catching fire

fifteen

The angel looked down at the world to its feet, taking in its crumbling and burning state, how it was soon to be lost forever. She cried silent tears, her features were tainted with pure agony and still she looked incredibly strong in the face of such horrors. Some of the tears slipped past her nose, ran down her chin and eventually fell down, touching the scorched earth. From where they watered the soil, a small plant grew to life, the only touch of bright colour in an otherwise dark painting; its purpose to spread hope but not to distract from the real problem.

Kat shook her spray paint can, intending to add a bloody shade of colour to the clouds that loomed in the distance, when she heard voices.

Her knee-jerk reaction put her to motion before she even tried to figure out what exactly was going on and she had scaled the fire escape ladder on the opposite building before she even consciously decided to do so.

Only when she hugged her backpack to herself and tried to calm her racing heartbeat did she listen more carefully. Judging from what she was hearing, the people weren't just passers-by. They were here to find the Marquis of Carabas, and as soon as that registered in Kat's brain, her efforts to calm herself went down the drain and she felt cold sweat trailing down her back.

What the bloody hell were they doing here? How did they even know?

Anxiously, Kat observed how Basil and Rania Holloway emerged from the shadows, coming to a sudden halt when they caught sight of the mural and the tin cans on the floor before it. While Basil stood there frozen, his daughter turned her head in every direction, obviously suspicious.

Despite being hidden above them, Kat began to feel cornered and she knew that she had to act, quickly, before they had the chance to discover her. And as ill luck would have it, Kat could only think of one person that could possibly help her now - the very same person on whom everything depended.

"Leo!" Kat whisper-shouted into the mic of her burner phone the moment her brother answered. "I need your help. Like, right now."

"Kat? What's going on? Are you in trouble?"

"No! Well, yes, kind of, but... Just come down to the place vis-à-vis of Margret's, you know, the diner that's been closed since like, last century, but not really? Where Dad used to go to sometimes when..."

"Yeah, I remember. Stay calm. I'm on the way."
The shutting of a door could be heard. "But tell me, what's going on?"

"Well, you, uh, you'll see when you get here. Just promise to play along and please try not to get too awkward about it! Who knows, maybe we'll be rich by the end of the day - end of the night, I mean." Kat didn't even register half of what she was saying as she kept her eyes trained on the two figures down on the street below her. She wasn't sure whether she was feeling so fidgety because of excitement or because of nerves and trepidation.

"You're not doing anything illegal, are you?" Of course Leo would come to that conclusion, the bloody hypocrite.

"Out of the two of us, who is the one who wanted to sell my body for money? Quit being stupid. I'm not doing anything illegal - nothing that illegal at least."

"That's not exactly reass-" Leo started to protest, but Kat cut him off with a sharp "Hush!" as she saw Rania's gaze wander, coming dangerously close to where she crouched among the sparse shadows of the iron ladder.

"No, look." Her voice was a mere murmur. "I just need you to hurry up, come here and play along nicely. Leave the rest to me. And if we actually do well, maybe, hopefully we'll manage to ensure a way of making the cash we need. Do you understand?"

"Well, yes, not really, but..."

Kat ended the call as soon as she'd heard the confirmation, then she flipped the phone closed and took a deep breath. Exhaling slowly, Kat forced herself to keep her wits about her.

She now had to come up with a plan that wouldn't cause everything to go up in flames.