CHAPTER THREE: QUICKDRAW

"Hey."

Sarah turned, drawn out of her examination of the locator bracelet. It made her uneasy to know that the trigger for the explosives was hormones and chemicals, something that she had little control over. Here's hoping that I don't have any bad dreams...oops, that's all I have. I suppose dying in your sleep isn't the worst way to go.

Even if it is in an explosion.

In front of her stood the girl from earlier, her hands clasped behind her back.

Sarah said nothing, her eyes looking for any sign of a weapon held ready. Knock it off, she told herself. You've been in Blackfield for far too long. And besides, she tries anything, the only thing I've got to worry about is washing her out of my hair.

"Hey," Sarah finally replied, lacking a smile. The briefing room had emptied, and Sarah had thought that she was the only one left.

The girl in front of her broke into a smile, nervously running her hands through her long black hair. "I see you're thinking about your bracelet. Kind of a drag, huh?"

"Yeah, imagine putting us at such risk," quipped Sarah.

The girl slightly bowed her head at the sarcastic comment, suddenly looking crestfallen.

"Listen, I'm sorry," said Sarah, suddenly giving her full attention. A flood of emotion had come over her, as if she was tuned right in to this girl's mood. Embarrassment, sadness, regret, it all hit Sarah full on. "I didn't mean to be such a bitch and all, but we're hardly in a place for nicities, are we?" She paused. "And I guess I'm just not used to being nice to people," she offered as way of a confessional.

The girl gave a half-hearted smile. "Suppose that's not the way to get out of here, is it? But I just saw you and thought I'd come speak to you. It's like something told me to. I'm Raven."

One of Sarah's eyebrows arched. "Raven?"

"It's just what my friends call...called me."

Sarah stood. "Well, I don't have any friends, not any more, but if I did, they'd call me Sarah."

Raven smiled widely, a warm smile lighting up her pale face. "Hey, Sarah."

With that gesture, a warm glow of happiness washed over Sarah. Am I picking up on what she's thinking, or is she pushing it into my mind?

Then abruptly, the smile was gone. "I...I have to go." She turned on her heel and almost ran from the room, leaving only a baffled Sarah.

Am I the only one here that doesn't seem to know what's going on? Calypso's running this show like some Roman emperor and now this Raven shows up and it's as if she can see down into my soul.

I'm really missing prescription medicine.

*

The knife clattered on the floor, disturbing the peace of the silent house.

The bodies in front of her weren't just dead, they had been murdered.

Beaten.

Tortured.

Massacred.

Sarah screamed out to her family, eviscerated bodies refusing to yield any replies. Tears clinging to her eyelashes, she looked down to the knife she had just dropped, that vicious, blood-caked knife.

It wasn't alone.

It was no longer on the floor, now in the hand of a slender redhead, kneeling on the floor in front of Sarah.

"Me?"

The figure on the floor quickly rose and plunged the knife deep into Sarah's stomach, the gloom of the house erupting into white light -

- "Stop!"

For a second, Sarah was blind, a messy curtain of her hair covering her eyes. Her heart was racing overtime, her entire body trembling.

"It's at times like this when you really miss the drugs," she commented to herself.

Wiping her hair out her eyes, she lay back down, trying to calm her breathing. Nice thoughts, nice thoughts.

A tiny smile crossed her face as she thought back to before it had all gone wrong - a time that seemed so long ago that it was a previous life - and all the things she had in her life. Spending Christmas with her family, hanging out at school with her friends, her nights with Nic, the guy she had fallen so heavily for as a teenager.

She could see him now; short blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes like the ocean that he loved so much, his athletic body, the feeling of his body pressed tight against hers...

Sarah let out a tiny whimper as she memories returned to her, her hands slowly drifting down her body. She softly bit her bottom lip as she treasured the feeling of something she hadn't done for a long, long time, something she had been prevented doing by the nightly restraints at Blackfield.

A sudden sharp breath heralded when she found what she was looking for, followed by a smile and a warm glow she had forgotten. She pressed on, relishing every moment as she rediscovered both herself and the past. Images of Nic in her mind, so read that she could almost touch him, run her hands over his body as he pressed against her, pressed into her.

A soft moan.

Then Nic was gone, replaced by something else; an all consuming black that surrounded her, held her, flowed through her body...

Sarah screamed, her body tensing for one final second before she collapsed, her bottom lip shaking as she shivered through her smile. Woah, if I wasn't so tired, I'd do that again.

She pulled the covers completely off her warm body, still breathing heavily. Images of Raven were still in her mind, her thoughts still as clear as if they had really happened. Sarah had never been with another woman - not fully - but it had never stopped her thinking about it, especially in the high school days when she had experimented with her small group of friends, Nic included.

And thinking about Raven means absolutely nothing. You don't want to be with her, Sarah, you can't be with her. This is not the time or a place for a relationship, and you know this. Just because you've thought about her...come on, you've thought about Angelina Jolie more.

Just as Sarah was deciding whether to go back to sleep or for a shower, the screen on the wall flashed to life. Calypso's barbecued face appeared as Sarah snatched up the blanket to cover her body.

"Competitors," the voice from the speaker said. "The time has come for the first round draw. Remember, two will go through from every round. As for the rest... It's time for the draw.

Sarah watched the screen intently as the first name appeared on the screen.

"Brimstone," announced Calypso. A dirty once-white pickup truck appeared onscreen, the camera rotating around the vehicle for a few moments. In the top-right corner of the screen, a photograph of the preacher from the orientation room appeared.

"Fireman."

A heavily armour-plated fire truck appeared, bristling with sheet metal. A photo of a charred man appeared, one who looked in an even worse state than Calypso. No ears, hair, lips, nose, and weeping sores covering his face, which was covered by a clear plastic burn mask.

Sarah blanched for a second; it was the most horrific thing she had ever seen. Searching her memory, she could only suppose that he was the figure from orientation that had been wrapped in blankets and rags.

"Outlaw."

A 4x4 Jeep, decked out with full police insignia including red and blue lights appeared. A stern-looking man in the top right corner; definitely police.

Great, we got all the emergency services here.

"Fav."

A small dune buggy appeared, slow slung with a metal rollcage to protect the driver. It was similar to the Chenworth Light Strike Vehicles used by armed forces all over the world, and could combine speed and manoeuvrability with deadly firepower. Sarah didn't doubt this one would be any different.

A young man's face appeared in the screen. Nothing particularly exceptional about him.

Then suddenly, Sarah gasped as she saw a familiar pair of eyes looking at her from the screen.

They were her own.

Calypso seemed to stare through the screen. "Seraph," he said with a sneer.