Chapter 36

2nd Day

They didn't wait for the dawn to leave. The attack they had suffered in the middle of the night had been enough to encourage them to leave as fast as they could. Pedro, despite his injured shoulder was feeling alright. Jack had stitched his wound efficiently.

The same couldn't be said about Ana-Lucia. She was walking slower now; everyone could see on her face the huge effort she was making to keep up with the group. Jack was very concerned for her. He asked himself how much longer she could handle and then what would they do when she couldn't keep going anymore?

Jack was worried about Kate as well, she got really scared with what happened the night before. Situations like that could lead to unnecessary stress that would not be good for her pregnancy that was still in the early stages. However, he didn't know if the two of them would be safer at the camp away from medical care. At least he was there with them, ready to help in anything they needed.

Kate became suddenly agitated. He noticed. The group that was carrying the dynamite was walking a lot further, Rosseau was right behind them ready to fight against any threat that could arise.

"Kate, is everything ok?"- Jack asked her.

She whispered to him:

"There are at least four man following us. Rosseau noticed too but Locke and the others haven't yet."

Jack frowned and instinctively searched with his eyes for the men in the middle of the jungle. Kate poked him in the arm, warning him to stop doing that or they would notice they have been discovered. But it was already too late, the men soon realized that their presence was no secret anymore and rushed towards them. Ana-Lucia noticed the movements among the trees and drew her gun.

Rosseau got her bow ready as she needed to protect the group that was carrying the dynamite; if a shotgun was fired everything and everyone would explode.

Locke, Pedro and Sayid soon realized the men's presence as well and became tense, predicting what would happen if they start shooting. Rosseau made a sign for them to get their guns too.

The situation became extremely intense, both sides were waiting to see who would dare to fire a shot first. Michael saw one of the men distracted and decided to shoot. That shot was enough for the battle to start. Locke, Sayid and Pedro dropped their backpacks slowly on the ground at least 6 feet apart from each other and ran to take shelter while withdrawing their guns. Pedro didn't seem to know how to use a gun very well, what made the group nervous.

One of the men pointed his gun towards Ana-Lucia. She realized that and shot in his direction but the bullet got stuck at the barrel leaving her completely vulnerable. Jack saw that and jumped in front of her. The gun was fired. Kate screamed:

" Nooooooooooo!"

It was too late, Jack got hit and fell over Ana-Lucia's feet. The man that had shot him also got hit by one of Rosseau's arrow's and fell from out of the top of a hill; the other ones ran away after seeing what happened to their buddy. Kate ran to Jack, desperately:

"Jack, baby, talk to me…please!"- She said while laying his head on her lap.

Ana-Lucia looked for the bullet in his body and sighed with relief when she saw that the bullet had missed him leaving only a small painful wound on his left leg. Jack opened his eyes when he felt his skin burning.

"Jack!"- Kate exclaimed. "You scare the death out of me, I thought you…"- She suddenly felt dizzy and a sharp pain in her belly made her moan in pain.

"What's wrong, Kate?"- Ana-Lucia asked.

"Nothing, I'm fine."- Kate said, taking a deep breath, trying to hold down her anxiety, she didn't want it to cause any harm to her baby. She focused her thoughts in Jack and asked Ana-Lucia: "Ana, get Jack's backpack, we need to take care of his leg."

"It's alright, Kate."- Jack said putting himself together. "The bullet didn't go through…"

Ana-Lucia brought the backpack. Kate ignored what Jack had just said and got some alcohol, bandage and seizers. She gave them to Ana-Lucia.

"To cut off his pants, Ana."

She started doing it while Kate got the alcohol. Locke and the others approached them.

"Are you alright, Jack?"

"Yes, John."- He said.

Rosseau called the group together, leaving Kate and Ana-Lucia tending to Jack.

"They will come back."- She said. "We must split the group; the two pregnant women are delaying us."

"What are you suggesting, Danielle? Just to leave them behind?"- Sayid said.

"No, what I'm saying is that it will get to the point that it will be inevitably to split. Their camp is still far. The doctor's woman may be able to handle a little longer but the other one won't make it far."

Sayid thought about what Rosseau was saying but to split the group could be very dangerous, especially because he wasn't sure about what kind of criteria, they were going to use to do that. Jack, the two pregnant women and the rest of the group? Pedro was also very injured, they couldn't leave them all for Jack to mind, he was also hurt.

"We can keep going for now."- Rosseau said. "But let's stay more alert this time."

Locke had just checked the man that had shot Jack and it was killed by Rosseau with the arrow. There was nothing that could identify him as expected. It was another man without an ID or tags in his clothes.

They kept going, this time not as excited as when they left the camp but still determined. It was still daylight but the sky turned dark promising a storm for later.

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Sawyer felt an excruciating pain when he was thrown inside of a dirty cell. His bones were hurting due to the time he spent tied. He massaged his own wrist smelling the awful scent of that prison.

He had no idea of where he was, his arm was marked by needle sticks that he had received to stay unconscious for the most of the way. In one of the few moments he was awake, he tried to ask the men where they were taking him. But he didn't get an answer. Those men were rustic; they didn't talk among each other, they only grumbled. Sawyer asked himself if those creatures could speak besides mumbling.

He started visualizing better the place where he was. It was a tight cell, some sort of a cage surrounded by rusty metal walls. He stood up and shouted with all the strength he still had in his lungs:

"Somebody come here! I am hungry and thirsty. I don't want to be in this cage."

Nobody answered him. He ran his hands over his dirty and messy blond hair, closing his eyes. He thought about would she be? He murmured her name many times. "Ana, Ana…"- He shouted again: "You idiots, get me out of here!"

"You going to blow up your lungs."- said a woman with a calm glance that got in the stuffy room in the very moment that Sawyer was calling for Ana-Lucia. She was wearing a white doctor coat and high heels that were making noise over the old wood floor outside the cage.

"Who are you?"- Sawyer enquired.

"Whomever you want me to be."- the woman answered full of authority, touching her own straight blond hair, charming. "I can be your friend or your worst enemy, you choose!"

"What the hell this suppose to mean? I was casted to be in an episode of X-files and nobody told me?"- Sawyer said. "What is this of friend or enemy? To me it only exists the fact that I was dragged here from my camp over the enchanted jungle just to arrive in the wicked witch house. What are ya going to do now? You're going to get me fat so I'll be al dente when I'm ready to be eaten?" Wow, why did I forget to mark the pathway with little white rocks?"

"Well, I heard that you use sarcasm when you are nervous but eat you? Think about it, James, do I look like a cannibal?"

"Do you really want to know what I think about you, Ms. Blair?"

The woman smiled and left through the rusty door for a few minutes.

"Hey, where are you going? Come back here!"- Sawyer shouted again.

She returned with a tray containing a water bottle and what it seems like a bowl of soup. She opened a little door in the iron bars that Sawyer hasn't noticed before, inserting the tray there before he could try doing anything through the narrow entrance. She closed it and said:

"Eat! That's my advice. You'll need it to handle what' coming."

She didn't say anything else before leaving. Sawyer didn't shout anymore, at least not for a while. He got the water and the soup and gabled both in seconds, he was starving and thirsty. His last meal had been practically two days ago, the pasta that Kate had cooked at the hatch.

He felt like a scared animal, he didn't like what that woman said to him, to handle what was coming? What she was talking about? What kind of people was that? And how about your friends? Would he see Ana again? So many questions and Sawyer was tired. In the corner of his cell there was an old, moldy mattress but he didn't care about going to sleep there. He had to rest so he could plan a way to escape from that place.

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Another full day walking. The group was going through unknown pathways that didn't show in Rosseau's map; even her have never been that far. Deep inside the jungle, they realized how vast was the territory. It gave them a feeling that it would never end, or worse, the feeling that the rest of the world's civilization had been decimated and that island was the only place left so they were be forced to live there forever.

Within the afternoon it came the rain, transforming the soil in mud and making their steps harder. At least they hadn't had any other unpleasant meeting with the Others or one o those weird creatures that had attacked them the night before.

Rosseau kept telling them they were on the right path but the group started doubting when the landscape strangely became more and more repetitive. Kate got upset about it.

"Is it me or this is the third time we have passed by this place?"

"It's you!"- Rosseau said. "All the trees from this place seems like the same to me no matter where I am."

Jack shook his head; he was having a hard time to walk due to the wound caused by a bullet in his leg.

"I think Kate it's right we might be lost. John!"- He shouted, Locke was walking ahead of them because of the explosives.

"What?"- He shouted back before walking towards their direction.

"I want to know what do you think. I think we are lost."

"I don't know, Jack, I know this part of the island as much as you."- Locke said.

"You really don't trust me, right?"- Rosseau complained. "We are close, we'll be there in a day and a half maximum."

"How did you find about this camp, Danielle?"- Sayid asked her.

"I saw it in a dream."- She said with a lost glance.

Kate frowned, throwing her backpack on the muddy ground, the rain was intensifying leaving them damped.

"What are you doing Kate?"- Jack asked.

She didn't care about answering him and started claiming on a high tree really fast.

"Kate what are you doing?"- Jack got concerned. "You can fall, get down please!"

Everyone stopped to look at her. Ana-Lucia was very quiet, she hadn't said much since the shooting. She was feeling a sharp pain in her abdomen that was increasing by the minute.

"Kate!"- Jack called for her again.

"Wait, I'm trying to see something from up here."

Her foot slip for a moment from the trunk of the tree. The others became apprehensive, Jack held his breath. But she was able to keep herself on the tree twining her legs around the trunk. She was able to reach the top and the branches stepping slowly.

"What do you see?"- Michael asked.

Kate visualized the dense jungle from the top of the tree and saw a beach not very far from them.

"I see a beach! I think about 10 kilometers from here."

"We're going there."- Rosseau said. "That's where they took your friend."

"How are we going to make it alive there if we get attacked again by those men or even worse, that thing that bit me?"- Pedro asked.

"We don't know, Pedro."- Sayid said. "We are taking the risk."

"But I know one thing."- Locke said. "We decided to come here because you ran away from their camp. This place doesn't look familiar to you?"

"No, I don't remember anything."- Pedro said. "I was distressed, I don't even know how I made it to your camp."

"Then why you wanted to come with us in the first place? To risk your life for Sawyer?"- Sayid confronted him.

"I came because I still have hope in find Nikki alive."

"That's weird!"- Kate exclaimed from the top of the tree.

"What?"- Jack asked.

"I see the black smoke coming from the beach, it's moving towards us…"

Locke got scared by her words.

"Kate, get down right now!"

"Kate! Come on!"- Jack shouted.

She started coming down. Kate was right, the black smoke was moving rapidly in their direction. Suddenly, they heard the familiar metallic sound. The trees a little further begin to fall, the whole forest was being shaken.

Kate took less time to get down out of the tree than she did claiming up. The sound was getting closer every second, the smoke was coming for them like a hurricane.

"Run!"- Rosseau shouted.

The group that had the explosives put them down and ran. Jack forced his wounded leg to keep it up with Kate. Ana-Lucia, on the other hand stayed behind; she didn't have strength enough to run anymore.

Leaves were flying everywhere. Ana fell on the muddy ground and tears wet her face. Sayid realized that she had gotten behind and ran back towards her. The smoke came strong on them. Each person tried to hide as best as they could among the trees. But Sayid and Ana-Lucia were still out there in danger.

The smoke floated over them and Sayid hugged Ana-Lucia, trying to protect her. She hid her face on his chest.

Everyone was watching the scene, breathless but the rain suddenly stopped and the smoke became more visible. Sayid didn't move, he kept his arms around Ana-Lucia while the black smoke circled around them for a few seconds, emitting some sort of electromagnetic force all over the place. That was when it finally dissipated, disappearing in a gale of leaves and branches.

The metallic sound had stopped as well. Everything became silent and the darkness took over. It was night again.

Sayid released Ana-Lucia and looked deep in her eyes.

"Are you alright?"

She seemed terrified, in shock. Her heart was racing a thousand mile per hour. The others ran to them to make sure they were ok when a huge explosion blinded them. People fell on different places. More smoke came bringing an undoubtful scent of burning.

"What the hell was that?"- Michael asked.

"It was the explosives."- Rosseau said. "You left them behind and they exploded."

"We left them behind?"- Pedro said. "We didn't have time to do anything and I still don't get what that black smoke was."

"At least we are alive."- Sayid said.

"You have never seen the black smoke?"- Locked asked Pedro.

"I don't.- Pedro started saying when they heard Ana-Lucia screaming.

"Ana!"- Kate said with concern, immediately going to her side.

Ana-Lucia placed both of her hands on her belly.

"I can't handle this pain anymore!"- She complained biting her lips.

Jack was also there with her.

"Calm down, Ana, you just got nervous with…"

"She's having the baby!"- Rosseau affirmed.

"No, she's not..."- Jack insisted.

Ana-Lucia screamed again, breathing hard.

"Jack she's having contractions, strong ones."- Kate said.

Jack ran his hands over his head, skeptically.

"No, this isn't..."

Water broke down her legs. Ana-Lucia looked at Jack in panic.

"Oh my God, Ana. Your water broke. - Kate said.

To be continued…