“Yeah, about that,” I say, sitting down in the folding chair that looks slightly stronger than the other. I notice that she's got a computer in the corner on a table that looks strong, if a little cheap. Like one of those all-plastic office desks you can get at Wal-Mart for about thirty bucks. The computer, though... damn. I don't know a lot about computers, but any computer that's running an actual antifreeze-based cooling system and pump has to be some serious shit.
“You use that thing to help set up your little stunt on me?” I ask, taking a sip. The water's not the greatest I've ever tasted, since it's unfiltered city water, but at least it's cool. “That shit'll give you cancer.”
“Not worried about cancer,” Kat says, taking a seat in the other chair. I get a better look at her, and my cock twitches in my slacks again. Jesus, she's fucking sexy when she's angry. Her eyes are sparkling with an inner fire, and the way her body's put together, she's built like a cat, all feminine curves and deadly sleekness.
“You... Katrina, what the hell were you doing, pulling that stunt in the limo? I mean, in the past few days, I've learned a lot about why you might want to be pissed at Pops, but why'd you have to do that to me?”
“You think what you've been through the past few days is hard?” Kat spits, angry again. “You didn't have to go through what I did! Try three foster homes in six months! You try finding out that your best friend's father ordered the car bomb that blew up your parents! You try watching as your parents are turned into a fucking fireball!”
She's on her feet, yelling at me, her chest heaving and her forearms bunched. I'm kinda glad she left her glass on the floor by her feet. I think she might be able to crush that jar in her fist the way her muscles are flexing. My cock twitches again, but I tell it to shut the fuck up. I'm pissed off too, and I'm on my feet before I know it. “That doesn't mean you go and humiliate me! Hell, I barely talked Nathan out of killing you and giving me your address instead!”
“Killing me? I don't fucking care if I die,” Kat responds, stepping back and turning around. “If I can take down your father, I don't care if my next home is six feet under. After what I've been through the past ten years, death would be a vacation.”
Her words chill me to the bone, and my anger dissolves, at least temporarily. Instead, I back up, away from the chair. “Kat... Katrina. Whatever you want to be called right now. Tell me what you know.”
She turns back around, and I see a hint of humanity in her face, and not just the enraged warrior I'd been looking at most of the time since I walked in the door. “You really want to know?”
I nod and sit down on the wood floor. “Yeah, I do. If it makes you feel better about it, you can get your gun and keep it on me. For the first time in my life, I want to know the truth.”
After a moment, Kat nods and comes over close to me before sitting down. The way she sits hikes up one of the legs of her martial arts pants, and her calf is just a foot away from my hand. It's defined, and perfect, and oh my holy God so sexy. I start to reach out, but stop. Kat notices, and gives me a little nod of appreciation for my restraint. “So what do you want to know?”
“Why didn't you reach out to me before? All I knew was that you'd left school, and that one day you just dropped off the face of the earth. I didn't even know your parents were dead until months later.”
“Probably had your head buried in that '67 Corvette model we were working on,” Kat says with a little smile. “We'd what, gotten the engine block completed together?”
“And the tires,” I added. “We'd just finished the hubs the day before you disappeared. I never did finish that kit. I did a little of the framework, but after you left school... I just never wanted to finish it. It wasn't any fun anymore. I think it got thrown away maybe six months later or so.”
“Shame, it was a nice kit,” Kat muses, then sighs. “But you asked what I went through. Well, at first I was pretty fucked up, it's the only way to describe it. The first foster home... to be honest, I don't remember much of it. I was going through a lot of shit back then, but I do remember them trying to hit me. I hit back and ended up right back in the orphanage with a broken arm. The second home, well, they were nice, but way too old, and they didn't know how to deal with my anger. You see by then I'd started to hear the rumors, a lot of the older kids at the orphanage were running in gangs pretty much, and word on the street was my parents were killed by a car bomb, and it was your father who ordered it. I wasn't sure though for a few years after that, but I had a name. Still, I was too angry, and took advantage of them. I lasted a month with them before they sent me back after I slapped the woman. Then they sent me to Virginia... she was my first real teacher.”