Midnight Angel [Jenlisa FF]

~'~'~ Chapter 7 ~'~'~

Sleep did not come easily for Lisa that night. The story – story, she snorted, this was no fairytale - Jisoo and Jin had told her continuously echoed in her head, reminding her of the grisly life led by an unassuming, young woman. Over and over, she recalled what they'd told her: the rape, her attacker not being punished, the way the townspeople turned against her, her merciless harassment, and then later the murders of her family and her own disappearance.

What had happened that night? She couldn't possibly have killed her own family, could she? Lisa never met her, barely knew much about her, but something told her that she would not have brutally slaughtered her family. If she hadn't, then what happened to her, and who had killed her family? Lisa wondered if maybe she'd seen the vicious slayings of her family and run, or maybe she really had thrown herself off the cliffs as a means of escape, mental and physical.

Then what about the woman she'd seen on the beach? She supposed it could have been a dog, or a trick of light, but her gut feeling told her it was a person. Was there such thing as ghosts? Could the thing she'd seen on the beach be her ghost? Logical reasoning told her that ghosts didn't exist, but then what other explanation could there be for what others, and she herself, had seen?

What bothered Lisa the most, though, was her growing obsession with this mystery. Why did she care at all? This had absolutely nothing to do with her, other than what she'd seen on the beach twice now. She should just mind her own business. She come to this town to relax and have some quiet time, not to get involved in a volatile situation.

The image of Jennie's face smiling sadly at her from the photograph wouldn't let her forget. The poor girl had been wronged in every way possible. Even now, after her assumed death, she was still hated and betrayed. Where was the justice in what had been done to her? Where was the compassion? There hadn't been any for her. She'd been a victim of power, loyalty, and corruption.

This was all in the past, though. Lisa couldn't change anything. Could she? Did she want to? Getting involved seemed blatantly stupid. But how wrong was it to do nothing?

Lisa shook her head and flipped onto her back on the bed. What the hell was she thinking? It wasn't like she knew anything anyway. All she'd done was see some unknown shape on the beach that looked like a person. That information constituted nothing. She needed to just forget what she'd seen and been told. Yes, that was what she needed to do.

Throwing her head back in frustration, Lisa yawned and then glanced at the clock on her nightstand. It was nearly four in the morning. Great, she thought. She had to be up at seven to be at the university at eight to start shooting the Chumash artifacts for the magazine article. She needed to get some sleep, or she was going to be completely useless tomorrow.

Lisa flipped over onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillow and pulling the blankets up over her head in hopes of blocking out the haunting thoughts. Finally, nearly a half hour later, she managed to fall into a restless sleep.

~'~'~

Early the next evening, Lisa staggered tiredly into her house, immensely glad to see the renovators had already left for the day. Lisa wandered into the living room, carefully dropping her camera bag onto the couch. As she walked toward the kitchen, she pulled off her dress shirt, tired of having worn it all day, leaving her in a white tank top.

She hadn't planned on being out so long, but after taking some pictures at the university she'd stopped by the magazine office to talk with Mr. Kim about the article. That short trip had ended three hours later, and now she was exhausted. And starving, which was why she was now digging through her refrigerator looking for something to eat.

As she sat at the table in the kitchen, her mind drifted back to Jennie and her shattered life. She'd been so busy that day that she hadn't had a chance to think about her, but now that she was sitting in her kitchen alone with her thoughts, she was back on her mind. Lisa only hoped that her utter exhaustion was enough to keep her from impinging on her sleep again.