Chapter 3: The Two Henry Gales

Charlie stares at me in disbelief. "'Scuse me?"

"The Others. That's what they call you. You're the Oceanic survivors. The murderers."

"That's a bit rich coming from..."

"Ethan, Goodwin, Colleen... All the people you've killed. You would have done the same to Ben if he hadn't escaped."

"Ben?", says Sayid. Oh, nicely done, Jen. "Thankyou. I didn't know his real name. We only knew him as Henry Gale."

"What?"

"He told us he was from Minnesota and that his balloon crashed on the island. Rather a familiar story, don't you think?"

"No, no, you've got it wrong," I start, frantically shaking my head. "Henry was..."

"He mentioned a Jennifer. His wife. He said she died of a fever days after the crash."

I remember what Ben told me about these people. Never trust them. Never believe them. They always lie. I have no idea how they found out about Henry, but this is just an attempt to confuse me, to try and make me give something away. "It won't work, you know," I say defiantly.

"What won't?"

"All this, all these lies about my Henry, about Ben. It wouldn't fool a five-year-old. If these are your tactics, no wonder Ben isn't losing sleep over you."

"And you'd know, would you?", Sayid asks, raising an eyebrow. "What's your maiden name, Jennifer?"

"Murphy. Why?"

"And where did you meet your husband?"

"University of Minnesota. What has this...?"

"It's all sounding a little too familiar, isn't it?", Sayid says to Charlie.

"That's what he told us," says Charlie. "or so I heard, anyway. Stuck to his story for ages, even after..." He glances at Sayid, who silences him with a glare.

"He even drew us a map to the crash site," Sayid continues. "The balloon wasn't the only thing we found there. A man's body, buried in a shallow grave. He had a licence in the name of Henry Gale."

"I know that. My husband. He died in the crash."

"Oh he did, did he? Then can you explain to me how he managed to write a note to his wife, despite being dead?"

It must be ninety degrees out here and yet I still turn cold.

"We found it in his wallet," Sayid continues, a trace of smugness crossing his features, "written on a twenty-dollar bill."

"You're lying," I tell him, more to convince myself than him. "You're lying!"

"We are not the liars here."

"All right then," I say, looking Sayid squarely in the eye. "Show me. Show me Henry's licence. Show me the note."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"It was lost."

Sayid may be a thoroughly frightening interrogator, but lying clearly isn't his forte. "How convenient," I snap, with a mirthless laugh. "I'm going to make a wild stab in the dark here, Sayid, and put it to you that your twenty-dollar bill never existed in the first place."

"I can assure you that it existed."

"But it got lost."

"Yes."

"Well have you tried retracing your steps?" It must be the fear making me giddy and somehow confident enough to provoke him. Thankfully he does not rise to it.

"Look, we're getting nowhere here," Charlie says resignedly. "Let's just take her back to the beach and figre out how to deal with this."

"Take her back to the camp?", Sayid asks incredulously.

"She's tied up, what harm can she do? Look, I've got to get back to Claire. Are you coming or what?"

Sayid pauses for a moment, then walks around the tree behind me. A moment later, I feel the ropes dropping from my wrists, then a rough hand on my arm as he pulls me to my feet. "I wouldn't try to run," he warns, before pushing me ahead of him in the direction of the beach.