Catgirl: Young Justice BOOK 3 (ON-HOLD)

CHAPTER 26

|Gotham City
|March 20 2016, 13:04

With the whole team torn over Artemis' death, it really was just a case of walking- well, teleporting, out of Mount Justice.

The first thing Katherine did when she arrived in Gotham was light a cigarette. "Want one?", she offered her pack to Felix before he could ask.

Felix accepted and wondered, "Got a light?" He lit his cigarette shortly after, daring to ask, "How you holding up?"

The whole team was torn up over Artemis' death, but nobody more than Katherine. Even though the past few years had been difficult, Artemis remained her best friend. Above all, she was a sister. Now, suddenly, she was gone.

Felix knew he needed to tread carefully. Feral or not, this could be the final crack before Katherine broke. If that happened, all the progress she made towards controlling her feral side would be lost.

Just like she did in the past, she could kill thousands because of this.

"Katherine-?"

"I'm fine.", She knew exactly what he was worrying about and shut him down, "Not gonna go on a killing spree. I'm done crying. Let me smoke it off."

"Right.", Felix gave her space to smoke in peace, "I'll give Amelia a call, have her send the nearest car."

You couldn't just 'smoke off' the death of someone you cared about most, you needed to grieve them sooner or later.

While Felix made his call outside the alley, Katherine stayed where she was in it, looking up for a way to the roof.

"Kath?", Felix poked his head in the alley.  He was going to ask her if she wanted to stop for food on the way back, but noticed her checking out potential escape routes and sighed, "Please don't-"

"I'm not going from one house arrest to another.", she said, not taking her eyes off the 3 storey wall.

Felix glanced up at the wall, knowing she could easily made the jump to escape. It wasn't something she needed to do though. Despite his frustration at having to do this again, he explained as sympathetically and as clearly as he could, "You're not my prisoner, Kath, you're my sister. You're staying with me so I can make sure your feral side is under control. We've been over this dozens of times before."

She didn't seem convinced, mumbling, "Word it however you want.", as she got a feel for the stability of the rusting fire escape on the opposite wall.

"You are coming with me.", Felix asserted. He stepped back into the alley, blocking the fire escape from her until their car arrived. "You need to come back with me-"

"Not going.", Katherine stood her ground.

Felix moved to the car to open the back door for her  He bit his tongue at his sister's stubbornness, telling the driver, "Go 'round the block, meet us back here in 5."

When the driver left, he stomped back to the alley, barely able to keep his cool. He continuously reminded himself that Katherine was feral, that one of the only people she had left just died- but he was feral too, and he was actually there when Kaldur killed Artemis.

Her death was affecting his feral side too.

Katherine crossed her arms over her chest, not saying anything. She could sense Felix's emotions, but believed they were for her and her alone; that he was purely just angry at her, for not doing exactly what he wanted to, even if her choices weren't his to make. She made her own choice, said what she wanted to, and wasn't going to change her mind on this just because he didn't agree with her.