Other Fan Fiction ❯ Stolen ❯ Tantrums ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter 6 - Tantrums

Three weeks passed with little commotion. Jackson still kept Lisa confined to her room but was seriously considering allowing hera trial period around the house during the day. He didn't trust her by any stretch of the imagination but she'd been acting surprisingly well for someone in her position. She would be unable todo any damage if he let her roam about anyway. All the rooms that held anything important like computers and satellite phones would be securely locked. Besides, although he was generally a very patient man, it didn't mean he wasn't going to try to move things along if possible. As long as she kept showing signs of improvement, there was no reason not to allow the situation to progress as quickly as possible. That wasn't to say that there hadn't been a few hiccups during the week.

The first case occurred when Lisa found out first hand that the windows were constructed with bullet proof glass after she tried throwing the chair of her desk against it repeatedly. He wasn't sure how many thuds he heard before he reached the room and stepped inside but it was enough to drive him crazy while looking through proposals for several possible jobs the company was considering taking on.

“That's not going to work.” She had spun around, not having heard his entrance with all the incessant noise she'd been making. “But you might manage to scratch it which is fine with me as this is your room and not mine. What exactly were you planning to do once you broke it anyway? You weren't planning on jumping, were you?”

She'd pinned him with an icy glare of contempt upon being accusedof trying to kill herself. “No. But...”

“But what? Plan on scaling the wall to the roof? I'd be more impressed if you could pull that off than if you managed to get the window open.”

“Shut up.”

“Just stop it, alright? I can't hear myself think out there. Also, once you break the chair, I'm not going to replace it.” He knew his attitude and tone over the whole situation annoyed her more than anything else but there was no way she would be able to draw him into some kind of argument over something as ridiculous as what she'd just been attempting. Besides, he didn't even think she was really trying to escape. She wasn't stupid enough to believe she could but she was definitely frustrated and probably bored. He'd bring her a few books from his personal library and let her channel her emotions and pent up energy in a different, more productive way. If she destroyed his books though, he'd be pissed.

Another time, a few days later she'd started yelling at him over dinner quite suddenly and unprovoked in his opinion. It was a shock since she was usually so quiet when they ate together which comprised every meal. It was one of the important stages in moving her along. He'd laughed when he'd first been told that the old adage `the family that eats together stays together' was one of the most effective means of establishing a bond between bird and host. Another vital step was achieving, at the very least, a semi consensual sexual relationship. Despite the appeal of the latter, Jackson contented himself with meals for the moment. Though he easily could have forced the issue, Lisa just wasn't ready for that step...yet.

They'd been eating peaceably enough when all of a sudden she'd sent her meal of scalloped potatoes and hamburger crashing to the floor with a quick swipe of her hand.

“Is there something on your mind?” He asked after he'd calmly wiped his mouth with his napkin in a slightly exaggerated manner. She was breathing heavily as stared at him malevolently for a moment before launching into a yelling fit.

“YOU'RE INSANE! KEEPING ME HERE LIKE THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE.” She'd stood up but wasn't making any moves to run from the room. “WHAT DO YOU PLAN ON DOING? LIVING LIKE THIS, LIKE WE'RE SOME SORT OF SICK TWISTED FAMILY. IT'S COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE!” By the time she'd finished, and she'd had plenty more to say on the matter but it had been simply more repetition of the same rather than anything new, she was quite literally panting and shaking from her sudden outburst.

“Are you done?” He asked.

She said nothing and he continued. “Now do you actually want me to answer the gist of your little conniption fit or was that more of a rhetorical tirade?”

When she didn't answer, he decided he would. He just couldn't help himself. It had been all too amusing and he rather liked explaining his point of view on things. He didn't do it to try and win her over to his mindset or even to get her to understand where he was coming from. He did it because of the hilarious expressions she'd make at his logical arguments. He doubted that she found them reasonable or that many people would for that matter but not many people lived in the world that he did, where killing for money was quite common place.

“I wouldn't classify myself as insane per se, but I'm sure if you got a head shrink in here he'd say that I was suffering from one form of antisocial personality disorder or another but insane? No, I don't think I am.” There it was, that priceless look that he just couldn't help but smirk at. “At least that's what one of them told me once but still, it doesn't really mean I'm insane. It just means that I tend to be indifferent when it comes to the type of traumatic situations that would cause most others to become emotionally excited. At least that's what the doc said right before he gave me a clean bill of health to begin doing what I do best. Not surprisingly, it's actually very common among my associates and anyone else within the profession.”

Still she didn't say anything. Instead she turned her back on him and started to walk away.

He of course, jumped up from his chair to keep her from running wild around the house but she didn't do anything of the sort. Instead she just calmly walked back to her room and shut the door behind her. He laughed and scratched his head when he looked down at the mess on the floor.

“Don't worry about the mess Leese; I'll just go ahead and clean it up.” He shouted to her so she could hear him from the other side of the door. He'd then locked it and cleaned up the evidence of her little tantrum.

There were a couple of other fairly amusing displays similar to those two but nothing too violent or drastic. It made him think of a colt that would nip at its dame just to find out how long it could keep it up before getting nipped in return. If that were really what she was doing by testing his boundaries, then it was going to take a lot more than that for him to nip back. Doing so would only be counterproductive to his end goal. If anything, he enjoyed it but she was going about it entirely wrong. She probably expected certain reactions from her different episodes of acting out but got results she didn't expect or understand. She was making the mistake of thinking he'd react like anyone else, however; he was a man that didn't really feel remorse or pity. He was unable to identify with people in a way that would make those emotions possible.

There were a lot of emotions that he knew other people suffered from that he would never be afflicted with. Fear, love, compassion, jealousy, all of these meant nothing to him. He knew other people experienced them and because he was aware of that, he knew how to exploit them. Lisa had made the call on the red eye based on emotions he'd never know or fully understand. She feared the death of her father. She sympathized with the pain he might feel and was terrified of the sadness his death would cause. In the end, it was her emotions that allowed him to successfully pull off the mission

On the other end of the spectrum, Jackson had seen his parents murdered in cold blood and he only had one thought at the time. Huh, wonder what's going to happen to me now?

It's what made him so successful at his job. He could so accurately gage those pesky emotions that ran through people's eyes as he spoke to them and was able to, in turn, play on them perfectly. He was known in the business for excelling at it and that's exactly why no one had balked about his hands on involvement in the Keefe job. Jackson was perfectly made to play the part.

It didn't mean that he was devoid of emotion all together. He wasn't an unfeeling robot that just walked around. No, he was capable of a few doozies. Rage, hate, lust, annoyance and vindictiveness were ones he knew well but they rarely made a sizable impact on his life. He managed to keep them below the surface and they only got out in extreme situations, something he hadn't been in for years.

During the red eye flight, annoyance was the only emotion he ever really felt. She'd been so persistent in trying to fuck up his plans that she'd managed to really get on his nerves. It was probably the driving factor behind her being alive at the moment. She made him feel something even if it was only as mundane as irritation. It was an accomplishment very few people were capable of and as a result, she now sat in his spare room trying desperately to figure out a way to escape him but he had no intention of letting her go. At the moment she was far too amusing.