The sound of the glass bottle shattering on the floor acted as an alarm clock for Jezebel. Her eyes immediately shot open and her hand instinctively searched under her pillow for her pistol. After the moment of panic passed, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief and examined the problem. Her long, dull brown hair crowded her vision as she peered over the edge of the bed and attempted to assess the damage to the bottle. Yep, broken alright. She reached her arm over to the nightstand for the pack of cigarettes she bought the night before, and placed one in between her cracked lips with a twinge of satisfaction. She sat still for a moment, and listened to the sound of dawn before throwing her legs over the side of the bed and walking over the shards of glass on the floor. She used to love opening her eyes in the morning. But now, her once ambitious, emerald eyes faded into a dull shade of green, and refused to view the world as she previously did.
For a while now, Jezebel had become tired. She was tired of running and being scared of facing him. She hated him. She knew she shouldn’t, he took care of her after all, but from day one she had only found more and more reasons to loathe his existence. Every sunrise would force her to remember. However, on this particular morning, she felt like she wanted to forget everything. All she really could allow herself to despise was the necessity of snapping out of the sleepy trance she had been caught in just moments before. She sighed and shifted her attention to the window on the side of the room. She observed a small group of children sauntering down the alleyway below with backpacks slumped over their shoulders and sleepy expressions plastered all over their faces. Then, she took notice of a tall figure walking past them. The figure abruptly stopped in front of one of the children and the child, not paying to attention to his surroundings, bumped into the stranger and fell backwards. Startled by the man’s sudden appearance, he sat still for a moment waiting for the adult to turn around and address him. Instead of turning his attention to the child, the man looked straight up and locked eyes with Jezebel, carrying an expression of stern determination. A soft sniffle turned into a quiet whine which turned into a full, blown out wail that bounced off of the walls of the surrounding buildings. The area was infected with the piercing cry and Jezebel found her heart crying out too. She was looking straight at the person who she didn’t want to see, the person who would never forgive her. The only individual qualified to pass judgement on her: Malcolm.
She did not miss Malcolm. She did not like Malcolm. She did not love Malcolm. But somehow, he managed to fall in love with her. Malcolm, was the first to approach her after her little sister Jaime and her older brother Red died. He was one of Red’s good friends growing up. When Mal started getting involved with the city gangs, Red was the one who tried to get him out of all that crap. He even saved his life once when Mal got in real trouble with the leader of a rising group on the other side of town. For that Mal, never forgot him. Even though in the end he got involved with those people, Mal always came back to visit Red because he knew he owed him his life. When Red died, he told Jez that he was definitely going to take care of her. He promised her that he was going to protect her.
It only took a few moments for Mal to find out where her room was and for him to give a soft knock on her door. The gentle noise echoed for a moment and was then followed by the loud thud of the door smacking the floor. He took his first step into the room and stopped to take pride in the fact that he successfully kicked down the door. After peeking into the quiet room, he slid a pistol out of the holster around his waist and cruised towards the window. As he turned back around, he was warmly greeted by a handgun pointed towards his forehead.
“Oh, you’re good. I didn’t even hear you this time.”
“Well, I certainly learned from the best didn’t I?”
“Honestly, I don’t think I taught you that move.”
“I didn’t say that you were the best.”
“So that’s what you and JJ did behind my back! You see here I was thinking that you were engaging in some promiscuous behavior but I am put at ease knowing that you and my dear brother were actually doing something productive in your downtime together.”
“Alright enough. I’m tired of this Mal.” Her voice trembled as she completed her demand. It was always wit with Mal, and it seemed that the one thing she couldn’t do was outwit him. All those years that had passed, all the goddamn wasted years she spent experiencing things far worse than the wit Malcolm unfailingly dealt her and his presence still wouldn’t allow her to keep the revolver from trembling in her hand. He looked at her thoroughly, examined her from head to toe. It wasn’t difficult to see she wasn’t doing well. The previous rosiness in her cheeks had faded away along with the brilliance that was once reflected in her eyes. Her face had become pale and the color of her hair turned a shade of dull brunette. She noticed it. Everyday single day.
The silence suffocated the room, and Jezebel saw Malcolm’s cheeky expression soften a little. She stared for a while, noticing the prominent crease in between his eyebrows. He looked as handsome as she’d first seen him. His dark, well-groomed hair was mildly disturbed by the wind coming in from the open window, and his black eyes were concentrated on her handgun. They suddenly shifted to the floor, and for a moment he almost looked vulnerable.
“I don’t want to do this.” he whispered breaking the silence. He was looking right in her eyes now. “Why did we become this way? Remember what I told you the day we went to Re--”
“Don’t say his name,” she responded coldly.
“I told you I’d protect you.”
“No-- you told him you’d protect me.”
“So? What’s the difference?”
“You caged me up like an injured bird, and let me get involved with your lifestyle. I can’t sleep without knowing I have a gun under my pillow. I can’t sleep without thinking about all the people I’ve helped you kill! I can’t live knowing that I’m chained to you forever because of some stupid promise you made to my dead brother. I can’t exist knowing that you think protecting me is equivalent to kicking down the door of my hotel room and bringing a gun with you!” He looked straight at her hand which was now holding the pistol steady. He was unsettled and she could tell. All these years she was on the run and he never understood why she betrayed him when she left him for dead on that job they went on with JJ. She shot him three times in the chest and once in the leg, and every time he asked himself why, the wounds would ache. All these years and he finally knew why. For her, simply surviving the fall wasn’t enough. She wanted to feel alive. She wanted to feel like she had something to live for. As long as he continued to breathe, she would never be free.
“You taught me how to hold a gun. But it’s not enough to just hold it. You have to know when to shoot.” Her hands were steady, her eyes looked straight into his. There it was. That twinkle of brilliance that shone like two pairs of stars in her head. The little sign of hope that indicated that she had found exactly what she had been looking for. It petrified him. Defeated, his arms went limp and his handgun slipped out of his fingers. Jezebel took this as the signal of a white flag waving in the wind and she moved her finger towards the trigger. As the moment of death and rebirth approached, Malcolm had only one thing to say to the strange bird before him. In a voice dripped in the sweetness of honey, he warmly uttered his final words to her.
“Jez, I hope tomorrow is a better day.”