody bag. Good for me...not so good for you." He said clapping Sal on the back.
Langston pulled out a knife the size of his forearm and walked over to Jessie with it.
"Okay kid, where do you want to start? Should we cut him...or cut something off?"
Jessie cringed. Langston's smile was so big, not only were all his teeth showing but she thought for sure his face was going to split in two.
"Stop this." She begged, but she wasn't talking to him, she was saying it to herself.
"I know..." Langston stepped up to Sal. "Let's let his insides out." With that said, he plunged the knife deep into Sal's gut, moved it across him, like he was opening an envelope with a letter opener, and laughed as blood and intestines fell into Sal's lap.
Sal cried out through the duct tape, his eyes filled with shock and pain. He looked down at the mess in his lap and started to breathe rapidly.
Jessie didn't realize she was holding her breath until her body fought to release it and it rushed out of her in a sobbing gasp...
"Stop this...please..." Jessie sobbed.
John shook her a bit harder. "Jessie wake up...let it go...just let it go." He wiped tears from her face and kissed her temple. "C'mon Jess, you can do it...let it go."
"He's a goner." Langston grinned as he stepped up to Sal's limp body, grabbed a handful of his hair and moved his head up, down, and from side to side.
Jessie closed her eyes. "Let it go...you can do it...let go." She kept repeating over and over again in her head. "Cmon Jessie..." There was another voice in her head saying it with her, trying to pull her away.
When she opened her eyes Sal was still tied to the chair but his stomach wound was gone. Krieger and Lewis were gone but Langston was still there...smiling, with a sawed-off shotgun in his hand. Jessie started to back away, remembering what happened the last time she was around Sal and a sawed-off shotgun, but she couldn't take more than a step or two because her left hand was handcuffed to Langston. He pulled her closer to him.
"Have you ever seen a man's head come apart? It's messy...but cool."
Jessie tried to pull away, but it was like she was handcuffed to a mountain, Langston would not budge.
"Look, kid, you're the one who wanted this, so just go with it okay." He pulled her close to him again. "Now, on the count of three close your eyes...and mouth...you wanna get bits of Sal on ya, not in ya. It'll be like popping a balloon filled with warm cottage cheese." He held up the shotgun just inches from Sal's head. "Ready?"
Jessie was in full panic mode. She was hyperventilating and her mind was racing.
"You need to stop this! Stop it now!" She screamed inside her head...
"No! Don't! I didn't mean it! I didn't mean it!" Jessie yelled, then started shaking and hyperventilating.
John pulled her close and wrapped both arms around her again. He put his chin on her shoulder and spoke directly into her ear. "I know you're in there and that you could hear me...whatever your seeing isn't real...your here with me.." He squeezed her tight for a few seconds. "Feel that? That's me holding you...you can't be where you are right now because you're here with me...so let go...wake up, I got you."
Jessie looked back and forth between the shotgun and Sal. She had to do something. "Let it go...let it go...wake up..." Played in her head like a broken record, but she didn't know how. "Stop this...stop this...stop-" She interrupted the voices in her head and decided to try something.
"Ready kid?" Langston asked her and when she nodded he started to count. "1...2...3.."
Jessie was watching his hand on the trigger as he counted, and just as he said three, she quickly reached for the shotgun and turned it towards her as he pulled the trigger.
"Nooo.." She heard Langston yell as her chest blew apart on impact...
Jessie's eyes flew open as she gasped for air. Her hands went protectively to her chest, but there was no wound.
John turned her around to face him. "Hey your okay...it was just a bad dream...you did it...you let it go."
"I'm okay..." Jessie said weakly after she finally got control of her breathing.
John pushed the hair away from her face. It worried him that she was so pale and he didn't like the look in her eyes. They were vacant like she was still wherever she was in her dream. "Jess...hey, are you with me?"
"Yeah." Jessie pulled away from him and sat up. "I'm okay John." She leaned forward and put her head in her hands trying to shake off any remnants of her dream. She kept looking down at her chest expecting to find it a bloody mess. "I'm okay." She said again, more to herself than to John.
"Wanna tell me about it?" John asked sitting forward and putting his hand on her shoulder.
"No." She answered quickly and firmly, then looked at him. "But not for the reason you think."
John's cop instinct kicked in and he frowned. "It was about Sal wasn't it?"
"Yes, but it's not your fault. It's me. It's all me, okay?"
"Jessie please tell me...I need to know."
"No, you don't." She could see the guilt in his eyes. "I can see it in your face...you're blaming yourself...I'm not gonna help you do that."
John wasn't taking 'no' for an answer, even if he had to try and guess at what it was about. "Was it like the one you had in the hospital?"
"No, nothing like that." Jessie put her hand in his. "John, please, I don't want you to feel bad...don't feel bad about this, okay?"
"How could you say that after what I did to you? Instead of trying to understand, I made you feel guilty about how you felt."
Jessie shook her head. "No." She said adamantly. "You told me truths that I forgot...that I buried. I needed to hear what you said, John."
"Jessie-"
"No. That's it, it is done." She put her hand on his shoulder. "You've been protecting me since the day you came to Boston... it is my turn. I'm not gonna let you feel bad about this. I'm okay...don't worry about me...it was nothing." Jessie hugged him, hoping it would reassure him. "You were right about Sal...you and Robert both...I was being a jerk. I'm sorry." She said into his chest, then held him tighter. "I love you, John."
"I love you too." John kissed the top of her head and held her. He knew she was trying hard to convince him that she was okay, but knew she wasn't. She had gotten her breathing under control, but he could still feel her shaking. He wasn't going to push her though, not again.
Tbc...
Tbc...
