The Threat
There had been no food in quite a while, not that he would have eaten it, before, but now that Dawson was here he really ought to eat and build up his strength for his escape. His shoulder had been bleeding again, but that was his own fault.
When the door opened, he hoped it was food. It hardly mattered what they thought of him anymore. His Henry Gale persona had been in continual flux. More inconsistency could hardly hurt.
It was Cortez, and she didn't have food, but she did have a darker look on her face than she had ever had before. She squatted down and slid her pocketknife across the floor toward him.
"Pick it up."
He stared at her and didn't touch it. Was she insane? She stood up and advanced a step.
"Cut yourself loose."
"What?" She was a cop. She wasn't letting him go.
"Just do it."
"Why?" She would have a backup plan, in case he rushed her with the knife. Her training would make her able to disarm him, but he didn't believe she would come in here and give him a knife without having a gun on her. But the darkness in her eyes…
"You know why."
So you can kill me like a man rather than an animal? And feel better about yourself? By now she was good at killing. But perhaps not so good at justifying it to herself as he was. She felt guilty about the survivor Goodwin had killed. After she killed the man who shot her, her life had spiraled out of control, which meant she couldn't handle the implications of killing someone who needed to die. And he was willing to bet that she felt guilty about Goodwin too. If he could play on that guilt, he could keep her from killing him.
He inched forward and managed awkwardly to pick up the knife with his bound hands, opened it, and began sawing away at the rope tied to the ring in the floor. After a moment he stopped and shook his head, said with grim humor in his voice, "He kept saying you were misunderstood."
"What are you talking about?"
He smiled at her and went back to work on the ropes. "Goodwin. Yes, he told us all about you, Ana. How he thought you were worthy, and that he could change you. But he was wrong." He closed the knife and set it gingerly on the floor to show he didn't intend to hide it about his person, his eyes intently on her. "And it cost him his life."
She was feeling the guilt. "He was gonna kill me."
He stood up slowly, not taking his eyes from her. "Was he?" He'd always been good at creating self-doubt. Charles was one of the few people it had never worked on.
Cortez's eyes were dark, angry, confused. "Are you done?"
"Yes, Ana, I'm done."
She pulled the gun from her back waistband and pointed it at him. He didn't bother to look surprised.
"So this is it, huh?"
"Yes, Henry," she said softly. "This is it." But she didn't cock the gun.
He held her eyes for a moment. "Do you sleep?"
"What?"
"Do you sleep at night? Since Goodwin, I mean. Before that, you couldn't have known what killing does to you, how it breaks something inside you. How you lie down with it and get up with it, you try to run away from it and it follows you and haunts every moment of your life."
"Shut up!"
"Don't worry, Ana Lucia. Someday it'll stop haunting you, and that'll be worse." He wondered if that was what it had been like when he killed his father. He couldn't remember.
"Don't you say another word!" The gun in her hand shook.
He stood and looked at her, let his face go loose and gentle, his eyes clear and unveiled. Not afraid, not vindictive, not angry, not triumphant, not defeated, none of the things he actually felt or that Henry Gale might feel under these circumstances. Just I know what it's like to be you. Which was only because he had a good imagination.
Then he closed his eyes. Which she could interpret as trust or resignation or courage or whatever she chose to interpret it as. He stood there for a long moment, an eternity, until he heard the door sliding closed with a slam and locking, and then his legs gave way suddenly. He leaned against the cot, very much as he had leaned against the bench when Jarrah had brought him in with an arrow through his shoulder, shivering.
Everything was going to be fine. The Island wasn't done with him yet. Maybe it let him get cancer, but it wasn't going to let him die of it. It had brought him a surgeon. It had given him the insight to know how to protect himself every time he was threatened. It would help him persuade Shephard, and then he would be back to normal, a strong, trusted leader. Everything was going to work out.
Score: Henry Gale 13; Survivors 4.