A Different Way to Be: Chapter 8
Title: A Different Way to Be
Author: Zippy88
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Kate/Juliet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own anything
Spoilers: A little from season 3
Chapter 8: Ridiculous Thoughts
You’re standing in front of him with a silent, blank stare written across your eyes. The tips of your fingers are digging into the middle of your palms, as you ball them up tightly. You can feel the anxious sweat easily moving along the curving lines carved into your skin. You know what is coming. After all, you did ask for this to happen, you wanted to annoy him. His seemingly unwavering glare suggests otherwise though, as if he hadn’t seen your disobedient stunt just a few moments before. His fierce eyes are wide, blinking slowly at you. Does he want you to say something first? You stand still with your mouth clammed heavily down. It’ll be a battle of will then, because you refuse to be the one to speak first.
Carefully he draws in a profound lung full of air, before releasing it nosily. His head twitches towards the cameras, their filthy grey screens flickering back at him with nothing but the same view as before. His hands, you notice, are relaxed, simply hanging down from his short arms with a softened confidence, miles from your awkward tensed hands. He’s enjoying this. The silence allows him to plan out the conversation, allows him to formulate words that will come much later on in the conversation.
“Shepherd’s going to do the surgery,” finally he speaks first, and the air is only alleviated slightly. It’s not what you’re expecting though. You suddenly grow very anxious in the wake of his announcement. Did he even see you approach the cages? You raise your head a little and look at him questioningly. You’re not surprised because he’s said that before. It just means that Ben is still overly confident that Jack will cave into his demands or his threats eventually.
“He’s doing the surgery tomorrow,” he clarifies, startling you into looking away from him. You’re caught off guard by the fact that Jack has agreed to do something as drastic as saving this man’s life for so little. You know instantly that Jack’s sold his skills so cheaply, because you know Ben would never agree to give too much away. Your mind drifts to what the possibilities of their deal are. What has Jack asked for, but more importantly what would he get?
“Which means he needs a nurse,” he interrupts your wandering thoughts, his voice is low and you can tell he’s subtly ordering you to be at the surgery tomorrow. You shake your head slowly, readying yourself for a long bout of questioning. “I can’t,” you say quietly but firmly, “I have to run some tests on the blood samples I’ve managed to collect.” He rolls his head around the thin axis of his neck, before his eyes shift back to stare deeply into yours. You feel yourself swallowing lightly on the nerves that have burrowed themselves into your mouth. “Can’t that wait until after the operation?” he asks forcefully. Once again you can feel your head shaking, and your mouth saying, “I can’t let them -“ but he abruptly cuts you off with a louder tone in his voice, and his hand rushes up to silence you. “Please don’t lie, Juliet,” he warns, and you sigh with an awkward nervousness. He pauses for a moment. His lips are pursed even more with a very faint line splitting the top from the bottom. “It wasn’t an invitation that you could decline,” he tells you with a hidden threat sitting closely behind his glasses, “so you’ll be there at seven sharp, is that understood?”
The simmering ruthlessness taints his eyes, welding themselves to yours as he always does when he wants you to obey his wishes. You give a half-hearted nod before turning to leave, but the toughened weight that rests on your shoulder fails to let your feet move any further towards the exit. “So I guess you don’t want that pay rise after all?” You spin around to face him with a startled flush. So he did see. He lifts his lips up slowly, the faintest touches of an evil smile brushing across his mouth. “I’m curious though,” he tilts his head mockingly to the side, “as to how you’ll cope when she’s gone.” You watch mutely as his smile grows viciously across his face.
He can surely feel your questions burning into his skin without you having to form the right words. Your eyes are wide with a naked fear wrapped untidily with a blanket of anger. He breathes in rapidly through his nose, as he lifts his head up in unashamed glee. “Well,” he stresses carefully, “I guess since Shepherd’s agreed to do this, we have no reason for Austen to be here anymore.” You glance away from him with a soft sigh, realising the full extent of Ben’s plan. “How did you convince him to do it?” you asked finally. He just smiles back knowingly, before adding, “same way I convince anyone to do anything, Juliet, blackmail.”
There’s a spoiled taste that’s leaking into your mouth. You know only too well what it is that Ben’s referring to. You’ve been there, you’ve seen his malicious talents at work, you’ve been beaten heavily by his hammering words that threat against all that you care about. Everyone crumbles at his hands, everyone. Even Jack it would seem. “It’s a pity Austen couldn’t have been more helpful,” he comments loosely, “I rather enjoyed her dramatics.”
He passes you slowly, the painful heat still burning your shoulder from where his hand had held you. You watch him slip out of sight around the corner, and finally you allow yourself to relax, but you instantly know that it won’t last for long. It never does on this island. Even more so now that all these new people have arrived.
It’s still plaguing your mind even when you’re trying to get some much needed sleep. You can’t recall the last time that you fell into an undisturbed sleep. The cramped camp bed does nothing to ease you into a gentle slumber. The harsh, brown fabric of the blanket scratches at your skin, and the plain white sheet is so cold that it pains your joints to lie upon it. You’re almost relieved to know that you’ll be back in a proper bed within a few days. You shift uncomfortably across its small space, the twang of the springs shatters through the air rudely, and you give a disgruntled sigh, as you settle back into another awkward position.
The frustratingly anxious questions about what will happen in a few days to come are still hammering at your mind. You wonder silently if she’s worried too. Does she ever worry about what happens next? How would be plan her runaways? Does she plan at all? The bank robbery that she conducted haunts you. She must plan, or how else would she have managed to break into a bank and also escape so easily? You don’t understand how effortless it really is for her. It bothers you to know that her life is so easy, that she can make her life so unproblematic because she knows how to runaway.
The ageing springs are cutting into your side again and you try in vain to move slowly, quietly into a better, more comfortable position, but there isn’t one. Does she have this problem, you wonder? Does she get irritated by the thought of sleeping in a strange place? Then you remember she doesn’t even have a bed, you do. She sleeps in the openness of the island’s forever changing temperament. The hard pinch of the ground is her mattress; you on the other hand have at least a softened mattress to lie on.
You will yourself not to think about her situation, forcing yourself not to picture yourself in her place instead. It’s bleeding into your mind and no matter how much will power you put in to halting the blood stained picture come into focus, it’s there and it’s taunting you with a heavy shame. You quickly claim that it isn’t your doing; none of this is what you want. How many times have you said that? How many times have you wished that were true? But it is your doing, you’re on Ben’s side, you chose to come here.
A painful sting feeds into your left eye, gravity’s brutal hand dragging it further down your cheek and dampening your soft skin as it trails down your face. You remember the day you chose to come here. You willingly drank from the glass containing the sedative, wanting to believe that something far better would awaken you from your sleeping state. How wrong you were. It was a mistake. A simple mistake, nothing more, but still it hurts you to know how much this one mistake has cost you. As the single tear comes to rest on your upper lip, you can taste the salty regret creeping further into your being. For a moment you wish your sister was here to sooth away all the disjointed melancholy, but then you remember the island’s cruel hand that holds your invisible shackles, and you silently pray that she will never get caught by the same brutal hand.
An empty breath catches between your teeth, as another betraying tear slides down the same path the first one had. You swallow hastily at the salty sourness that dances across your tongue, and your frozen anger melts just enough to reach your finger, flicking away the insulting droplet that dares to touch your skin. You instinctively close your eyes, fighting against the desperate helplessness that invades your shattered emotions. You have no option but to pull yourself together. How else will you face tomorrow?
You scoff lightly through your nose. Tomorrow will just be another loose thread in the intricate weaving that you’re forced to wear. You scoff again. You have no intention of carrying out the operation as Jack’s nurse. Your mind draws you back to the thought of Kate and her tested determination; somehow it wills you on to take a step closer into her world of rebellious traits and defiant attitudes. This is your only opportunity to swallow your fear, to go against the set rules, and to go against Ben’s last word. Why would you not take it? It’s time that you did cease the chance, especially when there are people now that are on a different side to Ben. Yes, that side that you so feverishly want to be on. Now you have the chance to move over to that side, to do the right thing.
The pensive decision steadies your broken nerves. The sinful tears have been pushed far back into yourself that you can no longer find them. That’s how you like it to be. You’ve cried far too much in your life. Finally you’ve relaxed yourself into a state where sleep is carefully stroking at your eyelids. You’ve done this before. You’ve talked yourself out of crying about your helpless cause, you’ve tried to put reason to your situation, and above all, willed yourself to carry on. And you’re reward for this? A few hours of undisturbed sleep, and a welcomed dream of your sister’s forgiving smile.
It soon fades away though into streaks of colourless grey hues, and replaced by several new colours that are somehow harsher than the grey could ever be. For a moment you’re confused as to where you are, but the shapes align themselves properly and the colours deepen, reminding you of exactly where you are. You lift yourself wearily from the stiff mattress, and your cheek momentarily sticks to the corner of your very flat pillow. You swallow down at the sleepy dryness that has captured your mouth, there’s still that subtle hint of salt sitting on your tongue. You hastily wipe your hands clumsily over your face, hating the fact that you allowed yourself to sink into your moment of weakness.
You swing your legs over the side of the small camp bed, your bare feet slamming harder than you had anticipated onto the hardened coldness of the tiled floor. You wince at the sharpness that twinges against your toes, sighing with frustration at how low the camp bed hovers above the floor. Your eyes shift across to the bright red figures that are silently laughing at you from the table next to the bed. It’s only five. You could have another hour’s sleep, but you know it’s pointless. You’re awake now.
You throw the rest of the scratching fabric away from you, relieved to have it away from your skin at last. You’re enveloped in the cold now though, you can feel the small draught gathering around your knees and pulling at the fine hairs across your bare arms. You aimlessly tug at the white t-shirt you’re wearing to cover more of your skin but it’s simply not big enough to stretch. You stand up slowly, the vivid pain is still biting at your toes, and you mentally curse yourself for not paying more attention.
Tomorrow is now today, you come to realise. Today is the day of the operation, and as you’re quietly trying to make your way over to the shower, you allow yourself to smile, because this is your chance to gain a little of authority back from Ben. With the tepid warmth of the showering water, you carefully go over the details that you’ve already planned. You know what you’re doing, but you’re so used to going through plans time after time with Ben that the habit has stuck firmly.
By the time the clock blinks to seven, you’re already standing in the operating theatre. The clinical blue is overwhelming you, as you stand beside the table and only half listen to the instructions that Jack is informing you about the procedure. The fabric of the white mask is already tickling your nose, and you’re suddenly impatient to rip it away from you. You look around you and watch as the other three people nod their heads enthusiastically towards Jack. You inwardly scoff at their deep concentration, knowing deep down that they don’t want to be there either. You’re confident of their abilities though, they will help Jack in your absence, and they’ll do it because they’re all too frightened of Ben to do any different.
You swallow quickly, as Jack is about the make the small incision. This is your chance. As soon as Jack makes the incision he won’t cancel the operation. The silver blade dances across the pale skin of Ben’s back and you have to hold your breath until you see the trickle of scarlet spill from its path. You hurriedly step away from the table, ripping away at that irritating mask finally, and start to head towards the door.
You’re surprised to his voice. You were expecting one of them to speak up and question your daring move towards the door, but not him. He’s more condescending than you like him to be but you ignore it, telling him that you have something to do. The others are staring at you now, their eyes wide with shock and fear. He wants to know where you’re going, and you’re not afraid to speak the truth. But still your answers don’t satisfy him, and a deep frown settles uncomfortably across your brow. What does it matter to him? He’s still Ben’s prisoner. You have to remind him of that otherwise you’ll never get through those doors.
“You’ll do the operation,” you speak firmly, “otherwise whatever Ben promised you in return, be assured it’ll never happen.” His eyes narrow, and you can see the soft material of his mask moving in and out telling you that he’s breathing heavily probably from frustration. He wants to retaliate but he knows you’re right, and besides Tom appears at the doors of the theatre stalling any chance that Jack has of asking you anything else. Tom’s shaking his head at you in confusion, whispering at you as to what you’re doing. You push past him into the coolness of the hallway and instantly he follows letting the heavy door swing shut again.
You take a deep breath and brush off your hat that covers your head, before letting your hands rest onto your hips. “I’m working,” you tell him with a steady voice. He screws up his face at your cryptic answer, expecting you to tell him more. “I’m going to do some tests on Austen,” you clarify and he seems to appear more baffled than before. “Why now?” he asks with uncertainty, as he glances back over his shoulder towards the operation through the window. “Didn’t Ben ask you to be here?” he continues, and you maintain your eye contact with him, you’ve got nothing to hide. “He did,” you nod, “but there’re far too many people in there already, and these tests are going to take a while.”
He pauses for a moment and you almost sense that he doesn’t quite believe you, but finally he gives a small nod. “I guess if it’s that important than you better go and do it,” he surmises, “but don’t you think he’s going to be a bit angry when he wakes up to find you’ve gone without his say so?” You smirk lightly at the corners of your mouth, it’s a nervous one though, you know perfectly well that Ben will be more than a little upset when he finally comes around from the operation, but isn’t that the whole point? “I’ll be sure to leave a memo then,” you reply flatly, before turning around and starting to walk away. He calls after you though, stopping you in your tracks, “you’re going to move her on your own?” You twist your body around and give a quick nod of your head, it’s clearly not what he wants as a reply though, as he adds, “be careful then Jul, she can be quite the Houdini.” You allow yourself to smile properly at him at his kindness not to ask anymore questions or worse to refuse to let you to move her at all. As much as Tom is one of the nicer people on the island, he is still very loyal to the man laying on the table that you’ve just left.
You head quickly into the store room just down the hallway, and you already know where the sedatives are kept, since you’ve been sent so many times to retrieve them. You’re careful to pick up two packets and slip them safely into your trouser pocket. The pair of metal handcuffs that seem to have been used so many times this week are hanging neatly from the hook behind the door. You never understood why they were kept here, but either way you’re glad they are were you thought they were. It makes your task a lot easier. You stuff them into your other pocket of your blue scrubs, and the coldness is suddenly sharp against your thigh.
You make your way around the station as quickly as your feet will allow you, finally stopping at the surveillance room, where you know there are some guns. You are against using them. You hate having to hold one, you were never brought up to acknowledge the use of weapons, but you’ve been instructed to use them around the island under the pretence that they will somehow save your life. You shudder at the icy touch of the black metal, as you slip one of the pistols off a hook and stare down at its vulgar form. You can remember vividly the first day you were ordered to hold one. You can remember the paralysing fear that had gripped you, as you were taught how to use it.
Of course it had taken you much longer than Ben had wanted for you to learn all the small details of using various different guns. It hadn’t come naturally to you, but no one can notice the struggle that you had had in the beginning, because you’re so confident now with any weapon that is thrown your way. You grimace at the thought of how much practise you’ve had over the three years with a gun. Too much practise you suppose, but you can’t regret any of it because you’re still here, you’re still surviving. Slipping the heavy metal into the waistband of your blue trousers, you try to shake off the memories that haunt you. You pick up your feet and will yourself to move, as you’re conscious now that the hour glass is steadily filling up.
It still seems so incredible to you that you’ve got this far in disobeying Ben’s firm instructions. But you’re very precise in the details, because there’s still a line that you can’t cross no matter how much you want to ruffle Ben’s feathers. So the sedative is a must. You don’t like using it but there’s no other option available to you to do it any other way. You pull a disgusted face at the slightly lime green cloud that is floating slowly towards the bottom of the bottle that holds the water. You screw the lid back on tightly and shake it furiously, hoping that it dissolves enough to trick the brunette into drinking it. You remember the vile taste that the sedative leaves in your mouth, there’s no way of covering it up, she’ll notice for sure, but you have to somehow make her drink it.
Standing before the cage door, it’s only now that you start to feel the jolt of nerves wriggle desperately inside of you. She’s staring at you from behind darkened eyes and gritted teeth. She’s clearly not pleased to see you, and nor would she make this easy on you. But what do you expect really? She’s stubborn, it says so in her file, you even highlighted it for heaven’s sake. There’s no emotion in your glare back at her, it’s the same cold, blank expression that you’ve come to rely on now. Somehow it only infuriates her more. But there’s something that makes you blink twice, and then again. You try your hardest to maintain your frozen stare, to keep the startled surprise from seeping into your pores, and it works, you don’t let on that you’re shocked. But you can see the striking resemblance in her face to the small pictures that are inked into the sheet of paper in her file, and you’re once again reminded of the small ounce of innocence that lightens up the back of her eyes.
You let your eyes fall away from hers because it’s too much for you to watch. You place your hand through the bars, holding out the bottle of water which is a murky grey colour now. She’s looking at you questioningly. “Drink it please,” you instruct simply. You don’t want to make this any harder than it already is. She stares at you in disbelief, and you try to ignore it from the corner of your eyes. “I’m not thirsty,” she snaps back, folding her arms defiantly across her stomach, as if it was amplifying her point.
Drawing in a quiet breath, you soften your voice a little, almost to the point where you’re pleading with her, “just drink it please.” You can see her scoff at you from the corners of your eyes, she really isn’t going to make this easy for you. “What is it?” she asks you with a sting of bitterness biting at her demanding words. You sniff lightly at the air, wishing that she would just do as she was told for once. “Just drink it please,” you re-alliterate forcefully, and she seems taken back slightly by your sudden aggressiveness. “You think I’m going to drink it because you said please?” she spits back, stepping closer towards the bars with a threatening anger flashing in her eyes.
You clench your jaw tightly, wishing that it wouldn’t come to this. You feel dirty for falling so low, for doing exactly what you hate Ben doing, for lying to her. “I just assumed that you’d want to see your friends again,” you raise your eyebrows at her a little. Her eyes widen from their gruelling squint and you can see the questions already forming in her mind. “What have you done with them?” she demands roughly. Well you’ve surely done it this time, you’ve opened up that can of worms again. It’s not like you weren’t expecting it, but still it feels like you’re going around in a tight circle that you can never escape.
“I’m taking you to see them,” you state softly, but you feel the need to stress the next part, “but first you have to drink this.” She doesn’t believe you. You can see the clear disbelief in her face, but she wants to see her friends. Friends, you repeat to yourself in your head, you wonder how friendly she’s been with both of the men that are still being held prisoner. You’re curious to know, but you’re silently pleased that there’s still something you don’t know about this woman, somehow it atones for knowing everything else about her.
“No,” she shakes her head hurriedly, “you’re lying again.” You blink your eyes slowly down away from her condemning ones. You wait until she’s quiet again, as she starts to pace angrily around the cage. You can’t argue with her, because she’s right. You are lying. “Please just drink,” you try again, and the line is thinning between your lips, as you tighten your jaw. She’s laughing at you now, mocking you from inside the bars. “You must think I’m stupid if I’m going to drink that,” she calls out at you.
“Suit yourself,” you raise your eyebrows a little at her, a streak of sarcasm thickens your voice, “I’ll tell Sawyer you said hi.” You start to retract your hand slowly out from between the two bars, but there’s a flicker of realisation inside her eyes that tells you she’s about to give in. She steps forward hastily and snatches at the bottle just before it has chance to disappear out of her reach. She yanks it forcefully from your grip causing the hollow crackle of the plastic to ripple through the air.
For a moment she wears the same deathly stare that she had once worn before when you had offered her food and she had ended up created a rather crude masterpiece across the glass wall. You falter inwardly, is she about to do the same trick? You instinctively want to take a step backwards, because you realise there’s no solid wall between you to stop the impact of the water. But that would be an inviting admission for her to do exactly that, so you refuse to move your feet. You wait calmly but firmly for the sour reaction of the young brunette.
You’re clearly surprised when she decides to snap the lid off and takes a rather generous amount of the liquid inside the bottle, but you remember not to show it. There’s a faint raise of your head and a tiny twitch that tickles the left corner of your mouth, but nothing else, never anything else. “Thank you, Kate,” you say flatly, as you stay to watch the effects of the fast working sedative.
She sways unsteadily on her feet, her eyes are blinking madly, as if the light is far too bright for them, and before she can comprehend what’s happening to her, her knees fail her and throw her to the floor. You move towards the door, already fishing into the pocket of your blue scrubs for the keys. By the time you move into the cage she’s already passed out, the water bottle tipped over and spilling the last remaining drops of the contaminated water.
You take a deep breath now she can’t see you do so, steadying your unnerved anxiety. You pull out the pair of metal handcuffs from your other pocket and the guilt starts to pour quickly from your forehead in streams of sweat. This is only a precaution, you tell yourself. You want to make Ben angry, you want to upset him, but if Kate ever managed to escape from you in the meantime, then the line would be crossed, and you can’t even begin to imagine what Ben would do to you if that ever happened.
So you hesitantly slide the metal rings around her wrists that still have the dirt stained bandages clinging to them, but you don’t tighten them too much. They’re loose enough to not cause any pain to her. You’re not him. You won’t do that to her. Not that she will notice, you suppose, handcuffs are still handcuffs to her. You assume she’ll wake up even more irritable than before since you’ve quite plainly lied to her and handcuffed her for good measure. But you don’t want to think about that right now, you have to concentrate on how you’re going to move her down towards the boat.
You scoop up around her arms and drag her backwards by her shoulders. You’re amazed at how light she is, you’d expected it to be a little harder. The sun’s heat is scorching your back through the material of your scrubs, and by the time you make down to the shoreline where the boat sits tidily in the sand, you’re soaked in sweat. You can feel it trickling down your neck in untimely trails, staining places of your scrubs, and you quickly realise that you’ll be worse for wear by the time you reach the other side.
You carefully place her inside the wooden boat, and you suddenly find yourself wanting to take back your previous statement that she’s light. You can feel the ache in your arms after you’ve managed to get her inside, laying her at the end of the narrow boat so that you can keep an eye on her, you tell yourself. The water’s thrashing across its open landscape a little too much than you prefer. It won’t make it easy paddling on your own against its defiant toughness. To make matters worse there’s a hollow darkness creeping in from the thin line of the horizon; you just hope you’ll reach the other shore before it unleashes its fury on you.
You can feel every muscle in your arms tighten when you push against the wooden boat with all your force. It slips casually into the swell of the water, splitting its darkened blue hues into an explosion of white. The frosty bite seeps through your scrubs, as you wad further into its depths to meet the boat. You give a final glance back over your shoulder and you half expect to see a group of people running out of the trees with their guns waving madly in the air yelling at you to turn the boat around. But as you had suspected, no one ever worries about the motives of another person within the cosy little group, they leave that up to Ben to deal with.
Even the flicker of white streaks in the background against the blackened skies can’t seem to hold your attention for very long. Your eyes keep wandering back to her, sprawled out at the other end of the boat in her unconscious state. You’re not worried about her waking up anytime soon, that dosage of sedative is designed to keep someone sedated for a long while. But you are anxious about what you’re going to accomplish when you get to the other beach. You start to ask yourself if this was the right thing to do, or are you just asking for trouble? Of course you are though; you want to show Ben that you won’t always do what he tells you to do. That in itself is trouble. But you’ve simply had enough of just following instructions, you’re sick of being Ben’s pet for him to command around whenever he feels like it, and you’re tried of this relatively small island. You’re making a statement, you tell yourself, Ben won’t listen to you so you’ve resorted to taking matters into your own hands to prove to him how serious you are.
You find yourself swallowing at the salty air that whips into your face fresh from the open sea. How will you explain all this to her? How will you explain this to Kate, the fugitive, the escapee, the killer? The last words rattle around inside your head and even the paddle pauses in mid air in your wake of who this woman, you’ve just kidnapped from her cage, really is. You look at her again. She doesn’t look like a killer. In fact you’re convinced that she doesn’t look capable of such a crime. But you know she is, you’ve seen the evidence, you’ve read the statement from her mother than tells you she is guilty.
Breathing out slowly and deeply, you continue paddling, realising that you have to just get on with what you’ve started. There’s no point analysing the details anymore. There’s still a vast amount of distance to cover before you hit the other beach on the main island, and so for just a little while you allow yourself to filter out the constant buzzing of ridiculous thoughts from your head, because you know you’ll have plenty of time for them to burrow at your conscience.
Author: Zippy88
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Kate/Juliet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own anything
Spoilers: A little from season 3
Chapter 8: Ridiculous Thoughts
You’re standing in front of him with a silent, blank stare written across your eyes. The tips of your fingers are digging into the middle of your palms, as you ball them up tightly. You can feel the anxious sweat easily moving along the curving lines carved into your skin. You know what is coming. After all, you did ask for this to happen, you wanted to annoy him. His seemingly unwavering glare suggests otherwise though, as if he hadn’t seen your disobedient stunt just a few moments before. His fierce eyes are wide, blinking slowly at you. Does he want you to say something first? You stand still with your mouth clammed heavily down. It’ll be a battle of will then, because you refuse to be the one to speak first.
Carefully he draws in a profound lung full of air, before releasing it nosily. His head twitches towards the cameras, their filthy grey screens flickering back at him with nothing but the same view as before. His hands, you notice, are relaxed, simply hanging down from his short arms with a softened confidence, miles from your awkward tensed hands. He’s enjoying this. The silence allows him to plan out the conversation, allows him to formulate words that will come much later on in the conversation.
“Shepherd’s going to do the surgery,” finally he speaks first, and the air is only alleviated slightly. It’s not what you’re expecting though. You suddenly grow very anxious in the wake of his announcement. Did he even see you approach the cages? You raise your head a little and look at him questioningly. You’re not surprised because he’s said that before. It just means that Ben is still overly confident that Jack will cave into his demands or his threats eventually.
“He’s doing the surgery tomorrow,” he clarifies, startling you into looking away from him. You’re caught off guard by the fact that Jack has agreed to do something as drastic as saving this man’s life for so little. You know instantly that Jack’s sold his skills so cheaply, because you know Ben would never agree to give too much away. Your mind drifts to what the possibilities of their deal are. What has Jack asked for, but more importantly what would he get?
“Which means he needs a nurse,” he interrupts your wandering thoughts, his voice is low and you can tell he’s subtly ordering you to be at the surgery tomorrow. You shake your head slowly, readying yourself for a long bout of questioning. “I can’t,” you say quietly but firmly, “I have to run some tests on the blood samples I’ve managed to collect.” He rolls his head around the thin axis of his neck, before his eyes shift back to stare deeply into yours. You feel yourself swallowing lightly on the nerves that have burrowed themselves into your mouth. “Can’t that wait until after the operation?” he asks forcefully. Once again you can feel your head shaking, and your mouth saying, “I can’t let them -“ but he abruptly cuts you off with a louder tone in his voice, and his hand rushes up to silence you. “Please don’t lie, Juliet,” he warns, and you sigh with an awkward nervousness. He pauses for a moment. His lips are pursed even more with a very faint line splitting the top from the bottom. “It wasn’t an invitation that you could decline,” he tells you with a hidden threat sitting closely behind his glasses, “so you’ll be there at seven sharp, is that understood?”
The simmering ruthlessness taints his eyes, welding themselves to yours as he always does when he wants you to obey his wishes. You give a half-hearted nod before turning to leave, but the toughened weight that rests on your shoulder fails to let your feet move any further towards the exit. “So I guess you don’t want that pay rise after all?” You spin around to face him with a startled flush. So he did see. He lifts his lips up slowly, the faintest touches of an evil smile brushing across his mouth. “I’m curious though,” he tilts his head mockingly to the side, “as to how you’ll cope when she’s gone.” You watch mutely as his smile grows viciously across his face.
He can surely feel your questions burning into his skin without you having to form the right words. Your eyes are wide with a naked fear wrapped untidily with a blanket of anger. He breathes in rapidly through his nose, as he lifts his head up in unashamed glee. “Well,” he stresses carefully, “I guess since Shepherd’s agreed to do this, we have no reason for Austen to be here anymore.” You glance away from him with a soft sigh, realising the full extent of Ben’s plan. “How did you convince him to do it?” you asked finally. He just smiles back knowingly, before adding, “same way I convince anyone to do anything, Juliet, blackmail.”
There’s a spoiled taste that’s leaking into your mouth. You know only too well what it is that Ben’s referring to. You’ve been there, you’ve seen his malicious talents at work, you’ve been beaten heavily by his hammering words that threat against all that you care about. Everyone crumbles at his hands, everyone. Even Jack it would seem. “It’s a pity Austen couldn’t have been more helpful,” he comments loosely, “I rather enjoyed her dramatics.”
He passes you slowly, the painful heat still burning your shoulder from where his hand had held you. You watch him slip out of sight around the corner, and finally you allow yourself to relax, but you instantly know that it won’t last for long. It never does on this island. Even more so now that all these new people have arrived.
It’s still plaguing your mind even when you’re trying to get some much needed sleep. You can’t recall the last time that you fell into an undisturbed sleep. The cramped camp bed does nothing to ease you into a gentle slumber. The harsh, brown fabric of the blanket scratches at your skin, and the plain white sheet is so cold that it pains your joints to lie upon it. You’re almost relieved to know that you’ll be back in a proper bed within a few days. You shift uncomfortably across its small space, the twang of the springs shatters through the air rudely, and you give a disgruntled sigh, as you settle back into another awkward position.
The frustratingly anxious questions about what will happen in a few days to come are still hammering at your mind. You wonder silently if she’s worried too. Does she ever worry about what happens next? How would be plan her runaways? Does she plan at all? The bank robbery that she conducted haunts you. She must plan, or how else would she have managed to break into a bank and also escape so easily? You don’t understand how effortless it really is for her. It bothers you to know that her life is so easy, that she can make her life so unproblematic because she knows how to runaway.
The ageing springs are cutting into your side again and you try in vain to move slowly, quietly into a better, more comfortable position, but there isn’t one. Does she have this problem, you wonder? Does she get irritated by the thought of sleeping in a strange place? Then you remember she doesn’t even have a bed, you do. She sleeps in the openness of the island’s forever changing temperament. The hard pinch of the ground is her mattress; you on the other hand have at least a softened mattress to lie on.
You will yourself not to think about her situation, forcing yourself not to picture yourself in her place instead. It’s bleeding into your mind and no matter how much will power you put in to halting the blood stained picture come into focus, it’s there and it’s taunting you with a heavy shame. You quickly claim that it isn’t your doing; none of this is what you want. How many times have you said that? How many times have you wished that were true? But it is your doing, you’re on Ben’s side, you chose to come here.
A painful sting feeds into your left eye, gravity’s brutal hand dragging it further down your cheek and dampening your soft skin as it trails down your face. You remember the day you chose to come here. You willingly drank from the glass containing the sedative, wanting to believe that something far better would awaken you from your sleeping state. How wrong you were. It was a mistake. A simple mistake, nothing more, but still it hurts you to know how much this one mistake has cost you. As the single tear comes to rest on your upper lip, you can taste the salty regret creeping further into your being. For a moment you wish your sister was here to sooth away all the disjointed melancholy, but then you remember the island’s cruel hand that holds your invisible shackles, and you silently pray that she will never get caught by the same brutal hand.
An empty breath catches between your teeth, as another betraying tear slides down the same path the first one had. You swallow hastily at the salty sourness that dances across your tongue, and your frozen anger melts just enough to reach your finger, flicking away the insulting droplet that dares to touch your skin. You instinctively close your eyes, fighting against the desperate helplessness that invades your shattered emotions. You have no option but to pull yourself together. How else will you face tomorrow?
You scoff lightly through your nose. Tomorrow will just be another loose thread in the intricate weaving that you’re forced to wear. You scoff again. You have no intention of carrying out the operation as Jack’s nurse. Your mind draws you back to the thought of Kate and her tested determination; somehow it wills you on to take a step closer into her world of rebellious traits and defiant attitudes. This is your only opportunity to swallow your fear, to go against the set rules, and to go against Ben’s last word. Why would you not take it? It’s time that you did cease the chance, especially when there are people now that are on a different side to Ben. Yes, that side that you so feverishly want to be on. Now you have the chance to move over to that side, to do the right thing.
The pensive decision steadies your broken nerves. The sinful tears have been pushed far back into yourself that you can no longer find them. That’s how you like it to be. You’ve cried far too much in your life. Finally you’ve relaxed yourself into a state where sleep is carefully stroking at your eyelids. You’ve done this before. You’ve talked yourself out of crying about your helpless cause, you’ve tried to put reason to your situation, and above all, willed yourself to carry on. And you’re reward for this? A few hours of undisturbed sleep, and a welcomed dream of your sister’s forgiving smile.
It soon fades away though into streaks of colourless grey hues, and replaced by several new colours that are somehow harsher than the grey could ever be. For a moment you’re confused as to where you are, but the shapes align themselves properly and the colours deepen, reminding you of exactly where you are. You lift yourself wearily from the stiff mattress, and your cheek momentarily sticks to the corner of your very flat pillow. You swallow down at the sleepy dryness that has captured your mouth, there’s still that subtle hint of salt sitting on your tongue. You hastily wipe your hands clumsily over your face, hating the fact that you allowed yourself to sink into your moment of weakness.
You swing your legs over the side of the small camp bed, your bare feet slamming harder than you had anticipated onto the hardened coldness of the tiled floor. You wince at the sharpness that twinges against your toes, sighing with frustration at how low the camp bed hovers above the floor. Your eyes shift across to the bright red figures that are silently laughing at you from the table next to the bed. It’s only five. You could have another hour’s sleep, but you know it’s pointless. You’re awake now.
You throw the rest of the scratching fabric away from you, relieved to have it away from your skin at last. You’re enveloped in the cold now though, you can feel the small draught gathering around your knees and pulling at the fine hairs across your bare arms. You aimlessly tug at the white t-shirt you’re wearing to cover more of your skin but it’s simply not big enough to stretch. You stand up slowly, the vivid pain is still biting at your toes, and you mentally curse yourself for not paying more attention.
Tomorrow is now today, you come to realise. Today is the day of the operation, and as you’re quietly trying to make your way over to the shower, you allow yourself to smile, because this is your chance to gain a little of authority back from Ben. With the tepid warmth of the showering water, you carefully go over the details that you’ve already planned. You know what you’re doing, but you’re so used to going through plans time after time with Ben that the habit has stuck firmly.
By the time the clock blinks to seven, you’re already standing in the operating theatre. The clinical blue is overwhelming you, as you stand beside the table and only half listen to the instructions that Jack is informing you about the procedure. The fabric of the white mask is already tickling your nose, and you’re suddenly impatient to rip it away from you. You look around you and watch as the other three people nod their heads enthusiastically towards Jack. You inwardly scoff at their deep concentration, knowing deep down that they don’t want to be there either. You’re confident of their abilities though, they will help Jack in your absence, and they’ll do it because they’re all too frightened of Ben to do any different.
You swallow quickly, as Jack is about the make the small incision. This is your chance. As soon as Jack makes the incision he won’t cancel the operation. The silver blade dances across the pale skin of Ben’s back and you have to hold your breath until you see the trickle of scarlet spill from its path. You hurriedly step away from the table, ripping away at that irritating mask finally, and start to head towards the door.
You’re surprised to his voice. You were expecting one of them to speak up and question your daring move towards the door, but not him. He’s more condescending than you like him to be but you ignore it, telling him that you have something to do. The others are staring at you now, their eyes wide with shock and fear. He wants to know where you’re going, and you’re not afraid to speak the truth. But still your answers don’t satisfy him, and a deep frown settles uncomfortably across your brow. What does it matter to him? He’s still Ben’s prisoner. You have to remind him of that otherwise you’ll never get through those doors.
“You’ll do the operation,” you speak firmly, “otherwise whatever Ben promised you in return, be assured it’ll never happen.” His eyes narrow, and you can see the soft material of his mask moving in and out telling you that he’s breathing heavily probably from frustration. He wants to retaliate but he knows you’re right, and besides Tom appears at the doors of the theatre stalling any chance that Jack has of asking you anything else. Tom’s shaking his head at you in confusion, whispering at you as to what you’re doing. You push past him into the coolness of the hallway and instantly he follows letting the heavy door swing shut again.
You take a deep breath and brush off your hat that covers your head, before letting your hands rest onto your hips. “I’m working,” you tell him with a steady voice. He screws up his face at your cryptic answer, expecting you to tell him more. “I’m going to do some tests on Austen,” you clarify and he seems to appear more baffled than before. “Why now?” he asks with uncertainty, as he glances back over his shoulder towards the operation through the window. “Didn’t Ben ask you to be here?” he continues, and you maintain your eye contact with him, you’ve got nothing to hide. “He did,” you nod, “but there’re far too many people in there already, and these tests are going to take a while.”
He pauses for a moment and you almost sense that he doesn’t quite believe you, but finally he gives a small nod. “I guess if it’s that important than you better go and do it,” he surmises, “but don’t you think he’s going to be a bit angry when he wakes up to find you’ve gone without his say so?” You smirk lightly at the corners of your mouth, it’s a nervous one though, you know perfectly well that Ben will be more than a little upset when he finally comes around from the operation, but isn’t that the whole point? “I’ll be sure to leave a memo then,” you reply flatly, before turning around and starting to walk away. He calls after you though, stopping you in your tracks, “you’re going to move her on your own?” You twist your body around and give a quick nod of your head, it’s clearly not what he wants as a reply though, as he adds, “be careful then Jul, she can be quite the Houdini.” You allow yourself to smile properly at him at his kindness not to ask anymore questions or worse to refuse to let you to move her at all. As much as Tom is one of the nicer people on the island, he is still very loyal to the man laying on the table that you’ve just left.
You head quickly into the store room just down the hallway, and you already know where the sedatives are kept, since you’ve been sent so many times to retrieve them. You’re careful to pick up two packets and slip them safely into your trouser pocket. The pair of metal handcuffs that seem to have been used so many times this week are hanging neatly from the hook behind the door. You never understood why they were kept here, but either way you’re glad they are were you thought they were. It makes your task a lot easier. You stuff them into your other pocket of your blue scrubs, and the coldness is suddenly sharp against your thigh.
You make your way around the station as quickly as your feet will allow you, finally stopping at the surveillance room, where you know there are some guns. You are against using them. You hate having to hold one, you were never brought up to acknowledge the use of weapons, but you’ve been instructed to use them around the island under the pretence that they will somehow save your life. You shudder at the icy touch of the black metal, as you slip one of the pistols off a hook and stare down at its vulgar form. You can remember vividly the first day you were ordered to hold one. You can remember the paralysing fear that had gripped you, as you were taught how to use it.
Of course it had taken you much longer than Ben had wanted for you to learn all the small details of using various different guns. It hadn’t come naturally to you, but no one can notice the struggle that you had had in the beginning, because you’re so confident now with any weapon that is thrown your way. You grimace at the thought of how much practise you’ve had over the three years with a gun. Too much practise you suppose, but you can’t regret any of it because you’re still here, you’re still surviving. Slipping the heavy metal into the waistband of your blue trousers, you try to shake off the memories that haunt you. You pick up your feet and will yourself to move, as you’re conscious now that the hour glass is steadily filling up.
It still seems so incredible to you that you’ve got this far in disobeying Ben’s firm instructions. But you’re very precise in the details, because there’s still a line that you can’t cross no matter how much you want to ruffle Ben’s feathers. So the sedative is a must. You don’t like using it but there’s no other option available to you to do it any other way. You pull a disgusted face at the slightly lime green cloud that is floating slowly towards the bottom of the bottle that holds the water. You screw the lid back on tightly and shake it furiously, hoping that it dissolves enough to trick the brunette into drinking it. You remember the vile taste that the sedative leaves in your mouth, there’s no way of covering it up, she’ll notice for sure, but you have to somehow make her drink it.
Standing before the cage door, it’s only now that you start to feel the jolt of nerves wriggle desperately inside of you. She’s staring at you from behind darkened eyes and gritted teeth. She’s clearly not pleased to see you, and nor would she make this easy on you. But what do you expect really? She’s stubborn, it says so in her file, you even highlighted it for heaven’s sake. There’s no emotion in your glare back at her, it’s the same cold, blank expression that you’ve come to rely on now. Somehow it only infuriates her more. But there’s something that makes you blink twice, and then again. You try your hardest to maintain your frozen stare, to keep the startled surprise from seeping into your pores, and it works, you don’t let on that you’re shocked. But you can see the striking resemblance in her face to the small pictures that are inked into the sheet of paper in her file, and you’re once again reminded of the small ounce of innocence that lightens up the back of her eyes.
You let your eyes fall away from hers because it’s too much for you to watch. You place your hand through the bars, holding out the bottle of water which is a murky grey colour now. She’s looking at you questioningly. “Drink it please,” you instruct simply. You don’t want to make this any harder than it already is. She stares at you in disbelief, and you try to ignore it from the corner of your eyes. “I’m not thirsty,” she snaps back, folding her arms defiantly across her stomach, as if it was amplifying her point.
Drawing in a quiet breath, you soften your voice a little, almost to the point where you’re pleading with her, “just drink it please.” You can see her scoff at you from the corners of your eyes, she really isn’t going to make this easy for you. “What is it?” she asks you with a sting of bitterness biting at her demanding words. You sniff lightly at the air, wishing that she would just do as she was told for once. “Just drink it please,” you re-alliterate forcefully, and she seems taken back slightly by your sudden aggressiveness. “You think I’m going to drink it because you said please?” she spits back, stepping closer towards the bars with a threatening anger flashing in her eyes.
You clench your jaw tightly, wishing that it wouldn’t come to this. You feel dirty for falling so low, for doing exactly what you hate Ben doing, for lying to her. “I just assumed that you’d want to see your friends again,” you raise your eyebrows at her a little. Her eyes widen from their gruelling squint and you can see the questions already forming in her mind. “What have you done with them?” she demands roughly. Well you’ve surely done it this time, you’ve opened up that can of worms again. It’s not like you weren’t expecting it, but still it feels like you’re going around in a tight circle that you can never escape.
“I’m taking you to see them,” you state softly, but you feel the need to stress the next part, “but first you have to drink this.” She doesn’t believe you. You can see the clear disbelief in her face, but she wants to see her friends. Friends, you repeat to yourself in your head, you wonder how friendly she’s been with both of the men that are still being held prisoner. You’re curious to know, but you’re silently pleased that there’s still something you don’t know about this woman, somehow it atones for knowing everything else about her.
“No,” she shakes her head hurriedly, “you’re lying again.” You blink your eyes slowly down away from her condemning ones. You wait until she’s quiet again, as she starts to pace angrily around the cage. You can’t argue with her, because she’s right. You are lying. “Please just drink,” you try again, and the line is thinning between your lips, as you tighten your jaw. She’s laughing at you now, mocking you from inside the bars. “You must think I’m stupid if I’m going to drink that,” she calls out at you.
“Suit yourself,” you raise your eyebrows a little at her, a streak of sarcasm thickens your voice, “I’ll tell Sawyer you said hi.” You start to retract your hand slowly out from between the two bars, but there’s a flicker of realisation inside her eyes that tells you she’s about to give in. She steps forward hastily and snatches at the bottle just before it has chance to disappear out of her reach. She yanks it forcefully from your grip causing the hollow crackle of the plastic to ripple through the air.
For a moment she wears the same deathly stare that she had once worn before when you had offered her food and she had ended up created a rather crude masterpiece across the glass wall. You falter inwardly, is she about to do the same trick? You instinctively want to take a step backwards, because you realise there’s no solid wall between you to stop the impact of the water. But that would be an inviting admission for her to do exactly that, so you refuse to move your feet. You wait calmly but firmly for the sour reaction of the young brunette.
You’re clearly surprised when she decides to snap the lid off and takes a rather generous amount of the liquid inside the bottle, but you remember not to show it. There’s a faint raise of your head and a tiny twitch that tickles the left corner of your mouth, but nothing else, never anything else. “Thank you, Kate,” you say flatly, as you stay to watch the effects of the fast working sedative.
She sways unsteadily on her feet, her eyes are blinking madly, as if the light is far too bright for them, and before she can comprehend what’s happening to her, her knees fail her and throw her to the floor. You move towards the door, already fishing into the pocket of your blue scrubs for the keys. By the time you move into the cage she’s already passed out, the water bottle tipped over and spilling the last remaining drops of the contaminated water.
You take a deep breath now she can’t see you do so, steadying your unnerved anxiety. You pull out the pair of metal handcuffs from your other pocket and the guilt starts to pour quickly from your forehead in streams of sweat. This is only a precaution, you tell yourself. You want to make Ben angry, you want to upset him, but if Kate ever managed to escape from you in the meantime, then the line would be crossed, and you can’t even begin to imagine what Ben would do to you if that ever happened.
So you hesitantly slide the metal rings around her wrists that still have the dirt stained bandages clinging to them, but you don’t tighten them too much. They’re loose enough to not cause any pain to her. You’re not him. You won’t do that to her. Not that she will notice, you suppose, handcuffs are still handcuffs to her. You assume she’ll wake up even more irritable than before since you’ve quite plainly lied to her and handcuffed her for good measure. But you don’t want to think about that right now, you have to concentrate on how you’re going to move her down towards the boat.
You scoop up around her arms and drag her backwards by her shoulders. You’re amazed at how light she is, you’d expected it to be a little harder. The sun’s heat is scorching your back through the material of your scrubs, and by the time you make down to the shoreline where the boat sits tidily in the sand, you’re soaked in sweat. You can feel it trickling down your neck in untimely trails, staining places of your scrubs, and you quickly realise that you’ll be worse for wear by the time you reach the other side.
You carefully place her inside the wooden boat, and you suddenly find yourself wanting to take back your previous statement that she’s light. You can feel the ache in your arms after you’ve managed to get her inside, laying her at the end of the narrow boat so that you can keep an eye on her, you tell yourself. The water’s thrashing across its open landscape a little too much than you prefer. It won’t make it easy paddling on your own against its defiant toughness. To make matters worse there’s a hollow darkness creeping in from the thin line of the horizon; you just hope you’ll reach the other shore before it unleashes its fury on you.
You can feel every muscle in your arms tighten when you push against the wooden boat with all your force. It slips casually into the swell of the water, splitting its darkened blue hues into an explosion of white. The frosty bite seeps through your scrubs, as you wad further into its depths to meet the boat. You give a final glance back over your shoulder and you half expect to see a group of people running out of the trees with their guns waving madly in the air yelling at you to turn the boat around. But as you had suspected, no one ever worries about the motives of another person within the cosy little group, they leave that up to Ben to deal with.
Even the flicker of white streaks in the background against the blackened skies can’t seem to hold your attention for very long. Your eyes keep wandering back to her, sprawled out at the other end of the boat in her unconscious state. You’re not worried about her waking up anytime soon, that dosage of sedative is designed to keep someone sedated for a long while. But you are anxious about what you’re going to accomplish when you get to the other beach. You start to ask yourself if this was the right thing to do, or are you just asking for trouble? Of course you are though; you want to show Ben that you won’t always do what he tells you to do. That in itself is trouble. But you’ve simply had enough of just following instructions, you’re sick of being Ben’s pet for him to command around whenever he feels like it, and you’re tried of this relatively small island. You’re making a statement, you tell yourself, Ben won’t listen to you so you’ve resorted to taking matters into your own hands to prove to him how serious you are.
You find yourself swallowing at the salty air that whips into your face fresh from the open sea. How will you explain all this to her? How will you explain this to Kate, the fugitive, the escapee, the killer? The last words rattle around inside your head and even the paddle pauses in mid air in your wake of who this woman, you’ve just kidnapped from her cage, really is. You look at her again. She doesn’t look like a killer. In fact you’re convinced that she doesn’t look capable of such a crime. But you know she is, you’ve seen the evidence, you’ve read the statement from her mother than tells you she is guilty.
Breathing out slowly and deeply, you continue paddling, realising that you have to just get on with what you’ve started. There’s no point analysing the details anymore. There’s still a vast amount of distance to cover before you hit the other beach on the main island, and so for just a little while you allow yourself to filter out the constant buzzing of ridiculous thoughts from your head, because you know you’ll have plenty of time for them to burrow at your conscience.