Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the beautiful movie Red Eye; it just sparks my imagination,
Author's Note: Dark. Dark. I'm thinking dark... working on dark. If Lisa remained attracted to Jackson after all he did to her, then she'd be pretty damaged, wouldn't she? Wouldn't their connection be dark and twisted, bringing them both to a fall?
This came to me like a feverish fantasy while at work one late night... She is not well, and neither is he. My intention is to show that in writing, to let the reader feel the confusion and pain.
I hope. //Nic.
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This Is Not Love
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He came for her.
For the third time, he came for her. Like a blue-eyed avenger out of the stories she remembered from childhood, like a dark lover seeking out the virgin he'd lost... He was so beautiful, he hurt to see.
She was not well. The sleeping pills had just started to have some effect, making his appearance seem all the more unreal.
Hallucinatory.
Leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze stabbed right through her, making her heart tremble and her soul weak. Two sleepless nights had made her mind dizzy and her soul indecisive.
"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm doing here."
She shivered from the cold night air that he let in through the open door. Her thin cotton pajama pants and her sleeveless top didn't offer much protection. Yet she was reluctant to let him inside. She'd heard about vampires, that if you asked them to come in, then you were doomed. The comparison seemed all too relevant; he would suck the life out of her if she gave in. She would weaken and he would grow stronger.
If you open your mouth... will there be fangs?
She shook her head to clear her mind.
"Jackson... it's not right. You'd better leave before I call the police." She swallowed hard; trying to sound convincing, to put some strength to her words, sucked out the little energy she had. Please don't make me do things I'll regret.
He smirked. "Hah! Think I'd let you?"
"Think you can stop me?" she challenged angrily and jumped back as his arm struck out to catch her.
He didn't pursue, but remained still, and yet in motion with his vivid presence. His body radiating heat, power... the right to possess... "Leese..." he said slowly, "Don't make this so hard. You know it doesn't have to be."
"Close the door, please," she whispered, suddenly so weak, her naked arms filled with goosebumps.
"From the inside or the outside," he taunted.
"Jackson... don't be so difficult," she replied softly, submissively.
He lifted one corner of his mouth into a half-grin and entered, closing the door behind him, enwrapping them both in darkness.
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It was the third night he'd showed up at her door step. A soft rustle of feet on the carpet outside, followed by a discreet knocking on the door had each of the two previous nights foreboded the first reaction of fright, then the pain, the longing and the insane feeling of belonging.
Each of the previous nights had she rejected him, screamed at him, hurt him all that she could muster. She'd made him go away... only to see him return the next night, and the next night again.
Tonight he'd gotten inside faster than before.
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Oh, she wasn't stupid.
She knew too of the strong attraction between them. She knew all too well what he wanted.
And she couldn't. She just couldn't.
It would mean she'd lose her sanity, her mind, her freedom and her faith in herself.
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Her heart pounded at an insane pace at his closeness as he strode forward. She studied his face in the faint light from a small lamp in the next room, and he let her. Her eyes roamed his high cheekbones, his full lips, his clear eyes that were such an enigma, both sucking her in and wanting to kill her with their stare. Three months had passed since they'd first met.
A nature's disaster; an earthquake, a tornado, a plane crash...
A mind's melt down.
A meeting at an airport, tumultuous terror on an airplane and frightening wrath in a house.
And then emptiness.
Pain.
Loss.
It had been three horrifyingly long months filled with self-loathing, pain, and unmentionable feelings of want, desire and anger.
He stretched out his arm and touched her cold skin with the tip of his fingers. Lisa shied away from him while her body screamed for more, mumbling, "Don't."
"Why?" His fingers lingered still at her skin.
"It's not right." Lisa could barely breathe, he head spun.
"What is right?" he countered quietly.
"Anything but this..."
"Do you want to fight me again? Is that right?"
"No... it isn't..." She shook her head and melted away once more as he lifted his other arm towards her hand.
"What do you want then?" he asked, deceptively softly.
"Not the same as you."
"Aha. What do I want, then?"
"I don't know, Jackson. It's you who keep showing up at my door step."
"It's you who let me in." He strode closer and Lisa backed into the wall. Wild-eyed, she glanced to the side for an escape as he towered her. "Why is that?" he asked. She could feel his breath on her face, but she couldn't lift her eyes to look into his. "Why haven't you called the police?"
"It's... ahm, because..."
She could almost feel his dark heart reverberate against her own frail chest. The heat from his body made her skin want to stretch towards him to ease the eternal coldness within.
Yet she couldn't. If she would give in to the bodily desire, to the feral attraction that had formed between them, she knew she'd want more. Need more.
More than he could give.
Jackson was not a good man. Not the gentle kind. He wouldn't stay. He wouldn't care for her after. He would ravage her and be done. He'd take what she would give without giving anything back.
The temporary heat and belonging would be replaced by a bottomless sea of sorrow and loss.
It would be a disaster.
Knowing all this, she was still unable to throw him out of her house. And each time she let him in, the catastrophe came closer.
And she couldn't leave as the winner of this game no matter what she did.
I DON'T WANT YOU!
But he didn't listen. With the backside of his hand, he slowly caressed her upper arm from her shoulder down towards her elbow.
Lisa flinched and jumped to the side, only to get caught as he gripped around her waist.
"Don't," she rasped with a voice she barely recognized as her own, her heart speeding insanely from the touch.
Unwanted.
Needed.
"Then make me not to... convince me, Leese, that this isn't what you want too." He inched closer and pressed his body against hers and bent his head towards her ear, whispering, making her shiver in his grasp, "Let me make love to you."
"Love," she snorted with disgust. She felt him smile against her cheek and then the nibbling of all too soft lips at the thin skin over her neck.
Everything inside of her screamed, and she couldn't tell one voice apart from another. What? What? She felt like she would explode any moment and pushed hard at his chest, separating their bodies and making him lose his balance for a second.
"Leave! Leave! Now!" Her voice broke, and she roared with new strength at him as he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers in a forcefully stolen kiss.
With a triumphant smile, he tore away and left her gasping, longing for more, but rather dying than admitting it.
It felt like treason when he turned and left without looking back.
Like she died a little.
The door slammed shut and in the silent night she heard an engine roar to life somewhere in the distance. Just like the nights before she slumped into a heap on the floor where they had stood, biting her lips bloodied not to succumb to tears. Wiping the blood, the saliva, and the feeling of him off her lips with the back of her hand, she fought the urge to punch her fist hard into the wall.
Bastard!
Next time I'll call the police.
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If there'll be a next time...
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He stood over her sleeping form. Breathing, waiting, watching, tightening his hands and opening them in an unconscious rhythmic pattern. Temporarily on hold. It was the fourth night, and she'd been asleep when he came. She hadn't reacted as he'd manipulated a window and entered from the backside. Exhausted? Sleeping pills? Alcohol?
She looked peaceful where she lay on her back, with her hand resting beside her face on the pillow, her fingers curled like a baby's. Her face looked ethereal; pale skin on a white pillow, surrounded by tresses of unruly dark hair.
He hadn't really seen her look so content before. At the airport, she'd been smiling but with tension radiating from her whole soul, like restraining herself to remain calm. She'd relaxed a little after a while, but the feeling that she could flee like a shy deer at any second had never quite left him. Then he'd seen her go through various states of a hesitant flirting, fright, anger and rage... and possibly regret, or hurt, at the last moments in Joe's hallway.
Maybe that was it. That feeling that he'd never quite caught her; that she was like a wild animal, just temporarily tamed, that made him want to break her.
Possess her.
He'd never followed a mark like this. Eight weeks of surveillance prior to the actual encounter, and now eight more weeks post the disaster it had turned out to be. It was clearly exaggerated.
Not a clever career move.
It had taken him five weeks to heal enough to get out of the hospital. During his initial unconsciousness he'd been removed from the state hospital to a private where his anonymity could be preserved. Like many times before he'd disappeared like he'd never existed. His men had taken care of that.
It had amused him to catch up with what had happened after the attack. How Lisa had to defend herself and try to explain that there had in fact been a man. Eventually, she'd been rescued by the flight attendant's testimony, the one who had seen her cry. And her father's observations.
But you were close, Leese. Close to go to jail for me.
Because of me.
He smiled.
Ever so slowly, he raised his hand and caressed her temple. Her face twitched and she mumbled something in her sleep. Jackson pulled back his hand and leaned closer to catch what she was saying, but nothing more came out.
His body filled with eagerness and desire as he inched closer again and let his palm glide over the blanket that covered her body. He could feel the shape of her underneath and the urge to rip it all off and just take her was so strong that he staggered backwards.
Not like this!
It would be so much sweeter when she gave herself to him. He wanted her to know for the rest of her life that she had willingly given herself to her tormentor. He needed to pull her down with him; to suck her into the depths of his darkness and pain.
He knew it tugged at her. He knew of her own hell that she had fought to rescue herself away from the last couple of years without succeeding. He knew she wanted to taste the danger again, to see if she could win this time.
Or if she would finally lose.
He knew it; he felt it - how she sought it. Sought him.
Leese... wake up...
He hesitated to disturb the little moment of peace. He let her sleep.
He'd be back.
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The first night she'd yelled and tried to slam the door shut in his face. He had smirked and held her as she fought him. When he'd left, his body had made an imprint on hers that took a whole sleepless night to get rid of.
The second night she'd gotten just as frightened, but the anger over her disturbed peace had given her strength to battle him more viciously. They had ended up on the floor, and when he had left her, he'd had a split upper lip. He hadn't tried to hurt her, just held her away as she basically attempted to injure him all that she could.
When he'd left she'd screamed with anger, or hurt... or both. The ache inside had been tearing at her like ravaging wolves.
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The fourth night he hadn't showed up. When the morning broke on the fifth day, she woke with a gasp and sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding with fear, her head dizzy from the drugs.
He didn't come?
She refused to acknowledge the feelings of betrayal that lingered under the surface. Instead she decided it was a good thing that he hadn't come.
A very good thing.
She pulled a strand of hair away from her temple and twitched as her body subconsciously remembered a touch, a sensation of softness, but was unable to connect it to anything she knew of. The ache in her chest was probably due to the exercise she'd put herself through at the gym the day before. Trying to get rid of it, she went again and pushed herself to the limit and past it.
NOT gonna think of it.
She exhaled when she heard someone at the door later the fifth night. Laying her forehead against the door, she listened, feeling a living, breathing, shining presence at the other side.
HIS presence.
It radiated through the wooden door itself, almost making it quiver. Like even dead material could feel the dark energy he emitted, the whole in him that sucked all warmth and light out of all living.
"Go away," she rasped, her voice hoarse from crying.
There was a short pause. "Open the door, Leese."
"No. Leave, or I'll call the police. This time I will."
When she didn't hear a response, she waited. "Jackson?"
Nothing. She didn't move, just inhaled - exhaled - inhaled - exhaled. Slowly, she opened the door; just a small crack to take a peak. No one was outside. Did I dream it?
She closed it again, and secured the lock. When she turned around, she screamed in shock; Jackson was standing right behind her. A smirk on his beautiful face, his frighteningly beautiful face, dark hair partially covering his eyes. The smirk pulled her towards him, her fingers itched to touch him; to hit him; to ravage him; to wipe that smug look off his features and make him bleed. To hurt him the way she was hurt.
She slapped him. Hard.
His hand struck out to grip her wrist, but she'd been quicker, surprising him with the violent act.
The hate and wrath inside of her was frightening. A mirror of the incident, the trauma, from two years ago. She thought she'd buried that and moved on, but Jackson's forced entry into her life had awoken all those feelings. And more.
Much more.
Jackson pushed her into the wall and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her against him.
"Like to fight, don't you?" He licked the blood off of his lower lip, sucking at it.
"No." She squirmed in his grip and panted, "I'd like to be left alone." Her eyes never left his mouth; it was an almost perverse pleasure to watch him bleed.
"I don't think so," he breathed into her face.
"Why?" she cried out in despair, wriggling, trying to get free.
"Because you and me, Leese, we're the same."
"No we're not!"
"Yes, we are. What turned you into such a loner, Leese? It wasn't only the rape, was it? You'd buried yourself in work since long before that, never felt like you belonged..."
"I did!"
He let his free hand wander over her back; she felt it warm and surprisingly tender as he explored the curves of her body... Until she stomped on his foot as hard as she could. Jackson gasped and cursed, letting her go momentarily.
"Get OFF me, you filthy... bastard!"
"Too prude to say fuck?"
"Fuck you!"
"Good girl."
"I'm NOT a 'good girl'!"
He smirked in triumph. "I know."
"Aaaah!" She groaned with frustration and shoved at his chest. "Go away!"
"You do like to touch me, don't you?"
She knew she did, and she hated him. She blamed him for turning her head, for playing with her mind until she didn't know what was real and what wasn't any more.
"Please, leave," she whispered in a broken voice.
He regarded her, and then he nodded. "I'll leave if you kiss me."
"NO WAY!"
He shrugged. "I'll stay then."
Lisa looked at his lips, his full lips, watching fascinated as he again licked them with the tip of his tongue, staring challengingly at her. Her gaze darted to his crystalline eyes that glinted with wickedness.
Oh, she was devastatingly attracted to him, had been all from start, and all she could do was fight him. Fight it.
But one little kiss wouldn't be that dangerous... Just one... Then he'd leave.
Quickly, before she'd change her mind, she lifted her face to his and kissed him on the chin. Jackson moved like lightning, catching her with one hand on each side of her head and prevented her from moving away from him. She wriggled in his grip, but he held her steady.
Snickering, he cocked his head. "That was no kiss."
"It was," she gasped and pushed at his chest.
He grinned and moved closer, his face a blur. Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest as his lips touched hers. Groaning, she struggled in his hold as he deepened the kiss and let his tongue slide over her closed lips. She pressed them tighter as her whole body screamed for more of that softness, that taste with a tang of metal to it, and that smell.
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He pulled back, his eyes never leaving hers.
"THAT was a kiss," he taunted.
She was a vision; her cheeks were blushing, she had a fiery look in her eyes, making them look like they could catch fire, and even her hair was tousled.
Looks fucking sexy. But you don't really know that, do you? You don't know how you affect men.
He knew how she'd affected him. He had wanted her dead. He'd wanted to cut into that soft, deliciously white throat, let the knife work its way through skin, muscles, tendons and vessels until he'd have buried it deep inside the delicate vertebrae of her neck, breaking them in halves...
But that was then.
It had matured.
Grown.
The hate and loathing had transformed into something larger than life. Something sacred. He would bring her down. Even if it brought him all the way to hell. But it had to happen.
Now he could see his long pale fingers grip into her flesh, bruising this perfect creature, terrifying her and still exciting her. He knew that. He could almost smell it on her... see it in her eyes. Fright mixed with excitement.
I can give you what you need, Leese.
It was almost like love. Not that he knew what people called love, but it felt close enough. He had to make her his. One way or the other.
If he could drag her down to the abyss of his own need, hate and desperation...
Then you'll live...
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They way he looked at her made her tremble in his hold. She felt his hands against her lower cheeks, aware of their strength, knowing all too well that if he moved the slightest lower, they'd be around her neck, and he could snap her in two. She wouldn't stand a chance.
I dare you!
The danger heightened her senses; made her feel more vibrant and alive than she had for years. Possibly forever.
As his hands slid lower, she gasped and jerked her head back. He skin ached empty from the loss when he suddenly let her go, taking a step back and nailing her with his gaze before he coolly turned and walked out the door.
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'Let me make love to you.'
Get out of my HEAD!
The sixth night she spent with her father and his fiancé. She lingered there for as long as she dared without waking suspicions. Still her soul itched from being at the wrong place when there was a right place to go to.
Where she wasn't...
Where HE might be...
...soon... at this very moment... maybe it would be too late?
Listening to the conversations, nodding in all the right places and adding a 'yes' or a 'no' occasionally, she tried to melt in, not to make it obvious how bothered she was.
It was the sixth night of the sleepless hell she'd been thrown into.
Since she hadn't told anyone to begin with... how could she possibly tell anybody now? How could she confess before her concerned father that she hadn't gone straight to the police the moment Jackson had left her the first time? How could he understand that she'd fallen into a heap on the floor and cried bitter tears instead, wishing to be touched again, for someone, or something, to reach her heart? How could she explain to him that she had opened the expensive whiskey she'd bought for his birthday and drunken herself into a stupor?
Lisa suddenly felt ill. What if he's there now? What will he do if I'm not at home when he comes? Will he come here? Will he hurt people? She realized that Jackson felt as stable as quant matter, that he could hurt somebody if she didn't... Do what? What do you think you can do?
It's me he's after... I can save the others...
She wasn't thinking straight anymore. The wine had gotten to her and her thinking was sluggish and her mind warped. Piercing blue eyes followed her wherever she went. Relentlessly. Chillingly. Temptingly.
A rush of coldness swept through her, and she rose. Making some hasty excuses, she called for a taxi, kissed her father goodbye with the frightening feeling it might be for the last time, and stumbled out from safety.
Evil.
No, she wasn't sure. But in a way she was certain; he didn't want to do good.
He was not that kind of man.
She knew exactly what kind of man he was - and she wanted him.
Badly.
She wanted to hurt him the way he'd hurt her. The way all men had hurt her.
Crush him. Stomp on him. Make him beg. Make him see it coming and know there's no way back.
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I am so afraid.