Caught In The Shadow [Jenlisa]

Chapter Fifteen -

Lisa

- www –

It was out now – the truth. I would never forget the look in her eyes while I told her about my plan to sell her into sexual slavery. What had I expected? That she would understand? Revenge was my purpose. She could not understand that, not yet. It would haunt me forever. One more memory among hundreds that always haunted me. Except, I had always been the victim in those memories. Always the girl and never the woman.

Now, the kind of woman I'd become would haunt me too. I slumped against the bathroom door. I needed a minute, to breathe, to keep from retching, and to deal with the jumble of thoughts tearing me apart. For the first time in recent memory, I wanted something other than revenge. I wanted the girl. I wanted Jennie.

I knew her name now, but it was the least of what I now knew. I knew all kinds of things about her – too much maybe. She wore shapeless clothing to school because she wanted her mother to love her. Her eyes were sad because she knew her mother didn't.

She had brothers and sisters. She felt responsible for them and jealous of them.

She was funny, and shy, but also fierce and brave.

Her first kiss had been a disaster.

She'd grown up without anyone to protect her.

And no one but me had brought her physical pleasure.

Jennie was a survivor. That much I'd known, but what I hadn't known was what she'd had to survive. She deserved better. Better than them and certainly better than me.

I'd seen it in her eyes and her manner, but I had tried not to know why. I had wanted her nameless. I wanted to forget she had ever had a past, a history, dreams and hopes and all of those other things that made her...Jennie.

I could hear her crying through the bathroom door and it nearly ripped my heart from my chest.

I had done that.

I had caused each and every one of her tears and to my complete consternation, they did not make me hard, they made me... profoundly sad. Sadness was an emotion I had not felt in a very, very long time. And back then, I only felt it for myself; I'd never had pity for anyone else, not even the other boys.

Why now? Why her?

An image of her bloody and limp body in that young man's arms flashed across my mind and I doubled over. She could have died. And I knew I would never forgive myself if that had come to pass. Whatever the reason, I felt something for the girl, something I'd never felt before and couldn't put into words. I just didn't know if it mattered. I had told her everything mattered, that everything was very personal, but what did it mean in the grand scheme of everything?

She could no sooner forgive me than I could forgive Narweh. She would never be able to see beyond everything I had done to her. So, in the end, what did it matter? I could never have the girl, so why not my vengeance? Didn't I deserve it?

'Narweh is dead! You killed him. What more could you gain by destroying a man you've never seen?'

I shook the thoughts away. Jiyong had rescued me. He had put a roof over my head, food in my stomach and women in my bed. I owed him everything, my very life. If Jiyong wanted Vladek dead, then I owed him the man's head.

Jiyong wanted more that Vladek's life. He wanted him to suffer unspeakably. He wanted everything the man had ever loved to disintegrate like ash in his hands. It wouldn't bring his mother back, or his sister, but it seemed...right. It had always felt right to me. I truly was Jiyong's loyal disciple and it was the only thing that had given my life meaning. Without Jiyong, without our quest...what else did I have?