Kill Me Twice

The sun outside blazed in the cloudless July sky. It was a perfect day on that late summer afternoon, but she saw none of this. All her eyes held were bars - the same metal bars that had been her home for the past eleven years. Slowly, she walked down the corridor in handcuffs to the visitor's room with a beefy guard to her right and the endless rows of bars to her left.

It had been ten years since she had walked down that particular hallway. No one came to see her and she liked life better that way. She had no family or loved ones like the rest of her cellmates or lawyers making appeals for her case. No. She was alone and at some point during her incarceration that fact had stopped hurting. She felt nothing now, nothing but hollow.

The guard opened the door to large guarded room. He removed the cuffs from her wrists and closed the door behind her without a word. She stood there motionless either unable or unwilling, she couldn't tell. There before her was the one man she had ever trusted on this Earth. The only person she had loved. The person who had condemned her to this hell.

Her husband.

He stood there before her without a sound. In a gray three piece suit, he looked just as handsome and charming as the day she meet low those many years ago. His was short dark blonde was going gray at the temples. If anything, it added character and roughness to his almost effeminate face.

As the silence stretched like butter on too much bread, he finally took a seat at the dingy metal table. All she could do was follow suit.

"Sarah."

"Mac."

"You look different."

"Prison does that to a person."

Mac shuffled uneasily in his chair to ward off the feeling of awkwardness. She wondered what he had to be uncomfortable about, she was the one in prison. Another long silence stretched.

"Is there are particular reason for this appearance?"

He simply looked at her with clear blue eyes that seemed to look straight through her. Did he see to her soul? Did he see how black and numb she was? Was there anything left inside to make her human?

"You've been released."

Sarah could only stare. Those words were the same ones she had hoped to hear so long ago. How many times did she play this same scenario in her head with him waiting with open arms? Too many. The one thing that prison had taught her was nothing came without a price.

"What do you want?"

He paused. "What do you mean?"

"Oh Mac," Sarah shook her head smirking. It was as mirthless as the grave. "You used to be so much better at this. Or maybe I just liked the sound of bullshit better. I've been in here for a long time and not once have I filed for appeal. No one could give a damn if I rot. Are you telling me that all of the sudden people have come to their senses and realized I'm not guilty?"

"The Company needs your help."

Sarah gave a laugh that was anything but humorous. "Of course."

"In exchange for your help, you'll be released from prison and everything prior to your incarceration will be restored."

"No."

If Mac hadn't been looking at her, he would have missed her answer. But he knew, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that he'd heard Sarah correctly. Not once since she walked into the visitor's room had she looked away from him. She voice was steady and emotionless which took any heat out of all her statements. Rage he could take, even expected, but the emptiness was far worse than he could have ever imagined.

"Sarah, please-"

"I said no. They're the reason I'm locked up here in the first place. Let's just say I'm not in giving mood when it comes to The Company and it's need for favors."

Mac threw his last proverbial card on the table. He had nothing left to lose. "Theo‘s alive, but he has gone off the map." The bait got a flicker of emotion, but the sign of life went out as fast as it came.

"Now, let me get his straight. They want me to find the man I'm been convicted of murdering, is that right?"

"Yes."

Without a word Sarah stood from the table and walked over to the steel plated door. Pounding on the door twice, she wordlessly demanded to be let back to her cell.

"Sarah, wait! Don't you want your freedom?"

The guard opened the door and took hold over her forearm while attaching the handcuffs back on her wrists. She turned back to Mac stalling the guard from escorting her down the passageway.

"You should know by now there's no such thing as freedom. The Company accomplished what it wanted with me. I have no life to return to. Go back and tell them they've succeeded -- I'm the living dead." With that the room door slammed shut, leaving Mac to watch as she walked down the prison hallway.

He knew from her file that she would be placed in a 6x8 cell that made up the solitary ward which she requested. She was only let out of that cell for one hour a day before she was covered in darkness again. She had spent twenty-three hours a day, everyday for the last eleven years that way. In that time, the cement walls had clipped away whatever emotion and feeling she had.

She was right -- she was as good as dead.

He had hoped that there was something of the woman he had known before. When the murder had first taken place, he was been blown out of the water. He remembered sitting at the table just like the one in front of him all those years ago. Sarah had looked him with tears in her eyes and told him it wasn't true. All the allegations were lies and she was being framed. He hadn't believed her then and that was the last time he had seen her until now.

He was divorced Sarah soon after the jury had come back with a guilty verdict. They had sentenced her to death, but the thought of killing a woman in jail was still questionable so the state had waited these many years to finish it. He could only thank God for small favors.

Mac refused to see her after that and had washed his hands of the situation. He had remarried two years later to a nice, vibrant woman -- the total opposite of his Sarah. He looked down at the gold band on his finger as he thought of his two children, Clea and Davy. He had put the past behind him and had started over again, feeling righteous in his anger and betrayal.

But like a bad dream all the illusions of those days came back to haunt him. His best friend had was alive and well and had been all these years. There had been no betrayal, no murder. He had turned his back on his wife when all she asked for was trust. He had condemned her with his lack of faith.

Now Mac could make it right, but she wouldn't take the olive branch. She would rather live in this hellhole of a box. It didn't matter if he liked it or not he had to make her listen. There was no one who could catch the bastard except her. Sarah was their only hope, the one thing the Company didn't like but couldn't help.

Once again, he was going to force her hand, no matter what it took.