Rated M. That's all I can say.

Chapter 28 - Monkey Part 2

"-leave her."

Voiced echoed around her as she struggled with the pain throbbing on her forehead. Fluttering her eyes open, she squinted against the bright light above her and the two smiling figures hovering over her. She tugged on her hands and discovered that they were tied behind her.

Catherine couldn't help but smile in delight.

"Smiling? Did you have a good sleep, little lady?" Glaring up at the man in dark glasses, she gave out a snort.

"Tying up a defenseless little girl…where are you morals?" She asked sarcastically. "Oh wait you don't have that already. Don't tell me you've lost any confidence as well?" She added with a sneer that the man beside the leader slapped her with the back of his hand. Hard.

She spat some blood now coming from the split on her lip. She chuckled heartily. "That's all you got?" The large man flared in anger and was about to give her another harder blow on her already bleeding face when the sturdy man beside him raised a hand to halt the action.

He obliged and stared at him with confusion.

"She's just provoking you. You can go outside now. I need to ask her some questions." Catherine cocked a brow and leaned against the wall, noticing for the first time that her feet were tied pretty tightly as well. No questions there. They would be total retards if they would so much leave one limb on her untied.

But her hands tied up together like this? They are seriously incompetent.

"Certainly, Mr. Jones." So, that's this bastard's name.

Jones waited for his henchman to close the door behind him before kneeling in one knee to see her face to face. Catherine met his eyes with one full of aversion.

"You already know why you are here, I believe." He started with an ugly smile. She wanted to tear it off his face and leave him bleed to death.

"You should ask if I care first." She answered in a sour tone. The man laughed maniacally for a moment then gave her right cheek a harder slap than the one before that she needed to crane her neck back to alignment.

"I'm a very impatient man so I don't play little girl games." He warned then held her head still by the chin. She could see light blue eyes beneath the tinted shades and the wrinkles on his old face. He was too close that she wanted to vomit right on the front of his shirt.

"Where is she?" He questioned with his grip tightening around her jaw.

"Who?" A part of her already knew who he was talking about. But even though she was sure, she wouldn't tell shit to these lowlifes.

The sudden thrust to her abdomen cut her thoughts for a minute before she heaved back to a sitting position. Jones grabbed her chin violently once again, smiling at the bruises already forming on her face.

"Tell me where that old witch is before I feed your insides to the dogs. I know she's here in Central, thanks to you." Catherine growled and glared at him with a tight lip.

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about." Jones could tell the lie coming out of her mouth that he chuckled to himself again. He pulled back another fist and punched her in the stomach. The young hostage grunted in pain.

"Boss! Status report!" Someone just outside the door shouted. Jones pondered on her state for a moment before standing up.

"You think you're slick avoiding my questions like that?" He asked down at her with that long and ugly smile of his. The thirteen-year-old smiled back then spat on the floor on his feet.

She had been kidnapped a few times already to not know how to deal around it. The hands behind her back braced for the all-familiar clap of circle-less alchemy that she and Edward had seem to have acquired.

"I haven't even started yet. You'll be begging for death, even if you do happen to tell the truth." With that, Jones went to the door and disappeared quickly, leaving Catherine to her thoughts.

The hands behind her back fisted.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Yuki massaged her throbbing head as she stared blankly at the smoking pipe in her hand.

It had been two days since she last saw and heard from the young red-headed apprentice of hers. And she had been worrying her old bones more than she would want to admit. Knowing her, she must just be out somewhere, watching the snow fall upon the earth.

But with this cold, she would have surely had gone home once.

The front door clicked open and Yuki saw her flushed grandson quickly shutting out the strong wind behind him. "Obaachan." He greeted with rattled expression on his handsome face.

"Where have you been?" The old woman asked with forlorn. She already knew the answer. Unlike her, he was looking for Catherine instead of sulking with a cigarette.

She was too preoccupied with her own thoughts of regret that she didn't notice the stack of papers he was carrying until he dropped on the table in front of her.

"I found them in the Elric's apartment."

"Elric's" It was the first time she had heard the name. She thought her last name was Ederson?

"A friend of hers, apparently." Henry looked down in shame of not knowing that important detail about their family member. The young girl had always been reserved if not ignited with rebellious fire around them.

Taking that aside for a moment, Yuki gathered the papers in her hand. After scanning for a minute, she saw a very familiar name.

"Red Barrels." She hadn't heard it for a very long time now.

"It seemed like they had been causing havoc around Central since the middle of last year. One of those news that hadn't reached our ears." Henry supplied as he sat down across his grandmother.

"And this is confidential military information." She noticed the famous hexagram insignia stamped on each paper.

"It seemed like Catherine's doing some undercover work for a living." They couldn't even count now how many things they didn't know about the thirteen-year-old student. Lady Yuki gave out a sigh.

Finding this name and these papers in Catherine's hands could only tell her one place where she is at the moment.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Should I?

Catherine had been debating the same question over and over again for the past forty hours that she thought she might be already going insane. It could've been a week already for all she knew with this windowless block they had confined her in. Her only connection with the outside world was the small hilt on the door in front of her that these bastards use to check on her.

Jones had given her a few good beatings by himself as he asked the same questions. He even dared to lift her shirt and felt for her breast if it wasn't for her strong kick on his groin.

The consequences, of course, came right after that as he kicked and punched her in the gut and only gave her water ever since they imprisoned her in this shit hole. They wanted her alive and Jones desperately wanted some answers.

And she was the same. She wanted to know what the hell they want with Master Yuki. And how the hell it was her fault that they suddenly knew her being in Central?

Thanks for blaming me. Now I have to make it up to her and not tell you anything until I die.

And then she goes back to question that she had been pondering over and over.

Should I use alchemy and get this over with?

No matter how hard she searched, there were no sharp objects, not even an edge that she could use to scrape off this rope of off her. They wouldn't even leave the cups they used to make her drink. They even took out all the metal parts they could find in her current clothes.

She commended them for that. She could certainly kill them all with a single cup. Break it into a pointy little dagger and stab them all in the eye before cutting their throats. Damn, she could even use a hairpin to cut off these ropes.

But she had nothing as of the moment.

All she had was the opportunity to clap her bound hands and transmute anything she would need.

But fuck alchemy. She had already sworn to herself that she would never use that accursed useless science. It had let her down far too many times already for her to even stomach using it again.

But waiting for another opportunity was deeming to be a waste of time and Mustang must be wondering what the hell happened to his mission by now. And to hell she would expect him to send a single man to rescue her. Hell would freeze first before that happens.

So, should I?

Catherine snorted. "Oh the irony." When she already knew how to deal around not having to use alchemy, she comes face to face with a situation where it was the easiest route out.

It's like life was doing her a favor in a way that she hated the most.

Her hands fisted and un-fisted a few more times during her deliberation when the metal door in front her swung open once again. It was a new guy carrying her cup of the day. A plastic cup.

Man, these guys are boring with being too cautious around her.

"Drink it up." He briefly said and forced the cup on her mouth.

Catherine closed her lips tightly and turned her head to the side. "I'm tired of drinking your piss." She shot a glare at the man. It may not be pure urine but she was definitely sure they had put something putrid in all of her drinks. He didn't answer as if to confirm what she had just said.

I'm going to fucking kill all of you.

Flaring his nose in impatience, he grabbed her face between his fingers and forced the liquid to her mouth. Catherine struggled free of his hold, having him drop the plastic cup on the floor with a weak clang then spat the foul liquid to his face.

"Why you little bitch!" He bellowed then kicked her in the gut before wiping the piss water off of his face. Catherine doubled over on the floor, trying to get whatever energy she has left.

A few good hours had passed since that incident and Catherine decided to remain motionless on the floor in her same huddled position, deliberating her options. Would she really protect her pride like this? This was getting very pointless and time consuming.

Very loud shouts and breaking of bottles can be heard from the outside and Catherine could only guess that they were celebrating and stinking with rum.

A perfect opportunity for her to kill all of them.

Maybe one of them would bring something she could use to single-handedly murder all of them. A simple knife would be mighty right now.

A coughing laugh echoed across the hallway in front of her cellar's door followed by uneven footfalls of three men. Judging by their incomprehensible words, they're already intoxicated beyond reason.

If they come here, they're done.

After that fleeting thought, Catherine heard the heavy lock on the metal door slid open then slammed clumsily against the wall. Raising herself to a sitting position, she watched the three men, with Jones in the middle, limped towards her with dazed eyes.

Scanning their hands and any bumps in their pockets, she saw nothing she could use. So much for that anticipation.

Jones knelt in front of her and trapped her face between his stubby fingers. "You actually think we'll bring anything you could ushe to eshcape? I'm not that shtupid." He slurred with a reproachful smile. Catherine threw him a firing glare.

Jones made eye contact with one of his lesser drunk men and in a moment, he grabbed the tied arms behind her.

"You know, you remind me of that bitch Yuki. I've always wondered how she felt." The young hostage was concentrating so much on how firm and unyielding the grip on her arms were, not to mention the sloshing sounds on the ropes she believes she started to imagine that the menacing words passed her ears.

Before she could even realize that the man holding her arms had freed them, Jones pushed her down the floor and his two men pinned her arms apart. She heaved them free but didn't budged the two bulky men. Her legs were held apart by Jones himself, who was grinning down at her from ear to ear.

Any opportunity to use alchemy just vanished right before her eyes. The beginnings of panic pricked her mind but she did her best to hide it behind a glare.

"I've already told you a hundred times, I don't know any bitch named Yuki." Catherine growled as she struggled underneath the three men holding her down.

"And what's up with this, can't handle a little girl on your own, jones?" She provoked with a weak smirk that the old man cackled, his putrid breath hitting her face.

He then gave her the deadliest eyes she had ever seen. "That's not what I'm asking for this time." With that, he pinned her legs down, hard. And spread them far apart.

Before Catherine could even shout a retort at what she just realized was happening to her, Jones ripped her pants open, which rippled all the way up her chest since she was wearing a one-piece suit for this mission.

Murder blinded her mind when she saw the clear lust in the old pervert's eyes upon seeing her plain white undergarments.

"Don't you dare-"

"Oh, I dare all things, Ms. Catherine." He slurred then tore her panties in half as she struggled under their iron-grip hold.

"I'll fucking kill you, I swear to god." She growled and thrashed helplessly under them. The three men laughed out loud, their rum-filled breaths lingering above her like a nightmare mist.

Throwing her undergarment over his shoulder, Jones grinned down at her and hover a hand over her red bush.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" The thirteen-year-old hollered with mortification, her eyes wide in horror. They were really going to rape her. Right here, right now. They're insane and the rum that filled their systems multiplied that to a hundred fold.

Regrets of not escaping this hellhole flooded her mind in waves.

She would rather die than experience this.

But she was too exhausted, starved and dehydrated to even physically retaliate.

Mikhael Jones watched as the little woman squirmed under him, doing all her might to escape his clutches. It excited him more than anything. He could almost imagine Yuki doing the same thing if he were able to get her in this state fifty years ago, a feisty little thing biting him as he takes her hard and fast.

The mere remembrance of a long-time obsession filled Jones with more intensity that he eagerly went about the belt of his pants. Tossing it to join Catherine's immaculate underwear, he began to unzip his pants to the girl's great horror.

"No." She muttered as she tried to pull her limbs free, watching the old man's disgusting sex poking out of his undergarment.

No.

She felt him spread her legs even more.

"NO! LET ME GO!" She screamed at the the top of her lungs, blind fear filling her veins more so when she felt his tip dangerously touching her own sex

"NO! NO!" She shrieked and thrashed under the men's hold, but she was too weak to stagger any of them.

Jones cackled with delight that Catherine threw him a look of pure anger.

"Should we tape her mouth, sir?"

The way his eyes traveled her exposed heaving navel made Catherine want to puke from her empty stomach.

"No, I like hearing her scream."

Her eyes widened in panic and before she knew it, something inside her ripped.

He thrusted, hard.

And thrusted even harder, sending Catherine waves of unbearable pain.

She let out an anguished shriek with every painful thrust, echoing through the empty hallway outside the cellar.

o-o-o-o

"They were drinking." Henry observed as he watched his grandmother tie the rest of the henchmen after beating them into a pulp.

Even after the tedious task, they still didn't find what they were looking for.

"It's like he had given up." Yuki said as she surveyed the ghastly room, looking for another door. "Where could that monkey be?" For all they know, she could've escaped already.

"Who?"

The old woman turned towards her grandson and sighed. "Jones. Mikhael Jones." It only confused Henry more.

"We...know each other from far back. I've never heard from him for years." Yuki muttered, and Henry clearly saw that she was hiding something. Like always.

"He's the leader of a group of thieves and rapists and you know him?" Even the sentence sounded very wrong to him.

"I haven't really talked to him when he turned this way. I just happen to turn him down-"

A pained wail echoed through the next hallway, and the voice sounded so very familiar.

"Catherine!" Henry hollered and ran after the direction of the sound with Yuki hot on his heels.

It didn't take them long to run to the only opened metal door in the hallway. And to see Catherine's pained expression as Mikhael Jones raped her with the help of two men, cackling as he pushed hard inside her.

Catherine inclined her head a little and made eye contact with Henry with dazed red eyes. That's all it took for him to grab the rapist by his shirt and slam him to the nearest wall.

Murder blinded his eyes as he began to rain his face with fists, each strike only making him want to pulverize his face even more.

It took Catherine moments to realize that all her limbs were already free of anyone's hold. She stared in the ceiling for a few more seconds when she felt something dripping on her cheek. She only upturned her eyes a little to see one of the men's throat sliced open and squirting blood down his chest.

Yuki kicked him on the back to swim with his comrade on their own pool of blood.

It wasn't the blood that made Catherine push herself in a sitting position, gazing at her sensei with wide eyes. It was the bloody kaiken in her hand. A weapon she had been thirsting for as Jones deflowred her on the cement floor.

Her teacher observed her carefully, taking in her half-naked form.

"Oh, you poor child-"

Catherine sprang to her feet and backed away, her eyes trained on the dagger on Yuki's bloody hands.

The old woman waited for the girl to say anything, anything at all that may confirm that this was not some stranger she was seeing. She refused to believe that this has happened at all.

Before she could even call out her name, the thirteen year old snatched the dagger from her hands. Pushing Henry aside, her eyes widened in fury when she saw Jones' smirk behind his swelling face.

Henry, who staggered to the side, looked around furiously until he saw his sister standing in front of an equally half-naked Jones, a dagger in her hands.

Her eyes quickly glanced at his disgusting cock, now soft and dripping with foul white liquid. The same fluid dripping between her thighs right now, along with her own blood.

Pushing her thoughts of revulsion to replace with unmeasurably rage, she grabbed his sex and pulled it painfully.

Jones wailed and thrashed his feet until Catherine stopped him when she cut his cock off his crotch with a swift swing of her dagger.

Mikhael Jones cried his lungs out, agony and intoxication clouding his mind to utter any comprehensible words.

Blood spluttered on Catherine's feet and she watched it with cold and unmoving eyes.

Yuki never felt so frozen and speechless in her life as she watched one of the closest thing in her life die in a worse way than death.

"Catherine!" Henry shouted and reached his hand in an attempt to console the girl.

The bearer of the name, as much as to her bitter dismay, acknowledged him with a single look before shoving the impaled cock on Jones' opened mouth, muffling his screams. Sitting on his belly in a straddling position, she placed the cold knife over his neck.

She was thinking of a word to reply to his pleading eyes, but found none. Her only reply was a slow slice over his throat. She thought the gurgling of blood from his mouth would satisfy her loathe, but realized it was not enough.

So she began stabbing his lifeless body on the chest repeatedly, each strike only making her feel that nothing in this world would be enough to kill the things he did to her.

"Die! Die!" She screamed, blood splattering her front and face, almost covering her tears.

She could have stayed that way for years, just stabbing Jones' corpse until it was nothing if Henry didn't grab her off and snatched the kaiken from her hands.

"Let me go! Don't touch me! Don't touch me, please!" She shouted and cried, her sobs increasing by the moment. Henry twirled her to face him and hugged her.

"It's alright, Cat-Cat, you're safe. You're safe." He assured and kissed her hair soothingly. He felt her ease a bit, her tense shoulders shivering. Her retaliating arms slowly fell to her sides, letting Henry cage her form even more on his arms.

Yuki walked over them, just hovering to the side, afraid to touch this fragile girl in front of them.

"He-he-he fucking-fucking-" Catherine hiccuped, her red eyes wide with trauma as endless tears kept flowing from them, mixing with the splattered blood on her face.

"He's not here anymore. He's dead and he's not coming back." Henry assured and stroked her back. He held her head down to his chest, to secure any chance of her seeing the massacre right in front of his eyes.

Jean Havoc placed a thick envelope in front of Roy Mustang. The lieutenant colonel didn't give it one look and gave it to his second lieutenant instead. He wasn't expecting any report from him, and anything unexpected could, most of the time, not be good.

"What's this?" He asked as he leaned in his lazy chair.

"Ederson's report." He quirked an eyebrow at that.

"Why didn't she give it herself?" Jean sighed at the question, his hands on his pockets.

"She can't, I filed it them myself. Don't worry, it's all good news in there." For someone who didn't know his superior, he might have appeared as someone who just brushed off an enunciation of a terrible news. But after years of talking and drinking with him, Jean knew by the small frown on his face that he was hiding more than dissatisfaction.

"Superb." He said in a monotone voice. With that, Havoc nodded and started towards the door. Just before he was about to close the door behind him, he added, "I'll tell her to call you soon."

Mustang's onyx eyes perked up and saw his door click close. Once he knew he was alone, he blew a sigh of relief and went about to continue with his paperwork.

o-o-o-o-o-o

It hadn't been a week when Catherine realized that she could walk, get food by herself, and even do chores. Unlike the other rape victims she had come across over her past missions, she had never found herself wanting to be locked up in a room and never be seen in the world.

In fact, ever since the incident, she couldn't bear being inside somewhere small and confining for very long. It reminded her of that. She found herself desiring the outside world, out in the open where she could escape anywhere. Where she could run away from anyone who would dare touch her again.

The pain between her thighs was almost just a sting now, like a bug bite. It was either her tolerance was really high or she was just a cold and unfeeling scum she always was.

And also, she found absolutely no point crying about it, even though the doctors suggested she shouldn't suppress it upon seeing the lack of tears she had for the matter.

Adjusting her seat on a roof she just found five minutes ago, she threw another rock and watch it drop on the overlooking river, the tiny little thing sending ripples and ripples of disturbance across the quiet river, until it stopped somewhere and disappeared like it wasn't there a few moments ago.

Maybe this will disappear too? This empty feeling she was having. Ever since she recalled her murder of Jones, she felt something inside her destroyed, pulverized out of existence.

You can't bring back something that's gone. You can't go back from murder. From death.

"Mind if I join you?" A voice startled her from her thoughts. Looking below her feet, she saw Jean's grinning face. She couldn't help but smirk back.

"And how do you plan to do that? Crane your neck till it drops as you chat with me?" She deliberately removed any ladder that could access the roof for now, so she would love to see the soldier's tricks of doing so.

"Oh I have a few tricks in my sleeve." He said as if reading her thoughts.

After laughing at his lavish attempts to jump and find any cracks to climb onto, Jean finally begged for the ladder. Of course, she didn't give it without hearing him beg like a beggar.

Heaving himself up, Jean Havoc pulled the ladder up and placed it beside them. "Wouldn't want anyone to see our tracks." He explained, which Catherine smiled at. Fishing something in his pocket, he produced a cigarette and placed it on his lips. Offering one in front her face, Catherine gave him a withering look.

"I thought my next one's in five years, dad?" She mocked but took the cigar anyway.

He merely shrugged. "You looked like you needed a smoke." Shaking her head as if not condoning minor smoking, she took his lighter and lit it up.

Biting the cigarette with her lips, she took one inhale and let the spicy smoke invade her nostrils and lungs, perfectly negating the cold weather.

He volunteered to do her report so he must've heard everything already. Yet he didn't say a word about it. And that was the thing she liked about Jean.

They were both fucked up in their own ways that they didn't need to hear the shits of one another to help. He was one of the truest friend she has in this world. Maybe even a bit closer compared to the Elric brothers, who were always out on a mission of their own.

"Thanks" she muttered, which surprised Jean a bit. She was always on the rustic side so it was always disarming to see her few and far in between soft sides.

"Don't mention it." He assured and reached out a hand to pat her back, from which she quickly backed away from.

Looking back at his startled eyes, Catherine didn't know what happened either. "Sorry, I was just- ah damn." She cursed, her tensed shoulders slumping.

"They were right, somehow I have post-traumatic stress disorder. No matter how hard I argue that I don't have it." Jean laughed at her statement as if it was the funniest thing in the world.

"Well, thanks for being happy about my misery." She said venomously with a hard pout on her lips.

"It's perfectly normal, Ederson. Don't be so vexed about it." Jean snickered at the silliness of this girl's logic. He was actually surprised that she could already go about her own after a few days of recovery only. But what was he surprised about really? This was Catherine he was talking about. The abnormal and awkward teenager that Mustang have somehow hired to do work for him.

"Why are you here anyway?" She asked with annoyance and threw away her stub behind her. The house owner will surely wonder about the mysterious cigar stubs littering his roof by the time he actually check on it.

"Well, I'm just about to tell you that Mustang is worried, so you should call him soon."Catherine snorted at that.

"That bastard? He wouldn't give a penny to save me from anything."

"Well that might be true, but he does care about his men, so you better give him a tab that you're alive. So he knows he doesn't have to replace you." Catherine nodded at that.

"That's more like him." She mused, which Jean chuckled at.

"And also, I just heard that the Elric's are coming back to town." At that, Catherine snapped her eyes to him and gave him a long look.

o-o-o-o-o

Hurriedly opening the front door, Alphonse's clanking footsteps echoed around the empty house as he searched for Catherine.

"We're back!" He called, but with no reply. Walking around the living room then all the way through the kitchen, he saw no signs of their friend.

"She left the door open." Thirteen-year-old Edward Elric stated with annoyance.

"It's because she's home. Probably in the yard." Al concluded and proceeded towards the back door.

Once he reached the grassy backyard, he was expecting to see her on top of her sparring partner tree, dazed and as static as a living person could be. But she was only sprawled in the grass, napping.

Catherine was napping, in the middle of the day. It was a rare sight to see since she hated sleeping, with the fear that her visions might come back to her again. Or maybe she had only used that excuse to accompany him during the lonely nights? Talking endlessly about anything and everything.

And with that he realized that he knew near to nothing about this friend of his. He doesn't even know how she does with her newly found master, or even just her ways of getting a lot of money for a thirteen-year-old. That part was still a mystery to him, and as a friend, that worried him. She always had a way of getting to the worse troubles possible.

As silently as he could, he approached her side and knelt by her right, watching the peaceful rise and fall of her chest.

Long braided red hair, her favorite shorts and loose shirt, she didn't change one bit.

Carefully placing his gauntlet hand on her shoulder, he gently shook her awake.

"Cath, we're back." He whispered. A few moments later, her eyes fluttered opened. She looked up at him with sleepy eyes.

"Hey." She greeted, dazed from sleep.

"Hey." Al greeted back with a smile she could see through his thick armor.

Catherine blinked a few times and glanced at her shoulder, touched by Alphonse's gauntlet hand.

She felt nothing but peace.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Re-adjusting the collar of her brown trench coat, seventeen-year-old Catherine ran a hand over her bare neck, the ends of her short hair tickling her fingers. After a few months of keeping it this short, she still haven't gotten used to it.

And it was a painful reminder of Nina too, on how she would freak out finding out that they would not have the same hairstyle for a long time.

"Scarf?" Eric, her partner for all the missions she would be doing for a group she had temporarily and hastily joined to, offered with a pretty smile. He was cute, she admitted, but too cheeky. She gave him a cold stare which made him back away his offering hand.

"Alright, I get that you're not that cold." He humored with a shrug and put his scarf back around his neck.

She rolled her eyes and put her hand back to the coat's pockets. They were already on their way back to the headquarters, located underground, most eastern side of Yara city. It was a city of desert, so even the hints of winter were already harsh. It was almost spring but the sky was still producing bits of snow.

After a long stretch of silence, Eric took a few steps ahead of her and started to walk backwards so that he could face her as they took their stroll.

"This is the perfect time to tell your story. Just the two of us, no people in the streets-"

"How many times have I told you that it is none of your concern?" She cut him off with her eyes looking straight at the road. No matter how many times she had turned him down about the topic, he just couldn't give up, could he?

"Oh c'mmon now, Cathy. We're friends, right?" He mused with a wide smile on his handsome face.

"Partners." She corrected with another roll of her red eyes. "And stop calling me with that nickname. The name's Catherine." Why do people in her life have annoying nicknames for her? Catherine isn't that mouthful of a name.

"Right. So? Just tell me!" Eric urged then went back to walking straight beside her. After all the missions they had been through over the past couple of months, she still doesn't trust him, huh? She really was perfect for this kind of life.

Catherine was about to insult his protruding attitude again when she heard someone whimpering. She halted and twirled around, looking at the empty road. That sound...she heard it somewhere near them. It was clear and unmistakably female.

"Cathy?" Her partner called from her side, looking at her with worried green eyes. "What's wrong? You're making that face..."

"I heard someone." She told him in a serious tone. Eric considered that for a moment before saying, "Well, I didn't. Must be a cat?"

His partner shook her head and started to walk back to the direction of the sound. "It's definitely not a cat, I can assure you that."

Sighing in defeat, Eric followed her. "Someone following us? We've already wiped out everyone-"

"It's here!" She whispered/shouted then planted her back on an edge of an alleyway. Eric stood in front of her and there he heard it. A voice of a girl crying, her voice muffled. And there was another voice with her. It was panting like a wild animal.

Before he could even tell her his hunch of the current events on that dark alley, Catherine already has her dagger in hand, stomping inside the scene.

"Catherine, wait!" He called a little too loudly.

"Just stay back." She said between gritted teeth, her knife pointed threateningly at him. Eric stared at her through the kaiken. "Let me handle this." She told her with hard eyes.

"It's not our job, Catherine." He tried to say but his partner was already walking towards the hunched back of a man pumping his crotch between the legs of a shaking girl.

She could already hear his grunting moan and the girl's pleads when she grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him off his position. Slamming his back on the wall, she saw a face of a middle-aged man, about the age of forty. He smelled of rum. A familiar smell to her that brought back some unpleasant memories.

It had been a while since she last murdered a rapist. Probably a month already? Why had she refrained from doing so before, anyway? She just have to fuck herself up again to learn that lesson, it seemed.

His glazed eyes took a moment to focus her face. "You're not the police." He realized with grunt.

"Far from it." Catherine answered and grabbed his hard cock. Seems like he just started his fun. She was just in time. The man smiled dreamily as if expecting her to stroke it with her gloved hand. He let out a surprised wail of agony when her dagger stroke it clean off his crotch instead. Blood squirted on the front of her coat.

With the sliced off member in her hand, she stuffed it to his opened mouth, muffling his scream. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she inclined his tearful face, looking into his eyes full of fear.

It was always fear, never regret.

She cut his throat with a swift slide of her sharp kaiken, blood flowing from it and gurgling on his stuffed mouth.

Some sprinkled on her neck, cold and thick from the winter wind. Letting go of his head, his dying and mutilated, half-naked body slumped down the ground.

"You just have to do that." She heard Eric who was looking at her with hard green eyes. She avoided gaze and took a deep breath.

"It's nothing you'll understand." It was Eric's turn to roll his eyes. Always the same excuse to not tell her fucking story.

Someone stifled out a cry and both of the vigilantes found the molested girl on the ground not far away from the crime scene, shaking like a leaf.

"C'mmon, sweetheart. Move your ass and go home." Catherine started and offered the girl a hand. Blue eyes stated back up at her, pale lips trembling. She must be around thirteen, judging by the undeveloped breasts mildly shaping her front and lanky limbs.

The girl gave her hand a doubtful look for a moment before taking it. Catherine pulled her to her feet. Proceeding to remove her coat, she realized it was full of bloodstain.

Clapping her hands together, she patted them over the majority of the stain. Blue electric light filled the alley for a second and before the girl could blink again, the mysterious woman's coat was good as new again. As if the murder didn't touch her.

Quickly covering the little girl with her clean trench coat, Catherine pushed the child towards Eric, who caught her in his arms by surprise.

"Take her home. We'll meet at HQ. I'll clean up here." She ordered as she tightened her gloves around her fingers.

"Right, mistress." Eric obliged happily with a sarcastic bow. He already took the girl's arm gently around his when Catherine stopped him with a,"Wait."

When he turned back around, he saw, for the first time, her red eyes shining with something other than anger and annoyance.

"Thank you." She said with a small smile , the cold wind coloring her cheeks a pretty pink.

Eric blinked, quite taken a back. "I didn't do anything." He declared with a shrug.

"It's an advanced thank you. Now go, before I take it back." He could have refused task and asked her about her actions, but he didn't. Just like when the first time he witnessed her murder rapists in the same manner before. Quickly and brutally.

He kind of reminded her of Jean, a friend who understood her the way she wanted.

"So, we're friends?" He asked, as if reading her thoughts.

Catherine shook her head and started on her task. It would take a bit of an effort to transmute a man under a bloodied road without trace. She better get started.

"I'll take that as a yes for now" With that, he lead the little girl out of the alleyway. Once they reached the road, Eric asked, "So, what's your address?"

The blond-haired girl peeked up from her lashes. "2378 West street." He nodded. It wasn't very far from here.

"I didn't get to say thank you to her." She realized with tears forming in her eyes.

Eric patted her shoulder. "She knows you do."

The thirteen-year-old looked at their feet, trying to gather her thoughts. If she wasn't saved, she could've died there, naked and cold. She may have already lost her virtue, as her mother called it, but she still had her life. She was alive and the man that tormented her will never come back.

"She was very brave." She admitted, her thoughts actually lost on how she would explain to her family that her uncle, who raped her ever since she turned thirteen this year, was now dead.

He sighed and gazed at the dawn sky. Catherine, by far, was the most eccentric woman he had ever met in his young, twenty years of life.

"She'd do the same for anyone." That was all he could conclude for now.

Don't worry, this will be the last one of Catherine's past for a while. We'll be getting back with the brothers next!