Timeline: A week later (between Saw and Saw II)

Rating: Pg-13 for mild violence

Chapter 11

Forgive Me

"True friends stab you in the front." -Oscar Wilde

Michael had conned or plea bargained his way out of dozens of misdemeanors and felonies, and so a part of Mark felt satisfied that justice would finally be served. It's not like there was anyone who would miss him anyway. A lingering sense of regret hovered within him though, because despite Michael's crimes, without one of their most reliable snitches, there were many cases that never would have even made it past the preliminary hearing, much less led to a conviction, without his assistance.

Mark recalled Michael helping them just last week. He gave them inside information on a drug dealer connected to a recent homicide. Of course he ratted him out to avoid his own charges of petty theft, but he was still a convenience to the department and an asset in making several convictions possible.

He wondered if that case would be the last one Michael would be involved in. When he looked over the blueprints for his trap, John's twisted design he liked to refer to as the "Venus Flytrap", Mark decided it probably was.

John once again demanded that both he and Amanda observe the gruesome game. It played out as Mark predicted it would. He watched Michael throw the scalpel down and fall to his knees in humility and desperation.

"Help me!"

Mark blinked, and when he opened his eyes, the metal spikes penetrated into Michael's skull, encasing his entire head. He fell over like a puppet whose master had snipped the stings. Blood oozed out of him, forming a crimson pool around his head.

"Are we done?" Mark said, a bored overtone in his voice. He looked over at Amanda and shook his head. Her mouth gaped open in surprise. She'd really expected him to gouge his eye out, or what remained of it, and dig around in his eye socket for a key. Mark wasn't sure anyone except the most masochistic kind of people would be capable of doing something like that; it seemed to go against the instinct of survival to self mutilate oneself and carve into the most vulnerable part of the face. He knew a coward like Michael certainly wouldn't have the guts to do it.

"Yes, you're dismissed."

John left the room, and Mark stood up, intending to follow him until he saw how shook up Amanda was.

"You okay?" he said, his face expressing a softer side, a part of himself he usually tried to shield while participating in these seemingly endless torture games.

She looked up at Mark and parted her lips to speak, but she couldn't find the words. She felt like a sealed envelope, unable to open without tearing and spilling out all the contents, or rather all her emotions. She didn't want to breakdown now, not in front of him. Especially since they'd had several arguments about her place here and her ability, or in Mark's opinion, her inability to deal with the inevitable setbacks and losses. Mark had already tried to argue the morality issue and explain that what they were doing was wrong.

If it weren't for the blackmail I'd be gone. You should consider leaving before you get too involved.

But she was already too involved, and right now it showed, all over her face, her stiff body and her trembling hands.

"I'm fine," she lied, and turned her head away from both Mark and the gory remains of the latest Jigsaw victim.

Mark put a hand on her shoulder. For a brief moment, she considered looking up at him and trying to smile for his sake, in gratitude of his small gesture of kindness, but she felt the tears emerging from her eyes and sliding down her cheeks, tears she couldn't resist any longer, so she kept her head turned away from him and remained unresponsive, ignoring Mark's presence altogether. A few moments later she heard his sigh, so soft and sad that it sent a shiver through her and provided another round of tears she fought to keep in. Mark looked away, feigning obliviousness. Then he walked out, giving Amanda an attempt to salvage some of her pride.

John returned moments after Mark left, as if he'd been waiting for the moment Mark was gone to return. He knelt down to Amanda and touched the side of her face with his fingertips, tilted her head upwards, and revealed the evidence of her intense crying.

"I know the disappointment you feel. I feel it too," he whispered. "We have to continue our work though, if we are to ever succeed."

Amanda nodded, absorbing his everyone word and imprinting in her memory.

"Amanda, I need your help if our next test subject is to be successful. Your cooperation is essential. I have to know I can trust you to remain calm and focused."

Amanda nodded again, a little smile emerging this time. "Of course you can trust me."

"I forbid it!" Mark shouted. Amanda sides ached the with the force of her laughter.

"You forbid it? Since when do I allow you to forbid me to do anything?"she regretted her choice of words as soon as she spoke. Mark's face just got redder, his frown deeper. Her petulance only aggravated Mark more, so she added on a side note, "Besides, it's John's idea, not mine."

"Of course," Mark said. He set the cup of coffee he'd bought from the convenience store down on the table before his trembling fingers could drop it or before his rage caused him to throw it across the room. Both options seemed likely scenarios at the moment.

"I'll be careful," Amanda said. He shook his head.

"It doesn't matter how careful you are. There will be danger all around you."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "I know where all the traps are. I set most of them up myself-"

"I'm not talking about the traps, Amanda!" he said. He held up a photograph of Obi, then let it drop to the floor as he grabbed on of Xavier.

The situation did seem more daunting when Mark held up the picture of a rather intimidating man in front of her, but she couldn't let it mess with her mind. She smiled at Mark. He was stunned for a moment, for usually all her smiles were reserved for John, and he only caught them in his peripheral vision. He could only imagine what kind of misplaced emotion inside of her generated that spontaneous smile.

"John has everything figured out," she said with confidence.

He groaned, annoyed with Amanda's unfaltering loyalty to John. It was like when he got called into the domestic disturbance cases and the wife's laying there, bruised and bloody, the kids the same way, with a knife sticking out of her flesh, saying with a smile, "He's a good husband, really. He just gets a little mad sometimes, but he's such a good man. You should see how he is with the kids."

Mark rubbed his eyes, as through trying to scrub away the remnants of a nightmare from his mind.

"Yeah, well I don't. I don't have you figured out. How can you let him put you in danger like this...again?"

"He needs me. Why can't you just accept that he doesn't need you as much anymore-"

"I don't give a damn about him and what he needs!" Mark hissed. He grabbed Amanda's arm. She tried to free herself from his grasp, but it only made his tight grip hurt more. For a moment she was surprised at his strength, and it suddenly dawned on her how defenseless she really was. It was a fact that didn't slip past Mark either.

"Stop it!" Amanda said.

"You think I'm cruel?" Mark whispered. Amanda tried to tear away, knowing she couldn't compete with his strength but hoping he might let go after he proved his point.

"Stop!"

"Think about what Xavier could do to you, or Obi-"

"Stop it!"

"You think John really cares-"

"Stop it, Mark! You're hurting me!" she cried.

As her yelling turned into a painful whimper accompanied by fresh tears, he instinctively released her. The marks on her arm would soon fade, but her words would linger in his mind much, much longer. It hurt him to do that to her and to watch her reaction. He stepped back, his chest heaving with tension as he looked at Amanda, who glared back at him with shock.

Although his borderline violent action hadn't been planned, he thought that maybe it had been appropriate. He saw fear in her eyes, fear that should have been there all along, since the moment she set eyes on this hellhole. She needed to be afraid; She just needed to redirect that emotion towards the right person.

"John doesn't care about you." Mark said. "He's using you. This test is proof of that. He uses everyone eventually, myself included. "

"John needs me to protect Daniel in case something goes wrong," Amanda said. "He can't do it, and you can't either, unless you want to blow your perfect cover, which obviously you won't since that's the only reason you're here. Someone has to do this, so unless you can think of a better idea, let it go."

"Daniel shouldn't even be involved-"

"Of course you think he shouldn't! You don't even think Eric Matthews should be tested! But you know what, Mark? I think he should! I think John is dead on with this guy. You don't know what it's like to be framed for a crime you didn't do. I tried to get clean once before, and he planted drugs on me to get me thrown back in jail. And jail...you know better than I do, it's full of drugs. You can't get away from it..."

"It's practically the currency," Mark admitted.

"Eric screwed up my life. And I'm not the only one. He deserves to be tested. He deserves everything he gets!"

With that last statement, Amanda turned to storm out, but Mark chased after her.

"What?" she said. "What else could you possibly have to say to me?"

Mark hesitated, uncertain of the words but positive of the meaning he wanted to get through to her. He wanted to tell her to survive, to live through tomorrow so that he wouldn't have to kill the old bastard if something went wrong and she got hurt, so that he wouldn't have to live with the guilty conscience of another dead woman he cared about that he couldn't protect, and so that he wouldn't have to say good-bye to her, because the thought was unbearable. He tried, but he couldn't say any of that. He leaned in close to her, daring a kiss, but retreated before either of them could gather up the courage to go through with it.

"If you're there to protect Daniel in case something goes wrong...then who will protect you?"

Amanda looked up at Mark, so close that she could feel his exhale on her check.

"I don't need protecting," she whispered, looking into his beautiful clear eyes, searching his face for some kind of a response.

"Be careful," he said and watched as she gave him another one of her rare smiles and walked away.

Mark felt panic swell within him when Eric opened the door to his new apartment because Daniel was no where to be found. He scoped the place out with his peripherals and saw cardboard boxes, empty beer bottles, and basic furniture, but not a sign of Eric's own juvenile delinquent anywhere.

"Where's Daniel?" Mark asked as casually as he could, sitting on the old, stained furniture and trying to avoid staring at the alcohol only a few feet away from him that he desperately craved.

"Like I give a damn anymore. He probably ran off to go live with that bitch of a mother. They deserve each other."

"Eric..." Mark said, "You can't possibly mean that."

"I don't know what to do with him. What does he want me to do? His mother's the one who filed for a divorce. Even if I wanted to stop it, I can't. So he smokes pot thinking...what? Him getting arrested will bring us together? Maybe for an hour or so, while we take turns kicking his ass. Like she even gave a shit about either of us before..."

Eric continued rambling, his talk obviously influenced by the substance that was once in the empty bottles scattered all over the small apartment. For a moment Mark spaced out, realizing that John and Amanda had already begun Eric's game, and he didn't even know yet. At this current moment, Amanda's life was probably in danger, as well as Daniel's, and Eric was stumbling around like an idiot, totally oblivious to the danger, thinking that the most troublesome thing in his life was that his wife that he didn't love anymore anyway wanted a divorce, and his son got arrested with a misdemeanor for smoking pot. Within 24 hours, Eric's entire world would shift, his priorities would refocus, and for a moment, he'd be forced to see himself and his life exactly as John Kramer did. He's see what a moron he was for neglecting his son, for getting wasted and acting like a pathetic fool instead of being a responsible parent.

Mark couldn't bring himself to tell Eric any of this. It was too late. He's have to learn it all the hard way and possibly as a final lesson.

"Are you listening to me, Mark?" Eric asked.

Suddenly Mark's cell phone went off.

PRIVATE NUMBER

It was John in need of assistance of some kind. Mark took a deep breath to calm himself. Was he calling because of Amanda? Did she get hurt? Was he calling because he knew Mark had stopped by Eric's place and wanted to remind him not to interfere? Or did he really just need Mark to help set up the game?

"I've got to go, Eric," Mark said. "Sorry, I know I just got here, but-"

"Go ahead," Eric said, shooing Mark away with his hand. "You're not as much fun since you stopped drinking."

"How did you know I stopped?" Mark asked.

"You've been eyeballing that case of beer this whole time like it's been giving you a striptease."

Mark didn't smile, but simply stood up from the couch as he walked towards the door to leave.

"See? If you weren't sober, you would have thought that was hilarious."

"So I have to be drunk to fully appreciate your company?" Mark asked with a slight grin. Eric reciprocated the gesture.

"There you go, Mark. It seems like it's been awhile since you smiled. It's nice to see it, even if it is at my expense."

"I'll see you later, Eric," Mark said, looking at his best friend for what he knew could possibly be the last time, still subconsciously weighing the value of Eric's life against his own, still trying to find some way out for both of them. He knew he was fooling himself by maintaining any kind of hope. It was too late. John had gotten Daniel already. The game had begun. He looked into Eric's tired eyes, eyes that were too exhausted and full of grief to see the glaringly obvious pain in his best friend's face.

Eric, forgive me, he begged inside.

"See you later, Mark," Eric said, shutting the door behind him.

Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I love my readers! ;)

More chapters soon. Please review.