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This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
“You’re hyperventilating,” Jackson said, sounding hatefully sympathetic.
Lisa felt her anger should have cleared her head or made it easier for her to focus or whatever: she’d been here, done this, and even if Jackson apparently hadn’t ended up rotting in jail for the rest of his life (as demonstrated by the fact that he was right next to her, looking none the worse for wear), at least she had survived. Survival wasn’t nothing.
“Slow breaths. Put your head between your legs for a while. It will help,” Jackson said.
She was already sitting down, so she supposed she might as well, because it would help, probably. “I’m not doing this because you told me to. I’m doing this because it’s the sensible thing to do.”
“That’s fine, Lees. That’s good.” From the way Jackson’s voice sounded, you wouldn’t think he’d had a pen rammed through his throat less than four years ago.
“I should have known,” Lisa told the floor. “The moment those guys showed up and started shooting. I should have known.” More accurately, she should have moved. Changed her address and her name too maybe. Really made sure that neither Jackson nor any of his buddies would ever be able to find her again.
They’d tried to kill a senator: she should have figured out that these weren’t people who let things go.
But she hadn’t; she’d told herself that it was over, that she was safe. “Oh my God.”
“You’re not going to have hysterics, are you? Really bad timing, Lees. Think of that stress management training,” Jackson said. “Come on. I know you can do this.”
Lisa took another deep breath. “What do you want? What is ‘this’?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know exactly,” Jackson said, sounding rueful and a little sheepish. “You did quite a number on me last time we met, so I decided it was time for a break. Some rest and relaxation. You know, tropical beach, fizzy drinks, no need to worry about an extradition treaty.”
They hadn’t even told Lisa he’d … what? Escaped? Got released with time off for good behavior?
“No hard feelings, by the way,” Jackson said.
“You tried to kill me,” Lisa said. The floor still looked nice and solid. Dependable. She hoped Dad wouldn’t worry too much when he heard about this – whatever ‘this’ was. “You tried to kill my Dad. You came after me with a knife.”
“Technically you started it,” Jackson said. “I kept telling you over and over again that nothing bad would happen to you if you just did what I asked. You’re the one who escalated things.”
She remembered the way he’d looked at her on the plane, the way he had touched her. You started this. I finished it. Or she’d thought she had anyway.
Her mistake. “So what happens now?” It would be tricky to beat him again, but not impossible. All she had to do was stay alert, look for a chance. Hope. Survive.
“Lees. Listen to me. You need to pull yourself together,” Jackson said.
“Why? So you can pull me apart again yourself?” She’d carried a gun in her handbag for over a year, but then she’d told herself to stop, that it wasn’t healthy to obsess so much. That if she kept living her life looking over her should, it would mean that he had won after all. That the best kind of revenge would be to forget all about Jackson.
“Lees,” Jackson said, and she knew that tone. It was his ‘I have been very patient and explained the situation several times already, so why aren’t you falling in line?’ voice. “This isn’t me. I’m not behind this. Those men with guns? They’re not working for me. They don’t know me, and I don’t know them, and if they find us, chances are good that they’re going to kill both of us. They might rape you first, of course. You’re still a very attractive woman.”
“Gee. Thanks. That’s really helpful in making me feel calmer about this.”
“I thought about you,” Jackson said. “In prison. What it would have been like if we … if we’d met under different circumstances.”
“Trust me, you’re not my type.” Amazingly (and annoyingly) Lisa felt herself starting to calm down. Not calm enough to raise her head and look at him, but a little better than before.
Of course, he might be lying. Trying to give her a false sense of not exactly security. But it didn’t really seem like Jackson’s style, so Lisa figured that for now, she might as well believe that he was telling her the truth, which meant that she now had one very scary and very bad man in her corner.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jackson said. “You like guys who know how to dress well, right? Sense of humor a plus. Not consumed by their job, but making a decent living. Steady, but not too steady. And good in bed, of course. All things considered, I think we would have hit it off pretty well.”
“You’re a psycho. You know that, right?” Lisa hadn’t meant to say that out loud, she didn’t think: it was just that for a moment, part of her had agreed with him. That guy who had backed her up at the airport, before everything else; the perfectly nice man who had bought her a drink and guessed her favorite one – she might have given either of them a shot. Hypothetically.
“You can think of me that way, if you like,” Jackson said. “Bottom line is, you need me, and I need you, and if at the end of this, you want to maybe try getting out of that shell you got yourself stuck in for – what, five years now? We could make that happen.”
“I’m not - ” Lisa started, then changed her mind. “Look, I’m feeling better, all right?” She lifted her head and got to her feet, and her stomach only did a couple of flips before settling down. “We should probably get some guns. I know where we should be able to find some.”
“See?” Jackson said, voice warm with something she hadn’t heard from him before. Approval, she supposed. “You and me, we’ve got this, Lees.”
Lisa wished she could convince herself that she was going to shoot him as soon as she got her hands on a gun. It would be the smart thing to do, really. The safe thing. “Shut up.”
Jackson grinned at her and gestured, inviting her to lead the way – the better to stab her in the back for being stupid enough to trust him, likely as not.