Sink Or Swim
Chapter 53
*author's note: Sorry this is so short but chapter 52 got so long I had to continue this into this one.
"Mac, stay here," Jack advised her.
"No Jack, you don't get to do this alone, not this time. Some time in the future, before I meet you on this island, you're going to say live together die alone," she reminded him as she looked back at Sayid. "He's not alone, but you will be. Let's go," she told him, as she walked in front of him.
On there way through the jungle, they encountered Sawyer and Juliet as they walked toward him. He looked at Sawyer as he passed. "See ya in Los Angeles," Jack told him. "You shouldn't be with me, you should be with Sayid," Jack told her.
"Jack, I'm exactly where I need to be. I don't need to watch Sayid die, and if this doesn't work we both know that he is going to die," Mac told him. "If Sayid hadn't been shot, he would have insisted on doing this, so I'm insisting on helping you. So don't tell me to go back, or I may give you matching black eye," she warned. Mac glanced down from the ridge as she viewed the scene. "I'll cover you and hope to hell that they don't spot us."
"You ready?" he questioned.
"As ready as I'll ever be," she told him, as she nodded for him to go.
Jack made his way to the water tank just on top of the ridge, as Mac followed him, her gun pointed ready to fire.
"There!" Phil yelled as he spotted Jack and fired a barrage of bullets at Jack, Mac firing back. "Go!" she yelled at Jack as Jack takes cover as he shot one of the guards.
"That's the woman that LeFleur let go! Get them!" Radzinksy yelled.
Mac took aim at Radzinsky making sure to fire at the arm he held the gun with.
"You could have aimed to kill," Jack told her.
"He's mine," Mac hissed.
"Flank them! Get them now!" Phil yelled as a DHARMA van approached. Kate and Juliet fired shots from within the van.
"Who's this?" Radzinsky yelled, as he held his arm.
The van halted and Juliet hopped out. Sawyer and Miles follow shortly after. Gunfire continues and several more security members are hit. Jack made his way closer to the site, Mac right behind him, as they jumped down the ridge
on his way.
Gunshots ricochet as the fighting continued. Sawyer sneaks through the site and jumps Radzinsky, hitting him with his gun.
"Aah!" Radzinsky yelled.
Sawyer then grabbed Phil by the neck from behind and held a gun to his head. Miles disarmed Radzinsky.
"Drop it, Phil, or you're a dead man!" Sawyer ordered Phil as he held him at gun point.
"Okay, okay," Phil obliged, doing as he was told.
"Tell 'em to put their guns down," Sawyer ordered again.
"Drop the guns! Drop the guns!" Phil shouted at the workers who obliged as the drilling continued.
"All right, you can come out now, Doc! Drill Sgt!" Sawyer yelled at the other survivors.
Kate hopped of out of the van and with Juliet started to head down into the site.
"Hurry up and do your business," Sawyer yelled at Jack as the alarm continued to blare.
"Turn that damn thing off!" Sawyer yelled as Miles father tried to pull all the lever but the drilling continued. "What's the matter?" Sawyer demanded to know.
Pierre Chang pushed a button on the drill, but it does nothing. "It won't shut down!" he yelled.
"Why not?" Mac yelled as she looked at Sawyer.
"Something's pulling the drill down," Dr. Chang answered.
"We hit the pocket!" Radzinsky yelled.
"Shut up," Mac told Radzinsky as Jack pulled the Jughead core from the backpack and held it over the hole.
"Hurry up, Doc! What are you waiting for? Drop it!" Sawyer screamed at him as the drilling continued.
Jack looked up at Kate, she looked back and noded. Sawyer released Phil and looked at Juliet, she smiled. Mac took a deep break as she closed her eyes. Jack droped the Jughead's core and it plummeted down the shaft. Everyone closed their eyes. After a few moments of flinching, they all opened their eyes.
"This don't look like LAX," Sawyer observed as he opened his eyes.
"It didn't work," Mac observed above a whisper.
Suddenly a humming sound began, and metal clanked and banged loudly as the drill shook. Steam shot from the shaft. Jack's gun is pulled into the shaft by an invisible force. Then a toolbox is pulled into it. Pierre tries to shut the drill down once more, but nothing happened. Then the drill tower bends and creaks as it is pulled down by the electromagnetism.
"Something with the electromagnetism is happening!" Mac screamed. "Get back!" she ordered as a toolbox hit Jack in the back of the head. "Kate help me. We got to get out of here now!" she screamed.
"Jack!" Kate screamed.
"Get away from here! Get as far away from here as you can!" Miles ordered.
Radzinsky tried to drive a Jeep away but it is pulled back by the electromagnetism. "Go! Go! Go!" he yelled as the jeep is overturned and the passengers are thrown out of it. Phil picked up a gun and pointed it at Sawyer.
"Hey, LaFleur!" Phil yelled at him.
Sawyer noticeed the scaffolding beginning to fall and ran away. It landed on Phil, who is then is then impaled by a metal spike. A chain is pulled by the magnetism and wrapped around Juliet as it dragged her to the shaft opening.
"Aah! Help!" Juliet screamed.
"Juliet!" Mac screamed as she ran with Kate and tried to pull her to safety.
"Juliet! Ah, come on! Sawyer!" Kate yelled at Sawyer.
"Help!" Juliet yelled again.
"Juliet!" Sawyer screamed as he helped her.
"Sawyer!" Kate yelled.
"Uhh!" Juliet grunted as she lost her grip on the bar but Sawyer reached her just in time.
"Where do you think you're going, Blondie?" Sawyer questioned in a distraught voice.
" Aah! It hurts! Aah!" Juliet told them.
Kate! Mac! Help me get those chains off!" Sawyer yelled as they attempted to reach for the chains. "Hold on! You hold on!" he screamed at Juliet.
Juliet cried. "I can't. I can't get it off."
"I got you," Sawyer assured her.
"I can't…" Kate grunted as she tried to reach the chains as metal creaked and Juliet continued as she sobbed.
"I can't reach them," Kate told them.
Mac looked around searching for something to help them.
"You hold on!" Sawyer pleaded with Juliet as the machine buckled.
"Aah! No!" Juliet cried.
" Please! I got you," Sawyer cried as the drill structure began to snap.
"Kate go to Jack," Mac yelled as the machine buckled again.
"Don't you leave me," Sawyer repeated to Juliet.
Juliet panted. "It's okay," she assured him.
"Don't you leave me! You hold on!"
"I love you," Juliet told him as she sobbed.
"No, you don't let go!" James told her as Mac watched.
"I love you, James," she repeated.
"Don't let go," he repeated.
"I love you so much," she told him.
"No! No, don't let go!" he screamed at her as Juliet released her grip and screamed as she fell down the shaft.
"Juliet!" Sawyer yelled as the buzzing and humming continued.
"We have to go," Mac told him.
"Sawyer, get off of there!" Kate yelled at him as the metal continued to crack.
"We have to go right now. We need to go!"
Sawyer groaned as he rested on the drill structure, which is about to fall into the shaft.
"Get off. It's going down! This thing is gonna go! You have to let it go. You have to go! This thing is going to blow at any second," Kate yelled at him.
"No!" he screamed at them as Jack came over.
"Jack! Jack, help us get him off," Kate pleaded. They pulled Sawyer away from the drill as it crashed and fell down into the hole. Underground, Juliet wakes up and coughs up blood and cries. She notices the Jughead core lying next to her. She picks up a rock and begins to strike the bomb.
"Come on! Come on!" Juliet sobbed. "Come on! Go! Come on! Come on! Come on, you son of a bitch!" After the eighth strike, there is a loud explosion and a bright white light fills the world.
