Shadow Cat

CHAPTER THREE
The Escape


Katherine wakes to water being splashed on her, drenching her body with chilly liquid, and gasps as the pain flares up again. Moaning, she moves her sore, stiff neck and opens her swollen eyes with a grimace of utter discomfort, her whole body physically aching.

Spinning back to reality, her eyes settle on her stepfather and inches backward in panic. Hot teats stream down Kitty's swollen, bruised and bloody cheeks, and hit the kitchen floor in fat splashes. 'Kitchen floor? How'd I get here?' she thinks to herself quickly, then notes that the kitchen is directly below the hall where she last remembered being.

Accidentally resting her weight on her broken arm, it buckles, and words cannot define the horrifying sensation that courses up her arm, to her brain, and flowing to the rest of her body. She glances down at it with nearly blind eyes, her gaze skimming the broken area of her arm. The bone protrudes from the forearm, coating the skin with a reddy brown substance, the white bone harsh against the dark colours. A wave of dizzying pain wails against her, and her throat squeaks as she sways unsteadily.

Noticing she is awake, Will crouches down in front of Kitty and presses cool finger tips to her burning face. Fresh tears slide down her cheeks and drips onto her shirt. He slides his hands down her face, cupping the fleshy cheeks tenderly, then settles his large, meaty hands on my shoulders. A smile touches his mouth, causing is blaack mustache to curl over the lips, then his fingers dig into her shoulders like talons, crushing against the bruised collarbone. Kitty screams at him, kicking her legs madly, aiming for--- anything! Her knee crunches into the tender junction between his legs, and Will falls backwards, with a squeal, crashing to the floor, holding his member and groaning.

Katherine jumps up, trying to ignore her arm, as she jostles it slightly, nausea assailing against her body in deep, rolling waves, tempting at her conciousness, trying to force it to give into the welling darkness. But she can't ignore it as she leans against the wall, chest heaving, panting for breath, as if she were a swimmer, lost in the wilds of a hurricane. She lifts leaden feet, urging herself to move one foot infront of the other, slowly up the stairs. Kitty's knees tremble, threatening to buckle beneath her, to send her sprawling up the last steps. But her will remains steadfast, and she makes it up the last stair with a swell of triumph in her breast. Shutting the bedroom door behind her, she rests her weight against it, while her searching hand flicks the button on the doorknob, the feeble locking system. Even so, it was better than nothing.

A pitiful whine peirces behind her, and she turns, as if startled. But darkness, no matter how hard she tried, was all she saw. With a sigh, the lights are switched on with a weary hand of her good arm. She almost crashes to the ground, her bravery and strength gone. Perspiration films her body, the cotton material of her shirt cloying to her back. The whine sounds again, and Kitty's head raises, to the far side of her room, the balcony, where brown, soulful eyes gleamed.

Without a second thought, she gets up with a little difficulty, keeping her arm cradled to her torso. Throwing open the doors, the animal quickly bolted in, squirming with energy. Kitty smiles gently down at it, stroking her hand through the sleek black fur of the purebred rotweiler, who had been abandoned as a three-week old pup, and had since then lovingly, albeit secretly, raised by Katherine Pryde. The dog immediatly plops down and rolls onto its back, exposing the soft underbelly that was dying to be scratched.

Kitty complies with a small smile, then withdraws her hand, looking down into those hurt, brown eyes, challenging her as she dared to stop patting the animal. "Nora," she said with a sad sigh, and the dog sprang up, attacking her face with her tounge, pushing Kitty into the ground, causing her to hiss as her arm rubs the bristling white carpet on the floor. Game over.

Kitty pushes Nora off of her prone body, who instantly licks the exposed palm. Her face draws into a frown, wiping the dampness on her jeans, and opens her mouth to speak, her usually perky voice flat, "This is goodbye, Nora."

Knowing she doesn't understand, the girl shakes her head with a motion of regret, and stares pointedly at the wall, furiously blinking her burning eyes. A moan prickles against Kitty's ears, and she stills with shock, having forgotten all about her step-father below. Will must have recovered from his injury, or at least somewhat. Enough to pound powerful feet up the stairs. Her finger's tighten on Nora's fur, but the dog doesn't complain, she just stares soberly at the door, one lip curling.

Will tries the doorknob, and finding it locked, her kicks at the flimsy wood of the door. A crackling, splintering sound comes from the kick, and the door almost visibly buckles, causing Kitty to wince, "Open this fucking door!" he screams at her.

"What is he, nuts? I'm not opening that door." she mumbles under her breath. The thought comes to her, 'If I were a mutant, wouldn't I know?' which was slightly strange, because that thought had no provocation.

Another, equally furious thump wails against the door, and Kitty looks to the curious dog, who had her head cocked at an angle. She gesture to Nora to hide behind the bed, and she complies. Odd.

She stands an legs made of gelatin, forcing the pain from her mind, breathing in and out deeply and slowly, as if each breath were her last one. As she reaches for the door handle, the odd, calming, but chilling sensation ripples over her, very much like the first time. Her fingers go to touch the button on the knob, but they pass right through. Her calm shattered, she reaches for the door again with trembling fingers, but she finds it solid once again, and unlocks the door. Not much time to dwell on what happened, as she quickly backs out of the way, but just as suddenly, Kitty whips forward and clicks the lock back into place.

'I don't have to listen to him,' she says to herself, 'What I have to do is leave.'

She carelessly flips off the light again, cloaking herself in protective darkness, and steps back several feet. A frission of anxiety sweeps over her, would this work? 'Maybe not,' Kitty thought to herself, she always puts on a front, that she is carefree, but underneath the facade she was a scared little kitten.

The door to the bedroom is kicked yet again, splintering sounds groan, and it crashes open, leaving a dent in the plaster of the wall. Will's sillhouette is illuminated from the light in the hall. Her throat works, swallowing a painful lump, her jewel blues eyes wide with fear, her waist length chestnut brown hair a cloud of disarray around her, she just... cowered.

The pressure is so intense to her, she feels as if she could blackout at any moment, but Will stood there, with his fists clenched, breathing heavily, "You lock a door against me again, and I'll break it down everytime!" Outraged black, flint eyes assail Kitty's soft blue ones with pure aggressive force. "Do you understand?"

For a second, she reflects. Kitty had alsways been quite, shy, withdrawn, but nonetheless perky when spoken too. But that wasn't enough, she had always been the mouse, even though that was a direct confrontation to her name, Kitty. Always wanting to stand up for herself, she refrains because underneath it all, she really was the mouse. She was tired of being call that degrading name, but... she can't seem to move. Frozen in horror to the spot, her body remembering what those fists could do. She prays for a miracle, and suddenly, it comes. Nora snarls from somwhere inside the room.

Rasing her trembling chin to stare into Will's eyes, or where they should be, if Kitty could see them. Her challenging, yet fearful sapphire eyes are nearly steady as she takes a deep breath, "No." she says, very carefully, and very softly, her response came ten seconds after Will's declaration. She braces herself for the onslaught of his anger, cradling her badly broken arm against her body.

Will takes a menacing step forward, as if to strike her again, but Nora springs out from behind the bed, her lips pulling back to bare her deadly white teeth. She growls, a quiet warning, as she crouches down before Kitty, ears laying flat against the back of her head, snarling.

Will takes faltering steps back, crashing into the damaged doorframe, seeing a set of glowing eyes, and flashing white teeth. His meaty hands fumble and search for the light switch, flicking it on. The sudden flash of light strikes her eyes, and she squints, her head flaring in an intense migraine. She sways, and her vision dims.

Nora raises herself from the floor, advancing on the man I had once called father, as he sputterings, "W-where'd you get this here mutt?" his tounge moistens his suddenly dry lips, hands shaking with tremors. His greatest fear. Dogs. And now, suddenly encountering one of the most aggressive, vicious, and loyal of the dogs on earth, was almost enough to give him a heart attack.

Kitty steps forward slightly, a tad more confident with Nora at her side.Her lips lift up in a sardonic looking grin, trying to hide her queasy, churning stomach, "I found her on the street." she says, proud that her tone was steady. The streets referring to, were the streets of Illinois' capital.

Nora advances on him, and Will scrambles down the stairs. She slams her door shut, not that it would do that much good, now that the door had been ripped from half of the frame. Adrenaline had begun to pump through her body, and she thought to herself that she had better make good use of it, quicking grabbing a large suitcase from the closet, flipping the tabs to open it. Gnashing her teeth together at her aching muscles, and the scraping of her bruised collar bone, she starts piling in the few possessions into the suitcase.

A photograph of her mother, and real father, with her father cradling her as a newborn. Too bad he'd died in that break in... She also crams in her clothes, and stashes of food, as her step father had often starved her for days on end, remembering to be delicate, because of her arm. Lastly, she lifts the mattress off the bed with a few grunts, and several minutes with her good arm, and grab the rather large, rectangular object, equipped with its carrying case and few cords it needed.

She changes into clean jeans and a thick, loose sweater slowly, as slow as a turtle that crawls across the sand. She couldn't get her tee-shirt off over her head, safely, anyway, so she cuts it off with a pair of scissors found on a dresser. She grimaces as she looks down, a disgusted look that had nothing to do with the state of her arm; it was about her body, plump on the bottom, and slight on the top. Ginerly, she pulls the midnight blue sweater on over her head, somehow getting both arms through the holes.

Her arm aches as she slides the slender, breifcase like object that had been hidden under her mattress into the suitcase, the material of the sweater brushing against the bone, snagging. But she can't stop, she has to leave as quickly as possible, or so her mind told her. She looks around her small, shabby room for anything she could have missed, and a thought strikes her like lightening, scortching her into gasping. Her mother. Guilt flushes over her, that she was abandoning the only flesh and blood she had ever known, but... it was best for Louise if she stayed here... She could never cope out there, on the streets, 'But maybe I can't either,' Kitty muses, 'but anything is better than this place, and it is a decision I make on my own, I can't drag my mother into this mess.'

"Out," she says with a commanding tone to Nora, her finger gesturing to the open french balcony doors at the far side of the room, and she scrambles out like ordered. Nora was being a bit too responsive today... Another strange thing.

Kitty casts a blue, solemn look into the bedroom she had grown up in, figuritvely speaking of course, the shabbiest room in the most glamorous of apartments in Illinois, that anyone could ever have imagined. She spots the warm quilts on her bed, then shove them into a duffel bag, hidden beneath the bed and hefts it to the window, tossing it out with one arm over the short railing. The suitcase suffers the same fate, and Kitty winces as she lets go, not in pain, but what she had put in the suitcase... hopefully it was okay... The drop was only four feet, as her bedroom was on the first floor of the apartment building, plush as though it was, still lacked in basic security measures. Guards though nowadays, if no one could get past them, the building was safe, so no one designs them better. But it was good for Kitty, she reflected, her escape made easy.

Just as she starts easing her bruised body over the railing, when Kitty remembers one more thing from her room that she needed. She limps back into the room, and heads for the closet. Pulling up the fraying carpet, she pries the loose floorboards away. and grab the concealed box, then leave the room for the last time, and jump over the railing.

It wasn't that far of a distance, but even so Kitty lands with a sickening thud, her dark head striking the pavement. A hot, dizzy wave passes over her. leaving her breathless, pressing a hand to her head. A wet tounge rouses her and she stands up again. Though wobbling, she remains on her feet. Disgust is splashed over her face; how was she going to carry all stuff she had taken?

Her suitcase was large, and had wheels, so she crams the heaviest blanket into it, and leave the other, and the duffel bag. The wooden box in her hands, the one she had retrived from under the closet floor, presents a problem, but she dares not leave it behind. Peering into the duffel bag for salvation, Kitty spots a sheet, and somehow untangles it from the other blanket. Nora rips it in half for her with a game of tug-a-war.

She grips one half, and awkwardly tie the box to my side, to the other half, I carefully knot the ends together with precision and slip it over my head. 'Here comes the hard part,' Kitty grits her teeth, gripping her left wrist with her right hand and quickly shoves her broken arm, albow first, into the roughly made sling. The sudden jarring movement causes bile to rise in her throat, and she shakes. Pain rips through her body as it convulses.

Bile, so bitter and disgusting in her throat rises higher, and she hobbles over to the hedges quickly to lose whatever she had actually eaten for dinner into leafy bushes. Then her stomach heaves emptily, retching air. As she pants for breath, Nora whines behind her, so she turns and comforts her dearest friend. Re-adjusting the box, to make sure it was tied securely to her waist, she grabs her suitcase, lifting the handle off it to drag it behind her, then stumbles into the darkness.