Edge of Safety
She wakes in the dead of night, panting, breathless. She wipes a bead of sweat from her brow. The dreams are still vivid in her mind. The memories. Even now, as she lies awake, the images play behind her eyelids, swirling in the darkness. She sees him. Lucas. And she sees herself shooting him.
Sometimes he survives, other times not. But the result is still the same. She's the one who pulls the trigger; she's the one who lives with the consequences.
She sees the jungle, just as it was that day – bright and beautiful, but with an ugliness in its depths. Lucas, bloodied and beaten, with that dagger in his father's side. Lucas, with that spark of blackness in his heart, doing what he does best. She has to stop him. So she does. The gun trembles in her palms, but using both hands to steady her aim, she shoots, and she doesn't regret it.
She still smells the blood. So real. She feels it on her finger tips. She can taste it on her tongue. The gleaming red settles on her skin, spills onto her clothes.
She did this. And sometimes, when she looks in the mirror, she feels it isn't her staring back, but a killer.
Lies. Lucas isn't dead. But she knows where he is. She thinks about him, sitting alone down there in that cell. Does she almost feel sorry for him? Who, the monster who invaded them, bombed them, shot at them, who used and abused her in his sordid little game? Of course not. She despises him.
And yet she finds herself in the Brig, visiting him, her heart pounding harder and harder in her chest as she sees his darkened frame in the shadows. He looks as though he's been in the same position for days, back against the wall, head leant back, and what is that? A smile? The gleam in his eyes sends a chill down her spine. She's sure she hears him say her name but all she can hear is the bang, bang, bang of the gun, the sound of those bullets tearing into his torso.
His clothes are different. The blood-stained rags have been replaced with Terra Novan substitutes. They look strange on him, as if someone's tried to dress up a caveman. The shirt's been left unbuttoned to reveal thick white bandages around his burly chest, yet she can still make out the stains of blood seeping through. A reminder. It makes her sick.
"I've been thinking about this moment ever since they threw me in here," Lucas remarks, still crouched in the corner, staring up at her. "What I'd say to you, what I'd do."
Skye closes her eyes. "I know you're mad at me."
"Oh, I'm not mad." He clears his throat. "I mean, I was. At first...Now...now, I'm impressed."
She opens her eyes, furrows her brows.
"A little upset, I must say." He broke his gaze with her. "You betrayed me. Again. Chose him over me. Maybe I should stop being surprised, huh?" An ironic snigger comes through his lips, and it unsettles her. As if a storm of anger is about to erupt through this calm façade of his. "But to do what you did, it took guts." He pauses, and then she's taken aback as he starts laughing. "You tried to kill me, after everything I did to you, to your home. You're the one who took me out. I think that's...impressive."
She can only stare, a look of disgust on her pretty features. She nearly kills him, nearly takes his life away, and he finds that impressive?
"I would do it again if I had to." Deep breaths. She knows she's not lying, but still when she says it, it sounds like it's someone else speaking.
"Then why don't you?" He struggles to his feet, a hand over his bandaged wounds, the other hand he stretches outwards – an invitation. "Finish the job."
Nobody moves. She hardly even breathes. Then she hears a chuckle.
"You can't, can you?" smirks Lucas.
"That's not what I came here to do."
"Then why are you here, Bucket? Tell me. I'm intrigued. You're obviously not here to gloat. No. You don't seem the gloating type."
"But you are."
He shrugs one shoulder, as if pretending to be modest, as if she were complimenting him. She studies the floor for a moment, hesitating, wondering if she should just leave. But she has to know.
"Ever since what happened, I've been having these dreams. More like nightmares, actually." She makes herself look at him – forces herself. She needs to look him in the eyes for this. "Of me shooting you."
A long second passes where he only stares at her, and then his weary face pulls in to a confused smile. "Why are you telling me this?" It's rare that he looks at her with such perplexity – that lost expression. The last time he looked at her like that, she had a gun pointed at him.
She takes a deep breath, then lets the air release through her lips slowly. "I guess, maybe, I thought you might know how to make it stop."
She watches him walk across the room, his fingers running over his stubble as if he's trying to work out some impossible equation. Then he pauses, rests an arm on one of the metal posts in the centre of the room. "Why would I know that? Moreover, Bucket, why is it my problem?"
She shakes her head, slowly, angrily. "It's not fair," she says, blue eyes gleaming in the harsh light. "It's not fair that what I did to you haunts me, but the things you've done...you don't seem to feel anything at all."
He takes a step closer. "That's not true," he says defensively. She moves back a step, but he's not angry. Not yet. She just doesn't want to take any chances though, not with him. "You want to talk about nightmares? My life is the nightmare."
She looks at him with disdain. "Poor Lucas," she says sarcastically.
"I'm not asking you to feel sorry for me, Bucket. Besides, pity is somewhat...unattractive on you."
She rolls her eyes.
He starts wringing his hands together, studying her, contemplating. He looks down and draws a breath. "I used to wake up to the sound of my own screaming," he begins sombrely. "Started when I was a kid. After my mother's murder. For a while, the Commander would come and check on me, make sure I got back to sleep. Then...well...I guess we both just got used to it." He says this with barely any emotion in his voice, in his eyes. "I used to dream of my mother. Dying. Over and over again, every night, the same thing. I still do. I try to help her but...I can't. I can only watch. And so does he. My father. All he does is watch it happen. And I scream at him to do something, anything. But he doesn't. He's just as powerless and useless as I am. So she dies, over, and over, and over again." A flash of anger appears in his features then, malevolence in his voice.
Skye's throat is dry. She doesn't know what to say. But in a weird way, she can relate. "I-I used to dream of my dad," she replies shakily. "After he died. Sometimes it'd feel like he never left. And then I'd wake up, alone again."
The way he looks at her then, she can tell he understands.
"The dreams became more intense when I got here," Lucas continues, green eyes staring vacantly, as if re-living the memory. "Being out there alone for so long, there was no one except me to hear my screaming. If I did sleep, that is. There were a lot of sleepless nights at first. Fear, hunger. They kept me from those dreams, at least."
Skye doesn't respond. She refuses to feel sorry for him. It wasn't that she thought Lucas hadn't overcome a lot, just that in her mind it was no excuse. She could never excuse the crimes he had committed, the terrible things he'd done out of anger and malice. He hadn't earned forgiveness, or pity. But he continues:
"Every time you close your eyes...it's there...Clawing you in." His eyes are alight with anguish, his muscles have tensed. "No matter how hard you try, you're stuck." Then he turns to face her, eyes wide. "But the worst thing is what it reveals, isn't it, Bucket? The truth. The guilt. Who we are, what we've done, and how we really feel about it. Don't you agree?"
She swallows hard, avoiding his gaze. "Maybe I do feel guilty. But I wouldn't change what I did. I had to stop you."
The corner of his lip, still cut from the beating he received before the shooting, raises slightly. "But you were scared, weren't you?" he says as if he's reading her mind. "At least for a while. That I might die and you'd be branded a murderer."
"For killing you?" she almost laughs, but she doesn't. "I'd be branded a hero."
"Is that what you want? Is that what your dreams tell you?" He moves closer, but she tries to stand her ground as he leans forward, his wild eyes scrutinising her. "Then do it. Kill me. It's not like I can stop you. I'd rather be dead than my father's prisoner again."
"I..." Her heart rate picks up. Imagine. Killing him. She doesn't need to; she's seen it too many times already – the man in front of her, battered and bleeding on the floor. Her work. Her chest tightens. It isn't her. It isn't her.
"I thought so. You're not a killer, Skye." The use of her real name makes her look at him, right into the green of his eyes. "I am." He says this sourly, his jaw rigid, frowning deeply, no semblance of pride or satisfaction this time. "I'd remove any obstacle that got in my way, no second thoughts, no remorse. That's the difference between you and I."
He begins to walk away, turning his back on her, as if at that point he expects her to leave him alone. But his words don't sit right with her. He may be a killer, he may be vengeful and ruthless, but now, after what he's just said, he must feel – he must suffer, at least a little. "In your nightmares, you sound like you're still the lost, grieving boy you were all those years ago. Before you became...this. What do you think that means? You couldn't save your mom because you were powerless, and now you still wear that pain – that regret. But what if, in the nightmare, you're not trying to save your mom? Maybe you're trying to save yourself."
He keeps his back to her, only turns his head slightly. "Don't," he snaps. "Don't try to psychoanalyse it."
"I'm just saying, there's still a part of you that cares deep down. I think, maybe, it does bother you, what you've had to do..."
Turning around, his eyes are flashing with rage. "Listen to you. I thought you weren't interested in making excuses for me."
"I'm not," she insists. "Believe me, I'm not. I'm just saying, you weren't always like this. Maybe you don't have to be. Maybe there's..."
"What? Hope for me? Look at me. Look at where I am. There's no redemption story for me."
"Why not?"
"This isn't about me, is it? It's about you. About those pleasant little dreams you've been having of me being shot to death."
Skye remains quiet for a few long seconds. Pushing her curly hair out of her eyes, she sighs deeply. "I wake up. Sick with myself. I-I know I did the right thing, but it still...it bothers me. It's not me, it's like I'm turning into..." She looks over at him nervously.
"Oh," he realises, as if he should have seen where this was going sooner. "You mean me."
She nods timidly. "You weren't always like this. So, how can I be sure something won't change me, like it did you?"
He rubs his hands together, looks to the ceiling as if he's figuring out how to answer her, and then he comes closer. "Well, as flattering as that sentiment is for me, there's something you don't know about me." He doesn't stop approaching until he's right in front of her. Skye glances towards the door, but her feet are glued to the ground. Her heart races as he leans towards, memories of his stubbly cheek against her face come flooding back to her – him planting kisses on her at the Sixer camp as he thanked her for her help. She shivers, the sensation of his warm breath in her ear once again.
"I'm weak," he murmurs, his low voice vibrating inside her. His lips touch her earlobe briefly and a tremble runs up and down her body. "I couldn't live with what happened to me, what happened to my mother. I needed...someone to pay." He pulls away slowly. Her blue eyes adjust to his face, surprised to see what looks like shame. He's drained. Exhausted. Like he's tired of acting the way he does, like he's tired of hiding away this part of himself – the part that's sick of fighting. "I don't enjoy it. The things I've done...all of it is to get them to stop. You've had a few bad dreams. So what? I carry that torment around with me, everyday, every minute. Locked up in a little box, right up here." He taps furiously at his head, the colour suddenly returning in his cheeks. Stormy eyes again. "And I was one step closer to making that agony stop for good."
She's horrified at what she hears as she pieces his words together and realises just what he's saying. "You really think killing your father will help stop it?" The idea's absurd, deluded. "You can't believe that."
"You don't believe it because you're not like me." He admits this as if it's a good thing, and he stares at her like he did at the bar, as if she's some celestial being that has captured his fascination. Then there's a doleful look in his eye, a frown on his lips. "But after a while, when you haven't had a good night's sleep in months, maybe even years, when you can't close your eyes without being afraid, when you wake up in pools of your own sweat, tasting your own tears, when you're so damn exhausted, the smallest thing could make you snap..." He lowers his head, looking at her. Solemn. "When you're plagued by the same horrific visions every single night and the person responsible is out there, living the life of a king in some paradise where all his adoring subjects think he's some kind of hero, you'd do anything – anything – to get it to stop."
For a long moment, all she can hear is the sound of their own short breaths. Lucas is standing inches away, staring at her, his breathing heavy and guttural like some kind of animal. She can almost feel the heat from his body, his rage circling her, enclosing her. She's standing above a black hole and he's the only thing stopping her from falling over the edge. But she's not scared of him anymore.
"You're right, Lucas. I'm not like you. I was wrong to think that I could be." Taking a step back, it's as if she's stepped right out of Lucas' little sphere of anguish – the desolate place that he has made his home for so many years. "I could never be what you are."
Then, finally, she turns and heads straight for the door, no intention of spending a minute longer down there with him in his dark little world of hatred and despair.
And as the guard enters to escort her out – a cruel, bitter voice sounds behind her:
"Sweet dreams, Bucket," he whispers hauntingly. "Sweet dreams."
End.