Chapter Ten: Dead of Night

Jack and Sayid were talking quietly in the tent when Kate screamed. She ran along the beach, past curious and frightened spectators, and toward them.

"Kate?" Jack asked as she stumbled to a stop in front of them. "What's going on?"

"A man attacked me," she said, trying to control the panic in her voice. She stepped past them and into the tent.

"What?" Jack asked, shock etched on his face.

She turned to face him, giving him a good look at her already bruised and swelling eye. He stepped up to her and gently probed the injury with his fingertips. She winced. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I moved my stuff down the beach," she said. "I wanted some privacy. I...heard something moving in the trees next to me, and then a man attacked me."

"Did you see his face?" Sayid asked.

She glanced up at him, then shook her head. "He wasn't anyone I recognize from the beach."

The two men exchanged a glance. "What did he want?" Jack asked.

She held his gaze for a moment then looked away, replaying the scene in her head. He'd lured her into the trees, she realized, and she'd fallen for it like a lemming. Then he'd knocked her flashlight away and held a knife to her throat, demanding the return of...something.

And then it hit her. "Oh, God," she murmured, stepping around Jack.

"What?"

"I need to talk to Sawyer," she said, hurrying out of the tent and looking around. Jack and Sayid came up behind her but she ignored them, finally spotting Sawyer off to the side, away from the main group of castaways.

She wove her way between everyone else to where Sawyer leaned back against his bags, his eyes closed, a cigarette between his lips. "I need to talk to you," she said.

He cracked his eyes open but otherwise didn't move. "Just couldn't stay away, could ya, Freckles?"

"I need to talk to you right now," she repeated, then stepped past him and walked away, knowing somehow he'd follow. If not his full interest, at least his curiosity would be peaked. She kept going until she was sure she was out of earshot, then turned and waited for him.

He ambled up to her, the cigarette still caught between his lips, apparently in no hurry to hear what she had to say. "Hope this is good," he said. "I was having a hell of a dream."

"Those pictures," she said, "the ones we found in the briefcase. Did you take them?"

He was quiet for a moment. "You asking if I killed that girl?" he asked, anger and a hint of disillusionment in his voice.

Kate closed her eyes, impatience dragging at her. "No, I'm not asking if you killed her. I'm asking if you took the pictures out of the briefcase and did something with them."

"I burned 'em after we got back," he said. "Didn't think something like that should be left sitting around."

"Great." She dropped her head down with a sigh.

What's the problem? You want to keep them for souvenirs or something?"

"No, I don't want to keep them. But the man who attacked you at the cockpit is the man who took those pictures. He's alive, and he wants the pictures back."

He noticed the blood first. She looked right at him, and in the moonlight that had emerged after the storm, he saw the blood that had trickled down her neck and stained the collar of her shirt. He looked at her face and saw the bruising around her eye.

A deep sense of rage washed through him. He'd done a lot of wrong things in his life; more than he could count. He'd made more mistakes than most. But one thing he'd never done was lay hands on a woman. He'd been tempted, but he'd never touched a woman in anger. Not once.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, pacing away and dragging his hands through his hair. He took a deep drag off his cigarette, then dropped it into the sand and stomped it out. Why the hell hadn't he checked to make sure the attacker was dead? It wouldn't have taken more than a few seconds to check his pulse and see if he was breathing, and it could have saved this. Why hadn't he done it? Because he was too tired? Because he didn't want to make the effort? Well, Kate had paid the price for his laziness.

"He must have followed us back to the beach," she said.

"And he wanted those pictures?"

"He just kept saying, 'I want them back. I know you have them.'"

He looked down at her, involuntarily reaching out to brush the blood from her neck. She blinked at the contact, and he thought he saw the pulse at her throat beat a little faster. It was good to know he wasn't the only one who was affected when they touched.

But though she tried to hide it, he saw the vulnerability, and the fear, she tried to hide. She said she was fine, but she wasn't fine. Too bad he didn't know a damn thing about comforting her. Here she was putting on a front—something he knew about all too well—and he didn't know how to help her.

Well, there was one thing he could do. He could make damn sure this didn't happen again.

He stalked back to his bags and found a large flashlight. He tapped it against his palm, the heavy weight reassuring. He glanced at Kate, then started across the beach.

"What are you doing?" she called out from behind him. "Sawyer!"

He didn't answer her. He threaded his way between the other castaways, intent on his goal. That asshole wasn't going to hurt her again.

Kate chased after Sawyer, her heart in her throat. He was going after their attacker. At night, unarmed. "This is really stupid!" she shouted.

He murmured something that sounded like "Won't be the first time", but he didn't slow down.

She caught his arm and spun him around. "You can't just go running into the jungle in the middle of the night."

"Look who's talking, Sweetheart," he said. "Seems like that's exactly what you did last night."

"That was different."

"Yeah, it was different. This time there's a real threat."

Kate followed him down the beach, at a loss as to how she was supposed to stop him. He said this time it was different, and he was right. When the man had attacked Sawyer at the cockpit, he'd been unarmed. But somewhere between here and there he'd picked up a knife. He'd become twice as dangerous in a short amount of time, and Sawyer was charging headlong into a confrontation with him.

"Don't do this," she said.

"Sounds like you're worried about me, Freckles," he said over his shoulder.

"You want me to say it?" she called out, planting her feet in the sand, her whole world shrinking to the two of them. There was no island, there were no other survivors. "I'm worried about you, all right? I don't want you to go up against this guy alone." She paused to take a breath, looking up into eyes that were luminous in the moonlight. "Are you happy now?"

"Go up against who?" a voice asked before Sawyer could respond.

The world came back to her slowly, and she closed her eyes when she felt someone behind her. She took a deep breath, then turned to see not only Jack, but Sayid and Hurley watching them. She pressed her lips together and took an unconscious step toward Sawyer when she registered the traces of suspicion in their eyes.

"Someone needs to tell us what's going on," Jack said. "If either of you knows more than you're saying..."

"You got an accusation, Doc, let's hear it," Sawyer said, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"Yeah, I've got—"

"Okay, enough," Kate interrupted. She turned to Jack. "We found a briefcase in the jungle. There were...pictures of a dead woman in it, and we didn't think something like that should be left lying around, so we burned them." She glanced up at Sawyer, wondering at how easily the distortion had slipped from her lips, wondering why she'd lied to protect Sawyer.

"We thought whoever had taken them was dead," she continued.

"The man who attacked you took the pictures," Sayid guessed.

She nodded. "He didn't mention the pictures specifically, but he kept saying 'I know you have them. I want them back.'"

"Dude, this is too much," Hurley said, throwing his hands in the air. "We've got freakin' murderers running around now?"

"Not for long," Sawyer said, then turned and walked down the beach, not stopping until he came to the spot where Kate had left her stuff. He shined the flashlight into the trees, looking for any sign of where the attacker might have gone.

Kate watched him for a moment before bending down and finding her own flashlight. She obviously wasn't going to convince him not to go after the attacker. But neither was she going to let him go alone.

"Freckles, what are you doing?" he asked when she came to stand beside him.

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"There ain't no way in hell you're coming with me."

"What are you going to do to stop me?" she asked.

"Whatever it takes. "You ain't going back in that jungle."

"He's right, Kate," Jack said from behind her. "You should stay on the beach. We can look for this guy."

"Thanks Doc, but I don't need your help," Sawyer said.

Kate glared from one man to the other. "This is as much my problem as yours," she said to Sawyer. "You're not going to stop me from going. You want to look for him on your own? That's fine. I'll look for him on my own, too."

Sawyer opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted. Not by Kate, Jack, or anyone else on the beach, but by the shaking and snapping of the trees, and the strange, distant wail of the monster.