By Sinking815
August 4th, 2006
A/N: As stated before, I am in no way affiliated or authorized by LOST in any way, although if you offered me a job, I couldn't refuse! ; ) So no that the disclaimer's out of th way, how about a change of pace? I don't know about all of you but I'm starting to drive myself crazy with this never-ending tension! I almost gave myself a headache with the last few chapters. From all your wonderful responses, it sounds like you're all ready for something more. Don't worry, you've finally gotten to the part where the tension drops out but the suspense comes in! As always, please read and review!
Chapter 12: Warnings
It was about goddamn time, Sawyer grumbled. Or would have grumbled had his lips not been stretched taut once again with the stale black cloth that left his mouth as dry as Muhammed's desert home. Usually people liked the chance to freshen up after being dragged like a sack of potatoes all night through dense jungle brush. The water they had given him had run right through him and he desperately needed to take a leak.
But what the hell did he know? Maybe that would be like expecting Hyatt Gold Member treatment at the Holiday Inn Express. They had made it clear enough, this motel didn't quite understand the concept of complimentary chocolates left on fluffy pillows. t was a damn good thing they didn't believe in those survey cards that rated hotel staff and accommodations. If ranked on a scale of one-to-five, he'd have marked the option "Other" filling in the black with something along the lines of "Disturbingly creepy and bordering on hellish". Or maybe, the succinct version of "Hell-a-day Inn?"
Tossing the hair out of his face, Sawyer chuckled at his own joke and he looked up, half-expecting Jack to be staring at him in mild confusion.
But Jack wasn't there. Tom and the other man had taken him out, a while ago. Then, Sawyer hadn't thought too much about it, but realizing his missing companion still wasn't back made his stomach curl a little. If there was one thing Sawyer had learned to trust in a world of lies and deceit, it was that feeling—the one that meant bad things were about to happen.
Not that he would ever admit to actually being worried about the doctor. Hell no! That might insinuate that he actually cared for something or someone other than himself. He'd let Freckles do the worrying. She was good at that.
Sawyer's temper ebbed a little at the thought of Kate. The ghost of her snapping to her knees, turning her back on Jack and hurrying from their hut, Alex close behind, flashed before him. His stomach had clenched maliciously then too.
Frustrated at their situation and his helplessness, Sawyer growled to the dead air in the hut around him in a very restrained version of a temper tantrum. Sighing with defeat, he hung his head, his long hair falling past his eyes again.
Something, his stomach was telling him, was out of sorts here.
Something, his stomach was telling him, seemed about to go very wrong.
Something, his stomach was telling him, that he couldn't do anything about.
Kate could tell that Alex wanted to say something to her. That awkwardness had risen the second they had emerged from the hut. That wasn't the only new thing that had risen, Kate noticed with a angry glance to the sky.
The sun was incredibly intense anywhere on the island. But here, it seemed even crueller. The lack of palms may have something to do with it, she mused, squinting past the glare around her. For the first time since she had arrived at the Other's camp, she was getting a good look at what they were up against.
Before she could really commit many of the details to memory, Alex broke through their shared silence with a shaky voice.
"Kate, I…"
The footsteps behind her stopped in their weary trudge and Kate turned to her captor. Biting her lip, Alex averted her gaze to her feet, letting the rifle she carried drop to swing at her side. After a moment's consideration and a surreptitious scan of the deserted yard around her, she let the words flow in a deliberate rush.
"I… We… We were never going to hurt you. We just had to make him cooperate and he said that was the fastest way to do it."
She let her apology trail off, her blues eyes staring at Kate, pleading for forgiveness, understanding, any sign that showed Kate wasn't angry with her. It was the same way Ray had looked when the Marshal tailed his beat-up old pick-up to the station.
And as she had done back then, Kate found herself unable to form her thoughts into comprehensible words, so she just stared.
Alex looked around, nervously again, walking towards Kate and steering her towards the hut she recognized as being the one she spent the night in.
"We should keep walking," Alex whispered, as if realizing her potentially fatal error.
Kate nodded mutely, her mind spinning with the words still hanging in the still air. She barely noticed their quickened pace or the relative coolness of the shade as they ducked inside her hut.
Make him cooperate? She assumed Alex meant Jack, but how did interrogating him about his life mean cooperation? She voiced that much to her captor.
Stealing another cautious glance at the wooden door swinging gently behind them, Alex motioned for Kate to sit with her on the dirt floor and sighed. She sat still for a moment, as if she were a weary traveller that had come to a fork in the road and stood contemplating which path she wanted to follow.
"Jack is your leader, is he not?"
"Yeah…" Kate answered, unsure of where this was going.
"Well, we felt that…" Alex started, pausing as she carefully worked how she wanted to phrase her next statement. "In order to understand your group, we needed to understand your leader and his motives."
The look on her face must have expressed to Alex just how confused Kate was. What kind of answer was that?
"For example, you and Jack are obviously close…," Alex tried again, easing forward to secure Kate against the brace of the hut.
"Wait a minute, what does this have to do with me and Jack?" Kate interrupted, her brow scrunched in suspicion. The sympathy in the other girl's eyes only angered her more. Surely her feelings for Jack, whatever they were, hadn't been that transparent. Who was to say she didn't feel the same about Sawyer too?
"Kate," Alex sighed, tying the knot tightly about her prisoner's wrists. "We knew that bringing Jack here was going to be difficult. And that getting him to cooperate would be even more so. The reason, or the main reason I should say, you're here is because you are his weakness."
Kate stared numbly ahead, her mouth slack with surprise.
"That's why we had to drug you. To make him believe that we were willing to do anything to you to get what we wanted from him."
There was another uncertain beat, and Alex knew what she had to say, but wasn't entirely sure Kate wanted to hear her apology.
"I'm sorry, it was the only way."
Kate nodded, only because it was the thing to do, not necessarily because she was accepting the apology. Alex stood to leave, brushing the dirt from her already dirt-stained pants, and turned towards the door.
The roughly hewn wood felt picky under her fingers and she resisted the urge to lean against it, wondering what she could she say to ease the shock of the woman behind her. Casting one last sorrowful look over her shoulder, Alex swallowed.
"If it makes you feel any better, Kate." She paused, waiting for Kate's name to sink through and continued only when she had the other girl's eyes on her. "We always keep our promises."
As Alex strode across the dusty path separating the two sides of their camp, she failed to notice the dark figure disappearing into the shadows near the hut.
He barely had time to register the butt of the rifle slamming against his cheek before he was face-down in the mud by the river. The rushing water gurgled past his blurred vision and he could swear he heard a familiar voice taunting him in its wake.
He struggled to upright himself, tasting blood in his mouth and resisting the urge to vomit despite the gag tucked securely between his teeth. Split-lip, he thought, hearing his groan of pain mixing with the amused laughter behind him.
Then there was a searing pain tearing across his ribs from a flying boot as he was hoisted to his knees, his bound arms jerking sharply at a strained angle behind him. When the stars had stopped their circular dance before his eyes, Jack managed to make out Tom's crazed face leaning uncomfortably close to his.
"You see, Jack? We don't normally believe in violence," he was saying. "But when the boss comes back from his little trip on your side of the island, with a face so bruised and cut, we," Tom gestured with his finger between himself and the man holding Jack arm's at the high angle. "We find it fair to return the favor."
The other man who Jack had learned was named Pickett sniggered gruffly behind him.
"An eye for an eye right?" Tom laughed in his face and out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the fist coming before he realized he was going to be hit again.
Then the world went dark.