Chapter 10

Keep Breathing

Evelyn awoke to see the sunrise for the first time since she had hit her teens. The window in the bedroom served as the view to a world renewing itself as everything became gold once the sun hit the horizon. Evelyn watched the world become gold and as she saw the sky go from black to various shades of red, blue, purple, and gold, she smiled. As the sun rose over the Texas desert, Evelyn felt herself awaken to a new life. And in this new life, she felt complete for the first time in her life.

Aaron was awake for the sunrise as well, but he didn't see it the same way Evelyn did. It was breathtaking, sure, but he would rather see the clouds and lightning, he just wasn't feeling the beauty. After all, he was still stuck in his head, he was trapped in his painful memory, where his father was a liar and the phone call played over and over.

Evelyn carefully dropped to the floor from the top bunk and walked to the open bedroom door. Aaron sat up in the bottom bunk.

"Where are you going?" He asked, his voice hoarse and his eyes bloodshot from the lack of sleep.

"Bathroom." Evelyn's one worded answer was quick and while Aaron only half believed it, he wasn't going to be the one to stop her if she really had to go.

Evelyn walked to the bathroom and took her first shower in days maybe over a week, she wasn't exactly sure how long she had been gone for. The hot water and the soap felt good and if one had never experienced the event of running around for days at a time without a shower, one wouldn't quite understand the gratefulness that came with the invention of a shower.

Evelyn redressed herself in the same clothes she had been wearing and tied her hair up in a ponytail. She left the bathroom in roughly twenty minutes and instead of returning to her room, she walked out the suite's door to the hallway. The motel's hallway the empty except for herself, it was open to the air with a wall preventing someone from falling. Evelyn felt a light breeze hit her as she traveled down the hallway.

She walked down a flight of stairs to the first floor and down the open hallway that had no wall. She traveled the hallway to the lobby where, to her surprise, there was no one sitting at the desk. She didn't mind, she liked being alone. She walked down a flight of stairs to the basement where she found a stockade of guns and bombs. She walked further into the basement where she saw something under a sheet that looked like a car. She also saw various computers all running a different type of program. There were various tables that reminded her of aisles in a supermarket. They were littered with various paperwork, half finished weapons, finished weapons, and various types of things she couldn't identify. She made her way over to the car and pulled off the sheet slowly, staring at a black '67 Ford Mustang with a fastback.

Evelyn stared at the car with shock and amazement. She heard the basement door shut and the lights turned on.

"I knew you'd be down here sooner than your mother," John Locke said cheerfully as he stepped off the final stair. "I see you've discovered the car."

"It's nice," Evelyn said, her voice becoming smaller than it had been before.

"I know that's true. I also know that you think it's much more than nice," John said, smirking with the knowledge only Evelyn and her mother knew.

"It's just a car," Evelyn said quietly before stealing a glance at the car.

"Of course it is, but not to you. We can keep this game going for a while or I can just flat out tell you what you know I already know," John told Evelyn flatly, giving up.

"What do you know?" Evelyn asked, her voice becoming stronger in her newly discovered comfort.

"Two years ago you drove your mother's car around the supermarket while she was buying groceries. Then about a year later you started driving other cars that weren't yours or your mother's. Then a month after that, you started racing said cars and you won a shit load of money for it. And I have to say, I'm impressed but it wasn't all that surprising, at least not to me." John sat on a chair behind one of the tables and he began to tinker with one of the unfinished guns lying in pieces on the top.

"How do you know all of that?" Evelyn asked, she wasn't denying her accomplishments, but she wondered how he knew.

"Because you're just like your mother. And I'm a genius, hence all of this." He indicated the various pieces of equipment.

"How fast does it go?" Evelyn asked, referring to the car. Her hand twitched a little at the thought of getting behind the wheel, but she knew she wasn't going to be any time soon, not around her parents. She was a good driver, hell, she was only fourteen and already she surpassed most adults in skill. However, she was underage and by common law, she was technically joyriding and she could have gone to jail.

"0 to 100 in ten seconds, I messed around with it a bit." John smiled, taking pride in his achievement.

"Did you tell my mom?" Evelyn asked, worried she was going to get into trouble.

"No, but I wouldn't be surprised if she knew already." John moved on to another piece of equipment, a bomb he had been perfecting for years.

"What? How?" Evelyn forgot completely about the car, despite the fact she had just found the keys and where they were hanging on the wall.

"She's not stupid Evelyn. It isn't that difficult to figure out when you're just like her," John said, a laugh written into his words.

"Did she do that same thing?" Evelyn asked, wondering where the parallels began and ended.

"Right around your age too, but that's a different story." John smiled.

"How do you know all of this?" Evelyn was frozen in her spot and she was beginning to wonder when her mother would be awake.

"Because she called me when she thought you were joyriding and she told me how she used to do it, so I tracked you and told her everything I knew, which is exactly what I just told you," John explained easily as he worked on the bomb.

"She knows, I am so fucking dead." Evelyn ran up the stairs forgetting all about her desire to steal the car and just keep driving. She walked quickly down the hallway and up another flight of stairs. She walked down the hallway towards the room when she heard the screech of tires outside. In a row, five black cars were lined up outside the motel as Evelyn stopped in her tracks.

Evelyn watched from the second floor hallway as a man with long, shaggy, blonde hair stepped out of one of the vehicles with sunglasses, a black suit, and a hand gun. Ten other people followed suit, including Danny, Tom, Juliet, and Charlie. Charlie didn't carry a weapon, he stood to the side, his shirt still stained with the blood from the punch Jack had given him. Evelyn could make it all out from the hallway where she watched from the wall.

It didn't take them very long to notice her staring straight at them.

"Sawyer, she's in the hallway," Juliet said in an informative voice.

He looked up at Kate's daughter and watched as she noticed them and ran down the hallway.

"So much for the element of surprise," Sawyer said with a smirk and signaled for the group to tear up the motel to get Evelyn back and make Kate pay.

Evelyn raced down the hallway to the room where everyone remained asleep, except for Aaron. He stood in front of the suite door, pulling on a sweatshirt as he prepared to leave.

"Where the hell have you been?" Aaron asked in a quietly scolding voice. "Do you have any idea what it's like to stall to your mother?"

"She's awake?" Evelyn's asked, her minor concern for the discovery never even appearing.

"Yeah she..." Aaron trailed off as Evelyn walked towards her mother's bedroom. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Aaron followed her, forgetting about the fact that he had been mad and remembering why he had made sure she wasn't found out. He cared about her. Even when he had no idea what the hell she was doing, he cared.

Evelyn ran into the bedroom to find her father still asleep and her mother sitting on the edge of the bed pulling shoes on.

"Where have you been?" Kate knew Evelyn hadn't been in the bathroom, she knew Aaron had been lying when he told her where Evelyn was. Her slight anger and worry faded when she saw Evelyn's frazzled features. "What's wrong?"

"They're all here, right now," Evelyn choked out through her fear.

"Wait, who are you talking about?"

"Them, the black cars, Sawyer, Juliet, Charlie!" Evelyn shouted and Kate watched as Evelyn's hand shook in fear.

Jack woke up and heard the shout of Charlie's name. He stood up from bed and pulled a shirt over his head. He had slept in his jeans and began to lace up the sneakers that had been lying on the floor.

"I'm going to kill that little prick," Jack threatened leaving the bedroom with Kate, Aaron, and Evelyn following him.

"Jack, you can't! He's not alone and it's still Charlie, you can't kill the man who tried to help us," Kate reasoned.

"Yeah, before he almost killed us," Jack replied as Claire exited her bedroom, also fully dressed.

"He's here?" She asked quietly, her heartache visible in both herself and Aaron.

"Yeah, mum, he's here with them," Aaron said in a muffled whisper.

"We need to leave, before they get inside," Kate said delicately as Jack seemed to calm down.

"Then let's go," Claire said quietly following Jack and Kate to the door.

The two families looked at the line of black cars and began to race down the hallway when the sound of a gunshot stopped them in their tracks. Aaron felt a sharp pain to his shoulder as the bullet hit him. Evelyn had ducked beside him, but he hadn't gotten out of the way fast enough.

"Oh my God!" Evelyn shouted as she saw the blood begin to seep through his sweatshirt. More gunshots rang through the hallway and out into the open air. Jack helped Aaron up, who was crying in pain. Claire felt the shock wave that was a mother's fear at her son dealing with the prospect of death.

Claire followed Jack quickly back into the room. Aaron felt the warm blood trail down his arm and drip onto the floor as he was assisted into the room. Evelyn was frozen in time as he mother pulled her back to the room.

They were trapped in the suite that had housed them for only a night. Jack applied pressure to Aaron's wound while he asked Claire for the supplies they had taken with them the night Evelyn had needed stitches. Evelyn looked at her hand and ran her finger over the sewn wound. Jack removed the bullet while Aaron screamed in pain during the process.

Kate walked down the hallway back into the bedroom and emerged with a gun she had hidden years ago under the bed in a fire proof box. She loaded it and waited.

"Is he going to be okay?" Kate asked as Jack did his best to sew up the bullet wound and apply gauze. He did what he could and hoped Aaron wouldn't succumb to an infection.

"I think so, but he needs to go to the hospital," Jack told Kate as he ran his hand over his hair.

"We'll take him once we get out of here," Kate said airily. She took a deep breath and opened the door quickly, she fired two shots before the body of one of Sawyer's agents fell to the ground.

"Come on," Jack pulled Aaron's good arm and pushed him out of the motel room while Claire quickly followed, standing close to her son. Evelyn had to be assisted out of motel room as well. Her mother held her arm and led her into the stairwell. The group stopped in the stairwell and took a deep breath.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Jack asked, taking another breath.

"I don't know," Kate admitted.

"Well you better fucking figure it out!" Evelyn shouted from the corner of the stairwell.

"Evelyn you have to calm down right now," Kate pleaded, the tension slowly easing to a stress that was too harsh to think in.

"Oh yeah, I'll calm down. Ten fucking people come to kill us and I'll just calm down. Listen, how about I won't worry until one of them is shooting at us? Oh wait, that already happened!" Evelyn shouted as the sound of more gun shots rang through their ears and became closer.

The group stared in horror as the sound of shoes hitting the floor below them grew closer. Kate stepped forward and aimed the gun at the entrance way to the stairs. The sound was right below them as John Locke entered the stair well to the relief of everyone.

"Come on," He said as he held a large automatic rifle. Everyone followed him down the hallway while they searched for agents that could have been running around. They made their way to the lobby and John checked around the corner before he crossed the hallway to the stairs that led to the basement. Jack followed suit while Claire was right behind him. The sound of voices approaching met the remaining three's ears quickly. Kate helped Aaron over the Lobby desk while Evelyn managed on her own.

The voices were right above them in under a minute. Juliet and Sawyer were talking directly above the desk.

"Where's Locke?" Sawyer asked.

"He doesn't seem to be here," Juliet informed him.

"Typical. Has anyone located the kids?" Sawyer asked, placing a hand on the desk.

"No, they haven't. I thought you weren't going to take Pace's son, wasn't that what you promised him?" Juliet asked, her eyes spelling out all the confusion she couldn't indicate in her voice.

"That's what I told Pace but to be honest, Aaron would be just as much an asset as Evelyn. Has anyone found Austen or Shephard yet?" Sawyer asked, his tone changing from informative to a dark threatening one.

"No," Juliet answered simply.

Evelyn felt Aaron shudder from his own fear. She grabbed his hand tightly in attempt to calm him and herself down. She had shut her eyes the minute the voices were over head and they remained closed. Kate's grip on the gun grew tighter as the conversation continued while Aaron listened with his hand in Evelyn's.

"Tell everyone to keep looking, I'm going back to the warehouse. Tell everyone, they don't come back unless they have the kids," Sawyer informed Juliet before walking out of the lobby and to one of the cars.

"Yes sir," Juliet said as he walked away. She waited a minute before she turned down the opposite hallway and walked away.

Kate waited a few minutes before peering over the desk.

"It's fine, come on." She helped Evelyn and Aaron out from under the desk and back over it onto the lobby floor. The trio walked down the stairs to the basement. Jack, Claire, and John were waiting with worried expressions on their face.

"We heard them so we hid," Kate told all three of them.

"We heard them too," John said, pressing a button on one of the computers where the security image of the lobby appeared. Kate nodded while Aaron walked over to his mother and stood close to her. Evelyn stood at more of a distance while her father walked over to her and stood next to her, keeping her at a reaching distance, in case something happened.

"What do we do now?" Jack asked quietly.

Kate shook her head, "I don't know."

I want to wake up kicking and screaming
I want to wake up kicking and screaming
I want to know that my heart's still beating
It's beating, I'm bleeding - "Awakening" by Switchfoot

...to be continued...