Caught In The Shadow [Jenlisa]

Chapter Seventeen -

Lisa

- www –

It seemed to me, the nature of human beings revolved around one empirical truth: we want what we cannot have. For Eve, it was the fruit of the forbidden tree. For me, it was Jennie.

The night had been a fitful one. Jennie whimpered and trembled in her sleep and my chest seemed to contract with every sound. I had given her more morphine and after some time, her body seemed to quiet down though there still seemed to be frenzied movement behind her eyelids. Nightmares, I assumed. Without fear of awkwardness or reproach, I felt a compulsion to touch her. I held her close and comforted them both, but I could not get Jiyong's text out of his mind:

How soon would he land in Mexico?

How would he react to Jennie and her broken condition?

How long did I have with Jennie before she was taken away from me?

Taken. Away. Strange, horrible, and foreign words. I closed my eyes and set my mind to reality. I'm giving her away. I opened my eyes. And the sooner, the better.

I couldn't argue with logic. It had kept me alive for longer than I could remember. I was cold and efficient. I did not dally with questions of morality. Still, I wanted to argue with logic. I wanted to find reason in what I felt to pacify the hardened man inside my head.

But I couldn't. The truth was – I wanted her. The truth was also, it was never meant to be. I pulled Jennie even closer, careful not to crush her ribs or injured shoulder and buried my nose in her long hair, trying to smell her scent.

I had told her I wasn't her Savior, but what I hadn't said, was I wished I could be. Once upon a time, I may have been...normal. Before I had been stolen, before the beatings and the rapes and the killing – I could have been something different than what I was. I had never thought like this, never wondered about the roads taken or not taken. My life was lived in the present and without the angst of fantasies. But I fantasized now. I fantasized about being the sort of person who could give, Jennie, all she ever wanted. The kind of person she could....

'But you're not that person, are you?'

I sighed, knowing the answer. The fantasies of others had never confused me, but my own, left me dissatisfied with the life I'd accepted and even enjoyed from time to time. I wanted it to go away, the longing, and the feelings of regret. I wanted to live for the hunt and kill – it had been the only thing to make sense to me for so very long. Even in those moments of darkness, when my drive had flagged and I questioned the possibility of ever finding Vladek – I had never thought to be anything other than what I was.

Yet, in just three and a half weeks with Jennie, most of which, she spent locked in a dark room, it all seemed to be evaporating. It was stupid, naïve, and dangerous. A person was incapable of changing fundamentally in such a short period of time. I wasn't different. And yet, I felt different and not even logic could alter that. If it hadn't been for the memories, those awful, fucking memories of Narweh, beating and raping me. If I hadn't seen Jennie, covered in blood, bruised and shuddering in that biker's arms – I wouldn't feel like my entire world was caving in on me.

God! What I'd done to make them pay. It had been the kind of rage I hadn't felt in a very long time. I didn't regret it either. I'd savored the look on those biker's faces as I'd plunged my knife deep into Tiny, and his blood sprayed on me, the walls, everything.

Revenge! That was my purpose.

It felt good to have a purpose. I was certain I'd feel the rush again. I'd feel it the second Vladek's eyes dawned with realization and it would carry through until Vladek took his last, gasping breath. I shivered. I wanted to feel the satisfaction of that moment. I wanted to feel it more than anything. I wanted it more than I wanted the girl.