Chapter 3: Hell All Over Again
"Hey, Mr. FBI. Did you beg the warden to ban your punk ass from being allowed back out here? Can't face the music or what?"
Mahone looked up from the cryptogram book in his hands. He had spent the last hour stewing over the single luxury Jack had been allowed to deliver to him. His lack of sleep had hindered any success at completing even one puzzle, however.
The gigantic African-American man banging on his cell door wasn't improving things.
"What do you want, Elkins?" he drawled, adjusting his reading glasses. "I have no problem fighting you again with a stab wound if you have no problem fighting me again with a broken arm."
The runt-faced man swelled, making him appear even more enormous. Mahone smirked as his gaze travelled from Elkins' sling to the various bruises and gashes his companions were sporting.
"You lucky that Scofield boy wants you treated nice," Elkins hissed. "Otherwise you'd be a dead man this time next week."
Mahone set his work down. A few of the inmates who had come off worse the wear when he'd fought them the day before last stepped back a little as he approached the metal bars.
"That's odd," he said, voice so low that Elkins had to lean in to hear him, "because I don't recall ever asking him to defend me. You think I need defending? I think you're just a little afraid of what I could do to you – really do to you – without your lapdogs holding me back."
There was silence from Mahone's audience save for Elkins' uneasy chortle. After a moment, he signalled to a prisoner behind him. Mahone's expression continued to approach glacial levels as the inmate stepped forward and handed Elkins a tray of food.
"Talk tough when there ain't a locked door between us," jeered Elkins. "Oh, and by the way. I offered to bring up your breakfast from the mess hall after Michael scampered off to visitation."
Upturning the tray, Elkins smashed it over the ground. Mahone watched as his food oozed across the concrete. His tormentors walked off, laughing, and he sighed.
Though he had received five years for crimes that warranted a death sentence, Mahone had had to accept that he would receive no special treatment. He would be placed among prisoners who by all means would tear him apart. He also, as Jack had put it, would be required to pass along and verify information concerning the Company, jeopardising Cameron's safety yet again.
And, of course, no mention had been made that a certain engineer would be his cellmate.
Michael had been absent when Mahone had woken that morning. The ruckus the man made before they were let out of their cells had come to be a reliable alarm clock. Today, however, Michael had quieted down to the point where Mahone had slept in. Mahone suspected that it had been deliberate on his part.
Draping himself facedown on his bunk, he pushed the cryptograms onto the floor. However much he hated Michael, he couldn't stand being alone with himself more.
Adding the time he'd been in the infirmary, he hadn't been outside in four days. It was a remnant of his childhood that he was past the point of going stir crazy. Long stretches of time spent indoors always reminded him of the days when he'd been locked up inside his room for one misdemeanour after another. Memories of cowering on his bed each night, helpless and scared, as the front door had opened and his father had returned home from work always goaded his claustrophobia.
It was a weakness that irritated him. And he was irritated – irritated that Warden Beltrov had punished him for defending himself. Irritated that the other inmates were still looking to make him the prison bitch.
And irritated at the likelihood that Michael and Jack were currently discussing a plan that would drag him back into the mess he wanted to leave behind.
A roar of metal stirred Mahone awake. He yawned, half-imagining that his cell door was rolling back from the wall. It wasn't until the lights went dead that he jerked upright.
"Back into your cells, cons!"
The bellowed order reverberated throughout the cell block, snapping Mahone into reality. Limping to his open cell entrance, his eyes widened as he was greeted by the sight of dozens of inmates spilling across the floor. Their masses were surrounding the five lone guards on duty.
Every other cell in sight had been unlocked. More prisoners were materializing on the two upper tiers. Backing against each other, the guards were looking tinier and more vulnerable by the second.
"I said back into your –"
Mahone felt the agent in him take over as an inmate grabbed a baton from the guard in charge and swung it back into his ribcage. He ducked back into his cell as shrieks and catcalls assaulted his ears. Picking apart his bunk and searching through his possessions, his eyes roved for a weapon.
Something on the sink counter caught his eye. Sweeping the rest of the items onto the ground, he picked up Michael's razor blade. As he ran its edge over his thumb before stuffing it into his trouser pocket, satisfied that it hadn't been dulled to the point of uselessness, he heard the low rumbling of his cell door behind him.
He spun around in time to see the door beginning to lock into place. Diving forward, he made it out just before it closed completely.
It was only as he stood on the second row landing, eyeing the chaos of the attack on the guards below and the efforts of the smarter cons in breaking out of the cell block, that he swore at his gut instinct. It had overridden what his common sense had told him – that straying out of his cell would get him killed.
Except something more was going on. And on the exact date that Jack had chosen to visit.
Running down the row and descending the stairs, he reached the thick of the mob just as the barrier between the cell block and the main hallway submitted to the prisoners throwing themselves against it. The relative darkness helped him blend in as gleeful shouts filled the air.
"Where are you?" he muttered, remaining behind and searching the walls as his fellow inmates began to flee. "Come on –"
At the same time that the narrow corridor on his radar came into view, a hand snaked around his ankle. He glanced down, ready to defend himself for all he was worth. His impulse to kick out was tempered as he recognised a guard's battered visage.
"Help me," the man implored, staring up at Mahone through twin black eyes. "Please – help."
Attempting to drag himself up by clutching at Mahone's leg, the guard soon gave up and sank back onto the ground. Mahone stared. His gaze veered from the pathetic creature before him to the four other guards lying nearby in various states of unconsciousness, one still being pummelled by an inmate. He glanced back towards the corridor with equal ambivalence.
Of course it wasn't right to leave any of the guards behind. By that same measure, however, he couldn't hope to drag all of them to safety without attracting attention.
Racking his brain to come to a decision, he had a mad thought back to his Division 5 days. Morality had been so much easier then – he had never been allowed to utilise it. It had always been about following orders. Even going into the FBI, he had chosen to specialise in an area where the line between good and bad was as clear-cut as it could be, and where, for the most part, he could do as he was told without placing innocent lives in danger.
Machine gun fire interrupted his flow of thought.
If Mahone had doused himself with enough denial to ignore the Company's signature practices, the blare of its elite strike team's signature Uzis brought him back to earth even harder. He grappled to control his panic as feral cries and the sound of bodies hitting the ground echoed back into the cell block from outside.
Bending down to the guard at his feet, he gritted, "Get up."
The man groaned as Mahone draped the arm that appeared to be the least torn up around his shoulder. Wincing as he was forced to favour his left leg and endure the pain that shot through his bandaged wound, he staggered with the guard across the floor and down the hallway he had spotted earlier.
It was the same corridor he had been dragged through the last time he'd seen Jack. Though it lay off in a corner practically invisible in light of the main entrance to the cell block, Mahone knew it was only a matter of time before prisoners were driven back inside by the gunfire and impelled to use a new exit.
Reaching the end of the hallway, he dumped the guard on the floor and inspected the gateway blocking them from the transfer room. It had two doors – one metal-barred and one solid. Grasping the knob of the former, he wasn't surprised to find it was locked.
"Hey." He slapped the guard's cheeks, pulling him out of his groggy stupor. "Still trying to save your life here, pal. Work with me."
The guard's eyes widened as Mahone seized his lower chin and turned his head towards the door. Catching on to what was needed, the man struggled to work his throat.
"Front pocket. Inside – inside my jacket." Ferreting around where he'd been pointed to, Mahone produced a set of keys. The guard caught his hand as he retracted it, however, shaking his head. "You can't – you need someone else – the other door doesn't – it doesn't –"
"Doesn't what? Hey. What doesn't it – son of a bitch."
Mahone leaned back on his haunches, swearing as the guard flopped against the wall. Returning to the barred door, he set about testing each key. When he succeeded in unlocking the first door, however, it became apparent what the guard had been referring to.
The second door had no handle.
"Son of a bitch!" he exclaimed, pounding on the bare surface. "Hey! If anyone can hear me, there's a guard down over here and four more outside. Open up!"
He could make out footsteps on the other side of the door. Despite that, nobody responded. Just as he resolved to go back and retrieve the rest of the guards, the last voice he wanted or expected to hear called his name out to him.
Raising his eyes to the ceiling, asking how much more could go wrong, he replied, "Michael?"
"What's going on? I was waiting for Jack, but armed commandos showed up instead. I only just got out."
"I don't know. Look, would you open the door?" There was a pause as Mahone hoisted the inert guard around his shoulders again. "Michael?"
"It's funny how one night ago you bargained never to have anything to do with me or doing the right thing again, yet today you're so eager to help out the guards and get out of the crossfire at the same time."
Mahone nearly dropped the guard in his anger.
"You pathetic moron – Michael, any other day you can throw that back into my face. But right now I am telling you that there are guards out here who need our help. Open the damn door!"
"Let me guess. All of them are too beaten up to verify that what you're saying is actually true."
"I swear to God, I will kill you if you don't –"
"Attention, inmates Alexander Mahone and Michael Scofield."
Mahone froze as a voice quite removed from the usual robotic monotone came forth over the speaker system. Before he could make sense of it, the message was punctuated in perfect rhythm by a gun shot, and the thud of a body.
Adrenaline surged through his veins as a struggle erupted through the intercom. Beltrov's cries died abruptly, and the calm voice resumed command of the speakers. By the time the man had finished reeling out his demands, Mahone was banging on the door again.
"That good enough for you, Siegfried?"
The crank of an unfastening metal bolt answered him. Retreating a few steps, he watched as the door swung outwards, revealing his cellmate. Michael's wary expression fell away as he caught sight of the guard.
"Idiot," clenched out Mahone, his supporting shoulder starting to go numb. "Take his other side."
Michael did so, looping the guard through his arm and helping to carry him towards a bench against the wall. Dropping the man onto it, Mahone wasted no time in hurrying back to the two doors. Belying his haste, he shut both of the barriers and locked them instead of returning to the cell block.
When he turned back around, Michael's eyes were seared with animosity.
"The other guards matter a whole lot less now, huh?" When Mahone ignored him, sweeping towards the south-side exit of the transfer room, Michael stepped sideways, blocking his path. "Where are you going, Alex?"
"I'll give you a hint. Not the east wing."
"Are you out of your mind?" Michael was whispering as though they were already surrounded. "You heard what they just said – what they just did. They have hostages … they have Jack … Alex, you are not doing this."
Mahone flinched as his cellmate planted a hand on his chest. Slowly meeting Michael's gaze, he hissed, "Do what you want. I am not sticking around to try and be the hero, do you understand me?"
"I can't let you walk away."
"I invite you to give me another option," Mahone said, sneering. "Get out of my way, Michael. Get out of my way, or I will make you –"
The fist came out of nowhere. Even though Michael had moved fast enough to catch him off guard, Mahone still managed to dodge the blow. Trapping Michael's arm in an iron grip, he rammed his cellmate's knee, off-balancing him, before throwing him over his shoulder.
Michael made no noise as he crashed onto the floor. His mouth pressed into a thin line of pain as he rolled onto his back. Mahone leaned over his body, eyes blazing.
"You're trying to save lives, and I respect you for it," he snarled. "But don't you ever try to pull that again."
"If you leave, you'll have innocent blood on your hands. You'll be signing Jack's death warrant. After everything he's done for you."
"God, Michael – that's how they want you to think. Giving ourselves up won't do anything. They're going to kill every last captive no matter what we do."
"You're conjecturing!"
"Because I'm trying to save my own skin?" Mahone yelled back. "I'm not making excuses – I'm telling you the truth, and you should know that. Has it slipped your mind that easily? How the Company likes to tie up loose ends? They didn't order me to put the cons you broke out into the ground so they could give me a medal afterwards!"
Fury crossing his features, Michael came at Mahone again, only to have Mahone's foot slam him back onto the ground.
"Point made. End of discussion."
"Alex!" Michael sat up as Mahone turned away and continued towards the south-side exit. "I do remember. I remember the last time you tried to run from the Company. They killed your wife for it."
Mahone went rigid. Facing Michael once more, he barely managed to speak through his rage.
"What did you just say?"
"And they'll get to Cameron as well," Michael continued, struggling to his feet with one hand clutched to his chest. "But go ahead. Try to get to him first."
Advancing closer, Mahone halted with as much spontaneity when the low rattling of rubber against concrete reached his ears. Michael took heed of his expression and made to question him, only to be cut off by a deep, amused growl.
"Well, if my ten grand ain't fightin' with my all-expenses-paid airplane ride out of the country."
Mahone went for the razor in his hip pocket as no less than a dozen prisoners emerged from the doorway adjacent to the cell block exit.
Following Mahone's look, Michael retreated along with him. Instead of demonstrating any awareness that the rattling noises hadn't stopped, he addressed the man standing front row and centre.
"Elkins, you know as well as I do that you can't take these people at their word. The minute you show up with us, they'll put a bullet in your head."
"Shut it, Scofield," replied the massive inmate, shooting a warning glare at Mahone at the same time. "And you – pull a knife on me this round and I'll have to reconsider handing you over alive. No guards or bars holding me back now."
Mahone tore his eyes away, roving the area as Michael persisted with his entreaty. Turning a deaf ear and mistaking Mahone's distractedness for surrender, Elkins nodded at his cronies to restrain them.
"I respect what you represent, man, but I ain't about to pass up the chance to skip over the rest of my life sentence, get me?"
"Maybe you didn't understand me. There is no way they're going to –"
Grabbing Michael by the neck, Mahone ended the possibility of further confrontation by wrenching him to the floor. The other inmates had no time to react before the blast of pressurized fumes escaping their confines burst through the room. Moments later, the tear gas pouring from multiple canisters was toppling them over each other.
Eyes welded shut, Mahone dragged his cellmate away from the onslaught. Michael marred his efforts by shifting like a dead weight. Opening his eyes a fraction, Mahone glimpsed a tranq dart lodged in Michael's forearm, and an accompanying limpness in his drooping head.
It was only then that he registered the stinging in his own arm.
"They led us right to the targets," a disjointed voice called through the fog. "We have two confirmed visuals, sir. Both disengaged."
The gas-masked agent paid dearly for his presumptuousness when Mahone lashed out, tripping his feet out from under him and sending him to the ground.
He lunged for the man's throat. A sudden nauseousness hit his body as he struck, however, and he missed completely as his vision went blurry. Overwhelmed by the fatigue gaining control of his muscles, he collapsed onto his side.
More Company picked their way through the mass of unconscious inmates as Mahone battled to stay awake. Michael was lifted up next to him and dragged away. He prepared to fend off the agents reaching for himself with as much savageness as he could muster.
The halo of masked men chose to split apart at the last second. Blinking rapidly to keep himself alert, Mahone saw a shotgun-bearing agent with tufts of copper hair poking through his gas mask strolling towards him from the south-side exit.
Directly behind him were two more agents. Each carried one end of the body of a curly-haired, and dead, woman. Mahone tasted bile as they stopped in front of him.
"Where's Jack?" he asked, unable to look away from the woman's empty visage.
The copper-haired man tilted his head to the side, silent. He placed his weapon on a nearby table as Mahone's senses grew even fainter.
"Are you afraid you'll be lacking for company on the trip down?" the leader replied at last. "Here. Allow me to dispel that particular anxiety for you."
Mahone felt the syringe stab into his neck before he saw it. Doubling over, he let out a vexed breath, blindsided by the familiarity of the rush that enveloped him. Despite his best efforts, the peace offered by the substance was too tempting.
He succumbed.
"Le doy un aviso. Quedense por atras!"
Mahone hurtled out of his oblivion as something exploded over the top of his head.
Eyes opening wide, he jerked backwards as the shouts emanating from only a few feet away heightened in volume. Moving on instinct, he barely managed to roll out of the way in time before the door in front of him blew inwards. The darkness of the room he'd woken up in gave way to an agonising light, and he shielded his face with his hands, head pounding.
"Policia! No te mueves! Pon tus manos en tu cabeza!"
Uniformed officers with assault rifles were storming through the gutted doorway. At the same time that Mahone realised he couldn't understand what was being screamed at him due to the fact it was in Spanish – as opposed to gibberish as he'd first assumed – he was tackled facedown onto a moth-eaten carpet.
The daze resonating through him would have succeeded in holding his tongue if handcuffs hadn't been clamped around his wrists a second later.
"What the hell is going on?" he roared. A horrible burning welled in the back of his throat, and he hack coughed. "Who are –"
He broke off as more light flooded the room. Squinting against the glare, he gradually bore into focus his dilapidated surroundings. The place was cramped and unfurnished, save for three wooden tables stacked high with duffel bags. He could also see corkboards hanging from the wall opposite him, blanketed with papers.
One of the officers zipped open a bag, and Mahone craned his neck to make out what was inside. He was hoisted around and shoved over the collapsed door before he could get a good look, however, and finally recalling the events preceding his capture, he lost it.
"Espere un momento."
Mahone continued to struggle as the men restraining him paused at the order. A grey-haired officer stepped up from behind them. His weathered face was grave as he nodded to Mahone's left. His colleagues dumped their charge on a chair against the wall, and Mahone yelled as his head was yanked back. A flashlight shone into his eyes.
"Como te llamas?" the senior officer went on, lowering the flashlight. "De donde eres? Eh? Me entiende?"
Catching the last word, Mahone said, "No. No entiendo. Ingles!"
"Estadounidense," said the officer over his shoulder, and one of his men hurried out of the room. Mahone opened his mouth furiously, but his interrogator raised a hand. "Why are you out from America?"
"Come again?" rasped Mahone. "This is another one of the Company's sick tests, isn't it?" He swivelled his gaze across the ceiling. "If you touch my son, Ryan, I promise you that I won't rest until I kill you. Do you hear me?"
The senior officer's expression didn't change as Mahone was forced back into his seat.
"You understand where you are?"
"No," Mahone replied, grinding his teeth together. "But I was in Detroit. This morning – or yesterday morning, or two mornings ago – I was in Detroit. I don't know how long it's been. People kidnapped me. Killed others. They might have gone after my son. Hey, are you even listening? I need to get back!"
The officer who had earlier been searching the duffel bags was whispering into his superior's ear. Mahone glared as the man passed over several papers. Rifling through them, the senior officer murmured, "Alexander Mahone?"
Mahone reined in his expression until it was as blank as the other man's. "And if I am?"
"La piedra," the second officer said, pointing back to the tables. "Y implementos para el uso de drogas."
"Si." Flicking a hand upwards, the senior officer stood. "Es todo, Senor Mahone. You are under arrest."
"Wait – what?"
Mahone was hauled out of his chair. His attempts to further defend himself were circumvented as he stumbled, another wave of dizziness hitting him. The senior officer looked disgusted as he was pulled upright again.
"Que pasa? You are having delusions because you are high? More disgusting than I thought. We are done."
"What? No, you've got it all wrong, pal. I'm like this because the people who landed me here –"
Glancing over at the tables, Mahone's words caught. The other officers in the room had sorted through the contents of the duffel bags by piling them on top of each other like an illicit brick wall. The sight of it provided an answer for Mahone that defied words.
"Where am I?" he asked, blood running cold. "What is this? What country is this?"
Contempt laced the senior officer's response. Mahone was led out of the room before he could digest the news.
Instead of approaching anything close to stability over the next few hours, Mahone's condition worsened. By the time he had been driven to a local police station and had his photo and prints taken, he had stopped imploring for someone to call the Chicago FBI field office, well and truly believing that he had broken from reality.
It was only when he was taken out of his holding cell to meet with an embassy representative that the Company's deceit hit home.
A tip-off had come in earlier that day leading to Mahone's address. The police who had taken him into custody had found enough crack cocaine in his possession to put him away for twenty years in America, and even longer in Panama. Coupled with the route maps and documents certifying his ownership of a truck that had been unearthed pre-loaded with even more duffel bags, it was an open and shut case.
"You don't even realise how impossible that is. You follow American news, right? Fox River? The fact that … that I have been in custody for the last seven weeks … it should have come up at one point. How could I be freelancing for a Panamanian drug cartel when I've been in prison two thousand miles away?"
The embassy representative was unsympathetic. By the time she departed, she had jettisoned every one of Mahone's proposed avenues for returning home. Her assurances of landing him a court date within the next few days were less than half-hearted.
Night time and rain had begun to fall when Mahone left the police station. Shock ruled out discerning how long it was before the transport van stopped again. Climbing out into mud, he stared at the massive building in front of him. Another van had parked up ahead.
A small local man was being dragged, wailing at the top of his lungs, out of the vehicle and towards the building's iron-wrought entrance. Though Mahone couldn't understand the man's Spanish, his terrified countenance was enough. It was fear borne out of foreknowledge of something with a reputation one step below death's.
Mahone stood motionless as his fellow prisoner disappeared behind the iron gates. Instead of being hustled in the same direction, he was prodded the opposite way until he came to a halt before an arched door. The steel around his wrists was released.
"At end of hallway – go through left door," instructed one of the guards flanking him. "Buena suerte, senor."
The first thing that struck Mahone as the door locked into place behind him was the quiet. Trying to hold onto his wits, he straightened his shoulders and strode forward without sparing a glance at the other inmates dotting the corridor. None of them made a sound. They simply leered.
A scowling man wearing a long-bladed machete on his hip gave Mahone a once over as he came near. Mahone tensed as the man stepped in front of him. However, the man gestured to the door he had been leaning against, and understanding, Mahone opened it and entered.
Though ramshackle to the point of decay, the pulpit at the far end of the room and the aligned benches throughout made obvious its function. A hunched figure sat hugging its knees in the front row. An ancient-looking projector and a dusty screen completed the funereal picture.
"Sit," the machete-wielding man ordered. When Mahone reached the front row and obeyed, the man turned to the projector. "Now wait."
Mahone half-considered snapping the man's neck. Thinking better of it, he instead appraised the room for potential weapons. His eyes glided over the quietly sobbing person cradled on the other end of the bench as he did so.
And then he looked again.
"Michael?"
His cellmate hadn't once crossed his mind since he'd last seen him. Things had happened too quickly for him to grasp anyone else's situation but his own. Seeing Michael cowering and unresponsive, however, his last hope that it was still possible for him to wake from his nightmare disintegrated.
"Michael," he repeated, sliding down the bench until he was next to his cellmate. Peering back towards the projector and garnering no objection from the machete-wielding man, he said in a louder voice, "Michael. Talk to me, you son of a bitch. Look at me. What the hell is wrong with you!"
Gasping when Mahone seized his arm and shook him, Michael finally gazed up from between his knees.
"Don't," he stammered, eyes wide and darting. "Don't. Please. Don't. Please."
Mahone drew back as Michael repeated the plea with increasing panic. He didn't know what to feel more mortified at – that the mastermind he had only ever seen calm and collected was for all intents and purposes suffering a nervous breakdown, or that he was broken enough to allow the man he hated to witness it.
Dropping a few decibels, he hissed, "Listen. Just listen, Michael. I know you'd probably rather kill me, and I'd prefer that to this, but you need to tell me what they did to you."
Michael's rapid breaths levelled out. Wiping his face, he shook his head at Mahone, comprehending who he was. It took him another moment to speak.
"They murdered her."
"I know," replied Mahone, deflating. "I saw her body, too."
"Not her!" Michael snapped, a darkness Mahone had never seen before taking over the hazel in his eyes. "Not just her. They grabbed someone else. Living off the street. A girl. Younger than LJ. And they – when she … oh God, Alex. They put a gun to her temple … pulled the trigger right in front of me. All of it –"
Mahone was stoic as Michael's hands began to shake. The younger man didn't need to say more for the blanks to be filled in, but he did, whimpering into his shirt sleeve.
"It's all my fault."
Unable and unwilling to offer any words of appeasement, Mahone merely sighed as Michael returned his head to his knees. A few minutes of taciturn dread passed.
At last, the projector blared to life, spilling light onto the screen hanging before them. The machete-wielding man walked away without uttering a word. Mahone turned to watch him go. He grimaced as he heard the click of the church door's lock.
The screen ran bare for an eternity. It was only when Michael raised his head, swollen eyes narrowed, that Mahone got to his feet and checked the projector. Just when his fingers touched the ancient device, lettering appeared across the screen.
Confidential: level 5 clearance and above only. Authorised access for outside personnel only. #940F: ALM and MTS.
Mahone shared a look with Michael as the message faded, both of them unable to change that their fates were about to be determined together. Sitting again and giving his attention back to the screen, Mahone swallowed hard as a handsome face framed by a blank wall came into view.
It was the same one that had plagued his dreams for as long as he could remember.
"Hi, Alex," the man said, brushing hair out of his face with a small grin. "Can I just say first – thanks for handing me the promotion. I can only hope to take that as your first step towards forgiving me for eliminating Pamela."
Heat rising in his face, Mahone didn't blink as he saw Michael glance at him from the corner of his eye. The man on the screen cleared his throat.
"But of course – Michael. You don't know who I am, and I doubt Alex has been sharing bedtime stories about me. My name is Ryan Kingswood. And for the last two months, I've been in charge of systematically destroying your life and Alex's to the point where you both have no choice but to help me."
Michael's mouth parted slightly as the smile on the edges of Ryan's own faded.
"Introductions aside. Before either of you decide that I'm beyond trusting – well, I guess I'm not in the best position for you to hear me out. That's okay. That makes sense. Especially since neither of you have anybody to trust. Not anymore."
The camera panned out, shrinking Ryan onto one side of the screen. Another figure seated next to him came into focus.
Mahone felt the hatred simmering at his core give way to raw horror as he recognised the individual. Though he had every reason to be, the man appeared no more under duress than Ryan did. The clean-cut suit he had been attired with the last time Mahone had seen him was unmistakeable.
"There's a reason I've kept things from both of you," murmured Jack, face devoid of emotion. "The plan. Sona Penitentiary. This is where things have been heading – one was part of the other all along. Alex … Michael … you wanted to know what Sona and the plan were. Now you're right in the middle of both."