Chapter Four

A Traitor's Punishment

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I'm sorry it's such a short chapter... I hope it has enough substance for you all!

The entire way back to my cell, I was silent. All I could hear were Beckett's final words, repeating inside my head.

We have a deal, Miss Werden. Your only punishment is to be next to the cell of the man who's heart you are to break.

Then his voice lowered and became as hard as stone.

You can always back out.

I couldn't. I had to save myself and Will at any cost. Will may or may not be in the deal, and that made me more terrified than sleeping with a man to save myself ever could.

I was going into this on complete blind faith, or lack thereof. I had guaranteed myself immunity from being burned tomorrow, but Will still very well could be hanged. Beckett had never promised that Will was included in our deal. He had only asked questions, which may or may not have been hypothetical, about how I would feel.

It made me wonder what was going on in the mind of that madman. Was he asking those questions to make me squirm and make the day even more agonizing than I ever thought possible, or was he taking my questions into consideration?

It made me second-guess everything that I said to Beckett. It took the soldiers' footsteps and my willpower not to race back to Beckett's office and beg to include Will in our deal.

Questioning had been exactly what I thought it would be: it made me second-guess everything I said, and it made me terrified.

I felt sick once I realized that we were near the end of our journey in the corridors of the prison. I would have to see Will again – the man who may or may not be alive tomorrow, the only one alive who I knew I could trust, and whose heart I was going to break, irregardless of his fate.

I knew that Will's heart was not the only one I would be breaking in the process. I was going to break my own. I would burn a bridge with the same two people. We would become two islands that were once together, forced apart by nature.

Our walk down the corridors of the prison were over, and the jail cells were before us. My heart beat rapidly in my chest for fear of seeing Will. I couldn't bear to look at him. All I would be able to think about was what I would do to him, and that what I would do might not even help him.

The sixth cell from the back had the curly hair of Will, his back towards me. It made me feel like he already knew what had happened, like Beckett and I had talked in my cell. I felt as alone as if it already happened – what was the difference?

The doors stopped at my cell, the fifth cell from the back. One of the soldiers dug the key out of his coat pocket and put it in the lock. The cell unlocked loudly and opened squeakily.

Will, snapping out of his thoughts, turned his head quickly. In the brief time that I was gone, he looked like he had aged ten years, solely out of worry.

I wanted to cry. I could feel a lump constricting my throat, and my face getting hot.

"Christine," he said, instant fear in his voice.

His tone matched my thoughts.

I walked into my cell, still shackle-free. The door was quickly closed and locked behind me. I went to meet Will where our cells met. His face was absolutely panicked, and he looked terrified for my fate. He was expecting the worst, the fate that I had expected he was given.

His brown eyes were hard, and it was a look I never thought I could see on Will. It was a look a husband gives a wife when she comes home sobbing and she refuses to tell him. The husband knows the wife is in distress, and wants to help, but doesn't know how – and he's terrified it's about him. I couldn't believe that look was given towards me – a traitor.

"Christine, please don't tell me that you're to die tomorrow," he said, his hands gripped on the bars.

I gripped his wrists and drew my lips into a thin line, trying not cry. That look of Will's was like nothing I could ever imagine seeing on him, and it broke my heart.

A sob racketed through my body, and I felt the tears rush down my hot cheeks. It was too much – the guilt, the fear of Will not being as lucky as I... everything.

I truly was a traitor, and I didn't deserve a get-out-of-jail-free card.

I couldn't bear to look at Will. My gaze diverted to the floor. I had to lie.

I sniffled, and my eyes already hurt from the tears. That was what hurt least.

"Yes," I said.

I would do ten times the damage in the next few days if I was lucky. A white lie now wouldn't hurt.

"Yes," I repeated. "Burned at the stake. A traitor's punishment."

I still kept my eyes shut, the tears streaming down my cheeks. Will was silent. It was painful, yet it was still not what hurt the most.

"Oh, God..." Will said. "No..."

"I know," I said, shaking my head. "I know."

I swallowed, my throat thick.

"I don't know if I'll feel better to hear that you're the owner of the same fate," I said. "I'll feel some consolation in death if we'll be parted only briefly."

It shocked me how easily that came out.

"We will be," he said, resigned.

Beckett – that bastard. He needed to let Will go.

"But I don't want to be parted like this," he said. His voice was now much harder, much more angry.

I willed myself to open my eyes and meet his. My tears weren't residing, but I was realizing that Will might not be around for more than a day, and it would only selfish to try and avoid his gaze. I had brought it upon myself.

One of Will's hands went from the bar to my cheek, still wet with tears. I looked at him with gut-wrenching guilt. Even now, he was only thinking of me.

"You're the innocent one, and you're to die a worse death than me," he said softly, a sick combination of disgust and love in his voice. "How can that be?"

I shook my head in a refusal to speak and shrugged. "I don't know," I whispered.

I looked into Will's chocolate brown eyes. I closed my eyes for a moment and winced at the thought that this might be our final day together. Again, I found myself hating Beckett for not securing Will in the deal, and disgusted with myself for not making sure it happened.

"We have one day," Will said, his voice still soft.

I didn't want to spend it like this: sick with worry and guilt, waiting for the soldiers to come and get me to spend a night with Beckett, and think of Will, who's death was nearly set in stone.

"This isn't how I want to spend it," I whispered.