She wasn't supposed to be conscious. Sara wasn't quite sure how she knew that, but an inner voice urged her to hold very still despite the workings of her thrashing stomach. It felt like someone was wringing it like an over-saturated wash cloth.
"She should be coming to soon," a voice said from a distance. Or maybe it came from right next to her. It was hard to tell.
A pair of footsteps walked over to the wall, turning on the monitors one by one. "Everyone's in place."
Without another word, two sets of footprints echoed around her and then disappeared behind a steel door, which shut behind them with a hushed click.
Sara was alone.
She took her time opening her eyes. Her bound hands longed to reach for her stomach and hold it as it fought itself within her. Another shot and she wouldn't feel that anymore. Another shot and all this would disappear.
Sara opened her eyes, the dim light blinding her, and found her surroundings much as they had been every other time she had opened her eyes in recent memory. Only this time the monitors were on and she could see Michael chained to a wall and Lincoln resting his leg in his strange maze of a holding cell.
What a pathetic trio they were, Sara thought on an inner laugh.
A moment later Sara realized that Michael had lost his shirt sometime between the last time she saw him and the present. No doubt Mark and company had been looking at his tattoos, trying to figure out their hidden messages.
Looking at Michael, bound and shirtless, Sara had an odd feeling come over her, but was unable to place it. But since the morphine was wearing off and she had nothing better to do, she watched him. He kept his head down so she couldn't see his face or eyes all that well, which meant she started watching his body, looking for signs of malnourishment and dehydration.
He had lost a little weight, but overall still looked strong. His chains gave him enough slack to switch positions and even pace a little bit, which was what he was doing right now.
Sara found herself watching how his arms hung limply at his sides, his hands no more than dead weight that swung he walked. She'd never seen him move like that. Michael was always cautious with his delicate hands, hiding them whenever possible—tucking them away as he walked. The chains must have kept him from doing that.
But still she watched. The focused Michael she knew seemed impatient and angry as he paced with his head down and eyes averted… arms swinging. She had seen him in countless stressful situations before and he had never acted like this. He was a thinker, a man who pulled inward and contained his energy, not a man who paced it off gracelessly.
Bells started going off in Sara's mind, confusing her as she peered closer. She wasn't sure what she was looking for and once she saw it it took a moment to process.
She had seen it a dozen times since she had started watching him, and only now did her conscious mind catch on.
There was no scar on his shoulder. The man who was pacing back and forth in that cell had never had the skin on his shoulder blade burned off, and a seamless tattoo stretched over the spot that had caused her so much grief just a short time ago. Which meant the man in that cell could not be Michael.
Sara looked over to "Lincoln," eyes narrowed, searching for a clue, but she didn't know that brother as well. Yet reason told her if they had created a stand in for one brother, then they had likely done the same for the other. And Vernoica? She had been "beaten" unrecognizably from the beginning.
Her mind clearing by the moment, her stomach pain relenting from the flood of adrenaline that filled her system as realization dawned, Sara watched the screens and started reassessing her situation.