The Truce

Her eye’s kept coming back to him, even days afterwards. They stuck to his brain like superglue. And it wasn’t so much the grayish blue that he remembered as the electrical storm of her irises’ stromal fibers. jacob had only seen her eyes for a fraction of a second after she flipped him onto his back in the crashed elevator before his kick launched her into the side of the elevator. But it was enough to glean that she was for the first time finally up against an obstacle that wasn’t going to give. But the analysis of all this would wait.

Right then, martin was quite occupied with pinning elizabeth garner to the elevator floor. The only reason jacob had a hope of keeping her down was she had landed face down and he managed to jump on top of her before she could reorient herself. With his left arm little more than limp, jacob needed to use the full weight of his 220 pounds and all of his 6 feet and 3 inches to keep elizabeth’s thrashing at bay. In spite of her thin 122 pound frame, elizabeth was a tigress. She pulled out several chunks of hair before jacob clamped down her right hand (she would have rendered him bald if her left hand hadn’t been trapped under her chest). Several times she was able to pry her legs from the vice grip of jacob’s thighs and with her legs free she very nearly landed blows to the male Achilles’ heel. And even when jacob finally managed to wrap his legs around elizabeth’s preventing any escape, she was able to spring both herself and jacob three inches off the floor but their landing brought all 220 pounds of jacob crashing down on her, knocking even her residual air just about out. But it wasn’t pleasant for jacob either. The impact was not good for his fractured bones and his body let him know this loud and clear. His groans and obscenities, in turn, let elizabeth know this loud and clear. So after she recovered her wind, she lifted them again, and again. Six times she repeated the maneuver. At last she could no longer summon any more energy and the two lay limp struggling just for air.

After who knows how many minutes, jacob finally spoke – he only had to whisper since his mouth was just above her ear and the sent of her hair filled his nostrils.

“You know we can’t do this forever…”

jacob glanced at the gun elizabeth had lost when he kicked her.

“You can’t kill me face to face…

And I can’t kill you.”

Silence.

jacob was pressed so firmly against elizabeth that he felt her heart through her back against his and surely she could feel his heart against the back of hers. And somehow that (jacob saying what elizabeth couldn’t admit to herself and feeling their hearts beat up against each other) lifted, at least a little, the tension suffocating the elevator.

“So what are we supposed to do then?” came the muffled reply, “if you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of in a bind.”

elizabeth felt jacob’s abs contract as he laughed.

“Well, we call a truce and go home to fight again another day.”

“Alright. That sounds good. So can you get your fat sweaty self off of me?”

“Not with that attitude.”

As quickly as they started, the jacob killed the jokes.

jacob used the railing to pull himself upright and tried not to move his left arm. “If you give me a hand I’ll climb out first. I know you won’t get the gun.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Your eyes. Don’t worry about it though; killing someone face to face isn’t exactly a hurdle you want to jump. Trust me.”

elizabeth reluctantly helped jacob out. She didn’t move quickly, she didn’t push him very far and she didn’t like what he’d said. She resented his insight just like she resented the hand he extended down to her to help her up out of the chamber.

Together they managed to exit the elevator shaft and leave the building through shafts elizabeth had discovered to avoid security cameras. At last they exited the building into an alley. jacob stretched his arms and elizabeth fixed her hair and then they walked to the street.

“I’m mr. martin by the way, but you can call me jacob.”

“Oh,” shaking jacob’s outstretched hand, “I’m ms. garner, but you can call me eliza.”

elizabeth turned to leave but jacob held on to her hand. She instinctively tensed and almost hit jacob.

“A mr. landers, probably using some alias, is meeting with matthew stanler, who I believe is loosely affiliated with you. You’ll want to look into both of these men. Have a good night eliza.” jacob turned and walked away before elizabeth could say anything.