Chapter 1

"No Masters or Kings

When the Ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin"

Since when did an ugly, red button down blouse on the clearance rack cost more than a weekly food budget? Was the first thought in Kate's mind as she shoved the cloth hangar back on the metal pole. The cloth hangar should've been a dead give a way, was the thought immediately after, which followed her out of the women's section of the ridiculously large department store.

She picked her way over to the shoes and accessories area, a nice pair of 4-inch heel boots catching her eye, which while impractical, came in three different colors. The white sticker on the heel of boot told her all she needed to know as she set it back on the display, huffing to herself and pushing a stray hair back in place.

In all honesty, she knew she couldn't afford anything in this place, but after she had don three loads of laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, vacuumed, and made her bed, there was little else to do at her apartment and she was going stir crazy. What had she even done before she'd gotten on to the force? Every day off now seemed to drag through in slow motion, and growing restless happened earlier and earlier until now she was barely in to 11 o'clock in the morning and here she was wandering aimlessly through the expensive tastes of a salary far higher than her own. At least she was due back at the precinct at 7:00 tomorrow, meaning she'd show up at a prompt 6:00, giving her ample time for a morning run and shower before the archives and then parade.

Her fingers tripped in running over the leather of a purse as she thought of the archive room and her mom's file. She was going to have to be more careful in how much time she spent down there, and when, as she'd almost gotten caught the other day, but luckily it was early enough that the guy never even looked up from his cup of coffee, much less through the shelves. Early had seemed like the best time, but maybe late in to the night shift would be a better choice, she could always just head straight there after shift. Not even a year on the force and she'd already spent more time down in that room than at her own apartment, which was small, but slowly becoming home.

Just as her phone went off from the depths of her bag, her shoulder smashed in to a man speed walking in the opposite direction, by the time her phone was in her hand, he was already gone too fast to apologize. She shrugged and glanced down at the caller ID, cringing when she saw the name 'DAD' flash on the screen.

For two seconds she stared at the phone, hesitating whether or not to answer it, not knowing which version of him she would find on the other line. But the guilt of the three weeks of space ate away at her conscience until she flipped open the phone.

"Dad?" Her voice didn't sound very confident, even to her own ears, and she was still having trouble learning how to distance herself, so she cleared her throat and tried again, "Hello?"

There was a rustling sound at the end of the line, but then a gruff, "Katie, hi." Responded back and she had her answer. He sounded hung over. Really hung over.

"What's up, Dad?" She was almost out of the department store at this point, passing the perfume bottles and make up stylists, debating whether or not to take this call out in to the rest of the mall, or out in to the parking lot.

"I was just wondering if you had any plans for your birthday, I know it's coming up in a couple weeks, and just wanted to…" he trailed off in to a cough and then silence, but she had already stopped in her tracks the minute he'd brought up the word "birthday", feeling her entire body seize up. Definitely a parking lot talk, then.

She brought her fingers up to rub at her eyebrow, "I—I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it." There was an uncomfortable pause as she slowed down her brisk walk to the exit doors, "I mean, I haven't gotten my schedule yet, and I'm probably going to be on shift anyways."

"No, yeah, right, of course. I wasn't even thinking about your work schedule." She cringed at the forced light tone in his voice; she hated hurting his feelings like this, "Look, don't worry about it, I just wanted to make sure you had plans or something."

Despite everything that had happened, his concern still brought a small smile to her face, and she looked down at the display of blue jeans on the table next to the aisle, "Yeah, I will keep you in the loop, though, once I get my schedule. Maybe we can grab lunch, or coffee."

"I'd like that, Katie." She had to swallow the lump that appeared in her throat at the use of the nickname, again, "And I promise I'll show up this time, I've really had my last drink." His tone was too joking for her to take him serious, and it sobered her mood pretty fast.

There had been lots of talk and lots of promises, the talk mainly being on her side and the promises mainly on his, but that's all it really was. She was the one who usually did all the yelling, accusing him of drinking too much, but he still refused to really admit that he had a problem, always claiming the clichéd, 'I can stop whenever I want to'.

Still, she took in a sharp breath and injected a lightness in her voice that she did not feel, "Sure, Dad, I'm happy to hear that. I'll give you a call when I have a more concrete plan and we can set everything up then, okay?"

"That sounds great, Katie. I'll talk to you soon, be safe." The relief in his voice only gave her a moment of hope before the dial tone sounding in her ear filled her full of dread again.

Truly, it wasn't that she didn't want to spend some time with her dad, but the past few years had been rough on their relationship, with her mom's death and then his turn to alcohol, there hasn't been a lot of family quality time. The full force hit her that she'd be 24 in a couple of weeks, and then come January it'll have been a full five years since her mother was murdered.

She was swiftly brought out of her train of thought by the sound of footsteps rushing towards her. Turning quickly, she just barely side stepped the same man that she bumped in to earlier as he ran by her, coat flapping behind him. For a brief moment it sounded like he was yelling something, but then he turned the corner and was gone.

There was a second where she considered going after him and seeing what was wrong, seeing if she could help, but she didn't even know if anything really was wrong and the second was over.

Shrugging her coat on even more and bracing herself for the chill of November in New York, she pushed open the double glass doors and stepped out in to the parking lot, parking garage, really. The walk to the stairs was a short one, and she had only parked one level up, so she made her way to the rusted metal teal doors when a sudden thud echoed through the lot. Immediately, the clack of her heels stopped, and the dead silence put the hairs on the back of her neck on end, her cop instinct on high alert.

Suddenly, a muffled yell reached her ears from around the corner and she took off at a dead sprint, cursing the fact that she hadn't filled out the paperwork to bring her piece home with her. A yelp of pain was heard, and then a high-pitched scream followed quickly after, the kind of scream that sounded like a little girl. Kate pushed her legs faster, the whispered thought of, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, the only thing that her mind could come up with as she whipped around the corner.

Her stomach churned at the sight that reached her, and she almost felt dizzy at the sight of it. There, in the middle of the roadway of the garage was a large black van, brights glaring in to the hazy yellow light of the garage, two men in masks standing before the open back doors. That wasn't what made her freeze though. What made her freeze was the bright tinge of orange hair that stood between the two men, tears quickly spilling over her eyes as the men grappled to cover her mouth again.

The whole pause took maybe a half second for her to compose herself before she started running towards them again, "FREEZE, POLICE!" already being yelled at the top of her lungs.

One of the men shoved the girl, who couldn't have been more than ten, towards his counterpart, turning instead to face her. He was not prepared for her rage though, and she barely had to pause for the full weight of her front kick she did to this man's stomach, hips thrust forward with the kick and he doubled over and flew backwards, landing on his ass with a grunt and a whoosh of air.

The other man was still pulling the little girl towards the van, who had resumed her kicking and thrashing, attempting to get him to loosen his hold. Kate made her way to them with two longs strides and delivered a right hook to the side of the masked man's face, hearing a satisfying crack that echoed. He was only down for a couple seconds before he threw himself back around, only one arm around the girl's neck now as he aimed for Kate's nose. She dodged at the last second, the blow glancing over her cheek bone instead which immediately began to throb.

The girl had picked up her screaming again, now that the captor no longer had a hand over her mouth, and Kate took the moment to deliver a swift kick to the front of his kneecap and a palm heel strike to his nose. The snap of his nose was enough to make the man release his hold on the child, one hand coming up to try and block the flow of blood on his face as he attempted to orient himself. He didn't need long though, and the underhanded punch that landed on her stomach sent the air out of her, bending over at the waist in attempt to suck in a breath.

She saw the girl standing off to the side, the bright orange hair like a beacon that drew her attention. She wasn't moving anywhere, instead she seemed frozen to the spot, staring at Kate before she could scream, "BEHIND YOU!"

The second man, who she'd forgotten about, came crashing in behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle and effectively locking her arms to the side of her body. The first male captor sprang at her then, blood still gushing from his nose and she threw out her feet in a kick that landed closer to his shoulder than she would've wanted, but it still caused him to stumble back.

"GO!" She could see the girl still hesitant to move, as if debating whether or not she could leave Kate in this situation, but her voice seemed to compel her in to action, "GO, NOW!" Kate barely had time to get it out before a punch slammed in to her face, her vision going black around the edges.

She knew in two seconds the man whose arms she was currently not wrapped in, the one who had just punched her it seems, was going to go after the child, and was going to catch her. Knowing she had one shot at this, she pushed her head forward before slamming it back, trying to catch as much of the man's face as possible. She felt the contact burst through the back of her head and the pain settled right behind her eyeballs, but he released his hold and she barreled forward, aiming a punch at the other man who was turned to run after the little girl. The punch was glancing, though, and the next thing she knew he had caught hold of one of her arms and she felt the sting of metal as something whipped across the side of her head.

Kate couldn't control her body's crumple to the ground, and the voices of the men were muffled and foggy as it came to her through a haze.

"What are we going to do now? The boss sent us after fresh meat and we only got a half hour before we got to be back! She woulda –"

The voice faded as her vision went black, but another voice pricked back in at her conscious as she tried to lift her arms.

"Shut up! I know, I know."

"What are we going to do, Gem?"

"Just give me a second to think."

"We could just take her. She gave us hell anyways." At this she felt the toe of a boot prodding painfully in to her side, she attempted to kick out at it, but felt her legs just twitch in response.

"Are you shitting me? She said she was a cop!"

"Yeah, but she could have been lying, just saying that to scare us."

There was a long silence that caused Kate to suck in a raspy breath.

"OK, yeah, sure, let's load her in the truck."

Suddenly, she felt two sets of hands on her, one under her armpits and the other wrapped around her legs, lifting her off the ground. Again, she attempted to move, to do something, the state of panic she was in rising out of control as she felt herself being carried. The panic level kicked her adrenaline in to full gear and her eyes flew open, wide and terrified, her body merely shook though in an attempt to struggle, pain flashing across the side of her skull.

Whichever man gripping under her arms nearly dropped her in shock, jostling her head and making her see spots, "Holy fuck man, she's still awake."

Her legs dropped to the ground like dead weight, and if she could just get them to cooperate and get them under her, she could get control of the situation again. There was a brief rustle she heard somewhere to her left before the sharp sting of pain in her neck, and then everything was going upside down and black.

AN - So here's my first fic, and I already have the plan for where I want the story to go, I just hope that I am able to write it well enough. I'm also looking for any betas who would be willing to read the chapters before they come out, just to make sure they make sense. Other than that, here we go.

Disclaimer - characters are copyright of Castle and it's creators, the song lyrics at the beginning are copyright to Hozier