Chapter 20: Jason

Chapter 20

Jason

She is beside herself. Why did he have to follow us and why did he have to target Elektra again? I swore to myself that I would find him and end him. At least he is dead now, dead in the way he deserves. Why did he have to traumatise her in the process? I stroke her hair and try to soothe her but I do not know what to say to make this any better. At least he is finally gone. How he found us, I do not know. I do not even want to think about it because it cannot be a coincidence; the universe is rarely so lazy.

I lift Elektra up and carry her back to the hotel. She is covered in so much blood, I can't tell which is hers and which is his. She is still hysterical. I place her down on the dining room table.

“Did he hurt you? Lex, did he hurt you?” I ask, examining her arms and neck.

“My head.” She points to her forehead and the deep graze. It is nasty looking but it is not bleeding too heavily; it will be easily be fixed with a few steri-strips and some TCP. I rummage through my bag and pick out a bottle of disinfectant. I rip a piece of my shirt to apply the disinfectant. She seems to look right through me. I dip the rag into the liquid and dab her wound. She winces.

“Sh, it is all right. Elektra, look at me,” I move her head up with my little finger. She looks at me. Everything seems fine; it just looks like a deep cut but at least her pupils seem to be of the same sizes and reacting appropriately to the lighting.

“How did you get to me so quickly?” She finally breaks the silence, the pain present in her voice.

“I was following you; something did not feel quite right so I followed you and waited outside. When you screamed, it confirmed that something was not right. I walked in on you gutting...him. It is finally over now.” I continue to dab the wound. She nods and sighs. I take some steri-strips and apply them to her head. My depth perception is limited but I think they are straight. “You might need to go and clean up before the others catch on. They are going to ask questions but I think we should avoid a fanfare.

Elektra stands up from the table and takes her jacket off, slowly but surely. I help her get her hands through the armholes.

“I'm not scared or upset. What scares me is the fact that I don't feel anything; is that strange? Should I feel something?”

I do not genuinely know how to respond to this. At this time, I am trying to be strong for her. I am trying to put aside my own personal vendetta for her benefit; the problem is he deserved what he got. He deserved to die, writhing in agony, going through the tortures of the damned. However, when we can murder without feeling anything, that is concerning. Our ability to feel and think and fear is what sets us apart from the Risers. I fear the day when I can commit such a brutal murder, of another survivor, and be calmly indifferent to that fact.

“He does not deserve your pity or your emotional responses. He is dead now, there is no point in pondering on what happened. We tell no-one about this; they do not need to know about the past,” I try to reassure her. The way she turns her head towards me proves that she is not convinced. She waits a minute, turns her head back and walks towards the bathroom. I sigh and sit down on the table.

Helene walks in, cradling Sophia. She slightly when she notices me, sitting in wait in the darkness.

“Sacre bleu, how long have you been here?” She places Sophia down next to me and walks over to the dust covered drink cabinet at the far end on the room. She pulls out a glass bottle, containing a clear liquid; I think it is water. I am not quite sure. She unscrews the bottle and takes a swig from it.

“Not long; I do not sleep much. I went for a walk.” I pick up Sophia and bounce her up and down. “Hey Soph, how you doing?” Sophia giggles and burrows her head into my jacket. She is seriously the cutest little thing. I kiss her head.

“I see. If you want to go for a rest, now is the time. Lucas wants us to move on today.”

“Today? Why today? Should we not wait until we are all rested up?”

“I don't speak for my husband. We move today while it's quiet out there. Can you keep an eye on her while I pack our things?” Helene instructs in her usually coarse manner. I nod and she marches out of the room.

“Come on Soph, let us see what we can find. Shall we go and get some fresh air, hey? Some fresh air? Okay, off we go.” Sophia nuzzles into me and I tighten my grip on her. She makes some incomprehensible baby noises. She is such a happy baby, all things considered. She came into the world in tragedy; I cannot predict her leaving this world much differently. I bend down to pick up her dummy from the drawer and offer it to her. She puts it in her mouth and begins to suck contently. I open the back doors and walk out. The air is so fresh that it stings but it is refreshing. After everything that has just happened, it is nice. I trek further towards the tide and sit down, Sophia in my lap. She picks up a stone, her massive eyes gazing at it with the juvenile wonder of a child. I wipe the hair back from her eyes and look out to the sea. This must be so overwhelming for her; this world seems so large and expansive. We are just little specks of dust on the lens. Slightly too philosophical a thought for an eight month old baby but you never truly know. They are probably more complex than we can comprehend.

Sophia drops the stone and begins her quest for another. I let go of her tummy and watch as she crawls towards her next target.
“Soph, where are you going? Where you going, sweetheart?” She looks back and continues on. I smile and adjust my position so that she is not in my blind spot. Sophia continues to crawl until she finds another one and examines it. She takes her dummy out and puts the stone in her mouth. I run over and take the stone off of her.

“No, we do not want you to choke.” I pick up the dummy and offer it to her. She considers it for a second or two, unhappy at those loss of the stone. Eventually, she takes it back.

“I was wondering where my daughter had gone,” Lucas vociferates from the door. I lift Sophia up and take her back to her father. She begins to giggle and stretches out to find her father's arms. I pass her to Lucas and stretch my arms.

“Everything all right? Nothing amiss, is there Jason?”

“Not to my knowledge Lucas.”

“Uh huh, if you say so. Helene needs some help packing stuff, would you mind helping her? She's in one of her irritable moods, one of those where she could murder me for looking the wrong way,” Lucas replies, adjusting Sophia's position.

“Of course, is she just inside?”

“Yeah, thanks mate.” I place my hand on the door knob when Lucas clears his throat once again. “Jason, if nothing's amiss, explain why my sister is covered in blood. I'm guessing she didn't just have a bucket of blood tip on her. So 'fess up, what happened?”

I look back and wring my hands. He was incredibly set in his ways that we do not kill the living, no matter the circumstances. We have no right to deem ourselves judge, jury and executioner just because the opportunity arises. There are other ways to deal with the scum, he said, death is too kind if you think that is the solution. The only issue is, he never met Connall. He never met that man, so what right has he to judge us? To act as if he knows our circumstances?

“We encountered...trouble. Someone we had known. Not a man, not a Riser. There was no trace of humanity to that 'thing'. Elektra lost control of herself and it got messy. Believe me, there is nothing else to say. You cannot think to live in this world without getting a bit messy from time to time, is that not accurate to say Lucas?”

“Hmm,” Lucas replies, staring at me with an intensity that accompanies the brooding male. A few moments pass with nothing being said, he is still staring at me.

“Careful Lucas, the last time someone looked at me like that, I got lucky,” I say jovially, trying to break the awkward silence. He looks down at Sophia and looks back up.

“Wasn't a Riser? Wasn't a man? So...he was still alive when what happened...happened? You know exactly where I stand on this, Jason. You knew I wouldn't be happy about this so, convince me. Convince me that you two did the right thing.”

She would kill me if I told him the real reason. She still has not forgiven me for telling Lucas that she was pregnant when we first found them. I only did what I thought was best. He would not understand what we have been through. There is one thing I could tell him.

“He took my eye and Elektra's hand. He incapacitated us both; he murdered our old group and forced us to abandon England. If that does not warrant death, I cannot comprehend what does. Those are just a few of his crimes; does the punishment not suit the crime?”

Lucas just looks at me, only breaking his gaze when Sophia fidgets. He readjusts and coughs.

“You know where I stand. If you had found him, why not incapacitate him and bring him back here? Why paint the walls with his blood?”

“Because he would have killed her. When I walked in, he had a knife to her back and his hands around her throat. It was the only outcome; believe me, he would have murdered her without thinking about it.” Lucas is not convinced, that I can tell. I remember why we never used to get along. At times like this, it all comes flooding back with a vengeance. Stubborn. That describes him perfectly. Stubborn like his sister.

He just shakes his head. “Just go in and help Helene. I'll talk to Elektra about it when she seems less out of it.”

I walk in. I take a deep breath, ruffle my hair and wander into the room where I hear footsteps. Helene is frantically moving around, folding clothes to fit into plastic storage boxes. She does not even acknowledge me for a good minute or two. I clear my throat, to which she puts her head up for a moment and then resumes her frenetic movement. There is something not quite right with how she is moving. I begin to pick up some food and bottled water, while still watching her. I notice her putting her hand to her nose, blood dripping out of her nose. She clenches her teeth and begins to grunt. It is a slow drip but she has only had a few nosebleeds in the past. I run over to her and put my arms around her, helping her to the ground. She begins convulsing. I move her onto my lap, to cushion her head. She has had a few seizures over the past months after her head injury. It will pass. I just have to make sure she does not do any more damage to herself. It will take a few minutes but it will pass eventually.

After five minutes, her convulsions stop. I move her so she is lying on her side and stand up. I take the rag, that I used to clean Elektra up, and put that under her nose. I have no idea what else I can really do. I stretch and continue packing food and other supplies. Elektra walks in, wiping her hands on her shirt. She looks behind and back around.

“Again?”

“Yes, again. They seem to be a monthly occurrence. That time of the month”
“You make seizures sound like a menstrual cycle.” She walks to the cabinet and opens it. She takes out a black vest top. She takes off her bloodstained shirt and puts on the vest. It is so tight over her bump that she can't quite get the material to cover the whole of it.

I walk over to her and hand her my jacket; it is one of the only items of clothing that fits her. Oversized. She smiles and puts it on.

“Lucas knows something is up,” I whisper in her ear. She turns and stares at me, with a look of concern and slight agitation. “What? What did you tell him?”

“What he needed to know. I told him that he was the thing that killed our old group. Nothing more, nothing less.” Elektra looks entirely uneasy. She fiddles with the edge of her vest and sighs. I draw her towards me and puts my arm around her. She leans her head against my shoulder. I kiss the top of her head. Everything has to get better now; the lot we have had, we are due a victory of some kind. We need a safe place for the children to grow up, a doctor to deal with Helene in a medical context and we need supplies. Being on the road ensures that we are unable to accumulate the level of stuff we need. Living out of cardboard boxes is not exactly as efficient as we need, considering Sophia and her needs. Elektra was, and remains to be, my main concern. She is so close to giving birth; I am scared that she will not be strong enough to pull through it by herself, without the help of a doctor. We have come so far, together. If it came down to a choice between them, I genuinely have no idea which one I would choose. No, I do: I would do whatever it took to save Elektra because...I do not know how I could deal with losing her. It feels like I have known her for a lifetime, not just over a year. She is my kindred spirit. If she were to...die, part of me would die with her.

“We don't tell him anything about his relationship to the baby; he knows enough, agreed?” Elektra mutters, sighing with the weight of the issue.

“Agreed. Your brother is stubborn, always has been, so it would be difficult to convince him of anything. We are moving out today so that should be the main thing occupying his mind for a while. It is likely he will go easier on you; I still do not believe that he trusts me as much as he pretends to.” Danny clears his throat. How long must he have been there? I swear we need to put a bell on him. Not a little cat collar bell, a church bell. I put my arm down and Elektra moves over towards him. He puts his arms around her waist and begins to kiss her, shoving his tongue down her throat like some kind of parasitic snake. Ugh. This is how he proves himself as the alpha male; whenever I have any physical contact with Lex, he decides to one up me by playing some form of tonsil tennis. Or waiting until the dead of night and shagging her, grunting for hours.

It is grim. Disgusting. I can tell by the tension in her hands that she is not comfortable with this. Why she chose him, I will never understand. I have always been here for her and yet, she chose this egregious dastard. I will never understand her logic behind it. I walk out of the room and pick up the holdall from the corridor. Everything seems to be in order. All of Sophia's supplies and bottles have been packed; Lucas must have done it while his wife was having a seizure. Amazing how ignorant you can be to certain things. Ignorant or unconcerned, I go back and forth. Their relationship, although it can be tender and enviable, is incredibly strained. How they are still together, I am not entirely sure.

A gold item catches the light which attracts my attention. I pick it up; it is a gold chain with a locket attached. I have never seen it before. I open the hatch on the locket and look at the image inside. It is of a mother and child. A dark haired woman, lovingly gazing at the dark haired child in her arms. There is something unbelievably beautiful about the mother; she has a smile that could melt ice, happiness seems to radiate from every pour. The picture may have faded but they do nothing to diminish the vibrancy of her eyes. The child stares into the open space with a look of perplexion; she has a look of understated understanding. Her large eyes are glazed over with a look of both melancholy and confusion. It is almost as if she has witness something her youthful mind cannot quite comprehend. I have seen that expression before.

“Something caught your eye?” A hand and voice come from behind me. I turn around quickly and put my hand with the locket down. Lucas has a bag of supplies over his shoulder and he is holding a plastic bag containing tinned food.

“No, nothing in particular. I just had not seen this before,” I show him the locket in my hand and he takes it off of my hands with a sense of recognition, “I am guessing it is not just a stranger's memory.”

He sighs and leans against the chest of drawers behind him. He puts both bags down and continues to examine the locket.

“It's silly but yeah. After everything we've lost, such a little thing seems insignificant but I could leave without it.” He is not wrong. Other people would be more concerned about saving bags full of supplies, not a chain. Wait, who are those people in the photo?

“No, I do not believe so. Sometimes the things with sentimental value appear to be the most important things to us. Not even the object itself, the memories attached it. Who are they?”

“You don't recognise them?” He gesture to the mother, “That's my mother and the baby is Lexy. One of the only photos I have. I remember the day it was taken like it was yesterday; looking at her is what reminds me how long ago it was.” Of course I knew that expression. Whenever she thinks no-one is watching, she will always refer to the same expression. It is always easy to tell when she is thinking about something or is pondering recent events; it always registers on her face like it does for most.

I pause for a moment. I had very awkward thoughts about Lex's mother...she never has to know about that part.

“Wow, Lex still has the same expression after twenty years then?”

“It would seem so. She was such a happy baby. I was the first born son so I could never compete against the second born, the little girl of the group. But she did always look like she was contemplating something too complex to be articulated. She's always been burdened; I thought she would be a philosopher when things went back to normal. However, it seems we will never know now.”

“You do not think things will go back to the way they were before the virus and electricity outage?”

He strokes the edge of the locket and considers my question for a few moments. “Of course I'd want things to go back but I can't force myself to believe that it could ever be the same. I was still young when everything went to hell so I don't really even remember what it was like.”

I was only a baby when everything went to crap so he was a well of knowledge that far exceeds mine. I have to agree with his view on things. Most of the people will the expertise to fix things have already succumb to the issues with this world. It is a rather pessimistic outlook on things but it gets more difficult to think any other way. Lucas sighs.

“Put your hand out,” he instructs, sighing. I extend my hand to him. He puts the locket in the palm of my hand. “I want you to give this to her. To Lex. I've wanted to give it to her but I've never found the right moment. I want her to have it.” He closes my hand around it.

“Of course.”

I do not know how to do this. He trusts me to give this to her, something of such emotional weighting for both of them. I cannot help but feel that this should be something that Lucas does. After eight months as a unit, he has had ample opportunity. I do not know if this is something I should do.