WARNINGS: Same as for first chapter, plus, I guess, blasphemy?
…
Sara has fantasized about death for as long as little girls have fantasied about their wedding day. There's dignity, at least, in 'taking it like a man'. She remembers hearing that somewhere—prison? Politics?
Everybody knows what it means to die like a man.
To die standing. Chin tilted defiantly, as you look death in the face. A bit of humor—Took you long enough. You don't crack. You don't cry. You don't feel scared, or sad. In other terms, you barely even know that you're alive.
Then Sara thinks, How about dying like a woman?
There's not a lot of time to answer, before Kellerman thrusts her head back into the water. Each second where she craves oxygen stretches like molasses. Acid is spreading through her veins instead of blood. Her lungs feel like two hot irons that have been pressed into her chest.
For so long, she thought she knew how it would happen.
Well, you can never know.
But back in her morphine days, every time she planted the needle in, she could picture herself, going into her high and not coming down. Being found in a pool of vomit the following day—be realistic, Sara. The following week. It was part of the things she'd made her peace with.
Of all the ways she'd pictured dying, in the process of her courtship with destruction, she would have never imagined torture.
Resisting torture.
How odd. To be a woman, dying a man's death.
Although Lance—whatever his name is—tries not to let it show, she can tell he's surprised.
That she should have cracked by now.
She thought she would.
When it became clear what his intentions were if she didn't give up the brothers' location, Sara felt the ground open up beneath her.
She saw the smile on Michael's lips, this morning, before they parted ways. The glint in his eyes as he watched her and when she asked, "What?"
He said, "You."
In a tone so solemn, she knew she wasn't a fool, that he hadn't played her. That she would not have fallen like this for a man who was acting a part.
Because he said You like it was the only answer he'd have for any question that may come his way.
Because though they hadn't spoken of love yet, it was in every word he said to her. In every look.
As the man who had called himself Lance tied her up, the thought of Michael was unbearable.
Unbearable, because she thought she would give him up. At some point. Sara knew about these things. She'd read 1984. Ordinary people speak under torture, and there was nothing extraordinary about her.
The anticipation of pain was almost as bad as the pain itself. Those few seconds, when Lance looked into her eyes, and she knew it was coming. Her stomach jumping up and down, like wanting to pee. Then it happened—it started—and it was every bit as horrendous as she would have imagined.
As it turned out, depriving your body of oxygen was one of the worst things you could do to it.
How can she explain?
Every time Lance plunged her in, her body caved in. I can't take it, I'll tell him everything, the second he lets me breathe God just let me breathe just—
Then the rush of oxygen, painful from how fast she gulped it in, spitting water out onto the floor while Lance padded a towel against her hair.
The first few times, he was so gentle with her. Like this was a necessary but terrible experience for the both of them. "Shh. It's okay. You're okay, Sara."
She stared at the hairs pelting his hands, hands that had cut a dish of lasagna as he sat at her apartment, the food soon forgotten as they launched into philosophical musings of the sort she hadn't indulged in since college.
How transparent it was. Lance's expectation that she would talk, almost immediately, that the torture was not just an inconvenience, but a formality.
She remembers thinking, Screw you, Not Lance, Not An Addict.
Remembers the jolt of pleasure that coursed through her when his mouth tightened, after his third attempt, when he realized he was going to have to put her in again.
And then—
Then—
"Who is there to impress here, Sara?" Lance said. Pacing the room, but only back and forth, so she could see him, so he never left her field of vision. "Do you think you can keep going like this for an hour? Two?" He stopped. "Because I can." His gaze sent shivers down her back. Already, her body learned to react to him as she would to snakes. "What difference does it make, whether you tell me now, or in half an hour?"
Sara swallowed. It felt like draining a glass full of vinegar.
Of course, he was making a solid point.
The satisfaction she got out of frustrating him was fairy dust compared to the nuclear blasts of pain that rippled through her every time he drowned her, the agony of having her survival instincts denied.
For a second, she felt like the stubborn child her father used to chide. Felt about to surrender. She opened her mouth—maybe to tell him everything.
But then Michael's eyes would burn into her like boiled sapphires, and she would think, No, she would think, You, and she would say something like, "Go to hell," or "Fuck you."
And Lance would get a look in his eyes, like admiration.
Of course, she was going to give in to the pain. Eventually. She was only pushing back the inevitable.
Yet she found that she could keep pushing back, again and again. That every time she was on the verge of telling Lance everything he wanted to know, something stopped her. Not always the same something.
A flash of Michael's smile, as they crawled through the pipes of Fox River, the day he saved her from the riot.
Michael, if you're trying to make me feel better you're doing a terrible job.
But I am trying.
Sometimes, it was just a sudden, primal wave of disgust for the man torturing her. Refusing to become only his plaything, reduced to flesh and bones, to pain and survival.
If she spoke, she would be only the woman he saw, the product of waterboarding. Of torture. As long as I keep silent I'm still myself, I'm still a human being.
Hours passed. How could hours pass when each second was an eternity, Sara will never know. But they did.
She could see them pass, in the strain on Lance's face, the vein popping up at his temple. The veneer cracked. The sleeves of his white shirt soaked to the elbows. He threatened her with more pain, worse pain, but after a while, she understood it was some sort of bluff. That he was not comfortable with the sort of graphic torture you see in gore movies—peeling off skin, breaking bones, removing fingernails.
If he was going to move on to 'the next stage', he would have by now.
Pacing the room, with his hands on his hips—
My God, he's big, Sara thinks.
Strange that all the times he sat in her apartment, she never noticed how big he was. How the meat of him fills the small motel bathroom, his head nearly kicking into the lightbulb.
As he was torturing her, he seems to have grown bigger—
Not just big big.
Big, as in, What big teeth you have.
"Do you have a death wish, Sara? Is that what this is about?"
She clenches her jaw. Enjoys his frustration, his anger, even as it spikes the adrenaline coursing through her veins.
Maybe she does have a death wish. Maybe she did, once.
After all, she pictured her funeral hundreds of times. Pictured herself, lying pretty in a coffin, with everyone who's ever loved her—not a huge crowd—wiping teary eyes and breaking down at the sight of her.
But now?
Since she left the door of the infirmary opened, flushing her whole life down the drain—
She hasn't wanted to die.
When she closes her eyes, Michael's smile creeps back into her mind.
You.
"If I did," she says, "it wouldn't be with you."
Lance stops in his tracks, surprised at her honesty. She's surprised, too. If she can blurt out such nuggets of intimate thoughts, maybe she'll spill everything, in the end. Betray her lover. Betray herself.
The crossroads of Lance's gaze makes her want to shimmer away, to fade out of existence. She feels like an ant, caught in the glare of a magnifying glass. Any moment, her skin will catch fire and she will die.
"What do I have to do to you?" he says.
A shiver runs down her frame. She tries to stop it, but she's too late. He catches her fear, and pries open the cracks with his fingers.
"We can be at this all day, Sara. I'm not tired—are you?"
Though it costs her, she doesn't break eye-contact. Doesn't squirm on her chair. The restraints around her wrists are so tight, she can't feel her hands.
Somehow, she's still convinced that he will break her, eventually. That she can't really withstand the pain she's been withstanding for three hours.
It feels very much like bluffing when she says, "Go ahead."
But then, something magical happens. A sliver shoots into his eyes, and she knows he's bluffing, too.
That he has given up on breaking her, a while ago.
Sara blinks. A glow wraps around her, as if she has been dipped into a cauldron of hot gold.
Her jaw slackens, slightly, mystified—because she can see that she mystifies him. Can almost read the thoughts that enter his mind.
Why aren't you talking? Why haven't I broken you?
His jaw squares. She can tell he's bracing himself for one last effort—one last attempt.
Let it be the last, yes. Let him be done.
The thought that this might actually end—that she can die, now, without having given up Michael and Lincoln, seems too beautiful to be true.
His eyes harden. She knows, before he speaks, that he's going to be cruel.
"You're really going to give up your life for a man who played you, Sara? Do you have any idea how pathetic that is? Let me guess. Since he's whirled you away from life as you knew it, and you've been living as fugitives, it's all been like a honeymoon." He speaks the word sardonically.
Her blood curls as she fights images of Michael's hands, running across her body. His face between her legs, his hands working her to climax as his eyes drip with worship.
It's too private for her to be thinking of it now, in front of Lance—
Yet she knows he sees it.
He lets out a breath. Acts like this is embarrassing. "You do know he's still using you. Right? You're not so stupid that you don't know that."
He steps closer, grabs the arms of her chair. His smell hits her and before she can help it, hold her breath, her lungs are full of minty aftershave. She remembers noting his smell, when she thought of him as a harmless guy from her group. Thinking it was pleasant. Some people never forget a face, but Sara never forgets a smell. It's how she identifies people immediately, and more often than not, it plays a hand in how she feels about them. Maybe it shouldn't, but there's nothing she can do about it.
She remembers Fox River, bending into Michael to give him his shot, and taking in a sugary waft of spring-like aroma—thinking, This man does not belong inside these walls.
Lance's face is inches from hers. Disgust rolls down her shoulders, and though she can see it costs him, to invade her space like this, he doesn't move away.
"Of course he's using you. He's a wanted man. You might be a wanted woman, but you're a lot less recognizable than he is. Everything he's telling you, or doing to you…"
She shudders. Can't help herself, no matter that it plays right into his hand.
"It's all part of his game, all meant to turn your head inside out."
Though she refuses to think of it, to let him see the images running through her mind, there's no stopping the stream.
Michael, making love to her, the infinite softness of his fingers inside her thighs, the threads of saliva he sprinkles down her neck and shoulders when he enters her. Again. And again. And—
"Come on," Lance cocks his head to the side. "Smarten up, Sara. For Christ's sake, the man doesn't love you. You're just someone he used, someone he's gonna use as long as he can find ways to use you. I'd hate to see you go like that—just some piece of ass, some toy he can do whatever he likes to."
Her mouth opens in shock. She can tell he hates being so crass.
Though his eyes burn, she doesn't look down. Maybe she should answer in kind—I'd rather be his than yours. Or, maybe, Who's using you, Lance, huh? You want to make me think you're not a puppet? That you're doing what you want to do right now?
But she's so tired.
Feels convinced, if he puts her into the bathtub again, she'll tell him everything he wants to know.
A vortex of terror opens up inside her as he takes his gun out of his holster. Unexpected. This is it. Oh my God oh my God omhygod.
Saliva fizzles from her tongue at the cool kiss of the barrel against her forehead. Lance never breaks eye contact.
"Last chance, Sara. If you talk, I'll advocate for your survival."
The sound of her laughter takes her by surprise—surprises him, too, from the looks of it. It's startingly genuine.
"You'll kill me anyway," she says. Wills herself to believe it.
Even as he shakes his head, solemn. "No. I don't want to do this, Sara. If you give me an excuse not to, I will spare you. I have that much power—to keep you alive if you talk. But this is beyond my control. You're doing this to yourself."
She grinds her teeth.
Is that what he'll tell himself tonight, so he can sleep peacefully?
The idea that his life will go on—that everything will move, except from her, after today.
In five minutes, maybe less, I'll be nothing. Only a hundred and twenty pounds of flesh.
And the funny thing about it is she doesn't want to die.
Really.
She's twenty-nine years old, just figuring out what being a real adult means, away from morphine, self-destruction—no death wish now. And even if she did, she won't get the funeral she dreamed of, will she?
This man will toss her in a hole where no one will ever find her, and that'll be that.
The gun is warm, now, against her flesh.
She manages to hold Lance's gaze. Her eyes are dry, and she tells herself it's bravery, not shock.
"Come on, Sara," he says. "Don't make me do this."
"Go to hell."
The words sound weak, his and hers. Like something the villain and protagonist would say in a movie. No one says things like this in real life. She wishes they could go back, rewind, so she can think of something better.
But then who cares about your last words? Do you think he'll print them on a pamphlet and anti-torture groups will use them throughout the world?
Lance's jaw hardens. He gets that look in his eyes—the one people get when they're about to do something unpleasant. Rip off a band-aid. It crept into his eyes, every time, before he put her head into the tub.
So, she knows.
She doesn't hear a BANG when he fires, but sees his index curl around the trigger. A pressure into her skull. No pain.
A drape like midnight drops down and her body plummets to the ground.
…
Sara does not lose consciousness. It's uncanny, really, how conscious she is. Everything is still coal-black around her, so the first thought that enters her head is, I'm blind.
The second one is, No. I'm dead.
Fascinating, that this is what death feels like.
Her body lies stretched on the ground, and she feels no discomfort as Lance works her ankles and wrists free from the ropes. Vaguely, she does feel his presence around her—not warmth. But a presence, nonetheless, like a legion of black moths fluttering about her.
I'm dead.
This is death.
Lance lets out a few ragged sighs as he works, and curses. She catches his words crystal clear—marvelous, that death does not impair your hearing. How can all the accounts have gotten it so wrong?
"Jesus," he says, and, "Goddamn it."
He uses a knife to saw through the ties, in the end. She can picture a normal man, doing a normal job, letting out this sort of annoyed noises.
Oh my God I'm dead.
He killed me, and he finds it a bit of an inconvenience, regrettable, like having to fire someone.
The sound or ringing as he makes a phone call scatters her thoughts. "Yes, it's done. I'm going to need backup for the body. Yes," he hisses, "I'll send you a picture right now. Just make it quick."
He hangs up.
Sara is aware of time passing. Hears Lance's pacing. At some point, he lets out, "I'm sorry, Sara."
Which, well. What is she supposed to do with that?
He gets to his knees, next to her. Again, she feels his presence, but not his warmth. She does not feel his hand on her cheek, but takes in the smell of his aftershave. It burrows into her lungs, like tentacles.
That's when Sara understands that she's alive.
There's no time to do anything about that before the door swings open, and Bagwell enters—Theodore Bagwell, of all the men in the world.
She could laugh at the irony. Might have laughed, if realization wasn't smashing into her. She's alive, somehow, with a bullet in her head. There is no sensation anywhere in her body. Fingers, toes, legs, arms—
Nothing.
Sara lies absolutely still, as if a mantle of hot lead presses her to the floor.
She doesn't try to speak, but she's sure she couldn't manage if she did.
Yet it must mean something, that she's alive. It feels like it should. That it must mean she'll escape—yes. Things like that don't happen without a reason.
But Sara does not feel hopeful, or lucky.
She does not feel anything, does not even feel her own body.
Earlier, when Lance touched her—
She knows he touched her. Even though she didn't feel it.
He bent over her, apologized, and—what? Stroked her face, like the soft-hearted villain he isn't?
For all you know, he was feeling your boobs.
Maybe thoughts like this are off the mark, but how can she not have them, when Bagwell and her murderer are here, and the one is talking about how to chop her up into pieces, while the other is going 'uh-huh' and 'yes boss' and talking about what a shame it is that in all the years she was he doctor he never got an opportunity to rape her.
Sara does not think she can escape.
She feels like she should say something. Warn these men that she's still alive, before they do anything else to her, before they drive her to a wood and bury her and God why can't she feel her own body?
At some point, Lance tells Bagwell to—
"Carry her into the truck. The parking lot's empty, and no one can see you from the reception. I checked."
"Aren't you gonna help me, boss?"
"No. Because if someone happens to drive by, and see you pull a dead woman into a truck, you're already wanted."
Sara hears Bagwell's gravelly laughter, and takes in his smell as he leans into her. Sweat, breadcrust, fermented grapes and ground nutmeg.
Her stomach lurches—or she imagines it does. At any other time, it would.
Surely, this will wake her.
Bagwell's touch, as he hoists her off the ground—it ought to wake her up, like poison ivy. A prince's kiss may wake you up after a hundred-year-sleep, but an ogre's touch will wrench you even from death. Won't it?
Yet she feels nothing.
Her hair covers her face as he takes her into his arms, and she hears the rustle of clothes, makes out movement through her eyelashes.
It's as far as she can lift her lids.
The door yanks open.
"Don't worry, doc," he breathes into her hair, walking with her into the parking lot. "I'm gonna look after you. I'm gonna tuck you in real nice before we put you to rest."
Her pulse should quicken, goose bumps should break down her arms, but there is nothing. Nothing.
Am I dead or am I alive?
Am I a person or a body?
Doors open. Close. Bagwell pulls her into the back of a truck—it's so dark, it takes a moment for her to realize she has managed to open her eyes, and she hurries to close them again.
Bagwell puts her down on the floor, framed by towers of carton boxes and Pepsi packs. He waits—no. He looks at her.
She can tell he is, because of all the times she felt those eyes on her in Fox River. Every time she passed him, in the yard, through a chain-link fence, or when he was sent to the infirmary. His eyes are the first thing she's really felt since she was shot through the head.
In a way, it's a relief.
"Goddamn waste to do you in like that, without taking time to get acquainted with you. Some people don't know a good thing when it bites them in the ass. Don't matter, honey. You look every bit as pretty now as you did alive."
He falls silent.
Now is as good a time as any to try to move. Sara focuses on her fingers and toes. Surely, she can manage a wriggle.
Before she has time, a thud lets on that Bagwell has sunk to his knees. She goes still—even if she does manage to move, what then? T-Bag will notice. He's too close not to notice now. And if he finds out that she's alive, won't he make things even worse for her?
Oh, Sara. How can things possibly get worse for you?
But she knows that they can. If Bagwell knew he had gotten his hands on her, alive, he'd—
What? Rape and kill you?
Already she hears the impatience in each of his breaths, like a tide that draws in, and in, waiting to release a wave big enough to swallow whole cities. He's waiting for the truck to start, she understands. Once Lance is rolling, then, he'll know they won't be interrupted.
Sara lets out a cry—but only in her mind.
There, she cries, and cries, and cries.
"God, you're pretty," he says.
She draws in a breath—surely he'll notice that she's breathing. Then his hands are on her, and Sara stops thinking.
How does she know he's touching her?
She can't feel the warmth of his palms through her clothes. There is no sting in her breasts as he kneads them, no clenching in her gut as he lets his head run down her stomach.
Sara understands, at once, with a kind of philosophical acceptance, that the world of pleasure and pain is dead to her—or perhaps she is dead to pain and pleasure. It doesn't feel like there is much of a difference.
And yet, though she cannot feel those things, she knows he is doing them.
There is a kind of weight, a kind of presence to his touch. It's the same ridiculous way that some letters seem to have colors, or that sounds seem to have auras.
She cannot feel Bagwell's touch, but she can smell it. Her skin does not crawl under it, but her soul does.
Thoughts shoot one after the other—
Is it rape if I'm dead, if I'm just a body?
It feels like there should be a person, an 'I' to be wronged.
You fool. All rapes happen to bodies, drive the 'I' away long before they're finished.
A purr hums through the vehicle, as the motor starts. The truck begins to move.
"Hear that, doc?"
Sara shudders. Does she shudder?
She hears—and for a second, a wave of panic rains down on her. She wants to scream, to make it known that something is wrong, death didn't take, it didn't take, and what kind of a bad joke is this?
Her plight feels so real and terrifying she is sure, ridiculously, that even Theodore Bagwell will have mercy when he realizes there's been a mistake.
"Showtime," he says instead.
In her mind, Michael's smile from this morning. The dripping love in his eyes when he said, You.
A plop when her shirt is peeled off her and her arms drop down above her head. Her bra comes off in a long riiiiiip.
"You're so warm."
His nose presses into the hollow between her ribs. She hears him breathe her in, but feels no tickles at the warmth of his breath. Does not feel spiders releasing down her body as his tongue plunges into her navel—does not feel anything. Not at the skin-level, at least.
Below the skin? Inside out, where all the feelings of the dead are buried?
She feels it ten thousandfold. Feels it as deep as where banshee screams begin.
"Thy lips are warm," he whispers. And he sounds gentle. Sara wants to die at how gentle he sounds. "Jesus, doc. That's from another play, you know. Them lovers playing dead, and dyin' for love—I ain't gonna say it, you know who I mean. You been to college and all. But sweet lord, you as warm as that dead, not dead Capulet lady. And just as lovely."
He sighs.
"Scofield sure is gonna miss you. I hope I get to be there when he finds out—oh, I wouldn't be surprised if he skewered himself up on a sword, like Romeo," Bagwell laughs. "He'd be just the type. Don't you think so?"
It feels unfair that he brought up Michael just now.
She thinks of pointing out, actually, Romeo dies poisoned. Juliet is the one who stabs herself.
But that would mean talking. And if Sara's going to talk, it won't be about Shakespeare. If she talks, now, she's going to scream.
This is how cruel he is, and he thinks you're dead. Imagine if he knew you were alive?
He yanks down the zipper of her jeans. "I'd love to be the one to comfort him, you know—tell him how peaceful you looked. Real peaceful, like you was sleeping. How nice and warm you felt. God," he touches her, now, between her thighs, no clothes, nothing, she can't know, but she does, feels without feeling. "You do feel warm, honey. So warm. I wish I'd gotten to you alive."
And I wish you hadn't, she answers, in a place only God can hear.
…
Sara remembers the pain of rape. It's not the sort of thing you forget.
The burning, acid bite inside of her. Sometimes, there was blood. Not always. Streaking wads of toilet paper, thinner and pinker than periods.
She supposes there's some irony to it.
Before today, she'd only ever been raped while unconscious. Passed out on a couch, drunk out of her mind. She woke up with the pain, and carried it for weeks. If it hadn't been for the pain, she could have pretended nothing had happened.
And now—.
Now, you're awake. And you can't feel any of it.
Well, that's not right.
What does feeling even mean?
She catches Bagwell's grunts and ragged breathing in her ear. Hears her own flesh pound against the floor with each thrust. The blood-curling things he whispers into her hair—he's turned her around, before it started, flipped her on her stomach.
Cover her face.
Probably for the best.
The things he says, she tries to forget, imagines them dissolving into a pot of black paint—how good she feels, how long he's wanted her, how much he wishes she could be alive for this.
And she thinks, Alive. Yes.
Or dead.
Either. Please. Just let me be either of those things.
Is that not feeling?
Even if there is no pain, her mind fills in the blanks, fetches the ghost of those morphine-days, of men mounting her incapacitated body. So, really, she does feel it. Just not with her flesh.
Is this punishment? Poetic justice?
She didn't speak under torture, and now, she can't be tempted by pain anymore? Is that the way God does things? If so—
What the fuck, Jesus?
The doors of the truck fly open. Bagwell goes still. She hears that—hears him get to his feet, the rattle of his belt as he buckles his pants. He starts blabbing, but Sara can't listen, really.
The relief that it stopped, that he's no longer touching her, inside her, forcing life into her perfectly dead body—
It's too much. Or not enough.
Vaguely, she's aware Bagwell is trying to incite Lance into gang rape, but the idea doesn't terrify her as much as it should. Lance does not give off rapey vibes.
Maybe she should seize this window, the fact that both men are distracted, to try something. But lying there, naked, grimy with sweat and cum—it feels impossible. Even more impossible than before.
Like she's been gutted, and her insides are dangling outside her ripped open stomach, splayed on the ground in a grotesque mass of red garlands.
At some point, Lance cuts T-Bag's monolog short by taking his gun out of his holster—oh, she'd know that sound out of a thousand others. The safety clicks off and he says, "You're a fucking disgrace."
It's strange, to hear that.
Her murderer turned avenger.
She has enough awareness to note the irony, but can't bring herself to feel amused. You must have skin in the game, to feel anything.
And what do I have?
Bagwell sighs. "Ah, boss. There ain't no such thing as grace and disgrace. Only pleasure and pain. Sometimes they're one and the same."
And maybe they are. They sure have disappeared in the same black void that Sara can't grasp, can only remember, remember, and know this is not what being alive feels like.
There's a bit more talking, on the men's side. The living's side. Lance tells Bagwell to get off her—
My hero, she thinks, dry with sarcasm.
A shame Lance didn't get protective before she was raped. Or, you know, killed and tortured.
"You shoulda said you loved her boss," T-Bag says. "I would have understood."
Another fun thing to picture. Bagwell talks some more, about a Webster play. She can picture the scene, him, standing above her, with shame dripping down his shameless body, refusing to take. Lance, all righteous with his soldier-looks, his waterboarding and patriotic bullshit.
My God, what does a woman have to do to get killed around here?
Finally, Lance shoots Bagwell dead—
He gets a clean death, does he?
And after a while longer, he comes kneeling next to her.
The swirl of his jacket whipping off, as he lays it down on her naked body.
A gentleman till the end.
Then he starts talking. Men have become so talkative, now that she's dead.
"So," he says, "hi, my name is not Lance, and you've never met the real me."
And on and on. He never meant to hurt her, or kill her, and it doesn't seem to do her a fat load of good.
Oh, and apparently, his name is Paul.
Such a generic, unvillainy name, it's a little unfair.
Sara lies, motionless, while he rambles.
A splinter, like ice, squeezes through her skeleton.
She can feel it, because it's not there—and maybe she will only feel things that aren't there anymore.
It enters her mind that if she does nothing, says nothing, Lance—Paul—is going to butcher her while she's still breathing. Maybe that's something to try. Maybe she'll feel that.
She feels butchered already, with her legs spread apart, the thought that Theodore Bagwell has been inside her.
But to see herself turned into meat? Watch the steady, impervious look on that banal face as 'Paul' saws into her arms, and legs, and—
No.
She gathers her breath.
It's time to put an end to this.
She hasn't tried to speak, since it all started—ended. Whatever you want to call it. She doesn't even know if her voice will be there, where she left it, on the other side.
But she has to try, right?
Parched, bark-like texture hits her tongue when she licks her lips. Can she feel that, or is she only imagining it?
Her murderer has gone silent. Anytime, now, he'll start cutting into her. The urgency helps her carve out the word, through air solid as gem. "Paul—"
She's surprised to find she sounds exactly as she did Before.
A chill creeps into the air.
Too late, it hits her that she's going to scare the crap out of him. He thinks she's dead. He shot her, for heaven's sake, so she can only be some sort of vampire, living dead, undead, un-everything.
There's no time to come up with a more decent warning.
A cry escapes her when he flips her on her back. The world spins, the jacket he used to cover her body slithers to the floor.
Soon, he is looming over her and she is gazing into his unremarkable blue eyes. All blue has become unremarkable, since Michael.
Paul's face is the same shade of banal it always was. Harmless, not-sexually-attracted-to-you Lance, who says all the right things, who votes as far left as the political spectrum can go in the U.S.
The only place where she can see his terror are his eyes.
They go wide, wider than even the gates of hell must be. If she doesn't say anything, he might try staking her through the heart—which might not be such a bad thing.
"Paul," she tries again. Her voice sounds flaky, but she can't feel the raspiness of her dry throat. She swallows, and the rest comes out better. "Please, you have to shoot me again."
He stays blank. Maybe she's not really talking—or just in her mind, somewhere as unreal and irrelevant as she feels right now. All the fear that has planted its claws into her starts to spill out. Being buried alive, butchered alive. Remaining alive, through it all, somehow.
It's so pathetic, she could cry in frustration.
That's not how it ended, really ended. Defiance. Bravery. Go to hell—cheap, maybe, but this?
This is so much worse.
He opens his mouth, round as an O. At least she's managed to surprise him. That'll be an anecdote he can revisit, and think, Well, I'd never seen that one before.
"How?" he says.
"Sometimes it happens."
As she speaks the words, she knows that they're true. You do hear of such cases, although she's never seen one with her own eyes. People get shot through the head, and they don't die. Nobody knows why. They just don't.
Paul says nothing, for a long time.
Too long.
She doesn't want to drag this out anymore.
It feels like she's been dragged through the river Styx for months, her skin flailing against rocks of hellfire, her body broken by waves that taste of salt and blood. It's time it ended. Time for Hades, or Satan, or heck, maybe Jesus. Maybe nothing. Maybe all three—who knows what they get up to down there.
"Paul," she says. Breathes out a sigh—is she going to have to convince him? "You said you didn't want to have to do this. Hurt me."
Still nothing.
Goddamn it.
"Will you just shoot me again?"
"Mine eyes dazzle," he says.
Sara blinks. "What?"
And really—
What?
He chuckles. Has the nerve to chuckle.
Okay, maybe it's shock, it's probably shock, but—
An air of grave solemnity pastes onto his face, so fast, she can forgive him for the chuckle.
"God. Sorry."
He yanks his coat back onto her body.
"You must be cold. Jesus, you must be in so much pain."
She says nothing. What use is there in disabusing him?
What kind of man is Not Lance, Not An Addict, that he can torture a woman for three hours, shoot her in the head, but then shies away from shooting her again while she's still naked?
He fumbles around for her clothes, and blushes at the ripped fragments—Bagwell did not go easy on them. The proof of violence imprints upon her with something like joy. Her bra and panties dangle from Paul's hand in shreds of black lace. He lets go of them as if they were about to turn into snakes.
Sara remembers T-Bag's voice in her ear, as he discovered her underwear, Scofield likes black, does he?
And he does, based on the way his eyes drank her in—
His eyes.
God, she has to stop. It's unfair to think about Michael now that she's dead, dying, soon-to-die.
Paul mutters something. It sounds like, "Animal," and Sara feels mildly vindicated by this tangle of torn lace.
She cannot feel the ripped seams in her own skin, the saliva drying on her breasts and stomach. She cannot feel the violence that she has just gone through, but to see it is a relief. Without thinking, she runs a hand down her inner thigh—her arm moves when she asks it to, does not demur. Blood trickles down her fingers and she greets it with a strange smile.
Paul, still busy salvaging her clothes, pauses to stare at her a moment, before averting his eyes. "Your shirt is fine. Your jeans got ripped but—" he stops again, and she can tell the red on his face is rage.
This is not a joke.
This man here is outraged on her behalf.
Sara stares back at him.
Who made you my knight? she thinks.
When did you become the man who blushes at what other men do to me?
How dare he?
And, more to the point, Why in the devil's name haven't you killed me?
"But the zipper's all right," he finishes. "You should get dressed."
She shakes her head. Fuck him, and his prudish ways. If he's going to chop her into body parts, he can stand the sight of her nakedness. "Why?"
He holds eye contact with her, calm, but she can see his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. "You'll be more comfortable that way, don't you think?"
Why the fuck do you care about my comfort?
That he'd even speak that word in front of her, after the torture—
She could claw his eyes out. But she's not in a negotiating position. So she says, "I think I'll be dead, Paul, and sawed into pieces. Clothes are not going to make much of a difference to me."
He doesn't laugh, but a gleam does spark in his eyes, as if she's said something funny. Maybe her attitude surprises him—maybe he expects dead women aren't past caring about modesty. His jaw is set tight—it's strange, really, the look on his face just now. South of his eyes, everything is grave, angry. Like he'd be happy to shoot a couple more bullets into Bagwell's dead body.
But in his eyes? There's a kind of joy that seems indecent to Sara. Happiness so frank that her hands turn into fists.
His gaze is fixed on hers, all the while—no. He's looking at a spot just above her eyes. He's looking at the bullet hole.
What does he see?
A copper coin, pressed into her forehead? Something to pay Charon with.
Then he speaks, and her body goes rigid.
"I'm not going to kill you."
She opens her mouth, but can't think of anything to say. At some point, a bar shoots between his brows and she thinks he probably expects her to speak.
What?
'Thank you'?
She could have used sparing before—Before.
Now?
Sara imagines herself, roaming the winding corridors of limbo. A maze not full of monsters and torments, but entirely void. Just arteries that go on and on, lead away from the heart, from everything that matters.
Will Michael find her in this deserted dawn? Way past sunset, and never sunshine, always stuck in between—
I have got to stop thinking in metaphors.
Still what is the point, now, of living? What can possibly be the point of any of this?
She says, finally, "Then what are you going to do with me?"