Thread: Vertigo (VivifiedVanityxSeven)

RE Vertigo Lisa's shoes sounded softly on the tiled floor of the Chicago O'Hare International Airport as she made her way through the throng of people at a brisk pace hasty and hurried, inviting no room for someone to stop and invite her for pleasant conversation. The plane ride over had been near nightmarish for her, between her own troubles with take-offs and landings... and the fellow she'd been trapped beside for that handful of hours, towards the middle of the plane, dead centre... The sensation of time had dragged on uncomfortably. He'd given her the window seat, something she'd at first been grateful for, but later regretted, because it meant that if she wanted to get up to simply give herself an excuse to get away from him, she'd have to ask. He was overly obnoxious at best, bragging on about all of the work he did for some corporate identity she'd never heard of she didn't have the heart to tell him that though, mostly because she didn't want to be forced to listen to him try and enlighten her to that aspect of his life... like he was bothering to do with every other. She'd let him ramble on for most of the flight, even bothering to buy him a drink or two if only to hope the alcohol would mellow him out enough that he'd perhaps doze off. He didn't, and because of her generous act, she was forced to sit through an uppity alcoholic for several hours, who only told her in an even greater detail all of the little things about him she just didn't care to know. Maybe if she wasn't so tense she could have dealt with him better, would have been able to force herself to go through the effort of talking him down. Maybe if he would have been more observant to those around him, James Rennalds, as she had quickly learned his name to be, would have noticed the tightness in her jaw, the way her hands absently held to the armrests of the seat, of how she seemed to jump almost every time a certain flight attendant came around with his messy, reddish brown hair and dark blue eyes that never quite compared with a certain set of pale blue eyes that flashed to mind every time he checked on her and her companion... Pale blue eyes that were often icy with all of their intensity enough to chill hearts into stopping. All of these were subtle signs, however, small little signals she'd learned to swallow back from becoming too apparent to those around her she didn't need them worrying or pointing them out to her. She didn't want someone reminding her of what she already knew forgetting Jackson Rippner was going to take time. The airport she now made her way through after that long flight was crowded, unnervingly so, and while that crowd should have brought her some comfort in ambiguity, it did quite the opposite. She was uneasy, more so than she had been on the plane. She hadn't been this on edge since those first few days after she'd watched him be hauled off by that ambulance from a house she once would have considered 'safe'. The days following his departure had been nerve-wrecking her mind constantly replayed what had happened between them. At first she blamed herself for stumbling into that mess. The fact that he had tailed her for eight weeks, studying her daily habits and patterns only seemed to set in once he had been taken out of the picture, once the threat of him wasn't so immediate... Once things had settled enough for her to reflect, she realized that this bothered her so very much due to her failure to notice... She was never one to shut herself down from what was going on around her, or one who kept herself ignorant of her surroundings, but somehow she hadn't noticed him . He'd been with her for eight. Long. Weeks. Jackson Rippner. Eight, long weeks paired with an endless plane ride. That thought always sickened her to some degree, because she hadn't noticed him. Hadn't noticed the same face showing up, possibly standing in the very lobby of her hotel, parked outside her home night after night, sitting a few seats away from the usual place she ordered her beloved Sea Breezes... maybe even standing beside her at the bar ordering his own drink -- no, she would have noticed that, wouldn't she? The fact that she hadn't felt someone watching her through all of it was probably what unnerved her the most. It had taken her a few days not to turn every person who came upon her into him every person wearing a suit, who bore that reddish brown hair, or who carried some resemblance of his overall lanky build... every one of them became him long enough for her blood to run cold, but they never had his eyes. It was always that simple detail that broke the illusion, brought her back to reality, settled her down, and helped her put on the pleasing smile she gave to everyone she saw who walked into her hotel. It had been Cynthia she'd confided all of this into she hadn't wanted to worry her father more than he already was, and with what her mother had just been through she didn't need to force her to shoulder that burden... Cynthia was honestly the one person Lisa considered herself close to outside of family. With how dedicated she was to her job, she didn't have time for friendships or for meeting new people, and Cynthia had always been so open with everything, it had been hard for Lisa not to grow attached to the woman, to confide in her. Cynthia's involvement with what had happened had strengthened that bond between them. Cynthia... had reassured her that what her mind was trying to do to her was normal. She'd suggested to Lisa, when Lisa had first told her about the creeping paranoia, that she should look through the hotel's surveillance tapes if she was so worried. Lisa had refused, arguing that she doubted he'd actually gone into the hotel, arguing that it would be a waste of time when in truth she didn't know if it would be. Lisa had absolutely no idea where he'd been during those eight weeks, and some part of her wanted to keep it that way. To try and figure out how he'd done any of it, to try and revive any part of what had happened made it real, and the reality of the situation was an ugly one and not something she wished to try and stomach so soon. That, and she didn't want her mind trying to puzzle out what she would have done if she had noticed him. Would it have even changed anything? It wasn't until the four day marker that her nerves began to settle, the paranoia ebbing as the events of that flight became less vivid. Her thoughts drifted to him less and less, and when people came upon her suddenly, her mind was less likely to warp their features into what it thought it saw. Her father was calling her less, his worry falling back into what it had been before, and Lisa had started the tradition of going out with Cynthia and several of her friends at least once a week. It was more of an intended tradition at this point, as they were only one outing into it, but the fact was that she was moving on. She was recovering, forgetting, time was easing what had happened into a vague memory, or at least beginning to, and Lisa was shuffling her life around to smooth over that happening, to ease into it. The night after she'd gone at least a day without his face coming so vividly to mind, the night that proved that she was indeed moving on... he came to her then. Fingers around her throat shockingly real, squeezing her wind pipe, forbidding that needed oxygen from reaching her burning lungs... Her mind told her, through the cloud of that dream, that he would let go... That he had let her go. That he still needed her alive to make the call to make everything he was working for possible, to make it all fall into place... but he never released her, at least not in the dream. She awoke and took that needed gasp of air, the sound of her own heart drumming in her ears at such a volume she could hear nothing else, thus it taking her a minute to realize that it was the phone ringing on her nightstand that had forced those cold hands to grant her a reprieve. The voice on the other end of the phone had been her father's. He'd been worried. Things for her settled after that, a few reoccurring dreams of things turning out not quite how they had in reality his knife finding her instead of her hockey stick cracking into his hand, she failing to fire off the gunshot that had indirectly forced the knife from his hands, and even her father's bullet never finding his flesh... but they were dreams only. Disturbing when she was pulled from them, but she knew that it was just her subconscious working him out of her system. The memory of Jackson Rippner was beginning to fade, and she was almost glad. It meant that Lisa could move on. Lisa was here on business simple enough. She was here to see a man about his hotel chain merging with hers. It was to be a two day trip, nothing drawn out, but nothing rushed. She would arrive at his hotel sometime today in uptown Chicago, at her leisure, and have the day to do with as she pleased -- mainly, to familiarize herself with what his hotel offered to those who stayed there, his way of trying to sway her decision, followed by a second day of business meetings and discussions. She would return home after that, having the rest of the week to finalize the paper work if she agreed, or return a polite declination call if she decided that such a thing wasn't what her own hotel needed. It was a simple trip, straight forward, cut and dry, with no government officials or the like attempting to book a few nights at the Lux Atlantic. She was reassured also that Jackson was either working his way through whatever life would hold for him now -- probably likely a drawn out hospital stay, followed by quite a few years in a quiet cell somewhere -- or that he hadn't survived long past that last moment when their eyes had locked... He'd been shot through twice after all, among the numerous other injuries she'd given him... She'd almost lost count maybe she should have felt guilty for what she'd done to him, but she didn't... and she didn't feel bad for that coldness towards how she'd responded to him. Hazel eyes scanned the crowd, a habit she hadn't had before meeting Jackson, and her small fingers curled tightly on the handle of her suitcase. It was the same one he'd so kindly stowed away in the overhead compartment for her, a gentlemanly action she'd been thankful for at the time... Her off-hand touched to the neck of her gray coat, checking the button there as she scanned the signs for the exit she would need. It took her only moments to locate it, her step having only found itself falling into the briefest of pauses before she was off again, heading towards the according elevator that would take her down to the first floor and out of the building. Her brown hair had less curl to it this time she'd not bothered with the loose ringlets, and instead it framed around her shoulders in gentle tumbles. Beneath that coat she was dressed sharply, as she usually was a dark skirt brushed the tops of her knees, and matched with the suit jacket she wore beneath her coat. The vest between that jacket and the gray shirt she wore beneath matched the jacket the cut of each, was slightly feminine, and the ensemble was polished off by the black shoes she wore, heelless this time from the mild worry over having to walk any amount of distance. When she'd selected her shoes for this trip only the faintest of thoughts had edged into her mind she wondered what the officer forced to label that high heel of hers had thought about what it had been used for... Fingers found the button for the elevator as she waited patiently beside the mouth of its doors, reassured somewhat as she noted she wasn't the only one waiting and listening for the gentle hum of that machine.