Chapter Thirty-Six:

Sawyer…

Sawyer had been spending a lot of time recently with Allan Quartermain. The Great White Hunter, as he was often called, was his mentor on the first mission for the League, and when he had died, Sawyer was on the windy side of devastated. So, now that he'd returned, the young American didn't want to be out of his company. A few days after Kathryn had blown up her desk, he and Quartermain were on the deck, discussing her.

"I don't understand why you're so hurt, Sawyer," Quartermain said lightly, polishing his hunting rifle. "She wasn't acting out of character."

"She lied to me!"

"She lies to everybody," he said matter-of-factly. "What makes you so special?"

Sawyer couldn't think of an appropriate response. So he said, "I don't know." He was feeling really hurt by how she had treated him in London. She made him believe that she cared for him. But, back on the Nautilus, he realised she was only trying to get him to think that so she could return to the League.

But he hadn't known how physically scarred she was until that night. She hadn't been completely honest with them when she explained what she did for her occupation. She appeared to have gotten into more physical conflicts than she gave herself credit for. Sawyer somehow made the connection that her physical scars affected her in such a way that she would never trust another human being in the remainder of her life. Her physical scars penetrated so deeply as to affect her soul and made her as cold and hard-hearted as she was.

"Have you noticed she has a faint white line across her throat?" he asked Quartermain. The hunter didn't look up, but he shook his head. "It looks like she had gotten into a fight with an assailant with a blade. It starts at the bottom of her left jaw and traces cleanly across to her right collarbone. That could've killed her if it was deep enough."

"Pity it didn't," Quartermain muttered. "She's not my favourite person in the entire world."

Sawyer sighed. "I know that," he said. "But, I've been thinking. Maybe we should all learn to trust each other again. Maybe we should turn over a new leaf… Or something."

Quartermain looked at Sawyer. "Perhaps," he replied. "But I doubt it will work."