John and Steve kept pace banging and yelling, trying from the outside to distract him from her, as if it could have distracted a bull from the red cape in front of it. He had waited a long time for this moment, staring her down over the edge of a gun. Drugs couldnt have given him a better high than this.
“I should have killed you.”
“You should have done a lot of things.” She murmured, head down as she tried to get her breath back from hitting the desk harder than she realized. “But yet again, you messed up, you *always* mess up and everyone else pays.”
She straightened up, the cut lip forgotten as she glanced sideways, listening to the drumming before looking back at him. “You make terrible decisions and everyone else pays, the children who hate you now … my family hate you for all of this … when will you stop this game?”
He studied her a moment, a faint smirk on his features as he shrugged. “You really are the biggest hypocrite. You brought it all down on Salem. You never played the game I started all those years ago.” He cocked the gun and shrugged. “But it ends tonight. Tell me Marlena, did you ever tell him about the life for a life decision you made on the island?”
She stayed against the bulletin board. “I dont know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, Saint Marlena … I forgot amnesia is the standard answer for your time away. The reason why *my* children hate me so much. Any bells ringing?”
“You told them a lie and when you fell, you told them another… problem is, it wasn’t mine.”
Before she could react, he was in her bag and downing that sedative as if it was mother’s milk, her fear .. so close to the surface finally overwhelming her as he died at her feet, muttering about not giving them the satisfaction or truth as John came bursting in, his eyes widening at her lip and how she was holding her arm over her chest.
“A life for a life …” John gathered her up carefully as if she was china, then stroked her hair before asking her what she had said under her breath. “He said a life for a life … John, what if it was true… what if I was the reason for all of this?”
“Baby, he’s just a mad man.” Steve corrected him. “Was”
Marlena let them lead her from him but something inside her, deeply hidden since Stefano died came back to life… that niggling fear that maybe, just maybe she’d have to do something unthinkable again.
The Phoenix was dead … but from the ashes something far more evil was awakened.
The Jarlena Journal 