A Different Way to Be (Chapter 11)
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 11: I'm on Your Side
The sharpness of the screeches projected into a blaring alarm is just too irritating for you to ignore anymore. You thought you had been dreaming when you heard its monotonous bleeps ring out across the barracks for the second time, but when you finally raise your head and blink open your sleep filled eyes, you realise that the ringing alarm is real. The side of your face is sticky with a thin film of sweat covering it from where you had crashed into the side of the sofa.
Feverish panic has claimed you wholly, causing you rush to your feet clumsily while attempting to brush your eyes wide open and to make them focus properly. Your fast beating heart has jumped higher than you expected, the anxious pulse tearing through your veins, as you reach behind your back to retrieve the pistol. You gasp sharply and your eyes widen beyond your normal capabilities when you feel the cold metal not there. Suddenly you’re fully awake and more conscious of your mistake than ever.
You’re cursing yourself with vile insults for drinking more than your usual amount, causing you to fall asleep. You can’t even recall when you did fall asleep. You notice the two empty bottles on the kitchen table. Two. You strain your eyes to double check if you’re focus is correct. Yes, two bottles. You were sure that you had only opened one and you don’t even remember showing her a second bottle. There’s no wonder you passed out and missed the principle point of keeping Kate here; you had to watch her.
You’re out the front door before you know it, heading down towards the sonar fence in the direction that you think she might have taken. There’re fresh tracks in the sludgy mud left turned over by yesterday’s thorough downpour. For once you’re thankful it rained. The blazing heat of the island’s watchful sun is beating down upon your shoulders already and you begin to worry yourself at how long you slept for, how long the sun has been up, and how long ago Kate escaped.
There’s no hope for you if she somehow manages to get past the fence and you swallow down hard on the dryness that evades your mouth at the very prospect. It’s on the lowest setting. You chose to put it at this level just in case this very event happened. You didn’t want to kill her, but you couldn’t leave it turned off. The most it will do will give her a really bad headache and probably a nasty nose bleed. You scoff ironically, thinking that she would deserve to share the pain that pulsates through your head right now. The sheer brightness is enough to thrill the agony on even more; pushing itself uninvited into corners of your head that you didn’t know existed.
The freshly turned over mud is ripe with rushed and widely spaced footprints. She’s running. You’re aware that you’re feet are moving quickly, but you still feel that it’s not enough to catch up with her in time. In time before what though? You’re gulping down the thick, humid air as fast as you can, trying desperately to fight the growing pains of fear that spring up through your throat. You’re scared of Ben. If she manages to escape, he won’t forgive you this time. He’ll be more than just annoyed at you. There’re strict rules about this. You know the punishment. You close your eyes briefly, haunting images toying with your worried mind. You have to find her before Ben does.
You’ve reached the tall, ageing pylons, their loud sirens spitting out their dreadful warnings until you punch in the right coded numbers and turn the switch. Its careful hum of power quietens in range and finally falls silent, but there’s still a distant ringing inside your ear that you can’t seem to shift yet and mixed with the painful throb inside your head, it’s quite unpleasant.
There’re more deep cuts into the mud, simple footprints as clear as day leading you towards the beach from where you landed in the boat yesterday. A jutted frown stabs into your forehead, rippling the skin there, as you wonder how she would know to go there. You definitely didn’t say anything about there being a boat, or another island for that matter, you’re sure of this because you know she didn’t ask, you’ve remembered all the questions she asked you, all of them.
There’s an abrupt ricochet of gun fire that stops you dead in your tracks, the mud skidding you to a clumsy halt. You count at least four shots. Your frozen heart plummets to astounding depths to where hope vanishes sharply from your whole body. You swallow thickly against your blind fear, the shattering dread of the unknown. You pull your feet hurriedly back into their running pace, pushed on by your will to get to the foreground of where you heard the shots coming from.
There’s only one reason why there would be any shooting at all. Ben’s discovered where you are and that you’ve brought Kate here. You want to hurry before there’re anymore crude bullets straying places you know are aimed to kill and not mane. The closer you reach the sandy shores just beyond the edge of the jungle you hear a scattered frenzy of broken shouts. You can’t make out what they’re saying, you can’t even make out who it is, but it’s deep and rough, a male’s voice you decide. There’s a horrible lurch that tugs sharply on your stomach, what if he kills Kate?
You break the border of greenery with your hands hastily, stumbling onto the white sands that adorn the beach into an unfolding scene that chills you to your core. You see Kate slumped over onto her side, her face turned away from you. For a moment you think that’s it, she’s gone, but she moves slowly and sorely. Her head raises and you finally see the trail of crimson blood dripping from her nose in a rapid flow. You don’t see the pistol that she stole from you.
Your eyes flip over to see Danny standing on the shoreline, his gun poised steadily in his right hand at Kate while the calm waters lap around his feet. You watch him carefully because you know he will pull the trigger without a shadow of a doubt clouding his mind in guilt. Then you spot your own black pistol laying forgotten in the sand that separates Danny and Kate.
“You’re a damn fool, Jules,” he calls across at you, not shifting his gun from its clamped position. You involuntarily draw in a breath of frustrated air at the pet name he uses for you. You’ve never liked hearing it coming from his lips. Somehow it’s tainted the name to which you can’t stand being called anymore. Juliet is fine, you tell yourself. “She’d never do the same for you,” he warns you. You tip your head up slightly in response, knowing full well that he knows why you’ve brought Kate here and that you didn’t get Ben’s permission to do so beforehand.
“Danny,” you speak softly, edging your way closer, “put the gun down.” He laughs at you cynically, appearing to disobey your request; after all he’s still under Ben’s orders. But you know that he’s never been a loyal follower, you’ve heard him passing comments before about the marksmanship of Ben’s control over you all. Even though he doesn’t agree with every decision made by Ben, he does do what he’s told, and right now you assume that is to kill Kate and even possibly you.
“Can’t do that, Jules,” he shakes his head, “I’m to bring both of you back.” He lets you get closer, close enough to reach out and touch the gun he’s holding, but he’s relentless in his fight to maintain the steady position of the gun on the brunette’s face. You feel brave enough to touch him, slowly and surely wrapping your fingers around his muscular arm. He doesn’t twitch his arm but you can feel his eyes on you now, studying you finely. “We’ll come back,” you tell him reassuringly.
It takes a moment before he lowers the cold weapon down to hang loosely by his side, but his eyes are still watching you. “What were you hoping would happen?” he asks you in a whisper. You were hoping for a lot more that didn’t involve getting caught. You stay silent; you don’t have to answer to him. “Just so you know,” he adds, raising his eyebrows, “Ben’s on the warpath.” You look away from him, glancing down to the brunette who’s hardly moved since the last time that you looked at her. There’s an agitated glow to the scarlet that laces her top lip surrounding the little dip below her nose, her eyes are darkened by a clouded over coolness.
“Ben’s awake?” you ignore his comment, and he looks surprised that you have ignored him but he nods assertively at your question. That’s all you need to know. You give a breathless sigh before pointing to the small boat that sits lodged on the shoreline that Danny must have come in. “We’d better get back to the battlefield then,” you mumble. He turns around to look at the boat, and before he has a chance to recognise what is happening, the brunette has already grappled him to the ground, pinning him helplessly while she fights him for access to the gun he’s still gripping tightly.
The instant shock evaporates when you see your only chance to get out of going back to the Hydra island. You see the glistening metal luring you in from the small mountains of sand that it sits in. Hastily you pick it up just as Danny manages to throw her small, agile body away from his, her face landing in a pit of sand. His finger is already on the trigger, the gun making its way into her eye line. Time is so fleeting that it escapes you in that moment, you’re left with no thoughts whatsoever, your lonely finger is on its own, poised on your own trigger.
With a callous, deafening sound that obliterates the surrounding air like it’s ripping through fine linen threads, you see Danny fall back on his bended knees into the sand behind him. It’s only now when the hardened lines of time are so ungracious enough to come back to you that you put reason to your finger, which is still flush against the squeezed trigger. Hurriedly you release it with a faint clicking noise taunting you, as if letting go of the trigger will somehow undo what you’ve just done.
You’ve killed a man. There’s no point in trying to justify that Danny was never as innocent as you had first suspected, it doesn’t change the simple and glaring fact that you’ve taken a life. Death has always had that cold presence around you, his eerie breath tickling the side of your neck every now and again to remind you that he’s still lurking in the corners. You can clearly remember each and every patient that disappeared from this life on your operating table. You remember every name and every face. But that’s different, you were trying to save their lives, you were trying to keep Death’s gruesome kiss away from each of your patients’ lips. Now you’re standing over a body that isn’t on your operating table, you weren’t trying to save his life. He was never in any danger of receiving the touch of Death. You brought Death to him yourself. You pulled the trigger, asking to steal away this man’s life, and for what? Is it because you want to be saved instead? From what though? Ben, you frown. Are his shoulders big enough to carry the blame you’re pushing on them for killing this man?
“You’ve never killed before.” You’re broken out of your numbing thoughts of guilt by a soft voice with a surprised statement. You look down to where she’s still sat in the sand beside Danny’s body, gently rubbing at her arms where he’s gripped her so fiercely. She doesn’t need to ask the question, you’re assuming that your shocked numbness explains everything for her in your face. She starts to get to her feet, wiping her nose as she does and tries to shake off some of the loose sand that has stuck to her jeans.
“Why’d you run, Kate?” you ask her desperately. You’re blaming her now? You stare at her with a quiet conviction growing in your mind. She’s the only one here. If she hadn’t have escaped and continued with her infamous habit of running away this whole mess could have been avoided, you conclude, so yes it is her fault.
“I had to try,” she breathes heavily, before she looks across at you, “what the hell does that fence do?” You watch her sway lightly on her feet as she bends over, pressing her palms to her knees while she closes her eyes tightly in a grimace of sorts. You level out the thin line between your lips, catching them together and pushing them closer towards the line you’ve made. “You’ll have a sore head for a while,” you inform her, before scolding her, “you shouldn’t have run.”
She still manages to scoff at you even though she’s clearly not feeling all too well. You hear the distant calls from across the waters that are rolling in gently, and turning your head to see, you’re heart plummets even further into its painful depths when you see Tom sitting at the front of a boat that is pulling into shore. You count three others with him and you vaguely remember their names. You don’t see them at the book club and you’re not really one for socialising with anyone outside of the book club.
“Juliet,” he shouts as he swings out of the boat and splashes into the shallow waters just a few yards from where you’re standing. You swallow thickly on your apparent guilt. There’s no way of getting out of this. He’s probably seen you, they all probably did. They don’t take kindly to the death of one of you. It doesn’t matter if you regret your actions and whether you weren’t thinking completely straight when you pulled the trigger, they’ll condemn you because you killed him.
“What happened?” he wheezes out finally, coming to stop next to you, his eyes staring a hole into the slumped form that used to be Danny. You shake your head automatically, not knowing how to explain it even inside your own head, never mind trying to find the right words to say it out loud. He turns to you when you don’t answer, but you’re still numbly mute that you can’t reply. “She shot him,” you hear Kate say from your right.
It’s as if now that the prisoner has spoken that all eyes are expected to fall upon her, which naturally they do. You notice that she’s not bending over anymore, but she’s holding carefully onto the side of her stomach with an uneasy grimace hanging loosely on her face. You feel Tom’s eyes drift slowly over to you, his lips slightly separated in bewilderment. “This true Juliet?” he asks you with uncertainty.
How you wish you could say no. How you wish you could lie so very convincingly that you don’t have to admit to the brazen truth that has fallen so sharply at your feet. But the ferreting guilt leaves you with no option but to bring everything to the foreground. At least there’s a small part of you that is reminiscent of the person you left behind before you came to this island. You know that Juliet wouldn’t have been able to lie about something like this either. You nod slowly and clinically.
“You realise that we have to tell the sheriff, don’t you?” he asks you in a low, sad whisper. He doesn’t really want to inform on you. He doesn’t take pleasure in watching people suffer, you know that because he’s told you in confidence many times before, but yet he’ll still do whatever Ben tells him to do. You nod your head at him with a scarlet understanding written in your eyes. You know exactly what this means.
“You people have sheriffs?” Kate’s laughing beside you both and everyone turns to watch her mocking you all. How little she still knows. “Then maybe the sheriff would like to know how she asked me to kill Ben.” You can’t stop your eyes from growing a little bigger, nor can you stop the pulsating rhythm locking inside your head and hammering out at her betraying confession. “She’s crazy,” you force out immediately before Tom has a chance to ask what she’s talking about. He’s looking between you both, trying to work out in his rather slow mind which of you is telling him the truth. “She’d say anything,” you tell him desperately, almost verging on pathetic.
There’s an ugly sounding snort that sounds to your right and you frown at her for trying to make all this worse for you. You’re still left in the hurricane of guilt, shame, and confusion about killing someone and she’s refusing to be on your side even now. “Tom, please,” you turn to beg to him to believe your side of the story, to believe your tainted lie. “Save it Juliet,” he narrows his eyes at you slightly, a sudden formality about his voice, “I’m not the one you need to explain to.”
A grimy hand grips itself around your forearm, tugging at you to follow into the boat. One of them, who are accompanying Tom, is guiding you into your place, as if you’re the prisoner and not Kate. How ironic for you. You can realise now where Kate’s formulated rage and fiery temper develops from when you finally get a taste of what she’s had to contend with for all this time. The brunette is awkwardly pushed into the boat next to you, slamming down onto its wooden planks harshly that you want to wince for her, but you don’t. You’re face is cold and brutal. There’s no emotion there. Instead you allow it to gentle bubble below the surface.
“How’s it feel to be on my side for a change?” she whispers to you scornfully, a small smile playing on her lips. You choose to ignore her this time. You can’t stand her mocking attitude that she’s adopted just for your benefit. There’s still the acidic aftertaste that lingers ruthlessly on your tongue from her vile Judas kiss. You suck in against your own lips at the thought of her spilling everything and spoiling everything. You should have known better than to lend her so much trust.
“It’s not so easy being a killer, is it?” she continues with her mocking, but this time her smile fades instantly and there’s a distant sadness that clings to the corners of her glistening eyes. She reminds you again of something else you’re sorry for. There’s so many things that you want to apologise for, so many times that you want to say the word sorry, but you simply don’t know where to start and you’re not even sure whether it would count for anything anymore.
“Why’d you do it?” she whispers to you, conscious of the fact that there’s another four people surrounding you on the small boat. You turn to look at her as the boat picks up its rolling speed across the flat waters. You don’t know why you did it. You haven’t had time to process that far yet into your reasoning behind it all. Maybe you hit your breaking point and pulling the trigger was just an element of you finally not being able to cope with being here on this island. In a way you hope it’s this explanation because you have no other.
It’s easier to blame it on the pressures of island life, of the crude orders you’re thrown from Ben’s almighty and powerful seat as head of the group. But you know it isn’t just this. There’s something else that pushed you on to pull that trigger, something you can’t quite understand or fathom out yet. You slide your lips along each other lightly while you’re trapped inside your own thoughts, before you draw your full attention back to the eagerly awaiting brunette. “Because I’m on your side,” you whisper back to her above the roar of the engines.
Author: Zippy88
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Kate/Juliet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own anything
Spoilers: A little from season 3
Chapter 11: I'm on Your Side
The sharpness of the screeches projected into a blaring alarm is just too irritating for you to ignore anymore. You thought you had been dreaming when you heard its monotonous bleeps ring out across the barracks for the second time, but when you finally raise your head and blink open your sleep filled eyes, you realise that the ringing alarm is real. The side of your face is sticky with a thin film of sweat covering it from where you had crashed into the side of the sofa.
Feverish panic has claimed you wholly, causing you rush to your feet clumsily while attempting to brush your eyes wide open and to make them focus properly. Your fast beating heart has jumped higher than you expected, the anxious pulse tearing through your veins, as you reach behind your back to retrieve the pistol. You gasp sharply and your eyes widen beyond your normal capabilities when you feel the cold metal not there. Suddenly you’re fully awake and more conscious of your mistake than ever.
You’re cursing yourself with vile insults for drinking more than your usual amount, causing you to fall asleep. You can’t even recall when you did fall asleep. You notice the two empty bottles on the kitchen table. Two. You strain your eyes to double check if you’re focus is correct. Yes, two bottles. You were sure that you had only opened one and you don’t even remember showing her a second bottle. There’s no wonder you passed out and missed the principle point of keeping Kate here; you had to watch her.
You’re out the front door before you know it, heading down towards the sonar fence in the direction that you think she might have taken. There’re fresh tracks in the sludgy mud left turned over by yesterday’s thorough downpour. For once you’re thankful it rained. The blazing heat of the island’s watchful sun is beating down upon your shoulders already and you begin to worry yourself at how long you slept for, how long the sun has been up, and how long ago Kate escaped.
There’s no hope for you if she somehow manages to get past the fence and you swallow down hard on the dryness that evades your mouth at the very prospect. It’s on the lowest setting. You chose to put it at this level just in case this very event happened. You didn’t want to kill her, but you couldn’t leave it turned off. The most it will do will give her a really bad headache and probably a nasty nose bleed. You scoff ironically, thinking that she would deserve to share the pain that pulsates through your head right now. The sheer brightness is enough to thrill the agony on even more; pushing itself uninvited into corners of your head that you didn’t know existed.
The freshly turned over mud is ripe with rushed and widely spaced footprints. She’s running. You’re aware that you’re feet are moving quickly, but you still feel that it’s not enough to catch up with her in time. In time before what though? You’re gulping down the thick, humid air as fast as you can, trying desperately to fight the growing pains of fear that spring up through your throat. You’re scared of Ben. If she manages to escape, he won’t forgive you this time. He’ll be more than just annoyed at you. There’re strict rules about this. You know the punishment. You close your eyes briefly, haunting images toying with your worried mind. You have to find her before Ben does.
You’ve reached the tall, ageing pylons, their loud sirens spitting out their dreadful warnings until you punch in the right coded numbers and turn the switch. Its careful hum of power quietens in range and finally falls silent, but there’s still a distant ringing inside your ear that you can’t seem to shift yet and mixed with the painful throb inside your head, it’s quite unpleasant.
There’re more deep cuts into the mud, simple footprints as clear as day leading you towards the beach from where you landed in the boat yesterday. A jutted frown stabs into your forehead, rippling the skin there, as you wonder how she would know to go there. You definitely didn’t say anything about there being a boat, or another island for that matter, you’re sure of this because you know she didn’t ask, you’ve remembered all the questions she asked you, all of them.
There’s an abrupt ricochet of gun fire that stops you dead in your tracks, the mud skidding you to a clumsy halt. You count at least four shots. Your frozen heart plummets to astounding depths to where hope vanishes sharply from your whole body. You swallow thickly against your blind fear, the shattering dread of the unknown. You pull your feet hurriedly back into their running pace, pushed on by your will to get to the foreground of where you heard the shots coming from.
There’s only one reason why there would be any shooting at all. Ben’s discovered where you are and that you’ve brought Kate here. You want to hurry before there’re anymore crude bullets straying places you know are aimed to kill and not mane. The closer you reach the sandy shores just beyond the edge of the jungle you hear a scattered frenzy of broken shouts. You can’t make out what they’re saying, you can’t even make out who it is, but it’s deep and rough, a male’s voice you decide. There’s a horrible lurch that tugs sharply on your stomach, what if he kills Kate?
You break the border of greenery with your hands hastily, stumbling onto the white sands that adorn the beach into an unfolding scene that chills you to your core. You see Kate slumped over onto her side, her face turned away from you. For a moment you think that’s it, she’s gone, but she moves slowly and sorely. Her head raises and you finally see the trail of crimson blood dripping from her nose in a rapid flow. You don’t see the pistol that she stole from you.
Your eyes flip over to see Danny standing on the shoreline, his gun poised steadily in his right hand at Kate while the calm waters lap around his feet. You watch him carefully because you know he will pull the trigger without a shadow of a doubt clouding his mind in guilt. Then you spot your own black pistol laying forgotten in the sand that separates Danny and Kate.
“You’re a damn fool, Jules,” he calls across at you, not shifting his gun from its clamped position. You involuntarily draw in a breath of frustrated air at the pet name he uses for you. You’ve never liked hearing it coming from his lips. Somehow it’s tainted the name to which you can’t stand being called anymore. Juliet is fine, you tell yourself. “She’d never do the same for you,” he warns you. You tip your head up slightly in response, knowing full well that he knows why you’ve brought Kate here and that you didn’t get Ben’s permission to do so beforehand.
“Danny,” you speak softly, edging your way closer, “put the gun down.” He laughs at you cynically, appearing to disobey your request; after all he’s still under Ben’s orders. But you know that he’s never been a loyal follower, you’ve heard him passing comments before about the marksmanship of Ben’s control over you all. Even though he doesn’t agree with every decision made by Ben, he does do what he’s told, and right now you assume that is to kill Kate and even possibly you.
“Can’t do that, Jules,” he shakes his head, “I’m to bring both of you back.” He lets you get closer, close enough to reach out and touch the gun he’s holding, but he’s relentless in his fight to maintain the steady position of the gun on the brunette’s face. You feel brave enough to touch him, slowly and surely wrapping your fingers around his muscular arm. He doesn’t twitch his arm but you can feel his eyes on you now, studying you finely. “We’ll come back,” you tell him reassuringly.
It takes a moment before he lowers the cold weapon down to hang loosely by his side, but his eyes are still watching you. “What were you hoping would happen?” he asks you in a whisper. You were hoping for a lot more that didn’t involve getting caught. You stay silent; you don’t have to answer to him. “Just so you know,” he adds, raising his eyebrows, “Ben’s on the warpath.” You look away from him, glancing down to the brunette who’s hardly moved since the last time that you looked at her. There’s an agitated glow to the scarlet that laces her top lip surrounding the little dip below her nose, her eyes are darkened by a clouded over coolness.
“Ben’s awake?” you ignore his comment, and he looks surprised that you have ignored him but he nods assertively at your question. That’s all you need to know. You give a breathless sigh before pointing to the small boat that sits lodged on the shoreline that Danny must have come in. “We’d better get back to the battlefield then,” you mumble. He turns around to look at the boat, and before he has a chance to recognise what is happening, the brunette has already grappled him to the ground, pinning him helplessly while she fights him for access to the gun he’s still gripping tightly.
The instant shock evaporates when you see your only chance to get out of going back to the Hydra island. You see the glistening metal luring you in from the small mountains of sand that it sits in. Hastily you pick it up just as Danny manages to throw her small, agile body away from his, her face landing in a pit of sand. His finger is already on the trigger, the gun making its way into her eye line. Time is so fleeting that it escapes you in that moment, you’re left with no thoughts whatsoever, your lonely finger is on its own, poised on your own trigger.
With a callous, deafening sound that obliterates the surrounding air like it’s ripping through fine linen threads, you see Danny fall back on his bended knees into the sand behind him. It’s only now when the hardened lines of time are so ungracious enough to come back to you that you put reason to your finger, which is still flush against the squeezed trigger. Hurriedly you release it with a faint clicking noise taunting you, as if letting go of the trigger will somehow undo what you’ve just done.
You’ve killed a man. There’s no point in trying to justify that Danny was never as innocent as you had first suspected, it doesn’t change the simple and glaring fact that you’ve taken a life. Death has always had that cold presence around you, his eerie breath tickling the side of your neck every now and again to remind you that he’s still lurking in the corners. You can clearly remember each and every patient that disappeared from this life on your operating table. You remember every name and every face. But that’s different, you were trying to save their lives, you were trying to keep Death’s gruesome kiss away from each of your patients’ lips. Now you’re standing over a body that isn’t on your operating table, you weren’t trying to save his life. He was never in any danger of receiving the touch of Death. You brought Death to him yourself. You pulled the trigger, asking to steal away this man’s life, and for what? Is it because you want to be saved instead? From what though? Ben, you frown. Are his shoulders big enough to carry the blame you’re pushing on them for killing this man?
“You’ve never killed before.” You’re broken out of your numbing thoughts of guilt by a soft voice with a surprised statement. You look down to where she’s still sat in the sand beside Danny’s body, gently rubbing at her arms where he’s gripped her so fiercely. She doesn’t need to ask the question, you’re assuming that your shocked numbness explains everything for her in your face. She starts to get to her feet, wiping her nose as she does and tries to shake off some of the loose sand that has stuck to her jeans.
“Why’d you run, Kate?” you ask her desperately. You’re blaming her now? You stare at her with a quiet conviction growing in your mind. She’s the only one here. If she hadn’t have escaped and continued with her infamous habit of running away this whole mess could have been avoided, you conclude, so yes it is her fault.
“I had to try,” she breathes heavily, before she looks across at you, “what the hell does that fence do?” You watch her sway lightly on her feet as she bends over, pressing her palms to her knees while she closes her eyes tightly in a grimace of sorts. You level out the thin line between your lips, catching them together and pushing them closer towards the line you’ve made. “You’ll have a sore head for a while,” you inform her, before scolding her, “you shouldn’t have run.”
She still manages to scoff at you even though she’s clearly not feeling all too well. You hear the distant calls from across the waters that are rolling in gently, and turning your head to see, you’re heart plummets even further into its painful depths when you see Tom sitting at the front of a boat that is pulling into shore. You count three others with him and you vaguely remember their names. You don’t see them at the book club and you’re not really one for socialising with anyone outside of the book club.
“Juliet,” he shouts as he swings out of the boat and splashes into the shallow waters just a few yards from where you’re standing. You swallow thickly on your apparent guilt. There’s no way of getting out of this. He’s probably seen you, they all probably did. They don’t take kindly to the death of one of you. It doesn’t matter if you regret your actions and whether you weren’t thinking completely straight when you pulled the trigger, they’ll condemn you because you killed him.
“What happened?” he wheezes out finally, coming to stop next to you, his eyes staring a hole into the slumped form that used to be Danny. You shake your head automatically, not knowing how to explain it even inside your own head, never mind trying to find the right words to say it out loud. He turns to you when you don’t answer, but you’re still numbly mute that you can’t reply. “She shot him,” you hear Kate say from your right.
It’s as if now that the prisoner has spoken that all eyes are expected to fall upon her, which naturally they do. You notice that she’s not bending over anymore, but she’s holding carefully onto the side of her stomach with an uneasy grimace hanging loosely on her face. You feel Tom’s eyes drift slowly over to you, his lips slightly separated in bewilderment. “This true Juliet?” he asks you with uncertainty.
How you wish you could say no. How you wish you could lie so very convincingly that you don’t have to admit to the brazen truth that has fallen so sharply at your feet. But the ferreting guilt leaves you with no option but to bring everything to the foreground. At least there’s a small part of you that is reminiscent of the person you left behind before you came to this island. You know that Juliet wouldn’t have been able to lie about something like this either. You nod slowly and clinically.
“You realise that we have to tell the sheriff, don’t you?” he asks you in a low, sad whisper. He doesn’t really want to inform on you. He doesn’t take pleasure in watching people suffer, you know that because he’s told you in confidence many times before, but yet he’ll still do whatever Ben tells him to do. You nod your head at him with a scarlet understanding written in your eyes. You know exactly what this means.
“You people have sheriffs?” Kate’s laughing beside you both and everyone turns to watch her mocking you all. How little she still knows. “Then maybe the sheriff would like to know how she asked me to kill Ben.” You can’t stop your eyes from growing a little bigger, nor can you stop the pulsating rhythm locking inside your head and hammering out at her betraying confession. “She’s crazy,” you force out immediately before Tom has a chance to ask what she’s talking about. He’s looking between you both, trying to work out in his rather slow mind which of you is telling him the truth. “She’d say anything,” you tell him desperately, almost verging on pathetic.
There’s an ugly sounding snort that sounds to your right and you frown at her for trying to make all this worse for you. You’re still left in the hurricane of guilt, shame, and confusion about killing someone and she’s refusing to be on your side even now. “Tom, please,” you turn to beg to him to believe your side of the story, to believe your tainted lie. “Save it Juliet,” he narrows his eyes at you slightly, a sudden formality about his voice, “I’m not the one you need to explain to.”
A grimy hand grips itself around your forearm, tugging at you to follow into the boat. One of them, who are accompanying Tom, is guiding you into your place, as if you’re the prisoner and not Kate. How ironic for you. You can realise now where Kate’s formulated rage and fiery temper develops from when you finally get a taste of what she’s had to contend with for all this time. The brunette is awkwardly pushed into the boat next to you, slamming down onto its wooden planks harshly that you want to wince for her, but you don’t. You’re face is cold and brutal. There’s no emotion there. Instead you allow it to gentle bubble below the surface.
“How’s it feel to be on my side for a change?” she whispers to you scornfully, a small smile playing on her lips. You choose to ignore her this time. You can’t stand her mocking attitude that she’s adopted just for your benefit. There’s still the acidic aftertaste that lingers ruthlessly on your tongue from her vile Judas kiss. You suck in against your own lips at the thought of her spilling everything and spoiling everything. You should have known better than to lend her so much trust.
“It’s not so easy being a killer, is it?” she continues with her mocking, but this time her smile fades instantly and there’s a distant sadness that clings to the corners of her glistening eyes. She reminds you again of something else you’re sorry for. There’s so many things that you want to apologise for, so many times that you want to say the word sorry, but you simply don’t know where to start and you’re not even sure whether it would count for anything anymore.
“Why’d you do it?” she whispers to you, conscious of the fact that there’s another four people surrounding you on the small boat. You turn to look at her as the boat picks up its rolling speed across the flat waters. You don’t know why you did it. You haven’t had time to process that far yet into your reasoning behind it all. Maybe you hit your breaking point and pulling the trigger was just an element of you finally not being able to cope with being here on this island. In a way you hope it’s this explanation because you have no other.
It’s easier to blame it on the pressures of island life, of the crude orders you’re thrown from Ben’s almighty and powerful seat as head of the group. But you know it isn’t just this. There’s something else that pushed you on to pull that trigger, something you can’t quite understand or fathom out yet. You slide your lips along each other lightly while you’re trapped inside your own thoughts, before you draw your full attention back to the eagerly awaiting brunette. “Because I’m on your side,” you whisper back to her above the roar of the engines.