HAUNTED SONA

CHAPTER THREE

"Where's that coming from, that music?"

Michael would have known that voice anywhere. It confused him to hear it now, particularly because lately it had seemed that he would never hear it again. But he asked no questions and sought no explanations. He just turned over onto his side and smiled when he saw her there at his side.

Sara. His Sara.

"I don't know," he replied, listening to the elegant strains of a piano concerto. "Classical."

"Mmmm. Maybe it's angels—playing just for us," Sara teased.

"Sounds about right to me."

He laughed with her. Briefly, he glanced around.

What was going on here? Only seconds earlier, moments, he'd been in that Panamanian prison. It was dark, dank, and so hot that the sweat dripped off him. In spite of the heat he'd tried to fall asleep. That was his way of escaping that place, even if it was just for an hour or two.

Now, somehow, he found himself sprawled out leisurely on a white sand beach. A strip of land marked by the sparse palms that swayed with the gentle tropical breezes. The white-foamed tide came in and out, ebbing rhythmically, seemingly in time with the wind. The water, like the sky, was clear. He breathed, his lungs filling with the scent of the ocean and the flowery fragrance of Sara's shampoo.

And, oh, yes—they were naked. Michael wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing and neither was Sara. He couldn't explain what was happening, but he knew he wanted that hour to last, to stretch to the very end of his life.

"You're safe here, Michael," Sara murmured, absently curling locks of her long hair around her finger. He mused to himself that she looked like a sweet teenager. "No one could find us if they tried."

He was almost afraid to ask the question gnawing at him. "Are we free, though?"

"No, Michael. Baby, you're not free yet. Soon. Very soon. I promise."

She didn't need to promise. Her word, as far as he was concerned, was gold. Yet it gave him a sense of peace, hearing her say those words to him. She leaned in closer and he responded, taking his time kissing her.

"Make love to me again," she urged him. "I want us to enjoy each other one more time. I want you so much, Michael."

"I want you, too, Sara."

Again? When had he made love to her the first time? There was no way something like that—being intimate with the woman who'd changed him forever—could have ever slipped his mind. But since nothing was making sense anyway, he assumed he was going through some sort of psychological episode. Maybe his time in Sona had lasted longer than anyone would have foreseen; maybe there'd been traumatic experiences and his mind had blacked them out, but the same mechanism that had done that had also blocked out memories he preferred to hold and cherish.

Whichever the case, Michael didn't dwell on it. He took her in his arms and pressed her against him, the heat of her body both arousing him and healing him.

Little kisses were shared between them. Soft, little kisses that led to deeper, more intimate and passionate ones. The kind that made conversation unnecessary. He stopped solely to gaze at her, to study her face, her smile that always seemed to belong to him.

Then Sara ended a kiss and propped herself up on her elbow and said, "Michael—Michael. You have to get up. Don't you hear that?"

"Don't I hear what?"

There was a problem? Sure, the music was louder. More staccato. It became worse from one moment to the next, as if the pianist were banging violently on the piano's keys.

"Michael, don't you hear that? Get up!" Sara said, her voice deepening unnaturally until she sounded like a man. "Come on, Scofield! Get up!"

Scofield? Since when did Sara—

Michael rolled over onto his back. He opened his eyes and had to catch his breath from the unexpected onslaught of disappointment when he saw that the beach was gone…the tropical breeze was cruelly replaced by a suffocating swelter…the ocean was nowhere in sight.

Worse still, Sara had disappeared. Funny, how he could literally feel a painful tear in his heart. He was back in Sona, that lonely place the rest of the world had either forgotten or thrown away. Hovering over him, instead of his Sara, were Bellick and Mahone. The former Fox River prison guard stood behind the former rogue lawman, frowning curiously at Michael over Mahone's shoulder. Alex had stripped off his jacket, presumably due to the unbearable heat, and his sweat-moistened shirt clung against the expanse of his chest.

"What do you two want?" Michael demanded gruffly, swinging his feet onto the floor.

They were interrupted by the strangest sound. A blood-chilling wail, a cry. Male or female—it was hard to tell which. The cry was followed by another sound, something best described as the low, monstrous growl of a predatory animal.

"What the hell's that?" Michael asked.

"That's what I'd like to know," Alex muttered.

Bellick turned pale. "They're ghosts. You hear them, too?"

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Michael rose to his feet. "Kinda hard not to hear them, don't you think?"

"Some people—some people don't hear them. But you do and we do. So that's good."

"I guess." Mahone looked from Bellick to Michael and rolled his eyes, as if to say, Can you believe this guy's serious?

"Well, uh…probably just the other men," Michael suggested. "Maybe they're trying to scare us."

"Nuh-uh, Scofield. T-Bag saw them."

"Saw who?"

"The spirits. What do you think did that to his face?" Bellick shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The corner of his bottom list was crusted with dried blood. "He hasn't been the same since, either."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

That got a jump out of Michael. He was quick to note that the only one more embarrassed than he was was Mahone. That one had jumped with just as much raw fear. Recovering, Alex stood up straight and threw back his shoulders. He donned his trademark I'm-a-fearless-macho-nothing-fazes-me stance.

"That was nothin'," he snapped coolly at Michael.

Bellick, on the contrary, wouldn't be so easily convinced. "That was somethin', all right. Somethin' dead…that won't stay dead."

Though those words hinted at humor, Michael could clearly see that Bellick was anything but amused. Problem was, Michael was already up. Between that dream that had seemed so real, bringing Sara to him if only in the realm of sleep, and whatever those unearthly noises were, Michael knew he wouldn't be drifting right back off to sleep anytime soon. Slipping out of his jacket, he tossed it aside and led the way to the door.

"Let's take a walk. Shall we?" He offered Bellick a halfhearted grin. "Sorry, Bellick. I don't believe in ghosts. There's gotta be a rationale explanation for what happened. My guess is it's probably something we'd rather not know about anyway."

He noticed Brad Bellick walked beside him, but a morose Mahone trailed behind, stubbornly refusing to look at him for the most part. His hand was shaking at his side and he appeared pretty wired, despite how late it was.

"You okay, Alex?" Michael asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine," the man answered abruptly.

"Sure? You don't look too good."

"I said I'm fine. What do you want? A note from my mom?" Alex snarled. "I don't believe in ghosts, either. But apparently I have one tagging along with me wherever I go here."

"Ah. That's nice." Michael turned around, hiding a bemused smile. "A pet ghost. Did he get off his leash? It's that what's making all that noise?"

"No, smartass. I'm not the one who says I have a ghost. El Cura says that."

"Who's El Cura?"

"Sona's resident psychic. He didn't ask to speak to you?"

"No, not yet. I haven't had the pleasure."

"Oh. Tsk, tsk. I guess you don't rate."

"I guess not."

Alex tossed his head with annoyance. "He says I have a ghost. Good or bad, who knows? Jury's still out on that. And he says you have an angel watching over you."

Michael glanced back at him. "An angel?"

"An angel that's not doing much of a good job," Bellick noted aloud. Suddenly he stopped, pressing a hand to Michael's shoulder. "That way. The noises were coming from down there. Listen—you can still hear something."

They had walked down a flight of stairs and down a corridor that, up until then, Michael hadn't been to before. Maybe it was because he'd been roughly awakened from a dream that had saved him, if only for such a short time, from that place, where he'd been in a romantic setting with Sara, but he was now keenly aware of his hatred for Sona. As bad as things had gotten in Fox River, he couldn't recall ever having loathed it quite as acutely as this place.

Yet that section of it, so dark and desolate, stirred his fear more than his hatred. There was enough light that they could see a steel door at the end of the corridor. As Bellick had said, there were noises coming from it. Voices, though Michael couldn't quite make out what was being said.

"I don't know about this," Michael said. "Going down there. What if it's a trap? Somebody's trying to lure us?"

All three turned at a mechanical sound, one that was very familiar.

It was the sound of an elevator moving. And then the door at the end of the hallway opened loudly—sliding open…just like an elevator. Out poured beams of light, so bright they almost seemed to be an aura around the door.

"It's like they want us to go," Alex whispered, his voice shaky. "They're calling us…"