HONESTLY SPEAKING

Talk about irony. We had to be on the run—Michael, me, his brother—but those three monsters got to run around loose. That is, until that morning, when the last of the three got caught in our trap like wild animals.

And now they were at our mercy. You'd think that would've relaxed me, but it didn't. No matter what, I couldn't relax, and I didn't think I ever would again in this lifetime.

"There," Michael said under his breath as he tightened the rope binding the hands of the one named Bill Kim. He smiled when the creep groaned. "Ah, does that hurt? Good."

I had enough to keep me busy with preparing the needles. Three of them. One for each of those bastards. Wouldn't want them to use the same dirty needle now, would we? But I paused to watch Michael checking the rope binding the hands of—what was his name again, the one who had me trapped in the hotel room?—Alex Mahone. Michael must have felt my gaze on him, because he looked up and tried to comfort me with an affectionate smile.

I smiled back at him. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw Lincoln Burrows, his brother, shaking his head fondly at us. My heart sank. To look at us, you would have thought we were just an average woman, the man she loved, and his brother, hanging out with mutual friends before heading out for a night on the town.

But we weren't. And those three guys definitely weren't friends. They were Alex Mahone, Bill Kim, and my personal favorite creep, Paul Kellerman. Three of the most dangerous men I'd ever had the displeasure of meeting in my life.

"They're ready for you, baby," Michael said. "Do your thing."

I held the first needle poised in my hand. The three of them eyed me—Kellerman with defiance, Mahone with just a grain of trepidation, and Kim with a big old smirk on his face that I would've loved to slap right off.

"You're sure they can't move?" I asked.

"I'm sure, Sara. I wouldn't let you near any of them if I wasn't."

Sighing, I approached Mahone first.

"It's all right, Sara. I'll probably like it," he scoffed, throwing out his chest haughtily.

"Oh, I don't think so, Alex." It gave me pleasure, after I drove the needle straight into his neck, hearing him whimper like a little kid getting a flu shot. I teased him with, "Nice?"

Kellerman was looking on. Chuckling. What an evil bastard. Michael should've let me do this world a favor and kill him when I had the chance on that train, but noooo . . . we had to spare his lying, miserable ass.

"Hey—I want some of that!" he said cheerfully, like we'd just broken out a bottle of his favorite champagne.

"Don't worry. I've got some for you right here, big boy," I vowed.

"I hope so, sweet cheeks. You love me more than you love him, right?" Kellerman puckered up, making smooching noises with that mouth of his.

I grabbed another needle off the tray. "This is going to be a first for you, Lance, honey."

"Think so?" That's as far as he got. He let out a startled yelp when I stuck the needle behind him, jabbing it into his behind.

Mahone giggled at his expense, which I have to admit was pretty cute. Already he was slurring his words from the injection as he said, "Thank you verrrrrrrrry much, lady. He scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrewed me, too."

"Karma, baby, karma," I agreed. "Gets you in the ass every time!"

"Ah, shut up, Alex!" Kellerman ordered him weakly.

"Now, now, boys. Behave yourselves." I grabbed the third and last needle. Going around the chair, I faced Bill Kim. Even smiling, that man had eyes as dark and vacant as a shark getting ready to devour its prey. There was something so cold, so inhuman about this one.

Regaining my composure, I pointed at Michael. "Do you see his face?"

Kim's smirk widened. "Yes, Dr. Tancredi, I sure do! I did that. I take the credit proudly."

I expected Michael to glare at him, but he just smiled. "I have a suggestion. Ever try to walk on the light side instead of the dark side all the time, Mr. Kim?" he asked.

"You know, Mr. Schofield, that advice is a little hard to accept. Coming from a convicted felon and all." With malice lacing his words, he added with a stare at Linc, "Like your big brother over there."

"He's innocent," Mahone broke in, surprising me. "You told me that yourself. Burrows is innocent. I'm suspecting so is Mi—"

"Shut up, Mr. Mahone," Kim commanded regally.

I'd heard enough. His military training had served him well, because the man barely flinched when I drove the needle hard into his shoulder. Roughly, I drew it out and stepped away.

"This isn't over," Kellerman said, also slurring. "Not by a looooong shot, Dr. Sweet & Sexy. You kill us, they'll just send ten more, comin' after you. Huntin' you down."

"Oh, we're not poisoning you," Linc explained, pushing away from the wall he'd been leaning against. "We wouldn't kill you. That'd be a crime."

Kim frowned. I do believe that was worry, at long last, on his face. "So what did you give us?"

"I don't know, but it feels gooooood!" Mahone exclaimed. "Can we listen to some Led Zep? Maybe Pink Floyd? Please, huh?"

Michael clicked his tongue. "I'd love to help you out there, son, but that's a funny thing about prison. They don't let you bring your whole damn music collection. Just FYI. You might need to know that information in, um, like, the future."

Mahone didn't say much, but I think the poor guy was turning a little green.

"Listen, for what it's worth," Kellerman piped up, addressing me. "I didn't like fooling you. Pretending to be your friend just to gain your confidence. It really wasn't personal, chicky-poo."

From behind me I heard Linc laugh. "Here we go . . . here comes the truth from these masters of deception."

"Oh, that's comforting," I told Kellerman.

"I actually, you know, I thought you were sorta hot. Innocent. Naïve. But caliente." Chuckling, he glanced at Michael. "You have good taste there, braniac. If I wasn't taken, I would've put the moves on your girlfriend here."

Kim interrupted him. "You're not taken, stupid!"

"Uh, I beg to differ. I am taken. Or was."

"No, you're not! Caroline was cheating on you, dude. Or she was, before he died."

"This is gonna be good," Michael said, more to himself.

"What're you babbling about?" Kellerman demanded of Kim. "I was the only man she ever really loved. That's what she said."

"You're such a tool, you know that? You were just her side dish." Kim nodded and laughed. "Her real main man? That was her brother. How icky is that? Her brother."

"Oh—oh, that is such a lie. You're such a liar!" Kellerman was so upset, and it was such fun seeing him squirm like that. He turned to Mahone, who was leaning back in his chair with his head tossed back, staring up at the ceiling with his mouth open. "Isn't that a lie, Alex?"

Mahone, totally oblivious, asked loudly, "Is that a bug up there? That is one huge bug. What if it falls on me?"

Yep, he sure did—he made me look. No bug. Just the crazy hallucination of one very high rogue FBI guy.

Michael was done fooling around. He stepped forward, placing a hand on my waist.

"Enough fun and games," he said, addressing Kim. "Now we're gonna put you guys on the phone. And you are all going to tell the truth. You won't leave out one detail."

"You mean about how this was all a setup?" Spittle came out of Kim's slurring mouth, along with the words. "About how you and your brother are going down because there are more important people than you to protect?"

"That's exactly what you're going to do," I said, shaking from the anger. "I injected you all with periphenol myonosiphide. That substance is even more powerful than sodium pentathol. Government grade. It's—"

"A truth serum," Kellerman interjected, the color draining from his face.

"Exactly. You three liars are going on that phone and you're going to tell the authorities the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth."

"So help you, God," Linc muttered.

"The truth is . . . I wanna go home!" Mahone wailed. And I mean wailed. "I'm really tired of killing people. Oscar Shales, okay—he deserved it. I'm glad I killed him. But that kid Tweener? And the guy who wanted to go to Holland, Haywire? I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do that at all. He made me do it. So can I go home now? I wanna be with my family. Please?"

Kellerman finally said something worthwhile. Something that didn't need a truth serum to bring out.

"We all wanna go home, Alex," he pointed out softly. "Every person here wants to go home. And that's the one place not one of us can ever go again."

"That's where you're wrong," Michael disagreed vehemently. "We can. Me, Linc, Sara—we can go home again. Maybe you three are lost, but we aren't."

I lowered my head. The desperate edge to his voice was undeniable. I had the feeling in my gut that if I would have had a fourth needle, one that I would have plunged into Michael's arm, he wouldn't have been saying that. Because he was too smart to really believe that there was any hope, because in that aspect, were we no different from those three men. We were all hopeless.

"Home" was a destination no one in that room would ever see again. Still, Michael's tenacity, his insistence on holding onto his faith that we could still reach for the impossible, made me love him more fiercely than I ever had at that very moment.

Linc hit a speed dial button on the cell phone we'd taken off Mahone, then hit the speaker button.

After a couple rings, a male voice said, "Wheeler here, sir."

"Aw, c'mon, Burrows, please!" Mahone protested. "That kid hates me."

"Agent Wheeler? This is Lincoln Burrows." He grinned at the silence on the other end. "You're on with my brother, Michael Schofield; your superior, Alex Mahone . . . and a couple others."

Wheeler seemed to shift his own phone around. "Lincoln—Mr. Burrows, is Mr. Mahone all right?"

"He's fine. He's just a little tied up right now." Kellerman laughed at his own joke. No one else did, though.

Gratefully, I watched Linc slap him on the side of his head. Most deservedly so, too.

"Mahone is the one who'll talk," he said. "Let his boss start the ball rolling. Here, Alex. C'mon. Tell him the truth."

I didn't want to argue with Linc, but I didn't think that was such a great idea. He held the phone up for Mahone, who looked like he was having trouble breathing.

"Hello?" Wheeler said on the other line.

"Hold on, all right? Alex—" Michael prompted, "Tell him the truth. Please."

I was getting nervous. This had seemed like a good idea when we'd first dreamt it up. Albeit, the last resort of desperate people on the run. Getting the truth serum had been no easy feat and it had involved some very sleazy dope dealers down near the waterfront. Get the serum, shoot up three very dangerous men, united by one shared sinister secret, with a substance that would force them to tell the truth.

Except there are many truths. And once you have a man speaking honestly, you never know what's going to come out of his mouth.

"The truth is . . . " Mahone looked like he was about to be sick. "I take these little pills. I keep them in this empty pen, you see?"

"Sir?" Wheeler sounded confused.

"Forget the pills, Alex, forget the pills!" Michael urged, then took the phone from his brother's hand and held it in front of Kellerman. "You! You tell him. Now! Or I swear I will beat you to a pulp."

I threw the tray of needles to the floor in exasperation. Another avenue to freedom, about to shatter before our eyes. Paul Kellerman was going to be about as useful as Mahone had been, if maybe even less so.

"The truth is, I like getting dressed up like a cable repair guy, you know? Yep." He nodded vigorously. "And the president? She was always my customer. Heh, heh. I bet her brother didn't play games that cool with her, huh? I also let her cover me with whipped cream. Whipped cream and ice cream and some nuts and some cherries. I was a love sundae for that woman."

Mahone was suddenly interested. "Chocolate syrup, too?"

"Yep. Chocolate syrup, too. Well, sometimes caramel. Depends. Sometimes you want chocolate, sometimes you want caramel."

"I'm hungry," Mahone told me, as if I was supposed to do something about it.

Aggravated, I slapped him. He just looked at me with these big, sad blue eyes, and said, "Owww . . . "

"Oh—I'm sorry!" I apologized in exasperation.

"Lincoln Burrows is innocent!"

I breathed a sigh of relief. Michael moved the phone in front of Bill Kim, whose pupils were fully dilated now from the effects of the drug.

"Did you hear that, Agent Wheeler?" Michael asked into the phone, then turned it around again. "Go on, Mr. Kim."

"Thank you, Michael, thank you!" Something was wrong. Kim looked just too ecstatic, rocking back and forth in his chair so hard that it moved on the floor. "Yes, Agent Wheeler, Lincoln Burrows is innocent! And Sara Tancredi—as pure as the white, driven snow! Michael Schofield? Innocent as a newborn baby!" Wearing a huge smile, he went on, "And I want you to know, Agent Wheeler, that I am not just saying this because they've got all three of us drugged up and tied up in some warehouse, threatening to beat us—what did you say exactly, Michael?—to a pulp if we don't comply. They're slapping us around like old hookers, starving us and denying us the right to listen to music."

Linc ignored him. "Tell him about the company! Tell him everything!"

Kellerman looked crazy as he launched into song, "Everything is beautiful in its own waaaaaaaaaay. Like the starry summer night, the world's gonna find a way—"

"You're a good singer," Mahone told him, nodding and pursing his lips. "Very talented guy, Paul."

"Hey, thanks, Alex. I play the violin, too. And the drums," Kellerman boasted. "Used to play in a band back in schoool."

"That's cool. I'm a good dancer," Mahone had some bragging of his own to do.

This was a disaster. But maybe, just maybe, if we held on to a thread of hope—Michael's strong hope—maybe there was a still a chance. I wanted to believe that so badly.

And then we heard Agent Wheeler say on the other end: "Ha, ha. Very funny, sir. Well, it's good to see you've still got your sense of humor. Unfortunately, I've got a lot of work to do, so fun and games is over for me. See ya later!"

When he hung up, you could've heard a pin drop in that room. Right before Paul Kellerman started giggling and giggling.