He wasn't a particularly heavy sleeper, but he was oblivious to the noises of the people approaching him. He didn't wake until a boot collided painfully with his stomach, jolting him back to reality. His eyes opened to the sight of six men pointing guns at him, all but one of them barefoot.
The one with the boots chuckled at Sawyer's angry glare. "We didn't want to take any chances Mr. Ford." He was a fat man with a grey scraggly beard and a harsh voice. In the faint light of morning just before the sun rose, the men pointing their guns at him seem all the more menacing, but it was the sound of the fat man's voice that really made his skin crawl. It had traces of cruelty in it that were all too familiar to the boy that had grown up with no illusions about what people were capable of. He struggled up, needing to be on an equal footing to those who were so obviously seeking to hurt him.
Pointing his gun towards the earth, away from Sawyer, the fat man said, "I wouldn't do that if I was you, Mr. Ford, we've got something of yours, and you wouldn't want her to get broken."
It was the second time the man had used Sawyer's real name, but again he paid no attention to it, there were far worse things that he had been called. Instead, his attention was called to the undertones in the word 'broken'. There was more than one way to break a person, and Sawyer knew about more of them than he cared to. The thought of any of them being used on Kate was more than he could bear, and he was rising to the bait before he had the chance to think. "Where the hell is she? What have you done to her?" He was shouting, using his height to intimidate, knowing that it wasn't the most clever thing he had ever done, but needing to know what had happened to her.
The effect of six guns being cocked should have been disconcerting, but it wasn't the first time Sawyer had been held at gunpoint, and he knew that if they were going to pull the trigger, they would have done already. "I'm not sure that's a question you want to ask. Kate's not a very forgiving girl. What do you think she's gonna do when she finds out that you left her in the jungle, face down in the dirt, bleeding to death? She's killed men for less before."
That bait failed to rile Sawyer up in the same way as thoughts of her being broken had done. Sawyer knew what it felt like to be trapped, knew the fear of being caged. He'd spent seven hours spent trapped behind a pair of leather boots, breathing in the scent of the dung on the bottom of them, and later the pervading scent of blood, its coppery taste something that he'd never entirely been able to get out of his mouth. Kate hadn't run because she wanted him to follow her, she'd run from demons that no longer existed. Far from not forgiving him for not following her, she'd be much more disgusted at him if he had followed her. This realisation led to Sawyer's next question being much more controlled, the rage he felt being buried far enough underneath his skin that he could keep his voice level. "What do you want?"
Annoyed that the fun had been taken out of the situation, the fat man rolled his eyes. There was not much chance for entertainment on the deserted island, and the chance to wind up a redneck idiot had been something he'd been looking forward too. "For now, a blood sample. Later, we'll see." He couldn't resist the last little quip. Later, they would see, and he could only hope the results of the blood tests would be positive. Some idiots didn't deserve the air they breathed. "Alex." He called to the brunette, knowing that she'd know what he wanted her to do. Then he turned away from the squat that Sawyer had been living in.
The girl that the man had called Alex pulled a needle from a plastic bag, smiling awkwardly at Sawyer as she approached him with it. She pulled up the sleeve on his shirt, careful to concentrate on his arm rather than on his face.
"You do this to every man you meet?" Sawyer's slightly sarcastic flirtation made the girl blush as she inserted the needle into his arm. She didn't answer his question though, focusing instead on drawing blood from his arm. She didn't trust herself to speak to him. He was being kept alive as part of an experiment that she had lived through. They hadn't planned on him staying, nor the girl, but that they were still here was too good an opportunity not to take advantage of. Alex just wished that she could feel happy about the circumstances, but the idea of another child being subjected to what she had had to live through was not a pleasant one.
Removing the needle from his arm and sealing it into its bag, she allowed her eyes to fall onto his face, and whispered the words that he had desperately sought to hear, "She is alive and she is safe, for now." Then she left in the same direction that the fat man had gone in.
Sawyer absently rubbed his arm where she had drawn blood, allowing himself to breathe a sigh of relief. Kate was alive and safe, even if she was a hostage for his good behaviour. Glancing at the five men clutching their guns, he allowed himself to sink to the ground. It was all he could do for now.