Welcome to the Dark Side (Part III)

The building was more or less empty as Jacob sought out an exit to the place, only hazily remembered from when he had first entered. He swore that he was making wrong turns somewhere because he was almost certain that he was retracing the path he and Lenn had taken. Twice he ran into someone, people who had opted to hid and wait for the chaos to die down before moving. They looked at him once and saw his injuries, his sword, and his sour expression before giving him a wide berth as they went about whatever it is they were doing, most likely escaping too. Jacob paid them no mind. His rage had been momentarily sated, and his lust had been drained, by Alexia.

Eventually he found the exit and kicked the door clean off the hinges, leaving the door lying in the dark alleyway. Sheathed sword in hand, he wandered off into the night, possibly heading towards the hotel. It was very late and even the streets of New York were mostly empty at that time. Not that Jacob would have cared if anyone saw him, for now.

As he trudged back to the hotel, he found his brows relaxing and his expression softening. The heat of his body slowly died down. For once, he looked down at himself and saw his state of dress. It occurred to him that there was no way he was getting back into the hotel looking like that, covered in blood and dirt with torn clothes and holding a sword. What little thought he could muster resulted in a makeshift plan: quickly clean himself in a public shower at a closed pool(he just jumped the fence), pay for a poncho at a late night news stand, and then just keep quiet as he entered the hotel.

Though he looked more disheveled and homeless than murderous, it was enough for him to finally make it back to his room. Almost immediately upon closing the door behind him, the slam made his head throb like a motherfucker. He dropped everything and hoped a real hot shower would make it go away. The shower felt nice so long as he was in it, but his wounds burned and his limbs started feeling like they were going to fall off. Had he really been moving that and that fast?

Had he really used his sword? How much of the blood on him was his? Did he really KILL that woman? Like emerging from a fog, Jacob slowly put the pieces together and saw them in total clarity. His mind freed from the control of the drug, he could now actually think and reflect on what he had done. It was all clear as day too. His behavior. His words. The pain he had suffered and the pain he had inflicted. The feeling of draining his balls into that woman, then impaling her through the chest.

Jacob vomited right there in the shower.

"No... No... No... No.... Noooooo...."

Repeatedly he told himself that none of that had happened. None of it. It was all just delusions brought on by the drugs. It was all just a hallucination. The blood and wounds were just from minor scrape he got into, like drunkenly fighting someone on the street or something. He really had no impaled a woman after fucking her senseless and possibly decapitated someone on accident. It was all just a nightmare, and Lenn was just on the other side of the door, waiting for him.

It was his last chance. Jacob finished up in the shower and rushed to the bedroom. For just a moment, he thought he saw Lenn, sleeping on the bed, and he thought everything was fine. Then his foot knocked over his sword and he saw the blood and dirt on it. Jacob dropped to his knees, his body aching and his head throbbing, and tears started flowing. There was no sobbing, as he was too shocked to do that. It was more like the realization of his actions had made him stare into the eyes of madness and now he was broken.

"I didn't... I couldn't... Lenn isn't... There's no way..."

The next day and a half passed in a haze as Jacob remained in the hotel room, simultaneously dealing with the withdrawal of the drugs and grappling with his memories of that night. The only contact with the outside was when room service brought him food. Jacob's time alternated between writhing on the bed in pain, standing in the steaming shower, vomiting whatever he ate, and trying to reconcile his actions.

The only solace he had was when, feeling at his lowest and needing anything to hold on to, Jacob called his daughter. Hearing her voice was more comfort than he could have ever wanted. He told her nothing of what happened, and hid the tears in his voice, and just acted like he was just calling to see how she was doing. He asked question after question, trying to keep her talking to him as long as possible. But eventually she had her own things to do and she ended the call, telling him that she loved him. It was like a warm blanket around him and Jacob pulled himself back from the edge.

Friday night came and, still unsure about a great many things, Jacob set out for the old tannery in search of Lenn. Cleaning his sword at the hotel had been a painful reminder of what he had done with it, and therapeutic as he remember what Lenn had taught him. He found another tube roll to hide it in and he dressed in slightly less-nice clothes, knowing for sure that he was not going to get any of his good stuff dirty again.

Never would he have even imagined the trials he would be put through to secure Lenn's freedom from her past. Even when things still surprised him, like getting spit on by Boris and even attending a sex slave auction, Jacob thought that would finally be the end of it all, and that he would be better prepared for what came next. But even in his wildest nightmares and imaginations would he have foreseen himself going on a violent rampage, fueled by a forced drugging. Worse yet, he remembered all of it quite clearly. There was no "morning after" for Liquid Dream, which left the previous evening's exploits a blur. No. Jacob remembered holding his sword, fighting, getting hit, and Alexia.

Every memory of those few hours on Liquid Dream made him shiver, and every memory seemed to bring back a little bit of that headache the drug had left him. Alexia had been right when she said the withdrawal was a bitch. But that was not why Jacob carried the remaining doses in his pocket.

The tannery was as abandoned as he thought it would be. It was empty and rotting, the perfect place to hide something illegal. That something was what pushed Jacob to keep looking despite not seeing anything unusual at first glance. Only when his ears started picking up the sounds of people did Jacob have an idea of where to go, and that direction was downward.

The man that approached the guarded door was neither scared man that had entered Chase's club nor the confident truth-seeker that spoke with Doris. Instead, Jacob was a tired and haunted man, too preoccupied with his thoughts and memories to be scared or worried. All he knew was that he needed to find Lenn. He needed to find Lenn.

"S-Sure. Whatever. Just show me where I need to go..."

Barely a word of what either guard said actually made it into Jacob's ears. Jacob just kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed blankly on one of them as they teased him and hinted at what lay beyond the door for him. His mind was tired, exhausted from everything he had been through in such a short amount of time, and the only thing it could do at that moment was just distill the actual words into a single thought worth remembering. All Jacob knew was that there was a fight in his near future, and that they were expecting him.

That last bit did manage to break him out of his funk for a moment. He remembered the red-headed woman demanding she be called Mistress, and that everyone else seemed to call her that. For a moment, he was confused. They were talking about her like she was still alive. But it only took a few steps of logic to assume that they were talking about an arrangement made before he put her down. It was not that long of a leap. Bad guys had a tendency to plan very far ahead despite not actually living to see that end.

His feet carried him unconsciously behind the one guard, and he made no fuss when he was pushed into the room. In fact, he welcomed the bench to sit on. He cradled his head in his hands and tried a few deep breaths.

More fighting. More killing. That was what he was in for. For all of his life he fought for the better solution, seeking peace and abhorring violence. Now, after Liquid Dream had turned him into that, Jacob started wondering if his pacifism and diplomatic ways were just covers for being a coward. It was easy to want peace and non-violence when it was just words. But when the time finally came to test those words, he had failed. It hardly mattered that he was under the influence of Liquid Dream, he still swung his sword and spilled all that blood.

But it was all for Lenn. All for Lenn.

Sighing to himself, Jacob slipped the tub off his back and pulled his sword out. There was no point in hiding it anymore. With his other hand, he pulled out the injector pen and spare doses of Liquid Dream. Maybe he knew he would be doing more fighting.

Jacob had been staring at the injector pen full of Liquid Dream the entire time he waited to be called for, or whatever it was those people had in store for him. The entire time he was debating if he should actually use the stuff, or when. There was no denying that there was going to be fighting involved, and everyone was making a big deal of how to-the-death it was. So it was not lost on Jacob that he would have to go against everything he stood for once again, in the worst way possible. Knowing that, he also knew that there was no way he was going to be able to do that without the drug. But some tiny shred of him was still holding out for a better way, if only to stop himself from sliding down a slope toward never ending violence.

His decision would have to wait, it seemed, when a professional-looking woman came for him. Jacob could almost hear his knees creaking as he got up and slipped the pen back into his pocket. It would seem that he would be pushed to the very last second to make up his mind.

Seeing the body of the dead man, and all the blood, made for even more evidence that he would need the drug. Just seeing all the blood and gore made Jacob dry heave slightly. If the sight of blood was that bad for him, there was no way he could draw it on his own accord.

Jacob stopped at the very edge of the entrance to the pit, then glanced at the woman.

"... Good luck to you too..."

Even then, he wanted to see that person somehow make it out of there intact, physically or otherwise. Though he could not find it in himself to say something more spiritual, like wishing mercy on her soul or something. Then he stepped out into the pit, head hanging a little low to avoid seeing anyone else.

The sight of the champ got him to look up, stoically. As he stared at the fighting woman, he silently wished for forgiveness from his father and daughter. Raising his sheathe sword, he took up a ready stance, unwilling to attack first nor draw his blade.

The woman clutched at her chest and hunched over like she was in pain. It was a curious sight, and it was unexpected enough to get Jacob to raise an eyebrow. The gears began to turn in his head, wondering why she looked like she was having a heart attack, or struggling. But struggling against what, and why?

His stance was back up and ready when she roared and ran at him, jolting him out of his thoughts and back into the real world. It was on, and his heart immediately began beating a thousand miles an hour while his blood was pumped full of adrenaline. There was no time to wallow in his pain or wonder what was wrong with the woman. Now it was all about survival.

He managed to block her kick, catching her leg on his sheathe. But her kick was strong and fast. Jacob was pushed along the ground until friction brought him to a stop, and he felt a tiny sting in his side as the very tip of the shoe blade pricked him. He pushed her leg away as hard as he could before sliding back and putting more distance between them.

"I don't know where you came from, or why you're fighting. I won't judge you. But I'm just here for woman named Lenn. Please, if you know where she is, tell me."

Even then he wanted to use reason over his blade.

"Please. I don't want to fight."