Agent Kat

Chapter 27: New And Old

Leroy slammed his hand on the table in the training room. "We have to go after her!"

"We don't have any time, Leroy. We leave in five hours," Nova reasoned. "Kat's gone. We have to respect her decisions..."

"Good riddance, if I do say so myself," Nani muttered. 

Leroy spun on her. "You shut up! Kat had more intelligence and bravery than you ever could!"

Nani's eyes narrowed. "You knew her for a week. What could you know?"

"I know that she was tortured as a child, just like me, by the same people. I know that every time she slips into a flashback, all she can remember are those people. I know that she almost got herself killed trying to save some agents she didn't even know," Leroy seethed. 

Dian stepped between them. "Guys!" he barked. "We don't have time to argue! Kat left. Okay. I'm sure she left for a reason."

Suddenly, a loud series of beeps interrupted their conversation.

"It's the fax machine," Brendan said quietly. "Someone's faxing something to us..." He walked over to the machine and watched as a picture printed off slowly, revealing a figure tied up to a chair, bound with ropes and duct tape. Underneath the picture was a paragraph.

Freya picked up the picture as it came out. "Check to see if there's a faxing number it came from," she ordered.

Studying the picture, she realized what was at stake. "Um... I think we have a bit of a problem..."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Kat awoke, her shoulder on fire and her mouth gagged. Her head throbbed painfully. Maneuvering her tongue around the fabric, she was able to spit the gag out. She groaned.

Keeping her wits about her, she evaluated her situation. She was bound to a chair by ropes and duct tape, and the room she was in was completely dark. She couldn't see anything.

Feeling around her body, she felt that her legs were tied to the legs of the chair, her arms were pinned to her side, which put a lot of strain on her injured shoulder, and her torso was taped to the back of the chair, crushing her wings to her back.

"Hello," she croaked. "Is anyone there?"

The door opened abruptly, letting the light bleed into the room. Squinting against the bright lights, Kat tried to make out the figure at the door. 

"Why, hello, my dear," greeted a painfully familiar voice. 

Her eyes adjusted to the light and, to her dismay, Doctor Winslow stood at the door, her hands intertwined, sitting at her hips. "It's so nice to see you again, Kat," she said, grinning brightly.

"Why... Why am I here?" Kat managed; her throat was scratchy and dry.

Doctor Winslow tipped her head to the side. "Well, why do you think? Your parents were worried about you."

Fear blinded Kat. "No," she said as firmly as she could, which wasn't much. "I'm not... I can't..."

"Oh, but you can. And you will."

_______________________________________________________________________

"Do you believe me now that we need to help her?" Leroy shouted. "They've captured her! They're going to kill her!"

Nani snorted. "Calm down, lover boy."

Leroy's blood boiled. He could feel all of his anger being rekindled. The anger at Nani for always teasing him, the anger at Kat leaving, the anger at everyone being so nonchalant about her departure and her kidnapping, his anger at her kidnappers. All that anger grew until it was almost like he couldn't hold it anymore.

The heat gathered in his hands as he clenched them. "Don't. Call. Me. That," he growled. 

"Whatever," she replied.

The heat poured out of his fingers and swirled around in the air, flowing towards Nani. It wasn't visible, but the air shimmered around the heat as it moved. It touched Nani's back and she yelped. As she moved, the heat recoiled back into Leroy's fingertips.

"Who poked me?" she yelled.

Leroy looked down at his hands, and, sure enough, they were a bright red, almost orange. He tried to recreate the heat, and surely enough, the heat oozed from his hands, pouring down to the ground and slithering towards Nani again.

This time, though, Leroy was in control, and Nani's screech of fury was totally and completely his fault. But he wasn't complaining. 

He had a new power.

__________________________________________________________________________

Kat was dragged to the chamber in which she would meet her parents. Doctor Winslow had given her some pain medications for her shoulder. "They should be here in a few moments," she said, smiling at Kat.

"What happened?" Kat asked suddenly.

Winslow looked at her strangely. "What do you mean?"

"You had to have gotten roped into this freak show somehow. What's your story?" Kat tipped her head to the side slightly, like she had seen Winslow do a million times.

Taking a breath, Winslow looked down at the floor. "They took my husband," she started quietly. "and said that if I didn't work for them, they would kill him. So I did. And they killed him anyway."

Kat was taken aback. She had always thought that Doctor Winslow was one of the nutjobs who voluntarily worked on projects such as this one. "Why didn't you leave?"

"They always had someone else that I loved in line..." she said quietly. "I had no choice. I have no choice."

There was a knock on the door. "Doctor Winslow?" called a twittery voice from outside. "Is Katja in there?"

Kat's blood ran cold. "They..."

Doctor Winslow resumed her cold and calculating stance, and for a moment, it was almost like her confession never happened. "Yes, Mrs. Krause. We're both in here." She looked back at Kat, a sliver of regret in her eyes. "Sorry."

She opened the door.