A one-shot from Kate's POV. She escaped when they were rescued from the island, but after two years on the run time's running out, and there's a call she needs to make…
A
It's 3am, and I sit alone and awake in this motel room. Sirens wail down the highway as hard frost coats the ground, and everything is cold.
I'm not dead. Not anymore. Somewhere I became complacent. Somewhere I spent two nights in the same place, drove through the wrong neighbourhood, said more than I should have. Somewhere I slipped, and now I can't get back up.
In the darkness I sit and I stare at the mess I'm in. I'm trapped; a cat in the headlights. They're coming and there's no place I can hide. So I sit and I stare because there's nowhere left to run.
And I think of him.
His face as we parted. His words as I turned away. Three words. And I would give anything to turn and say them back. Because I do. I always will. Every day I think of him and I wonder what could have been.
The sirens scream again.
I need him. Just to hear his voice. Just once more.
I run.
There's payphone's in the parking lot. The wide open space screams at me to turn back; find somewhere the stars can't cast a spotlight on me, the fugitive. Icy rain pours down on me as I stumble with the change. My hands shake as I press the numbers learnt by heart. How many times have I stood at a payphone like this? How many times have I walked away with change in my pocket? Now fear makes me press the keys.
He picks up after two rings. "Hello?"
My heart stops. I can't breath.
"Hello?"
I exhale, shakily, feel tears brimming. Every day for the last two years I've wished to hear that voice. I close my eyes, remembering every detail in his face, the lips that I kissed just once. And every day I curse myself for running when he let go of me. All I've ever know is to run. Now I want release.
"Jack…" I speak before I can stop myself.
"Who… Who is this?"
"Jack, I love you."
His reply is lost in another lament of sirens.
But I hang up.
I'm still there, my hand on the phone, when I hear cars pull off the highway. There are yells. My name. A gun cocks. Slowly I lift my hands, turn round to face blinding headlights through the sheets of rain. It's over.
Finally, it's over.
And all I can feel is relief. As hard hands force my arms behind my back, metal cuffs again on my wrists, I can only feel numb. The rain trickles down my back, and if I close my eyes for a second I can imagine myself back on the island in a late afternoon storm.
I lied when I said I couldn't hear his reply.
He called me Katie.