Journey into Fear [FanFic]
Title: Journey into Fear
Author: Tooks
Pairing: Adult!Jack/Lil, Foyet, & almost Adult!Jack/Foyet (if ya know what I mean)
Rating: FRM
Summary: Jack goes to pick up Lil Foyet from the asylum without either of them ever realizing what's in store for their time together.
Notes: This is set in the Noir AU "Living For the Night" (thanks let_it_linger21 for the name) and follows after The Breaking Point in the grander scheme of the verse. Again, first person (Jack's POV), dark, gritty, real noir title, some sexuality involving a teen, and a fair amount violence, all having some sexual edge to it and some involving a teen. (Remember when ya'll were "What's Foyet gonna do?"...here's your answer.)
She’s sprawled out on the center of the couch while others scatter about giving her the space she desires. To most she looks relaxed, but I can see in her eyes she’s not. The girl’s on high alert and aching for a trigger. This is not good.
“I’m Dr Arthur Malcolm, this is my institution, may I help you?”
I turn and place the legal papers in his hand, “I’m here to take guardianship of a patient.”
The man eyes me warily, like I might be there to steal something of his. I don’t like the look, but that’s for another time. For now I stare him down until he does what I want, glance down at the papers.
“I understand that I’m here a few hours early, but it’d be preferred by her mother that she was removed a little early. It’d be better for you and the institute if you honored her wishes,” I speak formally as he continues to read. “There are already plans for her housing and treatment outside here and, if you require, someone is more than welcome to do house checks.” They won’t. They won’t see the point because they don’t understand what Lil really is. They couldn’t possibly comprehend it.
The man finally returns his attention to me as he hands back the papers. “It’s not a problem, Mr. Greenaway, I’ll have one of the orderlies get her records for you. She’s in the community area, you can help her pack if you like.”
“Thank you.” I let the doctor walk off to the reception desk and speak with the orderlies as I head over to Lil. “Lil?”
The girl looks up from the TV I doubt she was ever really watching and grins wide in recognition. Then she jumps up over the couch and nearly pounces on me. “Jack!”
“Down girl,” I reply with a slight smile.
She slips herself back down my body to stand on her own feet. “What the fuck are you doing here? Wait…you didn’t go psycho, did you?”
“No, Lil, I’m here to get you.”
“Uh…shouldn’t my dad be -“
“Let’s talk about it after we get out of here.” I don’t want to discuss this part out in public.
Lil shrugs out her response before leading me down the hall. I ask her how she’s doing and she laughs, “Great for a supposed crazy. This place is so lame though, they don’t know shit.” She heads into a room that, despite having two beds to indicate two occupants, has clearly been claimed by her. “I mean, seriously Jack, they let me have knives here.”
“In your room?”
Lil laughs as she begins tossing her things into a duffle bag. “No, in the dinning hall,” she smirks over at me, “but some might’ve ended up here.”
I sigh some. “Pack them up.”
“For reals?”
I give her a stern look, “I’m not letting you keep them, Lil, I just don’t want them left behind for others to get a hold of.”
“You’re no fun.” She sticks her tongue out at me and I smile a little again.
***
I keep the Caddy on the outskirts of town as much as possible. The last thing I need is for Foyet to pull one of his “routine stops” on my ass with his kid in the car.
“So, tell me why no Daddy,” Lil requests with her bare feet hanging out the top of the door.
“Because the only way your mom wouldn’t fight to have you committed longer was if arrangements could be made for you to be in someone else’s custody.”
“Yours?”
“Gideon’s, actually, but he wants to set things up for you first so I’m taking you for the night.”
“Set up things?”
I glance over to see a disapproving face. I shrug, “A room, some security, and a set schedule for you to have supervised visits with your mom and brother.”
“Why would I wanna see the bitch that wanted to keep me locked up?”
A fair question. “Because she loves you, Lil.” The girl snorts, laughs. “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but she does. She’s just…scared.”
“Of me.”
“For you,” I correct with a gentle firmness. “She knows what you are, Lil.”
The girl’s feet are yanked back into the car as she sits up. “How?”
“She found a shoebox full of your stuff while searching your room.”
“What the fuck?! The girl goes from 0 to 60 faster than my car and starts to hit the dash cursing and threatening her mother.
I slam the breaks to shock her into stopping.
It only gets her cross with me. “Fuck you too!”
“Hey!” I snap harshly. She finally stops. I take a deep breath and proceed. “She was doing what a mother does, Lil, and you’re not going to touch her or Henry, do you understand me?”
“Who’s gonna stop me?”
“I will.” Her eyes narrow so I do the same with mine. “And you know it.”
The slits making her eyes shoot death-rays, but I don’t look away. I hold her gaze until she rolls her eyes to hide her defeat in looking away. She slumps low and sullen in the seat. “Fine, whatever, she’s still a bitch.”
I let the comment slide in favor of driving. In order to get my mind right for what’s to come I dig into the coin-crease in front of the stick of my car, maneuver a cigarette from its container, and grab my lighter to light up. I wait until I have two lungfuls of nicotine before asking the question I don’t want to, “You hard up?” I already know the answer, but I have to ask nevertheless.
Lil laughs some, thinking it’s a come-on. “Excuse me?”
“For a kill, I mean.” I puff then pull the smoke from my lips. “I have a job lined up, you can have it if you need the release.” Otherwise I’ll just do it tomorrow.
“Are you serious, Jack?”
I shrug. “I’d rather you get what you need in that arena now, before we get to my place, than risk things getting out of hand, you know?”
She nods some, but doesn’t answer. Something’s holding her back, I see that just as sure as I see her chewing on her bottom lip in my periphery. It’s a sign of her working through her feelings, Gideon told me once. All I have to do, all I can do, is wait. Patience was a virtue in dealing with a girl like Lil.
Finally, she speaks. “Are you going to be there while I…ya know…do it?”
The question makes my lips curl around my cigarette despite myself. “I won’t watch, Lil.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
Apparently she does have some kind of modesty.
***
I hang back as Lil gets three days worth of urge out on my target. As impressive as it is that she was able to control herself for three days that were likely high-stress it’s startling to see her relieve herself of the tension now.
I’ll be surprised if the man’s even recognizable by the end, not that it matters. What matters is Lil gets out the urges. A quick glance over I can see that she is. Hints of light from occupied apartments overhead shadow me the scene; girl straddled over man, asylum steak knife in hand, carving herself deep satisfaction that sounds like orgasms. Maybe they are. I know that while I get no real joy out of taking a life Lil finds the experience near orgasmic.
It’s hard to describe exactly why I like Lil, why it is that I care for her as I would a little sister. By all accounts she is someone I would feel needs to be erased from the face of the Earth for the good of humanity, but that’s not how I feel. I feel we’re strange kindred spirits, experiencing darkness in a way that others simply do, or can, not. It’s not just the darkness though; it’s the light because I know that deep down she does care. I’ve seen her care. I’ve seen that potential for humanity; those signs that her father hasn’t yet succeeded in making a carbon copy of his murderous self. I’ve seen her protect her friend Nathan from bullies when she could’ve let it continue and attempt to comfort her brother after lost soccer games. I’ve seen her care despite herself. Lil tries and, so long as she does, I will help her.
I hear her finish with a strangled sort of cry that recalls the first time I finally got a girl to come. I only get a chance to flick my cigarette off into the gutter before Lil’s backed me up against the wall and jammed her tongue halfway down my throat. I have to push her back to get air.
She’s panting hard and fast, her eyes are keen and alight with blood lust. “You taste like cigarettes.”
“You taste like blood,” I reply in a pant of my own, still trying to recover from the rugby-tackle of her kiss.
The girl licks her lips a little. “You know what that tastes like, Jack?” she moves to me slower this time.
Gideon had warned me this might happen, especially if I took her on a kill. Even knowing ahead of time though I feel only mildly prepared. Her hands and mouth are demanding and they don’t listen. Whatever this urge is it’s as strong as the one she has to kill. I can’t imagine how Jason deals with her like this but I have an idea of my own. “Lil, focus, please.”
Her hands move over my chest teasingly, starts to work buttons from their holes, as she brings her lips close enough to notice, “I bit you.”
“My lip, yes,” I confess. “It’s fine.”
“It’s bleeding,” she chuckles darkly before sweeping her tongue to collect the blood.
Clearly talking out the idea isn’t an option so I go another way. “Not here.”
“No?”
“Too close to the body, I can’t.”
“Get it up?” Lil offers with another wicked laugh. Her hands move to my belt. “Maybe you just need a hand?”
I pull her hands off to the side of us. “No. I have somewhere else. It’s the place I choose or not at all.”
Lil’s attention is caught with her wrists and she smirks. “Whatever you say, Jack, I’m yours.”
***
I lay out the rules clear and hard before taking her out on the floor. Even then I keep us moving fast to prevent her the opportunity to break any of them and maintain a hold of at least part of her at all times so she can’t slip away or be taken by another dancer. To others I probably look like some deeply possessive boyfriend, but it’s for their own safety.
“Where’d you learn?” she huffs out after two spins and my hand returning to one of her hips. Lil’s smiling wide, she likes it, all of it.
“A woman.”
“Older?”
The question seems so innocuous I answer. “Yes.”
“A lot?”
“Enough.”
“What’s enough?” she teases as her leg slips between mine a moment.
I smile, dip, and swing her to break up the conversation I don’t want to continue at the moment. “Is it working?” I ask once we’re again face-to-face.
Lil nods. She doesn’t have to ask what I mean. The long glides across the floor, the dizzying spins, and fast-pace I keep our hips and feet at are all to burn off that extra energy. That post-kill buzz she gets that makes her almost impossible to control. But this…this is working.
“Good.”
“She teach ya that too?”
I crook a brow as I spin Lil out and back hard and fast enough she hits my chest on the return. As I dip her to the side, break my own rule and touch her thigh a little, Lil starts to laugh. “What?” I ask as I pull her upright.
The girl sets the hand I’m not holding to my shoulder and quickly moves it to the back of my neck. “She did, didn’t she?” Her body moves closer, threatens that no-grinding rule I set up. “Was she like me, Jack?”
“No, Lil, that wasn’t it.”
“So it was you that needed this?”
The music stops as if the speakers want to listen in. It’s time to end this. I smile as I separate us almost completely and run a hand over my sweat-dampened brow. “We should head home, Jason would never forgive me if I kept you out all night. Are you okay to leave, Lil?”
Lil’s smile brings up shadows of her father just like my smile does mine. “I’m good.” She waits until we’re back out into the chill of the night to press her luck. “You know I’m just gonna keep asking the same question I did in the club until I get an answer.”
“Why do you want to know, Lil?” I ask as we get in the car.
Lil climbs the door rather than use is. “Curiosity,” she plops into the seat as I start the engine and pull back out to the street. “And the fact it makes you squirm.”
I chuckle a little, “At least you’re honest.”
“Always.” She sees my don’t-bullshit-me look and laughs a touch. “Well, almost always.”
“I don’t get aroused from killing, Lil, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t enjoy it, in fact it affects me every time, fills me with doubt and a bit of guilt.”
“But…” the girl leads me with a devious grin.
I take a deep breath with my next turn. “But sometimes I do get an adrenaline boost that I need to burn off after.”
“And you can’t just…fuck it out?”
“I can,” I feel my face heat up even as I answer. I’m not completely comfortable talking about my second profession or my personal life and this is really delving into both. “But I don’t want to start…rewarding one with the other.”
“Violence with sex?”
“Yes.” I look over at her and smile awkwardly. “I just…” I find I can’t talk about it while looking at someone so turn back to the road, “once those two mix like that it’s hard to separate them.”
“Like that?” It’s amazing the tiny details Lil picks up on all the time. Annoying, but amazing. “So you mix the two in other ways, huh?” She doesn’t let an answer lie; she finds a loose thread in it and pulls.
I clear my throat and go for another cigarette, buying time to form my answer. “I…well…if it gets me closer to a client I will get…suggestive.”
“Suggestive?” The tease soaks her tone.
“Sexually.”
“Even if it’s a dude?”
I sigh out my smoke. “Sometimes.”
“You do stuff?”
“What?” I look over at her and she’s grinning. I smile a little, “At least you’re enjoying this.”
“Naturally. Squirm Jack, squirm!” She laughs some.
I shake my head some, breaking up the small laugh I give. Then I pull myself back to composure. “I’ve never done anything with a man, Lil, and if I’m good enough at my job I won’t have to.”
***
“Jack?” She leans herself against the frame as I go to unlock the door to the crash-pad I’ve picked for us.
I look over at the girl. I recall someone once comparing her to Artemis, Greek goddess of the hunt. I can see that. Young and beautiful, her hair a shade or two darker in retained sweat from her recent physical activities, and eyes that could both entice and destroy those around her. “Yes Lil?”
“You think you’d ever sleep with me?”
I laugh some as I get the door open and let Lil in first. “Not unless I wanted to kill you.”
“Oh, well then, you are so not getting laid anytime soon.”
“Certainly not by you anyway.” I counter smoothly as I step in and relock the door. “How about you go get ready for bed, okay? Bathroom’s down the hall on the left and the bedroom’s at the end.” Her bedroom for the night anyway.
“Coolies!” She chirps back.
I give a soft laugh as I watch her nearly skip her way down the hall. Overall this day went well. Then again…
I hear a huff of air behind me and see a smoking hole break in the wall on the other side of the room from me. My next breath in hurts, burns, brings me to my hands and knees. I cough, blood comes up and out over the tan carpet.
The boots ground the kitchen tiles as they approach me from behind. “Thought you’d be smarter,” the voice oozes blood into my ears, “thought you’d at least be prepared to give me some kind of fight since I couldn’t put that tape on the door back into place.”
The tape on the outside of the door to ensure I wasn’t broken into. The tape I always check, but forgot this time in my conversations with Lil. Fuck. I can only hope Lil hasn’t noticed anything yet, that I can get control of all this before she comes back out. Of course that’d be a lot easier if I could fill both my lungs with air.
“Guess you were a little too busy trying to get laid, huh?” Foyet cracks.
He’s over me now. I can sense it. Moving to get a weapon will only reveal hiding spots on my body now so I go with distraction instead.
I laugh. “Sure, let’s go with that.”
I feel fingers go into my hair almost gently before they grab. Pull up. Yank me up on my knees.
He sticks his face in mine.
He looks different than the last I saw him in the paper; amazing what a shaved head can do to change someone’s entire appearance.
“Don’t get cute,” he hisses out a warning.
“Or what?” I let a hand drift to my ankle and work on pulling the gun from the holster there.
Foyet lips curl into a nasty smirk. “Or I’ll send you in pieces to your daddy.”
I laugh in his face, make sure to spit out blood in the process. “You really think he’ll recognize them?”
I get my pistol free, but Foyet catches sight and goes to grab for possession. For a moment I think I have him - gun at his chin, my finger on the trigger, I’m pulling my finger back - and then he hauls back and punches the gunshot wound at my chest.
The man hits like a fucking mack-truck.
The shock of it stuns me, sends pain throughout my whole body that cripples. I can’t even curse or cry out because I can’t breath. The next blow is to the head with my gun, it comes twice before I’m thrown back into a counter. I roll onto my back when finally given a respite. I have to force air into my lungs, force my body past its pains to stay oxygenated as I close my eyes to keep blood from getting in.
“Come on, Jack,” a kick shakes loose blood I hack up onto white tiles with a turn of my head. “Stay with me,” he taunts from up above, “we haven’t even begun to enjoy our time together.”
I keep my eyes closed now with a very specific idea in mind. I give a slight shift and groan. I need Foyet closer to me. As counter-intuitive as it is I wait to hear the man lower himself beside me, then over me. Good.
“Wake up, Jack-Jack.” His breath heats my face. Perfect. Now he’s close enough.
I give another shift, one that makes it seem like I’m showing my discomfort as I'm able to slip out another weapon I carry. This one Foyet doesn’t catch. His vest does instead.
“Nice try,” Foyet chuckles out. It's all the reply I allow him before the blade of my knife finds a home in his thigh. He didn’t see that one coming. It’s the first time that face of surprise and pain has given me true pleasure.
I can’t hang onto the victory though as my energy seeps out my chest, my mouth, and Foyet’s rage starts to boil over. He takes possession of the knife and tears my shirt and chest to red ribbons. The cuts are shallow, they won’t even need stitches, and I know it’s intentional. He wants me alive and awake for the moment. He wants to watch my pain build; he’s hoping it’ll lead to the fear that I have yet to show. His other hand grabs my jaw so tight I worry it might break. “You father took something from me.”
“So?” I croak.
The hand slides down to my throat and the blade goes deeper as it rides between two floating ribs.
I lock my jaw to keep from gasping out though that effort causes my eyes to water and overflow.
“So now I take something from him.” His words, like the knife’s movements, are painfully slow.
I lay mute.
Between his thumb and index he cradles my chin, forces my head to the side, and breaths heavy and harsh as the tip of his weapon aligns with the McBurney's point on my abdomen.
He's going to reopen my appendectomy scar.
“Don’t worry, it really only hurts the first time.” Foyet's growl burrows into my brain in a way that lets me know there's no way I can prepare for what's coming next.
His weight presses down and his hips shift with a groan suggesting something I don't want to consider.
Oh, fuck...
The crack of a bullet leaving its chamber nearly shocks me into unconsciousness.
Lil, no!
Stunned and furious Foyet turns and fires my gun three times without really even looking. Whoever shot him is just a fly to swat off, someone who didn’t even cause him harm thanks to the vest. I hear the girl’s body thump to the floor and the man cackle his latest victory.
Fuck.
He starts to turn back to me. I go limp. Play dead and hope to heavens it works. Hope to heavens Lil’s okay and thought of the same thing after shooting her father.
The loud gunfire stirs others in the building and Foyet seems unwilling to stick around as I feel his weight leave me and hear his efforts to stand. The thigh wound effects his ability to move with ease, his leg gives out more often than not as I count hobbled steps. He’s going straight for the door rather than checking on the other person he shot.
Good.
"Things go dark. I don't mind much. It's okay. She'll be safe. An old man dies. A little girl lives. Fair trade." ~ Hartigan, Sin City
Additional Author's Note: Just like with Foyet before him, Jack's not dead, haha!
Author: Tooks
Pairing: Adult!Jack/Lil, Foyet, & almost Adult!Jack/Foyet (if ya know what I mean)
Rating: FRM
Summary: Jack goes to pick up Lil Foyet from the asylum without either of them ever realizing what's in store for their time together.
Notes: This is set in the Noir AU "Living For the Night" (thanks let_it_linger21 for the name) and follows after The Breaking Point in the grander scheme of the verse. Again, first person (Jack's POV), dark, gritty, real noir title, some sexuality involving a teen, and a fair amount violence, all having some sexual edge to it and some involving a teen. (Remember when ya'll were "What's Foyet gonna do?"...here's your answer.)
She’s sprawled out on the center of the couch while others scatter about giving her the space she desires. To most she looks relaxed, but I can see in her eyes she’s not. The girl’s on high alert and aching for a trigger. This is not good.
“I’m Dr Arthur Malcolm, this is my institution, may I help you?”
I turn and place the legal papers in his hand, “I’m here to take guardianship of a patient.”
The man eyes me warily, like I might be there to steal something of his. I don’t like the look, but that’s for another time. For now I stare him down until he does what I want, glance down at the papers.
“I understand that I’m here a few hours early, but it’d be preferred by her mother that she was removed a little early. It’d be better for you and the institute if you honored her wishes,” I speak formally as he continues to read. “There are already plans for her housing and treatment outside here and, if you require, someone is more than welcome to do house checks.” They won’t. They won’t see the point because they don’t understand what Lil really is. They couldn’t possibly comprehend it.
The man finally returns his attention to me as he hands back the papers. “It’s not a problem, Mr. Greenaway, I’ll have one of the orderlies get her records for you. She’s in the community area, you can help her pack if you like.”
“Thank you.” I let the doctor walk off to the reception desk and speak with the orderlies as I head over to Lil. “Lil?”
The girl looks up from the TV I doubt she was ever really watching and grins wide in recognition. Then she jumps up over the couch and nearly pounces on me. “Jack!”
“Down girl,” I reply with a slight smile.
She slips herself back down my body to stand on her own feet. “What the fuck are you doing here? Wait…you didn’t go psycho, did you?”
“No, Lil, I’m here to get you.”
“Uh…shouldn’t my dad be -“
“Let’s talk about it after we get out of here.” I don’t want to discuss this part out in public.
Lil shrugs out her response before leading me down the hall. I ask her how she’s doing and she laughs, “Great for a supposed crazy. This place is so lame though, they don’t know shit.” She heads into a room that, despite having two beds to indicate two occupants, has clearly been claimed by her. “I mean, seriously Jack, they let me have knives here.”
“In your room?”
Lil laughs as she begins tossing her things into a duffle bag. “No, in the dinning hall,” she smirks over at me, “but some might’ve ended up here.”
I sigh some. “Pack them up.”
“For reals?”
I give her a stern look, “I’m not letting you keep them, Lil, I just don’t want them left behind for others to get a hold of.”
“You’re no fun.” She sticks her tongue out at me and I smile a little again.
***
I keep the Caddy on the outskirts of town as much as possible. The last thing I need is for Foyet to pull one of his “routine stops” on my ass with his kid in the car.
“So, tell me why no Daddy,” Lil requests with her bare feet hanging out the top of the door.
“Because the only way your mom wouldn’t fight to have you committed longer was if arrangements could be made for you to be in someone else’s custody.”
“Yours?”
“Gideon’s, actually, but he wants to set things up for you first so I’m taking you for the night.”
“Set up things?”
I glance over to see a disapproving face. I shrug, “A room, some security, and a set schedule for you to have supervised visits with your mom and brother.”
“Why would I wanna see the bitch that wanted to keep me locked up?”
A fair question. “Because she loves you, Lil.” The girl snorts, laughs. “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but she does. She’s just…scared.”
“Of me.”
“For you,” I correct with a gentle firmness. “She knows what you are, Lil.”
The girl’s feet are yanked back into the car as she sits up. “How?”
“She found a shoebox full of your stuff while searching your room.”
“What the fuck?! The girl goes from 0 to 60 faster than my car and starts to hit the dash cursing and threatening her mother.
I slam the breaks to shock her into stopping.
It only gets her cross with me. “Fuck you too!”
“Hey!” I snap harshly. She finally stops. I take a deep breath and proceed. “She was doing what a mother does, Lil, and you’re not going to touch her or Henry, do you understand me?”
“Who’s gonna stop me?”
“I will.” Her eyes narrow so I do the same with mine. “And you know it.”
The slits making her eyes shoot death-rays, but I don’t look away. I hold her gaze until she rolls her eyes to hide her defeat in looking away. She slumps low and sullen in the seat. “Fine, whatever, she’s still a bitch.”
I let the comment slide in favor of driving. In order to get my mind right for what’s to come I dig into the coin-crease in front of the stick of my car, maneuver a cigarette from its container, and grab my lighter to light up. I wait until I have two lungfuls of nicotine before asking the question I don’t want to, “You hard up?” I already know the answer, but I have to ask nevertheless.
Lil laughs some, thinking it’s a come-on. “Excuse me?”
“For a kill, I mean.” I puff then pull the smoke from my lips. “I have a job lined up, you can have it if you need the release.” Otherwise I’ll just do it tomorrow.
“Are you serious, Jack?”
I shrug. “I’d rather you get what you need in that arena now, before we get to my place, than risk things getting out of hand, you know?”
She nods some, but doesn’t answer. Something’s holding her back, I see that just as sure as I see her chewing on her bottom lip in my periphery. It’s a sign of her working through her feelings, Gideon told me once. All I have to do, all I can do, is wait. Patience was a virtue in dealing with a girl like Lil.
Finally, she speaks. “Are you going to be there while I…ya know…do it?”
The question makes my lips curl around my cigarette despite myself. “I won’t watch, Lil.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
Apparently she does have some kind of modesty.
***
I hang back as Lil gets three days worth of urge out on my target. As impressive as it is that she was able to control herself for three days that were likely high-stress it’s startling to see her relieve herself of the tension now.
I’ll be surprised if the man’s even recognizable by the end, not that it matters. What matters is Lil gets out the urges. A quick glance over I can see that she is. Hints of light from occupied apartments overhead shadow me the scene; girl straddled over man, asylum steak knife in hand, carving herself deep satisfaction that sounds like orgasms. Maybe they are. I know that while I get no real joy out of taking a life Lil finds the experience near orgasmic.
It’s hard to describe exactly why I like Lil, why it is that I care for her as I would a little sister. By all accounts she is someone I would feel needs to be erased from the face of the Earth for the good of humanity, but that’s not how I feel. I feel we’re strange kindred spirits, experiencing darkness in a way that others simply do, or can, not. It’s not just the darkness though; it’s the light because I know that deep down she does care. I’ve seen her care. I’ve seen that potential for humanity; those signs that her father hasn’t yet succeeded in making a carbon copy of his murderous self. I’ve seen her protect her friend Nathan from bullies when she could’ve let it continue and attempt to comfort her brother after lost soccer games. I’ve seen her care despite herself. Lil tries and, so long as she does, I will help her.
I hear her finish with a strangled sort of cry that recalls the first time I finally got a girl to come. I only get a chance to flick my cigarette off into the gutter before Lil’s backed me up against the wall and jammed her tongue halfway down my throat. I have to push her back to get air.
She’s panting hard and fast, her eyes are keen and alight with blood lust. “You taste like cigarettes.”
“You taste like blood,” I reply in a pant of my own, still trying to recover from the rugby-tackle of her kiss.
The girl licks her lips a little. “You know what that tastes like, Jack?” she moves to me slower this time.
Gideon had warned me this might happen, especially if I took her on a kill. Even knowing ahead of time though I feel only mildly prepared. Her hands and mouth are demanding and they don’t listen. Whatever this urge is it’s as strong as the one she has to kill. I can’t imagine how Jason deals with her like this but I have an idea of my own. “Lil, focus, please.”
Her hands move over my chest teasingly, starts to work buttons from their holes, as she brings her lips close enough to notice, “I bit you.”
“My lip, yes,” I confess. “It’s fine.”
“It’s bleeding,” she chuckles darkly before sweeping her tongue to collect the blood.
Clearly talking out the idea isn’t an option so I go another way. “Not here.”
“No?”
“Too close to the body, I can’t.”
“Get it up?” Lil offers with another wicked laugh. Her hands move to my belt. “Maybe you just need a hand?”
I pull her hands off to the side of us. “No. I have somewhere else. It’s the place I choose or not at all.”
Lil’s attention is caught with her wrists and she smirks. “Whatever you say, Jack, I’m yours.”
***
I lay out the rules clear and hard before taking her out on the floor. Even then I keep us moving fast to prevent her the opportunity to break any of them and maintain a hold of at least part of her at all times so she can’t slip away or be taken by another dancer. To others I probably look like some deeply possessive boyfriend, but it’s for their own safety.
“Where’d you learn?” she huffs out after two spins and my hand returning to one of her hips. Lil’s smiling wide, she likes it, all of it.
“A woman.”
“Older?”
The question seems so innocuous I answer. “Yes.”
“A lot?”
“Enough.”
“What’s enough?” she teases as her leg slips between mine a moment.
I smile, dip, and swing her to break up the conversation I don’t want to continue at the moment. “Is it working?” I ask once we’re again face-to-face.
Lil nods. She doesn’t have to ask what I mean. The long glides across the floor, the dizzying spins, and fast-pace I keep our hips and feet at are all to burn off that extra energy. That post-kill buzz she gets that makes her almost impossible to control. But this…this is working.
“Good.”
“She teach ya that too?”
I crook a brow as I spin Lil out and back hard and fast enough she hits my chest on the return. As I dip her to the side, break my own rule and touch her thigh a little, Lil starts to laugh. “What?” I ask as I pull her upright.
The girl sets the hand I’m not holding to my shoulder and quickly moves it to the back of my neck. “She did, didn’t she?” Her body moves closer, threatens that no-grinding rule I set up. “Was she like me, Jack?”
“No, Lil, that wasn’t it.”
“So it was you that needed this?”
The music stops as if the speakers want to listen in. It’s time to end this. I smile as I separate us almost completely and run a hand over my sweat-dampened brow. “We should head home, Jason would never forgive me if I kept you out all night. Are you okay to leave, Lil?”
Lil’s smile brings up shadows of her father just like my smile does mine. “I’m good.” She waits until we’re back out into the chill of the night to press her luck. “You know I’m just gonna keep asking the same question I did in the club until I get an answer.”
“Why do you want to know, Lil?” I ask as we get in the car.
Lil climbs the door rather than use is. “Curiosity,” she plops into the seat as I start the engine and pull back out to the street. “And the fact it makes you squirm.”
I chuckle a little, “At least you’re honest.”
“Always.” She sees my don’t-bullshit-me look and laughs a touch. “Well, almost always.”
“I don’t get aroused from killing, Lil, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t enjoy it, in fact it affects me every time, fills me with doubt and a bit of guilt.”
“But…” the girl leads me with a devious grin.
I take a deep breath with my next turn. “But sometimes I do get an adrenaline boost that I need to burn off after.”
“And you can’t just…fuck it out?”
“I can,” I feel my face heat up even as I answer. I’m not completely comfortable talking about my second profession or my personal life and this is really delving into both. “But I don’t want to start…rewarding one with the other.”
“Violence with sex?”
“Yes.” I look over at her and smile awkwardly. “I just…” I find I can’t talk about it while looking at someone so turn back to the road, “once those two mix like that it’s hard to separate them.”
“Like that?” It’s amazing the tiny details Lil picks up on all the time. Annoying, but amazing. “So you mix the two in other ways, huh?” She doesn’t let an answer lie; she finds a loose thread in it and pulls.
I clear my throat and go for another cigarette, buying time to form my answer. “I…well…if it gets me closer to a client I will get…suggestive.”
“Suggestive?” The tease soaks her tone.
“Sexually.”
“Even if it’s a dude?”
I sigh out my smoke. “Sometimes.”
“You do stuff?”
“What?” I look over at her and she’s grinning. I smile a little, “At least you’re enjoying this.”
“Naturally. Squirm Jack, squirm!” She laughs some.
I shake my head some, breaking up the small laugh I give. Then I pull myself back to composure. “I’ve never done anything with a man, Lil, and if I’m good enough at my job I won’t have to.”
***
“Jack?” She leans herself against the frame as I go to unlock the door to the crash-pad I’ve picked for us.
I look over at the girl. I recall someone once comparing her to Artemis, Greek goddess of the hunt. I can see that. Young and beautiful, her hair a shade or two darker in retained sweat from her recent physical activities, and eyes that could both entice and destroy those around her. “Yes Lil?”
“You think you’d ever sleep with me?”
I laugh some as I get the door open and let Lil in first. “Not unless I wanted to kill you.”
“Oh, well then, you are so not getting laid anytime soon.”
“Certainly not by you anyway.” I counter smoothly as I step in and relock the door. “How about you go get ready for bed, okay? Bathroom’s down the hall on the left and the bedroom’s at the end.” Her bedroom for the night anyway.
“Coolies!” She chirps back.
I give a soft laugh as I watch her nearly skip her way down the hall. Overall this day went well. Then again…
I hear a huff of air behind me and see a smoking hole break in the wall on the other side of the room from me. My next breath in hurts, burns, brings me to my hands and knees. I cough, blood comes up and out over the tan carpet.
The boots ground the kitchen tiles as they approach me from behind. “Thought you’d be smarter,” the voice oozes blood into my ears, “thought you’d at least be prepared to give me some kind of fight since I couldn’t put that tape on the door back into place.”
The tape on the outside of the door to ensure I wasn’t broken into. The tape I always check, but forgot this time in my conversations with Lil. Fuck. I can only hope Lil hasn’t noticed anything yet, that I can get control of all this before she comes back out. Of course that’d be a lot easier if I could fill both my lungs with air.
“Guess you were a little too busy trying to get laid, huh?” Foyet cracks.
He’s over me now. I can sense it. Moving to get a weapon will only reveal hiding spots on my body now so I go with distraction instead.
I laugh. “Sure, let’s go with that.”
I feel fingers go into my hair almost gently before they grab. Pull up. Yank me up on my knees.
He sticks his face in mine.
He looks different than the last I saw him in the paper; amazing what a shaved head can do to change someone’s entire appearance.
“Don’t get cute,” he hisses out a warning.
“Or what?” I let a hand drift to my ankle and work on pulling the gun from the holster there.
Foyet lips curl into a nasty smirk. “Or I’ll send you in pieces to your daddy.”
I laugh in his face, make sure to spit out blood in the process. “You really think he’ll recognize them?”
I get my pistol free, but Foyet catches sight and goes to grab for possession. For a moment I think I have him - gun at his chin, my finger on the trigger, I’m pulling my finger back - and then he hauls back and punches the gunshot wound at my chest.
The man hits like a fucking mack-truck.
The shock of it stuns me, sends pain throughout my whole body that cripples. I can’t even curse or cry out because I can’t breath. The next blow is to the head with my gun, it comes twice before I’m thrown back into a counter. I roll onto my back when finally given a respite. I have to force air into my lungs, force my body past its pains to stay oxygenated as I close my eyes to keep blood from getting in.
“Come on, Jack,” a kick shakes loose blood I hack up onto white tiles with a turn of my head. “Stay with me,” he taunts from up above, “we haven’t even begun to enjoy our time together.”
I keep my eyes closed now with a very specific idea in mind. I give a slight shift and groan. I need Foyet closer to me. As counter-intuitive as it is I wait to hear the man lower himself beside me, then over me. Good.
“Wake up, Jack-Jack.” His breath heats my face. Perfect. Now he’s close enough.
I give another shift, one that makes it seem like I’m showing my discomfort as I'm able to slip out another weapon I carry. This one Foyet doesn’t catch. His vest does instead.
“Nice try,” Foyet chuckles out. It's all the reply I allow him before the blade of my knife finds a home in his thigh. He didn’t see that one coming. It’s the first time that face of surprise and pain has given me true pleasure.
I can’t hang onto the victory though as my energy seeps out my chest, my mouth, and Foyet’s rage starts to boil over. He takes possession of the knife and tears my shirt and chest to red ribbons. The cuts are shallow, they won’t even need stitches, and I know it’s intentional. He wants me alive and awake for the moment. He wants to watch my pain build; he’s hoping it’ll lead to the fear that I have yet to show. His other hand grabs my jaw so tight I worry it might break. “You father took something from me.”
“So?” I croak.
The hand slides down to my throat and the blade goes deeper as it rides between two floating ribs.
I lock my jaw to keep from gasping out though that effort causes my eyes to water and overflow.
“So now I take something from him.” His words, like the knife’s movements, are painfully slow.
I lay mute.
Between his thumb and index he cradles my chin, forces my head to the side, and breaths heavy and harsh as the tip of his weapon aligns with the McBurney's point on my abdomen.
He's going to reopen my appendectomy scar.
“Don’t worry, it really only hurts the first time.” Foyet's growl burrows into my brain in a way that lets me know there's no way I can prepare for what's coming next.
His weight presses down and his hips shift with a groan suggesting something I don't want to consider.
Oh, fuck...
The crack of a bullet leaving its chamber nearly shocks me into unconsciousness.
Lil, no!
Stunned and furious Foyet turns and fires my gun three times without really even looking. Whoever shot him is just a fly to swat off, someone who didn’t even cause him harm thanks to the vest. I hear the girl’s body thump to the floor and the man cackle his latest victory.
Fuck.
He starts to turn back to me. I go limp. Play dead and hope to heavens it works. Hope to heavens Lil’s okay and thought of the same thing after shooting her father.
The loud gunfire stirs others in the building and Foyet seems unwilling to stick around as I feel his weight leave me and hear his efforts to stand. The thigh wound effects his ability to move with ease, his leg gives out more often than not as I count hobbled steps. He’s going straight for the door rather than checking on the other person he shot.
Good.
"Things go dark. I don't mind much. It's okay. She'll be safe. An old man dies. A little girl lives. Fair trade." ~ Hartigan, Sin City
Additional Author's Note: Just like with Foyet before him, Jack's not dead, haha!