Kayla’s jaw hurt. Her ongoing state of mind had no impact on the physicality of the bodies she was jumping into; rather, it was the other way around, and this particular body was in pain. So now that she’d jumped into it, she was in pain, too. Kayla was on the floor leaning against the door of Adrienne’s apartment. She didn’t know how much time she was going to have before her very angry, hurt, and lost husband arrived into this body. But as she looked up she saw this time’s Steve with a whole different kind of anger in his eyes. This was not a good moment for Steve to jump into.
This was a very dangerous situation. She’d stopped Steve from killing Duke by a hair on the wing of a prayer in 1987. She always felt that that day could have gone either way, and if it had gone the wrong way, her life would have been very different. He’d have gone to jail. They’d have had no marriage, no life together, no children. She was still reeling from the events on the pier, but she didn’t have time to reflect, she had to be this Kayla and stop Steve from killing his father.
Steve’s eye was darting between her and Duke, and as she looked into it she saw how close to the edge he’d been all those years ago. This was a man he hated more than anything in this whole world. A man who should never have been allowed to procreate. Beating his wife every day, putting her in the hospital time and again, and doing it all in front of his tiny little boy. She couldn’t begin to understand it then, and she really couldn’t fathom it now that she had her own children. And now that Duke had added her to his list of women to beat on, Steve was enraged. She’d seen him like this only one other time, on the roof of the loft with Jack. It struck her that she was a catalyst for it then, too. Her own mental state was dark at the moment, leaving her mind so open to drift to all the bad places loving her brought Steve. Her rape led to Steve almost losing his mind with Jack on the roof, and he nearly died. Her being so unable to deal with Steve’s death that she made the terrible decision to be with Shane brought him the unspeakable pain that she’d inflicted on him in the last jump. And now (then?) here with Duke, she tried to hold him back from hurting Steve, resulting in him hitting her so hard that she went flying across the room. Now Steve looked at her on the floor bleeding because of his father – because she intervened – and for the second time in her life, she watched Steve’s resolve to kill his father bloom.
Steve was wobbly from the blow Duke had delivered – a hard punch to his own child. But that gun was aimed squarely at the hardened man who had recently put Jo in the hospital. Kayla shot up as soon as she could. As she did, she took a moment to feel her own anger and resentment. These jumps were so random and happened with so little warning that they never had any time to adjust before they had to be “on” again. Never had time to “tidy up” the last jump or mourn its passing, never had time to adjust to the new jump, never had time to just breathe, dammit! What Kayla really needed right now was to think. She needed to think through what just happened on the pier. It wasn’t that she wanted it, it’s that she needed it. She was desperate for it. But she couldn’t reflect, or cry, or feel guilt, or be mad, or even just take a moment to situate herself – it’s not like there was a pause button. The jumps just kept coming whether she liked it or not, and so it was a never ending race to wrap up your feelings from the previous one and get on board with the current one. So the resentment was deep within her at the moment. She imagined a Wizard behind a curtain in Oz flipping buttons and moving them around like chess pieces in some game that only he understood as she fought a sob that threatened to escape from her throat. But she didn’t have time, because Steve had just pulled a gun on his father.
“You’re dead,” Steve said. They were the first words spoken by anyone since she’d arrived in this body.
Duke was scared. Kayla thought it was amazing how the mighty oppressors can turn into such sniveling little cowards when harm is imminent. “Hey kid, put that thing away,” he said very carefully so as not to push any more of Steve’s buttons. “I mean, you don’t know what you’re doin’.”
“Oh, I know exactly what I’m doin’,” Steve huffed. He was so heavily affected by the years of hatred for this man. He was so focused on the culmination of it all in this moment. Now Kayla was scared, too. Scared that she might not be able to stop him, because she was lucky to have done it the first time. Scared that he might not forgive her for hiding Shane from him. Scared that they might stay in this jump too long or not long enough. She didn’t know which end was up she was so lost. So, she just tried to focus on stopping Steve from killing him. Do that and then take it from there. One moment at a time.
“Steve,” Kayla spoke for the first time. “Steve, I –“
“You’re a pig,” he told Duke. It’s not that he didn’t hear her, he was just too enraged to listen. “You’re nothin’ but a filthy, disgusting pig.” Then he added with quiet menace, “And you don’t deserve to live.”
A shiver ran down Kayla’s spine.
“So this time, I’m gonna do the job right,” Steve said with a grin and Duke started to sweat.
Kayla was frozen. “Steve, don’t,” she tried to reason with him, and she would have gone on, but that was when he clicked back the hammer of the gun and tightened his mouth into a thin line of pointed resolve.
“Come on, Steve,” Duke said, trying to lay it on thick. “Come on, let’s talk about this.”
“Shut up, shut up, I’m sick of you!” Steve spat back in a barely controlled whisper.
“Steve,” Kayla tried again, “Please listen to me, you can’t do this, you have to just listen to me.”
Just then Duke went for the door, but he didn’t get far before his son stopped him with a verbal threat that was nothing short of a promise. He motioned Duke to the back wall while Steve took up a more secure position by the door. Then he finally acknowledged her.
“I’m sick of listenin’, Kayla, I’m sick of talkin’. Now, I’m gonna do somethin’ about this.” Even as he said it, Kayla got a distinct sense that there may have been a sliver of doubt, that maybe she would get through to him again. She just needed to keep talking. Get him away from Duke before her Steve jumped in.
“Steve, think about what you’re doing, here!”
“Stay out of this, Kayla, this is between him and me.”
Then Duke started pleading. “Ok, ok, I know I’ve been trouble, I’ve made mistakes, I ain’t a good father, I ain’t a good husband, I know all that, kid, but people can change! And I swear to you , I know I can change, too.” The déjà vu with that plea from Duke hit her, and she was struck by just how wretched and useless a human being this man really was. He could really let people have it on his own terms, but the moment the tables were turned, he became a weak and cowardly little man.
Steve saw Kayla visibly balk at his father and felt somehow validated. He laughed and said, “You think your pathetic begging is gonna do you any good here? It just makes me sicker. It makes me hate you more.” Steve was seething. Then his eye suddenly went wide, and he froze.
No … no, no, no, no, no ….
Kayla called to Steve softly, but his face went blank. Put plainly, Kayla simply was not ready for Steve to get there. She didn’t know what she was going to say to him, and her conflicting emotions threatened to smother her. She was aching for him … and mortified at his revelation … and terrified of how he now felt about them … and feeling guilty about her deception … and, quite frankly, scared out of her mind of what he was going to do to this pathetic excuse of a man who called himself Steve’s father.
For his part, Duke didn’t have a clue that now was his chance to run, as Steve’s hold on the gun hadn’t wavered a bit, and despite looking his son directly in the eye, that gun was really all he was seeing.
“Dammit!” Kayla whispered under her breath as she gave a small stomp of frustration. Why here? Why of all places for them to jump did they have to go here to such a volatile situation when Steve was already so upset? Before she realized what she was doing she went to Duke and let loose on him. “I want you to know that I hate you.” He shifted his eyes between her and over her shoulder at his son, unsure how Steve would react. Kayla continued having her say while she still could. “I hate you for hurting Steve when he was a little boy …,” she pointed behind her. Then more softly with narrowed eyes, “and what you took from Adrienne. How could you hurt your baby like that? You’re a monster, and I won’t let you ruin our family!”
Duke’s reaction was cut off by Steve inhaling sharply behind her. Kayla whirled around to see Steve’s eye rolling as he fought the jump effect. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast she thought she might pass out.
The first thing Steve saw was the face of Duke Johnson staring cautiously back at him. Steve was stunned. He was not prepared for this and bobbed just slightly with the shock of it. His eye went wide as his arm continued pointing the gun at him of its own accord. Then he saw Kayla standing in front of him, and pain welled up inside him immediately. She was so beautiful. She wore the same red sweater he’d just seen two (Three? Six? He was losing his mind) jumps ago. Had it really been just the other day that he said he wanted to go to the courthouse to get married? Then the reality of it all hit him. Kayla watched the pain she’d just left him with back on the pier flood into his face. And she would have done anything to have wiped that pain away.
Kayla saw Steve’s gaze go to her mouth and she wiped at it quickly, as if that would erase his memory of Duke having hit her. It didn’t, and his face flushed red. She felt an odd mixture of fear for what he might do, and relief that her pain upset him.
Kayla knew it was him, but she asked the question anyway. “Do you remember –“
“I don’t wanna play,” he replied, training a hard eye on her. He looked at his father with disdain and tasted his own blood on his lips and inside his cheek. Steve raised the gun. “Did he hurt you before I got here?”
Kayla felt like that one statement was progress. “No, I jumped in after he hit me.” She reached for him, but he backed up a step. So much for progress. He glanced at her just for a moment, but that glance held everything she needed to know; he wasn’t going to be forgiving her right now. Kayla choked back a sob.
“Listen kid,” Duke said oblivious to the drastic change that had just taken place, “Just put the gun down.”
“Steve,” Kayla said from her position still between them. “Please just put it down. You and I need to talk. We can go to home base now. No one’s after anyone. And—“
“He’s after my family, Kayla, don’t you get that? Did you forget? Ya know, you’ve been forgetting things lately.”
Kayla tried to remain unaffected by his continued anger. “We can call the police to get him, then. Or take them back with us.”
“Look,” Duke said, “I’m not after anyone, I just want to take my family home. Come on,” he said with used car salesman slickness, “you’ve got your own life here. Now, I just wanna take your mama home where she belongs, and your little sister. That’s all, you live your life, and we’ll all leave.”
The mention of Steve’s sister brought the reality of this situation roaring into him like a pack of wild horses. This man raped my sister. He raped his own daughter. Incest. Filth. Wife-beater. Scum. Kayla watched as the look in her husband’s eye became deadly.
“Not this time,” Steve said as he raised the gun strong and straight in front of him. “You’re not going to hurt anyone this time, you piece of sh*t. Because this time I am going to kill you.”
Kayla knew they were in trouble, and she couldn’t help but feel like she’d caused it. If his emotional state hadn’t been so thrown into utter chaos by what he had to discover on the pier, he would be in a better frame of mind to deal with this jump, with seeing his father. He’d be able to control the emotions that made him want to kill him in the first place. It would be hard, but she knew he could do it, she would help him do it. Instead, he was in emotional turmoil.
Terror ran through her. If he killed his father, he was going to ruin their lives. They’d be ruined for however long this jump lasted, and most importantly, he’d be living with the fact that he killed his father for the rest of his life. Even if his actions were despicable. Even if he did on some level deserve whatever he would one day get. And even if Duke didn’t stay dead on subsequent jumps, the fact that Steve committed the action in the first place would follow him no matter where and when he was, and it would have happened because he was lashing out at what she’d done. She had to protect both of them from that.
Another thought ran through her. They did something that wasn’t supposed to happen in Cleveland, and it caused them to jump out of sync. If they made another monumental change, like killing someone who wasn’t supposed to be dead, then what would that do to them? We don’t know that anything causes anything! she screamed to herself. She shook it away, she shook it all away. She had to make Steve see the love inside himself so he could let all the anger he had go … so they could be ok and find a way back to each other.
Steve went to cock the hammer of the gun back but felt that it was already in position. “It’s time for you to go.”
“NO!” Kayla yelled as she splayed herself in front of Duke.
Steve was so tense he was practically holding his breath. “Don’t do this again, Kayla, get the hell away from him.”
“I’m not gonna let you kill him,” she said more desperately than she’d intended. She was going for matter-of-fact, but she ended up with borderline hysterical.
“Get out of the way! I’m mad enough at you already!”
“Really?” she shot back. “What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”
“Exactly what it means, baby, now move.”
“You’re holding a gun and saying you’re mad enough at me, am I supposed to be scared now?” Steve didn’t reply, and he didn’t take his eye off his father, who was listening very carefully. “Now, I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be! But this is not going to help.”
“Get out of the way!” he roared.
“No! I’m not going to let you kill someone, no!”
“Nobody deserves it more than him, Kayla, especially now! You saw what he did last time you stopped me! And look where that got us!” Steve watched his father try to remember what time he could be talking about and got some amusement out of his confusion.
“It got us a marriage, and a family!”
“And what did it get for Adrienne?!”
“You want to blame me, Steve? Fine. Go ahead. Blame me. You do that, because it’s worth it not to see what you’re going to do to yourself if you pull that trigger. I love you—“
“Don’t, Kayla,” he whispered, her words stinging his soul.
“—and I’m not gonna watch you commit murder because you’re mad at me.”
Steve swayed back and forth on his heels, every sense heightened, every nerve on fire, his soul aching to collapse into her arms, but his anger over her deception fueling his absolute determination to rid the earth of this monster of a human being.
“Kayla, you can tell me anything you want, baby, I don’t care. Because nothin’s gonna stand in my way this time. He’s not leaving this room alive, and if I have to physically move you, I will.”
“You kill him, Steve,” she said solemnly, “you will go to jail. There will be no bail this time, you know that. And we’ll be separated. Is that what you want?” Please tell me that’s not what you want.
Kayla thought she saw Steve’s face flicker with this, but then Duke put his hands on her shoulders, and Steve exploded. “Get your filthy hands off her! Right now, off, OFF!” He waved the gun in a remove-your-hands-from-her motion, and Duke put up his hands like it was a stick up. Once again, Kayla’s heart soared that he clearly loved her, but sank at the blatant hatred he’d channeled against his father.
“Steve, I’m ok! I’m ok, we’re gonna be ok!”
“Are we?” he replied not sure if she intended the double meaning or not.
“Yes. We are,” she said with a conviction she faked with all she had in her. “Please put the gun down, please. If we’re separated – if you go to jail here, we won’t be married, we won’t have Stephanie.”
“Baby,” he laughed, “what the hell are you talking about? We’re not gonna be here long enough to have Stephanie, that’s another lifetime, baby. A whole other lifetime!”
“You don’t know that! What’s our record, eight days? Nine days? How do you know the next one won’t be nine years? Stuck here. Without each other?”
“You’ve been sayin’ that for weeks, Kayla. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’s not like he’ll stay dead, right? But here, baby … here he’ll stay dead. However long here’s gonna be. And you’re not gonna stop me!” He shouted so loudly that Kayla fought not to flinch.
“Listen to the little lady, Steve.”
“You shut your face, old man, I don’t wanna hear you!”
Suddenly the tension in the room was so thick Kayla could feel it like a cold fog rolling in off the riverfront. She decided that she had nothing to lose than to just lay herself out there and hope to get through to him. “I know you’re angry with me,” she said with a calm that didn’t match the tears beginning to streak her face and sting the cut in her lip.
“Angry? I’m lost, Sweetness,” he choked.
“Then come home to me, Steve, please come home to me. Don’t make a bad decision here to help you deal with the hurt I’m causing you.”
“I can’t, baby. Don’t push me.”
“Please, Steve,” she persisted though her tears. “Let me in? Please?” She prayed to God that she was getting through to him. Then she went for broke. “You are not a violent man. The father of my children is a good, gentle soul. He didn’t kill Duke. Not in this time, not in any time. He can be mad at me all he wants, but he’s not doing this.” She was weeping now, and she could see she was breaking him down.
Unshed tears blurred Steve’s vision as he shook his head and wiped his eye with the back of his hand.
Duke chose that weak moment between the two of them to grab Kayla into a dangerous headlock, and she screamed despite herself. Duke’s left arm was around her neck, and his right arm had wrapped itself in the other direction around her head. He applied significant pressure around her neck with his beefy forearm, and she could smell the cigarette smoke embedded into every pore of his body. Then she felt her air supply start to drastically decrease.
“Ya always were a stupid fool!” Duke spat at his son. “Couldn’t set me on fire right, now can’t even shoot me right. Now you put that gun down, or I’ll break her neck!”
Steve gripped the gun with both hands at the end of ramrod straight arms and pointed it at his father, which meant he was effectively pointing it at both of them. “You let her go right now!” Steve yelled.
“No, no, sonny boy, you’re not the big man you thought you were. Now you throw that gun to me and step away or I’ll do more than just give her a little smack on that great big mouth of hers. I’ll break her pretty little neck! Don’t test me, boy!”
Steve could hear the horrible sound of Kayla gagging as she fought with her lower body to get air, and he made a split second decision. “I’m the one holding the gun, old man, and I don’t have a thing to lose here. You kill her, I swear to you, I’ll kill you, too. This gun gives me the last word, and if it comes down to that, then this time she won’t be there to save your miserable ass.” Steve was dead still as he made this promise to him. “Now you release her. And if she turns one more shade of red, I’ll make sure I shoot your testicles off first.”
Duke saw something in his son’s eye. Something he was sure meant business. Duke released the pressure on her neck but he didn’t release her. He gave it one more try as Kayla started gasping for air. “Oh yeah, Stevie, then come on and shoot! Come on, you want me dead so bad you’re gonna kill your own girlfriend?”
“Shut up!”
“’Cause that’s where you’re headed, kid, ‘cause I’m not letting her go! So, if you shoot, the bullet’s goin’ through her first, sonny boy!”
“Shut up!” Steve yelled as he looked into her eyes beseeching her for what he did not know. “You let her go, she’s not breathin’!”
“I’m breathing,” Kayla croaked. “I’m ok, please don’t kill him, just let him go, we’ll get him later!”
“You still want to let him go?!”
“No, I want you to be ok, Steve, there’s a difference!”
She was gasping, and Steve could barely take it. He let one hand drop and tilted the gun sideways with the other. “I’m not tellin’ you again, Duke. Let. Kayla. Go.”
Duke didn’t see how Steve could possibly win this one, and just to drive the screws to him even tighter, Duke twisted Kayla’s head so that all he needed to do was tug hard and her neck would snap.
Kayla couldn’t see anything but the colors the strain on her spinal cord was sending up to her brain. Maybe killing him would be ok, she reasoned with herself as she struggled to breathe. But when she heard Steve back down she registered relief, anyway.
“Ok!” Steve shouted, “Ok! Let her go! Gun’s down,” he said as he put the hammer back and let it swing on his finger. “Now just let her go!”
In that moment, Duke released Kayla, and she fell to the floor gasping for breath and dizzy from the sudden pressure release.
That’s when Duke smiled an evil, toothy grin. He looked down at Kayla and snickered, “I always liked blondes, too.”
That’s when Steve righted the gun in his hand, raised it up, and shot his father square in the chest.
As the shot rang out, Steve flinched despite himself. Kayla gasped and hit the floor covering her head with her hands. No! Oh God, no! Please let this be a nightmare. Just a very bad nightmare! I want to wake up now, I want to wake up now! It’s time to feed Joe, it’s time to get up, wake up!
Unfortunately, Kayla was already awake in a very real world where Steve had just killed his father. An act she was unable to stop this time. An act that she helped cause.
Duke fell to his knees behind Kayla, and she scurried away toward Steve as he did. He put his hand up to his wound and looked at the blood now staining his fingers. Then he looked up at Steve, the son he’d abused almost every day, who’d failed to kill him twice before but now succeeded, and who now looked down on him with numbness.
Finally Steve spoke. “My wife is the last woman you’ll ever hit.” A thrill involuntarily swept through Kayla at the use of the word “wife.” “Mama’s safe now. And you won’t be laying a hand on Adrienne.” The look of shock on Duke’s face gave Steve immeasurable satisfaction, but there was no pleasure in the act he’d just committed. In fact, he felt strangely ambivalent. “And a man I’d wished were dead every single day of my entire life finally is.” Duke opened his mouth, but no words came out as his eyes went wide. “Go to hell,” Steve said. And that’s exactly what Duke did as he collapsed on the floor on his side and died with his eyes staring open.
Steve dropped the gun. Kayla started to shake. She’d thought Steve discovering Shane was her worst nightmare, but she was wrong, this was. She turned and wrapped her arms around Steve’s leg, leaned her head against his thigh, and cried.
“Get up, Kayla,” Steve said with an absent sort of tone.
“I did this to you,” she sobbed. “Dear God, I did this to you!”
Steve leaned down and lifted her up with one strong arm. “Don’t want you on the floor when the cops come to take me away, Sweetness.”
Kayla struggled to find a way through the chaos. She begged herself to focus and think of what to do next. And suddenly the events of that day came flooding into her with a clarity that was almost not human. “J-J-Jo and Ad-Ad-Ad …” she took a deep breath, “… your sister are coming any minute. We have to go. Now. We have to go.” She took him by the hand and headed for the door.
“No, baby, someone must have heard the shot and called the cops by now. I wanna go to the cages.” His voice was so affected – actually it was more like the opposite of affected. He’s numb, she realized. She knew with alarming veracity that if she didn’t get them somewhere to wait this jump out, somewhere they could talk through their feelings and make themselves as whole as they possibly could, that he’d carry this shock and trauma with him right into the next jump and the one after that and the one after that.
She’d lose him.
The thought terrified her. Worse than jumping apart. At least then she’d know he was out there, her Steve, whole and loving both her and, importantly, himself. She wasn’t so sure she loved herself right now, but she pushed it away and took control before it was too late.
“Steve!” she said firmly as she grabbed his chin to look at her. “We are leaving. We’re going to the loft because your apartment is the first place they’ll look,” she said digging in her purse for her keys, which she found. “Let’s go.”
Steve just wanted to go to sleep. He was so tired. He didn’t want to think about any of this anymore. He didn’t want to think about his pain. He didn’t want to think about Shane or the warehouse he couldn’t remember or Baby Ruths or roller skates or the sad and remorseful look of self-hatred he saw in his wife’s eyes when she was pleading with him on the pier and he refused to give her a chance. He didn’t want to think about the blood that was no longer pumping in his father because he’d put a bullet into his heart – his own father’s heart – and the fact that he wasn’t sorry to see him finally dead. He didn’t want to think about how Adrienne must have felt when she did the same thing after he forced himself on his own daughter and what she must have gone though to get over what he took from her. He didn’t want to think about the revolting expression on his father’s face when he looked down at Kayla and said he liked blondes. He didn’t want to think about how he’d just committed a violent act, just like his father committed violent acts, because he wasn’t like him. He loved his children. His children … He didn’t want to think about them or Kayla. No, he didn’t want to think about how furious he was at this woman he continued to love so much. He didn’t want to think about his own sorry ass. He just wanted to sleep.
Kayla looked into Steve’s eye and knew he was already fighting a demon.
“Just let ‘em take me to jail, Kayla. There’s no point in hiding, when I jump that’ll be that, why bother?” He said it with such defeat; such finality.
She stayed strong, forced him to look at her, and said in no uncertain terms, “We stay together.”
With that she picked up the gun, shoved it in her purse, and dragged him out the door, praying to God that he’d find a way to forgive her for everything that led up to this … and that she could help him forgive himself for what he’d just done.