Other Fan Fiction ❯ Stolen ❯ Rules ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4 - Rules

Lisa was still in the corner when the door opened late in the evening. The sun had already set below the horizon but remnants of the light still managed to make it through the linen drapes and bathe the room in hues of orange and later, purple. Jackson cautiously braced himself as he eased the door open and looked inside. The moment he saw the wild mane of auburn hair in the opposite corner of the room from over the top of the bed's mattress, he relaxed and let himself in. He noted that most of the water from the pitcher had been consumed and smiled. Good girl.

Once he made it far enough into the room to fully reveal Lisa's form, he was met with the sight of a woman obviously under a lot of stress that she didn't know how to handle. She was wide eyed and pale, more so than she usually was and she held a small wicker waste basket protectively in from of her. She obviously wasn't thinking too clearly if that was her first weapon of choice from around the room. The lamp with the lampshade removed would have been his first choice and then a few other items before ever deciding on the trash can but he didn't think any less of her. She was terrified and he hoped she was strong enough to survive it with her mind intact though he truly believed she could handle it. He wouldn't have chosen her if he didn't think she could.

She didn't make a move or a sound as he casually walked in and sat down on the end of the bed and looked at her.

“Well Leese, how are you doing?” She didn't answer him and he wasn't surprised in the least. “I'm glad you drank the water, it saved me a lot of trouble.” Still, she stayed silent, just watching him. “You were out for four days and that can be pretty trying on a body even though you had an IV for a few hours on the second day. You probably would have survived without it but you'd have been in far worse shape than you were when you woke up. You can thank me for that later” He shifted and crossed his legs. She flinched at the movement, preparing for any kind of physical attack and he saw this. “Don't worry Leese; I'm not going to hurt you. I went through too much time, money and trouble to get you here to just take you out now. You're safe for the moment and you will stay that way as long as you don't cause me too much trouble.” Her eyes narrowed at the statement and Jackson was pleased that he got a reaction from her even if it was such a small one. He continued.

“So I guess now is as good a time as any to let you know of the rules. First thing you should know is that I'll always know where you are at all times. You've been fitted with a monitoring tag. Basically, it tells me where you are within a few feet anywhere on the globe but since you can't really travel the globe; it's accurate to within a few feet anywhere on the island. It also monitors a few of your vitals, mainly heartbeat, to let me know that you're alive.” He paused for a moment to see if she had anything to say but when she remained silent, he kept going. “Second, you'll be confined to this room at all times unless you are under my direct supervision until I think you can be trusted to move more freely about the house on your own. When that will happen is entirely up to you. Basically, attacking me in any way would keep you here while behaving could get you more privileges. Eventually, you can work up to having free reign over the entire island without visual supervision which is really what I'd prefer to have since letting you take care of yourself while I'm out on business would be the best option for the both of us. Also, just so you know, if you did, under very unlikely circumstances manage to kill me, like I'm more than aware you'd love to do right now, then by my dying orders, you would be escorted to your still very healthy and alive father where you would watch him die a very slow and painful death before being killed in a similar manner yourself. And last but certainly not least, you decide to be noble and take your own life, rest assured, your father won't be long in following you but I'll see to it personally that he travels down a far more painful road than the one you took.”

Lisa's once narrowed and defiant eyes widened again at the blunt threats. She knew he wasn't fooling around and that he was most certainly not lying about the last two facts he'd told her. Her grip on the waste basket loosened visibly as the threat shook her. Every time she thought she'd hit bottom, he came in and showed her a new low.

“Why?” She whispered out and drew her no longer defiant gaze away from his cold one.

He could toy with her some more but he knew she was dangerously close to having a breakdown, so he decided to play it straight with her for once. “I didn't want to kill you. You were too interesting and attractive.” It was the truth, as simple as that.

“You'll never let me out of here, will you?” She felt so cold inside, like she was dying.

“Like I said, I'll let you out of the room once I'm confident you won't try to hurt me or yourself for that matter but as far as letting you go. No. Even I've got rules I have to follow concerning this. You're still considered a liability to the company and the only reason you're still alive is because I want it that way. My bosses and colleagues are confident that I can keep you from causing them any trouble now or in the future.”

“What are you going to do to me?” She asked her darkest fear. She had nothing else to lose it seemed and asking about his future plans for her was the only thing she could think to do at the moment.

“Well that's entirely up to you Leese. If you prove to be more trouble than you're worth, then I'll have to get rid of you. Beyond that priceless tidbit, I don't have any other concrete plans as of yet. I only really decided to do this for sure on the plane so...” He ended the sentence there.

“I don't want to be here.” She said as much to herself as she did to him.

He regarded her for a moment before responding. “I know and I don't have any illusions that you ever will. It would be best for you though, if you don't express that desire in any violent ways.” When she didn't respond or say anything else, he asked, “Are you hungry?”

Her eyes snapped up to his at the sudden and jarring change of conversation. She just stared at him. She was starving but she had no intention of giving him anything else, not even the satisfaction of having to rely on him for food.

He saw the defiance return to her eyes immediately and debated for a moment on how to handle it. He could either let her have her way for a while and go hungry for a few more days or he could force her to eat using threats. After a moment's deliberation, he decided that he didn't have time to drag this out and that her body was already in pretty bad shape from the fairly dangerous drug he'd pumped into her. Besides, the sooner she started acting according to a compliant captive's parameters, the better.

“Don't Leese. You and I both know that I'm not going to let you starve." His voice has an aire of bored indifference. "A hunger strike won't work with me so don't make me throw around more threats, they'll start to lose their impact if I have to use them with every single little mundane task I ask you to do.” The fire left her eyes. “Good. Now I'll get you something to tide you over for the evening.”

“You told me you never lied.” She said so quietly he almost missed it.

That caught his attention. He wondered why she'd said it. He'd never given her any reason to trust him, not even in the cafe before the flight so why did it sound like he'd disappointed her somehow? “Not quite Leese. I said I hadn't lied to you and up to that point I hadn't because my mind wasn't made up yet on bringing you here. I also said I didn't lie to you because it didn't serve me. Any lies since then have served me. But come on, anyone who tells you they aren't lying to you in the type of situation you were in, probably shouldn't be taken at his word anyway." He sounded like he was lecturing a child who wasn't practicing common sense. "You're not an idiot Leese so stop acting like one.” With that he stood up and left the room.

She heard the electric lock slide back into place after he shut the door and Lisa let out a long, exhausted sigh. Where had her determination gone? Was she just going to role over and do anything he told her to? Right now it felt like she might but she was just too physically exhausted and too emotionally drained to fight back right now. Maybe tomorrow she could start formulating a plan, a plan to take her life back somehow but at the moment, even as she thought that, she felt the hopelessness of the situation creeping up and trying to suffocate her.

Jackson returned a half hour later with a sandwich and some fruit juice but found Lisa asleep in her little chosen corner of safety. He watched her sleep in her little curled ball as she wrapped herself around the basket she'd been clutching when he'd entered the room earlier. She'd been surprisingly subdued when he'd come to see her and though he'd expected more fight from the girl, he wasn't disappointed. It meant either that he didn't need to break her down anymore or that he was almost to the point where he wouldn't have to. He walked into the bathroom and made sure for the tenth time that she'd have everything she needed when she woke up. He knew she had plenty of clothing to choose from in the closet and chest of drawers. Tomorrow would prove to be an interesting day no matter what happened. He'd manipulated people into doing what he wanted before but that had always been on a short term basis until a job was completed. With Lisa, it was more for the long haul.

Jackson's thoughts turned to all the other people in his line of work that had already done something similar to this. It was actually fairly common, no one in the company was married in the traditional sense and the closest cases to that archaic gimmick were two members of the company that stuck to one another on a long term basis. Many, however, found keeping 'birds' was a much easier and much more satisfying arrangement. Birds were almost always women. It just wasn't as practical for the female members of the company to acquire men like this for the simple fact that women, as a general rule, are less physically powerful than their male counterparts. He personally knew six other men that had already done this and knew of at least a dozen others that had before them. Most had met with what could be termed success in the endeavor and he could only think of two cases where the birds were too hard to control and met with the original fate that would have befell them if the company member hadn't wanted to keep them in the first place.

Birds were often people that played an important role in a job, much like Lisa and were going to be disposed of after the job anyway. Why waste a perfectly good woman, or man in rare cases, when you could just take them with you? They had been known to be the hit themselves and on rare occasions, a completely uninvolved, innocent person was chosen for one reason or another.

Whatever the reasoning, the process always began with isolating and slowly manipulating the bird until they firmly believed that there was no hope of ever escaping their situation. Some of them even became emotionally attached to their captor though Jackson doubted that would be the case with Lisa. He would try to instill that in her but he sure wasn't going to hold his breath. It wasn't all that important to him anyway though it would be a nice perk if it happened. The final goal to be reached in all this was to eventually be able to leave the bird in a public place without them trying to escape. Hence the derivation of the term to begin with, cage a bird for long enough and it will eventually stay in its cage even if the door is left wide open. He knew it would take a long time, probably years especially since he still had to get jobs done in the process. He'd have to work on her in his down time but luckily that always came in abundance in this line of work.

Right now, he just needed to make sure he could let her have the roam of the house and keep herself healthy while he left for weeks at a time. He hoped it wouldn't take too long since he was sure he'd be called in sometime soon and he didn't want to have anyone else `birdsit' for him while he was gone. The company was more than aware of his decision and would probably give him a month before calling him back. They had something of a stake in the process going well too. If she ever got away and tried to tell any of a multitude of law enforcement agencies about them, no matter how little she really knew, she would become a major liability to the company as a whole and Jackson would lose his credibility. He hadn't made this decision lightly and knew the high risk it entailed as well as the possible negative consequences if he failed. There were, of course, definite perks to taking on such a project and though Jackson would be more than happy to indulge in them when time came, he was mostly doing it simply to see if he could. He just needed to play the part and get her to play the one he wanted her to. Until then he would just content himself with the task of getting her started. It was sure to be entertaining as well as educational. It was like having a giant, intelligent lab rat. Her responses to different stimuli over a long duration of time would be interesting to say the least. He looked forward to the challenge.