[I can’t believe you]
[I can’t believe you made us do that]
[It’s all your fault]
[We’re done]
[Get the hell out of my life]
[You ruined everything]
Read (4/4/28)
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The sunglasses did well to hide Jack’s eyes. The grief in his eyes. The confusion. The guilt. His mouth parted slightly as if he were trying to speak, but no words came out.
Vanessa stood there in a baggy loose suit and tie. Her hair was much shorter than that six years ago, and her eyes were hollow like a deep ravine. Her skin was drained of all color and covered in blackened cuts like the wood on a dock. And yet, here she stood in front of him. Alive. Standing. Breathing. Talking.
The yellow lights on the pillars of the restaurant burn into Jack’s eyes. His mind runs through a thousand questions. Was this really her, or was this some kind of delusion? If she was real, why was she here? Where had she been all this time?
After a few moments, he regains composure. He fixes his posture and straightens his tie. His thumb rubs off the bead of sweat going down his forehead. He looks back at her-- if it really was her standing there-- and picks the safest thing he can say.
“...Shall we go inside?”
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They weren’t on good terms the last time they spoke. And she had hated his guts after what he dragged everyone into. And she was sure that she would have cursed him out if she ever saw his face again.
And, because of that, she couldn’t possibly explain why she felt so relieved to see him. Like a thousand-ton weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. A breath of fresh air after months in a smoking, burning building. The same feeling someone would get after seeing a friend who’d been in a terrible accident be okay.
Her face certainly didn’t show that, though. One of her eyes was covered by her bangs, and the other was a deep black void that looked down on him. Her mouth was entirely straight. Not a single emotion could be seen on her face.
“...Sure.”
Jack nods. He walks across the white tile, passing her. She follows behind him. Each step they make makes a small tap across the floor. But that noise was drowned out by the sound of the people talking and laughing on the patio with rosy cheeks and smiles. She doesn’t see it, but Jack frowns as he sees a couple on the patio giggling together.
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Jack takes deep breaths as he opens the door for Vanessa to go in. She nods and enters. He doesn’t see it, though-- he’s far too busy looking at the ground than to dare make eye contact with her.
Usually, he put on a facade when he had to meet with his clients. A confident, smug, and powerful man-- like that of Harvey Specter from Suits. After all, he was in security, he needed to be confident. And he was good at doing that because he didn’t have any attachment or history to the people he met with, and when it came to her, he had both of those.
After she gets in, he follows. The door shuts behind him.
There are circular, white lights all over the matching roof of the restaurant. The tile is a mix of cream, brown, and beige rectangles that reflect the light above. There’s a bar with a brown wooden counter off to the side, with a few men sharing a conversation. You can see the end of the restaurant from the entrance-- it’s quite far away.
Jack shoves his sunglasses into the breast pocket of his blazer. Having been here before time and time again, he walks off to the reception desk like it was clockwork.
“Hi. Reservation for J.”
The man at the desk-- a taller, black-haired man with a slick-back and a black suit, recognizes him almost immediately. He smiles, says “Of course! Right this way,” and leads ‘J’ to his table.
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Vanessa, who’d been looking around like a kid in a candy shop, noticed that Jack was walking away after a few seconds, and speedwalks to catch up. She feels nervous-- she hadn’t gone to a place this fancy since she and her girlfriend’s third anniversary.
The man at the desk, leading them, thought that J seemed quite uncomfortable with the situation. Which was strange. He’d always been so confident and outspoken whenever he came here. He also found the difference in height between J and his client to be quite funny; he was around 5’7, and she seemed to be at least 5’11.
They sat down at their table. It had a square, marble surface with a white tablecloth. There were two glasses for each of them; one for wine and the other for whatever other drink they wanted to order. The black linen napkin was folded neatly into a square, with a fork and knife next to it. A small white plate was off to the side of each fork.
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Her eyes darted to the side as Jack unbuttoned his blazer to sit down.She didn’t have to do the same as he did, since she hadn’t bothered to button up her jacket in the first place. If she knew that she’d be going out with someone she knew, she would have put effort into her outfit.
Vanessa looked back at him. He seemed to be staring into the tablecloth.
The man who’d brought them to their tables assured them that a waiter would be arriving shortly. Jack looks at him, nods, and takes a deep breath.
She looks back to Jack. What was she supposed to say? She hadn’t seen him in years, and he’d changed completely from the last time she saw him. Soon, though, her worry begins to fade away. Words spill out from her mouth.
“Why are you so nervous?”
She rests her face on the palm of her hand.
Jack looks back at her and raises an eyebrow. He says nothing. Vanessa glances off to the side, before looking back at him. She probes again,
“What?”
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Jack looks back up at her, raising his head with widened eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of the fucking zombie sitting across from me?”
He can’t believe her audacity. Obviously, he’d be nervous. Why wouldn’t he be nervous? Even if she wasn’t supposed to be dead, they still used to date years ago. And what made her think that was the best question to ask after years since the incident?
She scratches her head for a second before the look of realization finally sets in on her face. “Ohhhh. Right. Yeah, I forgot about that.”
Jack blinks. How do you forget something like that?
“Iiiiit’s a long story.” she slurs. “It ties into why I’m here, though.”
“Start talking, then.”
Vanessa opens her mouth to talk, but the waitress arriving interrupts her. A woman of average height with tied-back brown hair and light skin. “Hi, my name is Angie, I’ll be your server for the night. Can I start you two off with any drinks?”
Jack speaks first, “I’ll just get water, please.”
“Pink lemonade.” Vanessa blurts out.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The waiter nods and walks away, off to the kitchen.
After a few moments of silence, Vanessa looks back at Jack, and laughs, “Water? Seriously? Come on, stop trying to act all tough.”
“It’s the healthiest option.” His tone was sharp enough to pierce metal.
“Whatever, dude.” she teases.
“As you were saying?”
Her eyes look down, and she stops smiling. She turns her head and rubs her chin, briefly. Jack couldn’t see her expression because her dark bangs were covering up the entire left side of her face.
She looks back at him with a deadpan expression.
“There’s a cult worshiping The Salvage.”
Jack’s teeth grit and his eyes widen. That was the one thing he hoped this meeting wouldn’t be about. Prayed that this wouldn’t be about.
“I know, shocking, right? I mean, not really. People idolize serial killers all the time, for some reason. This was gonna happen eventually.”
He looks back at her with furrowed brows, but she didn’t even process the disgrace and confusion on his face. The Salvage wasn’t just some “serial killer”. It was a real, genuine monster that had come from nothingness and tormented their hometown. It had killed people. Real people. People who they had been close to. How could Vanessa talk so nonchalantly, as if those people meant nothing to her?
She doesn’t even process the disgust in his eyes. “The point is, I’m destroying it, aaand I need help. And who better to ask than you?”
Angie arrives with their drinks on a silver platter. A breath of relief exits Jack’s mouth as she places down the drinks, as well as their copies of the menu. Jack slowly grabs his copy, as if he were afraid of provoking a wild animal. The waitress says she’ll be back to take their orders in a few minutes before leaving.
“Have you been here before?” he asks, hiding his expression as he looks down at the options. He already knew what he was going to get.
Vanessa pushes the straw’s wrapper onto the table until it rips through the packaging. She puts the straw into the lemonade and takes a sip. “Nope. Not my thing, anyways…” She picked her menu back up. He could tell that she was about to keep going. He needed something to say, and fast—-
“H-How’s Ashley doing?”
The words flew out of his mouth before he even knew what he would say.
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“Huh?” Vanessa’s eyes locked with his for a second, before he looked back down to his menu.
“I mean, you know, I haven’t talked to her in… a while.”
“Oh, right.”
Vanessa recalled all the times she’d seen Ashley and Jack with each other back in high school. Warm smiles and light-hearted jabs at the other. She’d thought the two were siblings for a while. They were practically inseparable. His sarcasm meshed together well with Ash’s obliviousness. Her head being in the clouds was always contrasted by Jack’s being down to earth.
Nothing could’ve separated them except for their own desires.
“They got her.” she mumbled. Her hand rubbed her face, and her nails picked at the scars on it.
“The-the cult?”
“Yeah.”
Jack put his hands on his head. She immediately realized what he was thinking, and that wasn’t what she was trying to say.
“She’s still alive! She’s still alive, don’t worry. I’m sorry, I worded that horribly–”
“...Oh, thank god.”
A weight lifted itself off of Vanessa’s shoulders.
“Don’t scare me like that.” he muttered.
Jack didn’t know the only evidence for Ashley’s survival was a burning feeling in Vanessa’s heart.
“Yeah, sorry. My bad. Won’t happen again.”
Her eyes glance back at the menu. She hadn’t actually taken a good look ever since she’d opened it. And, perhaps that was for the best. The wallet in her pocket held nothing but a Baskin-Robbins coupon and a ten dollar bill, and the prices at this place were absolutely atrocious. After a minute of browsing, she was disappointed to see that the only thing she could afford was a side of french fries.
“How…” the word came out of her mouth before she even decided what she would say. “What’ve you been up to that lets you afford all this?”
The man’s head tilts up. “Uh, investing. Why?” He had much more to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to continue.
“...I don’t have the money for this.”
“Oh. Don’t worry about it. It’s on me.”
There was a small pause in-between Jack’s words as he realizes something:
“...Wait, why’d you try to hire someone if you didn’t have the money?...”
A nervous chuckle escapes her mouth. She grips the collar of her shirt.
Jack looks down for a second in consideration. Vanessa stares back at him, her eyebrows raised. She really needed help. The cult’s cyberware was completely incomprehensible to her. She didn’t have anyone else to turn to.
His response finally comes. His eyes glanced off to the side.
“...I’ll do it anyway. I owe you. You wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t f-”
A sigh of relief comes from Vanessa’s mouth. “Oh my god, Jackie, thank you so much…”
His face cringes. “...Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry. Force of habit.” Everyone used to call him that back then. “Uh, anyways, I think I’m getting the roasted chicken. You?”
“The ribeye.” he spoke with such certainty, as if he’d made up his mind before even entering the restaurant.
‘What’d you spend all that time looking at the menu, then?...’ she thought.
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Vanessa had told him exactly what she needed over dinner: The passwords inside a brain chip she’d gotten her hands on, whatever prominent locations there were on it, and the ability to give Jack some more work if she ended up finding more chips. It was easy enough. He was happy he didn’t have to get himself directly involved with the cult. Although, he wasn’t sure what Vanessa had done to get her hands on this chip in the first place. What kind of idiot would just let someone take it?
The two walk out of the restaurant’s doors, and onto the white tile. The couples Jack had seen on the patio were gone now. The shadows of palm trees waved in the wind. He gazes up to the sky. The only things that could be seen were the moon and the lights of airplanes in place of the stars.
He doesn’t wish she was dead, but he wishes she wasn’t here. Or maybe Vanessa was dead, because he can only see the remnants of the person she used to be. He didn’t see the warmth she always used to give off. Her skin was covered in scars– had her soul been lost with whatever given her them?
Whatever the case was, he didn’t really want to help her with this. But he didn’t have a choice. He stopped having choices years ago. He owed her this.
“Jack?”
He forgot he was looking up to the sky. “What was I gonna say?... Oh, yeah, right, do you have a place to stay?”
“Nope.”
That’s what he thought. “I can book you a hotel room, if you want.”
“Oh. Uh, thanks.” her tone was as blank as paper. “Let’s go then.” she starts walking, passing by Jack, who had went onto his phone
“Yeah, yeah- Wait, what?” He was about to call an Uber. Where was she going?! He rushes over to her, only to see her opening the door of a beautiful black muscle car. He squints his eyes in disbelief. He’d been dreaming of buying a car like that for years, and had been saving money so he could pay up for it. And, despite that, here came Vanessa Storm, who apparently didn’t have any money, just driving one around Las Vegas.
“I thought you were broke!” he yells as she gets in.
“I am!” she yells back.
“Hell is this then?!”
“Oh, I stole this.”
Jack sighs. He didn’t have a choice, anyways. He walks over to the passenger's seat and opens it, only for a thick bag as large as the seat to fall onto the ground with a crunch. He squints, trying to read the label… cat food?
“Why do you just have open cat food in your car?”
“Oh, sorry. Just brush anything on the seat off to the side.”
He frowns. The least she could do was keep the car clean herself. He hops into the passenger's seat and closes the door. Suddenly, he feels something jump onto his lap. Something furry. He flinches, before looking down and seeing a cat loafing on his thigh. That explained the cat food.
He looks back at Vanessa, who’d tossed her jacket into the backseat. Seeing the shirt she was wearing, he notices something:
“...Are you wearing the same suit you wore to senior prom?”
Air blows out from her mouth, before she lets out a small laugh. “Psht, what? No.”
Jack doesn’t say anything.
“...Maybe.”
He sighs.
“Is it that bad?”
“It’s not bad, but you can tell it’s old. You should get a new one.”
“Right.”
They weren’t on speaking terms by senior prom.
“...Oh! Right, speaking of getting new clothes, are there any at that hotel you’re at?” she looked back at him, but he was looking at his phone again.
“I’m not paying for that.”
“What? Why not?--”
“Come on. You can’t be serio-”
“You owe me.” Her tone changed from playful to completely and utterly monotonous. Like she didn’t care in the first place.
He exhales. His eyes go off of his phone, only to look at the dashboard of the car.
She was right.
“...Just drive.”
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In Vanessa’s mind, she hadn’t done anything wrong. After all, it was true. He did owe her. But a part of her cursed herself for saying that. But Vanessa didn’t want to wonder whether or not she was in the moral right or wrong. The ends justify the means, don’t they? Using that as her excuse, she refused to acknowledge whether or not she was in the right.
She and Jack walked into the lobby of the Park MGM. They had to drop her cat off at some pet hotel five minutes away, because this place didn’t allow cats. She was already missing Egg. That cat had been with her through everything.
She walks across the shiny marble floors of the hotel, Jack following behind. Potted plants surrounded pillars that had mirrors on them. A piece of wooden sculpture imitating a tree was on the roof. It was far too smooth and light to actually be mistaken for a piece of a tree, though. The entire hotel was outlined in a cactus green.
Jack walks off to go and book her room. She sits down on a padded bench, putting down the duffel bag that held all of her belongings next to her.
After a few minutes, Jack walked back to her, holding a plastic card. She hands it to her,
“Your room is at 331. We’re only staying here a night.” She manages to finally pick up on his feelings– he was tired.
She nods.
“Oh, right.” He hands her $200 in cash. “The store is down the hallway to the left. Good night.”
“Thanks.” she pauses. “...Uh, good night, too–”
Jack didn’t even turn to look back at her.
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After buying the clothes, finding her room, and showering, Vanessa headed to bed. It was the first time she’d actually been in a bed since she ‘died’. All her nights had been sleepless. Sometimes, she tried to sleep in the passenger seat of her car, but something seemed to keep her up anyways.
The room was dark, but not dark enough. Lights from the bustling city outside crept their way through her curtains and casted an orange shadow across the room. The ceiling fan’s whirring kept her eyes from closing. Lights from the telephone on the desk burned into her eyes, though they really weren’t that bright.
She thought about how Jack didn’t look back when she said good night. He just seemed so tired of her, and they’d only met each other again today. What did that say about her?
She cared for Jack, she really did. And something in her knew that she was doing something wrong. Like, when she said he owed her. Like when she harassed him over being nervous. And that part of her clawed at her mind, clinged on, pleaded to be acknowledged. But she couldn’t acknowledge it. She couldn’t bear to see her flaws. So, like every mistake she has made since she died, she bottled it up.
So long as her ends justified the means, she could do anything she wanted. It made her righteousness incarnate. Anything in her path could be shoved away because of that. Because she did it for Ashley, the love that was stolen from her in the midst of a roaring blaze. She did it for the people who she lost to The Salvage. She did it for Jack. She did it for everyone. She did it for the sake of justice and love.
Even then, though, something inside of her thought otherwise.