The Scars of Kate Madison (A SAW FanFiction)

EIGHT.

--
The tragedy of life

is not death

But what we let

die inside of us

while we live

NORMAN COUSINS
--
Chapter word count: 1,231
--
EIGHT.
--
"Why do you care what I think, anyways?" Adam asked Lawrence harshly, his spit hitting Kate's face. "I don't give a fuck if you covered yourself in peanut butter and had a 15-hooker gang bang!"

Lawrence collapsed to the floor, any level of calmness and hope had vanished along with rationality. "How did I get here? I had...I had everything. My whole life was in perfect order. And now, I'm never going to see my family again, and I'm going to die here."

Adam couldn't look at Lawrence's depressed face and looked down at the floor at the photos below, sprawled all around. Faces of a busy Lawrence and a sleepy Kate surrounded him. Then, he noticed something: a small face in one of the windows in Lawrence's nice apartment. It glowed an orange and radiant color, creating a shaded and rugged look. It scared him.

"Hey," Adam asked as he picked up the photo to further examine it, "was there someone else at your house last night besides your wife and daughter?"

Kate looked over at Adam with the enlarged photo in his hands. "What are you talking about?"

"No." Lawrence answered sharply, "It was just me and my family. No one else."

"Well," Adam said, furrowing his eyebrows as he tossed the photo to Lawrence,"there's someone here."

Lawrence picked up the photo and squinted, then, with rage in his eyes, his hands grasped around the photo tightly, turning into white balls. His fingers stabbed into his palms, and if Kate never would've stopped him, he would've cut through. He flung the photo to the side and crawled into a ball. Kate, with grabby hands, clutched the balled-up photo and straightened it flat on the floor.

The face on the photo came as a surprise. It was a face she knew, someone she would've never expected. It literally took her breath away and she coughed into her ripped jacket sleeve already moist with sweat to regain her breath. "I know him."

"His name's Zep. He's an orderly at my hospital." Lawrence growled through his teeth, "Zep, you perverted little psychopath! I'm gonna take great pleasure in seeing you pay for this, you bastard fuck!"

Kate let loose a heavy sigh. She knew him, she had even run into him. She had called him a sweet man and once she had left, she had even thought he was memorable in a way one would look at an infant or puppy. And now, he's the one that trapped her in a bathroom.What did she do to deserve this? Did she hurt him? What?

Maybe an ending wasn't what she really wanted.

"Look," Adam said, momentarily shattering the rage growing inside Kate and Lawrence. He pointed at the clock. "We're out of time."

The hands, big and bold and black, were at twelve and six. Time was out.

Game over.

The cellphone rang, and with another glance at Adam and Kate, Lawrence picked up the phone, trying desperately hard to express all his anger into words. "Is that you, Zep? You dirty bastard. I know it's you, you son of a bitch!"

His eyes widen with surprise. "Ali?"

Then there was silence.

"Hello? Ali? Hello?" Lawrence cried into the phone. His voice was oozing with grief and remorse. "Ali, honey, are you alright?"

On the opposite end of the phone, Lawrence could hear struggling. Someone was hurting his Ali, hurting his Diana and hurting his soul. He couldn't handle it. When he thought she was gone, her voice carried through.

"I don't know where I am." he finally spoke, a bit of relief in his voice. "I'm being held captive in a room somewhere."

"I'm so so sorry, Ali. I'm sorry for everything. It's my fault. Please forgive me. I've always been happy with you."

Kate gripped her side. The pain compared to what she had been feeling the whole night was overpowering. She let loose coughs one after another. She groaned and started taking deep and shallow breaths. Her chin and jaw began bleeding again and Kate bit her lip in searing pain. She clutched onto the pipe that held her captive for strength.

Adam crawled close to her, his eyes telling her that he wanted to help. She looked at those eyes of his, and she noticed that he was crying. She crawled as close as she could to him, the only thing left dividing the two being the grimy toilet. She reached out for him, though she knew the hands were never going to meet. But she was dying, and for once, she didn't want to be alone. His hand mirrored Kate's.

"Listen to me, Kate. We're going to make it out of here and you're going to be okay, alright?" Adam whispered between his tears. "You can raise that family you've always wanted, stop drinking and forget your past."

She wanted to believe his words, she really did. Then she cried, though she vowed never to do so again. The tears were desperate ones, ones that she forced to exit. The truth was that if she were to die tonight with the two not-so-very strangers, the death in itself, would be nothing and because of that, she almost felt at peace with it. Her father had always told her she was to amount to nothing. But here came the words of Adam that flowed like a waterfall, and suddenly, as she reached for his hand, days of dying felt so far from where she actually stood.

In rage and remorse, Lawrence threw the phone. His cheeks and chin were shiny from his tears. The sound of electrical buzzing filled the room, and without any warning, the tearful doctor began jerking. His skin turned red and he began foaming at the mouth. Adam looked quickly away from Kate, causing a pit in her stomach, and stood up from shock.

All was still after that.

"Lawrence!" screamed Adam. The doctor, still red at the face, had stopped moving. The only fear running through the other two was the fact that maybe, just maybe, they lost their only way out.

"Get up, Lawrence!" Kate ordered. "We need you!"

Kate stared at the body for as long as she could, then, she looked over at the scuffling Adam, clearly looking for something.

"What are you doing?"

He picked up some crumbling rocks from the broken tiles and began tossing them at Lawrence. "I'm going to wake him up. Okay? You can help."

Kate walked back into her section's corner, falling to the floor to search for debris. A few rocks later and she stood up, her gaze catching onto a large shard of mirror. The other woman that reflected back wasn't her. The other one had hair in every direction, dirt and blood smudged on her face, a deep cut running down her right cheek. She ignored the monster lurking inside of her and grabbed her one-sleeved coat.

The two began throwing as much as they could as far as they could. Adam with all the might he could muster threw the last pebble in his hand. It bounced off the wall behind Lawrence and hit his face.

A few seconds later, the man began to stir awake.