Author’s Note: There’s spoilers in this (duh). I’ve seen Red Eye twice since it’s come out. That’s how much I’ve enjoyed the movie. Some people tell me I’m crazy, but I know good movies when I see them!

And there was one part that made me jump both times – the part where Lisa jammed the pen into Jackson’s windpipe. And so, I was bored and I created this. It’s that scene (and chase through the airport) through Jackson’s POV.

I don’t own Red Eye or the characters / plots or anything like that. Those are all copyrighted DreamWorks stuff, I just wanted to flex my creative muscle (although I’m…not quite sure how creative using synonyms for ‘hiss’ all the time is. Hehe :-))

Rated for a bit of language. Ta-ta

Eye of Spite

He saw something flicker out the corner of his right blue eye, but since the majority of his sight was concentrated on the no-seatbelt sign that had just flickered off, he couldn’t get his arms up in defence.

She reached across the seat and firmly lodged a long blue pen into his exposed throat. It pierced the skin above his pale green dress shirt easily, its lavish Batman-Joker-look-alike end piece grinning devilishly at his misfortune. He howled in pain, but it barely came out a gurgle. His eyes widened as the harsh, fiery pain of the situation began to sink in.

The bitch gave him an impromptu tracheotomy

He gasped for breath, also noticing her try to move swiftly over him. She landed beside him, and he immediately stuck his foot out and tripped her. He kept gurgling, trying to lurch after her, but she kept running. Nobody else managed to notice – how couldn’t they? They were too concerned to note that she had jabbed him in the windpipe. His eyes were still wide as he fell to the floor, the pain of having the pen scratch against the back of his windpipe – it didn’t go through completely. All he could think about was revenge. All he had wanted her to do was to make the phone call. She did that, and so everything should have been peachy.

But she obviously didn’t think it was ‘peachy’.

He crawled along the aisle, pulling his entire weight with his forearms. He desperately wanted to yell, but she had made sure he couldn’t have. Pain focused on his fleshy throat, throbbing around the pen. His light blue eyes turned steely and he let out another ragged breath as he pulled himself along with his left arm.

“Hey, sweetie,” – that annoying woman that had gotten him to fix her bags in the overhead compartment was talking to him. He growled as she helped pull him to his knees, “Is everything ---“

He was on the verge of rolling his eyes. Mentally, he counted down the seconds. 3, 2…

“Oh GOD!” she cried, obviously revolted at the projectile protruding out of his neck. He forced himself up, his hands shaking. He shot a death glare at the woman, and gurgled again.

Gurgle…wasn’t there anything else he could do now?

He quickly turned his head to the front of the plane, but quickly regretted it as the pain shooting up his neck intensified. He closed his eyes as he involuntarily winced before bringing his neck back to its normal position. He had seen what he needed to see – Lisa was barrelling through the travellers.

He heard random shouts of concern coming from all around him as he stumbled to the back of the plane. His hands tightly gripped the seats, but that still didn’t prevent him from tripping by people, things and the own exertion of his weight being thrown off by his ragged breathing. He roughly heard someone yell for a doctor.

Son of a bitch, he thought as he continually made his way past the other passengers, feeling the blood trickle down his throat, I’m not the one that’s gonna need a doctor after this.

Shuffling, careful not to look up or down, he finally reached the bathroom. He narrowed his eyes as he went into the room and hastily hit the wall trying to find the lightswitch. When he had found it and pushed the lights on, the light pooled in the small airplane bathroom. He gazed at his throat in the mirror and hissed as best he could. His breathing wasn’t getting any easier and his throat was getting sorer. He was transfixed by the object so harshly, and yet, precisely placed into his larynx.

While I’m wasting precious time here, she’s getting away!

While looking at the reflection in the mirror, he began to shake with even more uncontrollable rage. He felt an arm brush against his and he turned around abruptly, ready to lash out at the person. Seeing who it was, a lowly flight attendant, he stopped, and only glared at her.

How are you going to fix this? He yelled inside of his head, before turning back to the mirror.

“Sir, we – oh god… There’s a doctor,” she murmured under his heavy look.

He wiped some of the blood dripping down his chest off onto his fingers and then turned around to come face to face with a man who had been getting on everybody’s nerves all flight. A loud, brash man who kept thinking he was better than everyone – the one who he had stopped from making a complete ass of himself in the terminal.

He hissed and shrunk away as the Doctor flinched at what he saw. He recovered quickly as he took out his glasses and straightened his tie. Putting the glasses on his face, the man could only watch as Jackson began to shift his weight from side to side – he would have begun pacing like a caged animal, but let’s face it – the bathroom was too small.

“Don’t try and speak…you’ll damage your voice box…Oh, well that looks alright. It seems to be a clean wound…straight in the…”

He couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed the man’s coat with both fists and slightly raised him up into the air. Everybody else was stunned; he looked like he had almost no physical strength whatsoever. They did not, however, consider how enraged he was that Lisa was getting away.

Hearing the news that the wound was clean, he firmly grabbed the smiling gremlin and pulled the pen out of his throat with a mighty wrench. Letting out another gasp, he paused for a moment, giving his normally handsome features time to contort into a nasty snarl before he threw the blood-dripping pen at the doctor and flight attendant.

He immediately felt blood trickle faster down his throat, so he put fingers to his throat to ease the tension. Flakes of dried blood around the wound dropped off, floating to the floor and even onto the shoes of some passengers. Taking off at a maniacal sprint, he flew down the aisle until he tripped over an unseen object. He fell, bashing his left knee off of the side of a chair, and causing his finger to push the wound in further, consequently opening it even more. He grimaced in pain, his shallow breathing becoming even more hateful as he shot a look back at a seemingly innocent girl with a blonde ponytail – she had shoved her bag out into the aisle.

Purposely?

He growled as he hopped to his feet and took off again. If he weren’t under such time constraints, he’d take care of her with his bare hands…but there were more important things to be doing. He felt himself get a little light headed, most likely from the blood loss and the lack of oxygen he could get through his punctured windpipe. Seeing the end of the plane, with the door open and the flight attendant that – he smirked inwardly – thought him and his target were a couple, on the phone calling security, he knew he had to quicken his pace.

“Please, sir, you have to file a report with the police…”

Something fluttered by, and he took his bloody hand from his throat to snatch it. It was that cheeky blonde haired woman’s scarf.

“My scarf!” she yelled as he almost savagely pulled it across her throat to get it from around her neck.

Don’t care, lady, he thought as, without decreasing speed, he wrapped it tentatively around his neck. That same stuffy flight attendant was trying to keep him in the plane, so he took his free hand, calculated quickly, and pushed the woman into the wall. Just as he predicted, her head bashed into the side of the airwalk and she crumpled to the ground.

He pulled the scarf tight but winced as the pain made him see white stars. Once reaching the terminal, he stopped, if only to take a couple of “deep” breaths and to rid himself of his blurred vision. He kept the scarf loosely hovering over his shoulders, the two ends almost neatly trailing down the back of his dark jacket. He narrowed his eyes as he looked around. Security guards were running around…

‘Like chickens with their heads cut off’ he tried to say, only to find out that he couldn’t. It came out as a heavy exhale. He cursed inside his head as he took pursuit once again. He couldn’t let Lisa get away. It was a shame – he should have expected her to rebel a lot more than she did.

(“No questions?” he had asked, looking at her with his shiny eyes.

She had paused before turning around to meet his gaze, “What good have they done me this far?”

His mouth twitched. He really wanted to smile, but knew it would be bad if he did, “That’ s the best question you’ve asked all night.” He stated, thoroughly amused.)

The two ends of his new scarf fluttered behind him, sending attention his way. He didn’t care – his rage had overtaken his male-based logic. If he didn’t catch her, not only would the mission fail, but he’d most likely be caught. He didn’t want that to happen. He had went at least 15 years without being even remotely caught. What was it about her? How did she get a chance that no one else got? Was she this unconcerned about her father? Was he slipping up?

These questions floated in his head as he quickened his speed. The airport terminal wasn’t busy – it was rather early in the morning, and so he could fly by people without the concerns of bumping into them. Although, he had the idiot security to deal with, who were flocking every which way.

He slowed to a stop as he flung his head around wildly. The scowl from earlier was permanently etched upon his face. He lowered his head for a minute, and looked out the corner of his eyes to see any fleeting instance of the hair that he had almost grown accustomed to Raising his hands, he tucked the two ends into his jacket. The scarf was now, whether he liked it or not, a brace of sorts. He still couldn’t talk nor breath deeply...but he still had use of his limbs, and if he had his way, he could still throttle her to death.

He began musing over the sudden loss of his voice when a sharp intake of breath froze everything. There she was – looking to see if the coast was clear. So, she stabbed him in the throat and resisted arrest, and he’s the bad guy?

Great.

He took off towards her, and noted her shocked expression as she took off on her own. He pumped his legs faster, following her like a blood crazed hound. She deviated and took a high road. He contemplated for a quick second before deciding to take the low road. It led him to a set of stairs, which he hastily began to climb, his hand using the railing for support. After about 12 steps, he looked upwards and found her looking back down at him.

He growled before taking off again. This was quickly becoming a tiring game of cat and mouse. His blue eyes sparkled with un-relented hatred as he sprinted towards an inoperative escalator. Jackson, get a grip on yourself, he yelled to himself before jumping over the caution sign and taking the escalator steps two at a time.

Not even stopping, he brushed past two women having what appeared to be a tired conversation, and bustled up another pair of steps.

When on the landing, he tensed, flinging his head around. He realized that he should stop, since he could feel blood still trickling out of the hole and as it got soaked in the rag, it was leaving smearing patterns on his exposed flesh, but he didn’t. That’s when he saw her down the hall. His eyes automatically focused in on her, painting her red against the blah white of the Miami airport. In an all too familiar routine, he began to sprint after her.

He watched the stalls fly by – Starbucks, a book store, and that oh-so icebreaking Tex Mex. He let himself a sadistic grin as he passed the Mexican restaurant. But it faded as she turned a corner.

“Lisa,” he managed to hiss angrily before trying to speed up.

He then saw her, looking frightened beyond repair. But then there was the matter of the glass doors sliding shut. With another general hiss, he flung himself towards them, trying to break them so he could get to her. He began to claw the glass as she stood smugly inside.

Temporary win, he yelled inside his head. Physically, he only barred his teeth at her as he gave the glass one final smack before the main doors shut.

The shuttlebus had left the airport, dragging the hope of getting the job finished with it. Raw emotion was let out of his eyes as he began to pace around the window, trying to find his backup plan.

That’s one thing she had commented on. He didn’t have a backup plan. Jack The Ripper didn’t have a contingency plan.

But on the contrary, Jack Rippner did.

He stopped his pacing and looked out the window, his breathing returned to its normal shallow, ragged pace. He closed his eyes as he spat the saliva from his mouth to the ground.

Before he had left on this assignment, before he had even got the call for this, he was bored, so much that he started looking up his favourite words in the dictionary.

Spite – a noun.

1. Malicious ill will prompting an urge to hurt or humiliate.

He looked out the window and frowned as he saw her retreating figure breathing heavily in the bus. He glared at her long and hard, biting his tongue from making any other incoherent spitting noises that could be remotely considered as words.

He was glaring at her with his Eye of Spite.

And over his dead body would she ever get away from Jackson Rippner.