Chapter 9

Sawyer stirred when the sun beamed in his face. Rolling over he searched for Valerie and felt only air. Sitting up he saw that Valerie was nowhere in the tent. Searching for his clothes he hoped everything was all right. Usually it was him who would wake up and leave early. Now he understood what it felt like.

Once dressed Sawyer left the tent and scanned the beach. A few survivors were already up and walking around while some were staggering from their camps still yawning.

But Valerie was not around.

Feeling worried, Sawyer stopped everyone he passed to see if they saw Valerie and he finally got lucky with Sun.

"Yes, I saw her walk into the jungle," she said pointing towards the direction. "I was tending the garden and she walked by."

Sawyer thanked Sun and dashed into the jungle. Pushing branches and cursing Sawyer had absolutely no clue what he was going to say to her. He seemed to be wandering aimlessly around until he spotted the waterfall she used to wash. Stepping over a rather large tree root, Sawyer pushed past another branch when he reached the fall. And standing still as a statue was Valerie.

Her eyes were red and glossy as though she was just crying. Her hands were bound together behind her back and she was shaking. Sawyer had never seen her like this and it worried him.

"Valerie, what's wrong?" he asked trying to hide the concern. "What happened?" Valerie remained still and silent. "Valerie, please answer me."

"How could you?" she muttered. Sawyer looked at her confused as a small child would when they were yelled at for doing nothing wrong.

"What?"

"How could you?"

"How could I what?" Sawyer truthfully had no idea what she was talking about.

"I trusted you! I trusted you and you lied to me!" Now Sawyer was nervous. Valerie could go many different ways with this, but he seemed to know which was she was going to go.

"Come on," he whispered moving a step closer. "Let's go back to camp and talk about this."

"You think I'm gonna go back with the man who killed me father!" Sawyer was now staring at the barrel of a gun Valerie pulled from her back. Sawyer immediately froze and a wave of memories evaded his mind.

He never told her his real name to avoid something like this from happening. Now he wondered how she found out.

"I saw your wallet with your real name!" Valerie explained answering his thoughts. "And the letter! You tried to hide that from me. Why?"

For the first time in years, Sawyer was speechless. Here he was, stuck on an island with strangers, recovering from a bullet wound, being held at gunpoint by the one person he truly cared about and he was speechless. Who wouldn't?

Sawyer sighed and started, "Listen, Valerie . . ." but he was cut off by someone screaming. Sawyer and Valerie hurried towards camp and what they, they couldn't believe.

Michael was running out of the jungle . . . with Walt! Young Walt's clothing was dirty and ripped. His tiny legs desperately trying to keep up with his father's and his face red and sweating.

Jack ran towards them, his face a mixture of joy and shock. "Michael, how . . . are you hurt? Walt, thank God!" But Michael was trying to say something. Waiting for his breathe to come back, Michael waved his arms widely and it was Walt who finally translated.

"Others!" he cried and pointed to the jungle. Emerging from the jungle with weapons in their arms was a small group of people.

Sorry for the extremely short chapter. Look for 10 this week . . . only two chapters left!