ELEVEN

.

Lenore opened up the garage door and hurried in, a short woman running behind her. They skidded to a stop in the middle, finding the large black car parked on its spot, the doors open. Britt was in the front passenger seat. He looked through the windscreen and spotted Lenore.

"Hey! You got help?" he cried. He waved her closer.

She turned to the woman behind her and shooed her forward. "Go - quick. Help him."

The brunette stared around her for a long, long moment before she nodded. She scuttled past everyone and came up on the open driver's door.

"No - it's this side," Britt called over.

She came round the car and flapped a hand at him to move. He propelled himself out of the seat and her way. She didn't even look at him as he stood back, his hands swinging about in helplessness.

Lenore appeared next to him. She grabbed his arm and yanked him back across the garage a good twenty feet. She spun him round to turn their backs to the car. "What happened?" she whispered angrily.

"I don't know - honest," he urged under his breath. "We got in there, took out everyone, he beat up like twenty people - I mean they fired a few shots but he was all over the place like a ninja on Speed - there's no way they could have winged him. We smashed a load of stuff and then set fire to it and we ran - I swear that's it."

They turned back and watched as the woman was trying to find a comfortable way to kneel on the passenger seat and still keep her hands to Kato's side. "Let me look," she said shakily.

His head was resting on the backrest, his eyes on the ceiling. She gently guided his glove away from the bandana pressed into his right side. It stayed in place, at least one layer stuck fast with blood. She began to peel it away but his glove captured her wrist. "Are you a friend of Lenore's?"

She jumped in fright. "I - I'm her niece - Peony."

He let her go and she peeled the bandana away. Her hands went to his coat, trying to pull the side up. She shook her head as it refused to move. Shuffling out of the car, she looked over at Lenore and Britt. "We need to get him out. I need a flat surface to work on with lots of light."

Britt and Lenore hurried up to the driver's side and hauled him out. He kept his mouth shut but his face was red with exertion as they threw his arms over their shoulders and walked him to a bench under the main light. Lenore left him leaning on Britt and quickly emptied the bench of toolboxes and random metal parts, and then they helped him lift himself onto the surface. Britt pushed him to lie back, keeping his hand on his shoulder as if afraid he would disappear.

Peony snatched up her bag and hurried over. She pulled at Kato's coat. "Get this off him - quickly. Be careful when you separate it from the wound."

Lenore elbowed Britt out of the way and undid the hidden fasteners to the black coat, opening it up and carefully unsticking it from the blood in his side. The body armour underneath looked unscathed save a hole in the right side. She unclipped it and with his judicious leaning she slid it out from under him, dropping it to the floor. He relaxed back to the surface with a hiss of pain, his black shirt shiny with blood; Lenore concentrated on her fingers, undoing his shirt buttons.

Britt hovered behind her, his hands trying to reach out but then halting as they realised he didn't know how to help effectively.

She pulled Kato's shirt wide open, showing everyone concerned that he was breathing hard and probably too fast - and that it was only his right side that was gashed and leaking. He was staring at the ceiling with a purpose, his mouth clamped shut as his nose puffed away.

Peony looked up, shooing Lenore out of the way. "Ok - get me some small towels and a bowl or container of hot water. Go."

Lenore turned and pushed at Britt. He staggered back, his eyes still on the blood. Then he tore off, heading for the house. Lenore went around Kato's other side. She picked up his left glove, squeezing his fingers. "How bad is it?" she asked her niece.

Peony was bending down, staring at the nasty injury. "Bullet wound."

"No," he groaned, his right hand flailing up. "I had the body armour."

She guided his hand back out of her way. "Well either it got between kevlar plates or it was too close," she said. "Keep still, please. I think it's still in there."

"鄉姦," he groaned.

Lenore looked at Peony. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Not yet. Please just let me work." She turned to her bag, lifting it and putting it on the bench by Kato's head. Snapping it open, she placed a white cloth on his chest. She pulled out a selection of tools and laid them out on top. "Calm him down, please - or I'm going to lose my instruments."

Lenore took his hat off, fluffing his hair back and smiling down at him. "Hey. You're going to be ok. Peony's really good. Just hold on a bit longer and she'll fix you up, ok?"

"Ok," he breathed, but his fingers kept squeezing hers, getting ever harder, and his chest did not slow down.

"It's not even that bad," Lenore breezed.

Kato let out a grunt of a scoff. "Except for all the blood."

"Oh please - I've seen worse," she tutted.

"Not - not fair," he grunted.

"Why's that?"

"You're a woman."

She smiled down at him. "And that's how I know you're going to be ok. Peony's going to do her medical thing and you'll be perfectly fine." She put her free hand on his shoulder. "Just let it go, ok? Relax."

"Trying," he huffed.

"Try harder," she warned.

Peony went into her bag and pulled out a few small bottles. She ripped open a fresh syringe and stabbed it through the top of one, measuring a dose.

Lenore looked away as she realised she was about to inject something. She lifted her hand off his shoulder and covered her eyes, making sure she did not peek until she heard the clasps on her bag move again. Her hand dropped. "What was that?"

"Sedative," she said. "I can't do this if he's all worked up."

Lenore looked down at him and stroked his hair back over his head, squeezing his fingers through his glove. "It'll be ok," she whispered.

"How do I…" He grunted, fighting to keep his eyes open under the mask. "How do I explain this… to Amy?"

"I'll think of something - leave it to me, ok?" she smiled. "Just relax. We'll look after you."

"N-no," he managed, trying to let go of her fingers. "I can—"

Peony's hands went to her instruments on his chest, holding him down as he tried to move. "Stop!"

"Kato - stop!" Lenore urged, her empty hand going to his shoulder to hold him down. "It's ok - really. We've got this. Please - just lie back."

"N-no," he whispered, his eyes already closed. "You will leave - leave me behind. Everyone - everyone does. I can… I can… do this… myself… 我不能... 依賴… 任何人..."

His head sank to one side.

The two women looked at each other for a long moment. Lenore looked back down, noticing his chest slow, causing Peony's instruments to stop thinking about rolling off him.

Lenore bit her lip, watching his shoulders and his neck just give up all tension. His fingers slipped through hers but she grabbed them hastily. "That's supposed to happen, right?"

"It is," Peony nodded. She bent down, pulling on gloves before picking up a scalpel. "Now this is going to bleed - possibly a lot. I need you to swab it up for me so it doesn't make too much of a mess."

"Ok," she said shakily. She laid his hand gently on the bench, then hurried round to her side.

"Get some gloves on," Peony said.

Lenore yanked a new pair from the cardboard box in Peony's bag, then snapped them on, hovering, uncertain. "What are you going to do?"

Peony rolled his side up an inch, peering underneath, and then let it fall back. "It's definitely a bullet - it's tried very hard but it just about hasn't made it all the way through. I think…" She bit her lip for a second. "I think I'm going to have to cut open the back so it can finish its route."

"What?"

"It's that or dig through the front." She shook her head. "This will be quicker and he'll heal faster."

"Ok - ok - sorry," Lenore said. "You're the med student."

"Thanks," Peony said dryly.

They heard a noise and Britt came through the door behind them. "Got it! How is he? Is it bad?"

"It will be if you don't keep calm and help us," Lenore said firmly.

He nodded, carrying a bowl between his hands, several towels over his arm. He set it down by Kato's knee - then noticed the wound up close. "How shit - you sure he's going to be ok?" he blurted in horror.

"Look," Peony said rather shakily, "I know you're all like important people and you have some secret-life shit going on right now - because I'm not stupid and I've worked out who you two are. —But you just dragged me from my commute home after a fourteen hour shift so right now you just have to shut up and do whatever I need you to."

Britt took a step back. "Uh - ok - yeah." He glanced at Lenore, who was fuming at him. "What do we do?"

"Listen very carefully, and do exactly as I say," Peony warned.

.

.

Something light tickled at his face. He grunted something and lifted his right hand to swipe it from his skin.

Pain attacked his side and he swore under his breath as his eyes shot open; he fought to sit up.

"Hey - slow down!" came a familiar voice.

Kato squinted around the room, trying to work out what was happening. "我在哪裡?" His hands went out behind him and he sagged into an exhausted lean.

He found a bed surrounding him, and Britt on a chair down to the right of the end of it. Britt's arms were folded, his legs out straight and crossed at the ankles. Apart from his hat, coat and mask, he seemed to be in the same Hornet get-up as the last time Kato had seen him. "What? In English, dude," Britt said. "Come on, you can do it."

Kato rubbed his face. "Where is this?" he managed, his mouth dry.

Britt unfolded his arms, leaning forward and setting his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands. "It's a spare room in my dad's place," he said. "I was going to take you home but the doc said she didn't know what was going to happen with the sedative, so… Well I had to keep an eye on you, right? Wasn't sure what state you'd be in when you woke up, bro. And… here we are."

Kato whipped back the blankets, finding someone had changed his clothes for a single pair of expensive blue silk pyjama bottoms. He pulled the waistband out to peek underneath, relieved to find his shorts were at least still there. "Did you put these on me?"

"Now we're even," Britt grinned. "I owed you for the diaper."

Something white caught Kato's eye; he found a patch over his right side, just above the waist of the pyjama trousers. He pressed at it carefully - a manoeuvre he immediately regretted as it sent pain back up through his side.

"Now don't do that," Britt sighed. "Peony spent like an hour removing a bullet and stitching you up. It was disgusting, and it took me ages to get the blood off your spare workbench, but it's done so please don't mess it up - or the other one."

Kato lifted his right arm with effort, Britt noticed. He looked down his side, feeling at the patch and then twisting slightly to look further round - where another patch awaited him. "What did you say it was?"

"A bullet," Britt said clearly. "She pulled it out."

"But I had the body armour."

"Yeah, and Lenore was looking into what kind of bullet it was, since it made a hole in your body armour."

"What?"

"Exactly. So when you're feeling up to it, you me and Lenore can sit down and have a debrief, ok?"

"Why two of these?" he asked, confused. His hand touched at one pad then the other - very gingerly.

"Well it went in but didn't come out. Peony did this cool thing where she found where it should come out - and then she cut you open and fished it out."

"What?"

"Honestly - I was seriously ready to barf the whole time, she but just found it first time and dragged it out like it was nothing. That woman is seriously amazing."

Kato just blinked at the two pads, his face a car crash between disgust and relief.

Britt got up. "You stay here, ok? I'll make you some of your tea."

"I'm ok," he said irritably, putting his hands under him and shoving his legs over the side of the bed. He hissed and held onto his side, pushing himself up. "I get my own tea."

"No, you'll let me help you. And here, put some clothes on," he added, tossing him a cotton bathrobe. "I mean, you're ripped, right? Ripped. But there's no need to flash it about."

"Of course it's ripped - a bullet ripped it," he said with discomfort, sliding the robe on awkwardly.

Britt grinned, shaking his head fondly. "Sure, buddy. Come on."

.

.

Lenore turned as she heard the door to the study open. She grinned as Kato came through, a hand to his side. "Hey!" she cried. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I am the floor of a taxi cab," he groaned, wandering up to the table and sitting heavily.

"Well it's after midday, Saturday. Just so you know." She paused, watching him slump to one side, then suppress a groan and shift his weight on the chair. "We had a rest, regrouped, and then we looked into what happened."

"You should have woken me up. I could have helped you," he said.

"Oh no - Peony said to leave you until the sedative wore off," Britt announced, walking in and closing the study door behind him. "And we're lucky Lenore found someone so fast to help us." He continued walking, going to the drinks trolley at the far end of the room.

"She was just getting off a shift at the hospital," she said. "We owe her big time."

Kato gasped and looked up. "But now she must know who we are."

"She does," Lenore said. "But I've made sure she's not going to tell anyone. And this way… maybe she could help us again if we need her."

Kato's face turned aggrieved. "We don't want to need her."

"I know that. But things happen," she said, waving a hand at him. "Anyway. How do you feel?"

"I want to know what hit me," he said. "Britt says the bullet went through the body armour - so the armour wasn't any good?"

"Dude - your body armour worked great," Britt said from the back of the room. "But there was no way you could know what we were up against." He carried over two drinks. "One for our strategist," he said, handing Lenore a sparkling water, "and one for our martial arts expert." He set down a glass containing maybe a sliver of whisky.

Kato just looked at it. "This is not tea."

"No, it's not - it's for you."

"Why?"

"The expensive stuff, man. You earned it." He went back to the trolley.

"Oh." He sat up, wincing but trying not to show it. Then he picked up the glass and sniffed it.

"Anyway," Lenore said, ignoring the way he shifted his weight again to lean more on his left, "Britt is right. Your body armour was proper grade. It stands up to anything except a direct shot, right?"

"I thought so," Kato said miserably.

"Yeah, well take a look at what Peony dug out of you." She handed him a sealed plastic bag.

He took it slowly, lifting it and eyeing the contents with suspicion. "I don't know anything about bullets."

"What?" Britt asked from the trolley. "Then how do you restock all the stuff on the Beauties?"

"I read the instructions and order the matching parts," Kato shrugged.

"Well I'm not a munitions expert either," Lenore said, "so I matched it against every photo of a bullet the Sentinel has ever processed. And that bullet might not match anything we've seen, but the kind of bullet does. It's armour-piercing, Kato. It would probably have gone through a car door and still gone through your vest."

Britt carried his own drink across the room, taking a seat a few chairs down from Kato. "See? Your body armour was fine. But they cheated - they're using armour-piercing rounds."

"Armour-piercing?" he muttered, studying the bullet.

"Do you remember when Britt said Sapphire was boxing up drugs, money - and bullets?" Lenore said. "He said he didn't know why they would do that when you can just buy bullets. He's right - it's because you can't buy the kind of armour-piercing rounds they were boxing up."

Kato put the bag down and sipped his drink. He blinked at the strong liquor, then just sipped it again. "Ok but now what?"

"Now we all take the day off," Britt said. "You need to rest and check through the bag of pills and shit that Peony left you, and me and Lenore need to come up with a plan for the next stop on our pissing-Sapphire-off tour."

Kato downed the final sip of his drink. "I want to go home."

"Dude you can stay here," he said, his arms out. "It's not like I don't have the room."

"I want to sleep in my own bed."

Britt sighed. "Ok - fine. Get a cab - charge it to the company."

"I can take my bike," he said, leaving the glass on the table and walking off.

Britt opened his mouth but Lenore waved a hand at him. He closed his mouth, folding his arms resolutely. Lenore turned again to the door. "Message us to say you've got home safe!" she called.

Britt waited until the door had closed behind Kato. Then he leant closer to her, his hands slapping into the table surface. "Dude - he's being unfair," he urged as quietly as his umbrage would allow. "We're just trying to look after him when he needs it and he's being a stubborn ass!"

"I don't know what's going on with him but he's got a serious dependency phobia," she allowed. She closed her eyes, the image of him struggling to sit up against a sedative still too fresh in her mind. She pinned Britt with a stern look. "Just… go easy on him, ok? Wear him down slowly. Yes, sometimes you can be a dick, and yes, sometimes he can be an overly-independent, stubborn loner with trust issues. Just accept that and work with it."

He sat back. "I never thought—." He looked tasked for a moment, and then somewhat hurt. "Oh. Yeah. I guess," he muttered. He tilted his head. "You get my text?"

"About what?"

"About a decent TV for his apartment. I swear he's got like a weeny little ten-inch thing that was past it in the eighties."

She smiled. "Yes, I got your text. I'll get him a TV, Britt. Leave it with me."

"It's got to be huge, right? With all the coolest, best shit on it so Amy will be totally impressed."

"Uh… he's not going to want that."

"What? Who wouldn't want that?"

She put a hand up to stop him. "Listen - I'll get him the right TV, ok? So he's happy with it." She looked at the laptop. "Anyway. We need to come up with a plan for the next lab. This one's crystal meth. Should be easy to burn down, except now Sapphire will be on alert so she's going to expect a visit from the Green Hornet."

"And can he drive again like tonight or tomorrow?" he asked. "That wound looked pretty gnarly."

"It did," she allowed. "But you can't go without him, and he can't go. So why don't we use the time to come up with a good, long-range plan so no-one gets shot next time."

"Yes," he said, pointing at her. "One where we park like at the end of the street and give them all the rockets the Black Beauty has."

"I like the way you think." She reached over and turned on the laptop, watching it boot up. "Now we need to know everything about the surrounding area, and how you can get to it without physically being on the premises."

"Got it," he said, pulling over a notebook and clicking his pen into action.

.

.

Sapphire picked up the desk phone and hurled it across the room. The power cord caught it halfway, making it crash into the floor and smash half of the case into pieces. "That bastard!"

Charlie stood back, his hands in front of him, keeping his mouth judiciously shut. He heard a noise behind him and realised someone was on other side of the door, knocking softly. He opened it and stuck his head through. "Run. Save yourself," he said quietly.

The woman nodded and turned away, hurrying off across the underground workspace.

Charlie pulled back in the room. "Do we relocate again, boss?"

"No. He can't know about this new place," she spat. "And so what if he does? Let him come here - I'll just shoot him in his smug face."

"When you do can I have the sidekick? I owe him."

"Absolutely!" She plonked down in her chair, looking at the ceiling. "So that's one DA killed, one of our labs taken out, and our best underground HQ moved to this dump." She huffed to herself. "I swear I will slice off his extremities and nail them to his forehead."

Charlie suppressed a smile. "I'll help."

"Oh I know you will." She swung the chair to look at him. "Gloves are off. Tell everyone - the next place he hits, I want him dead. And I don't care if we lose product or people in the crossfire, understand? His head or theirs - that's the order."

"Yes boss," he said, turning to the door.

"And Charlie?" she added. He turned and looked at her. She sat up slowly. "Sorry to have to do this, but… that includes you."

"I get it, boss," he nodded quietly.

"Because it goes for me too - when the big boss finds out about this that's exactly what she'll say to my face."

"We'll get him," he promised. She nodded and he opened up the door and disappeared.

She sank back in the chair. Then she lifted a Doc Marten boot and slammed it into the edge of the table, swearing meaningfully, fluently, and in every other way that was simply an attempt to make her feel better.

.

.

The motorbike had never been happier to pull into the parking lot out the front of the block of apartments. Kato psyched himself up to swing off the bike, making a face and holding onto his side as he did so. He pulled the keys out and simply dragged himself over to the iron staircase, forcing himself to climb up to the first floor.

The apartment door took in his lethargy brought on by something other than simple weariness and decided against being a bother; his key turned first time and he made it into his own space with a sigh of relief.

He put a heel out behind him and swept it shut, hearing it lock. Shedding his helmet and his jacket, he looked longingly at the bed before sitting on the couch and trying to undo his boots.

It hurt. He sat back, shaking his head. A soft beep and a buzz in his pocket made him frown. He pulled the phone out and opened the message.

'Happy Saturday, gorgeous. Enjoy your piano lesson. Don't work too hard'

He smiled despite the dull ache in his side. Then he lifted the phone and typed. 'No lesson today.' He pressed Send and his hand fell to the sofa. He contemplated getting up.

The phone buzzed again. He looked down at the message.

'Everything ok?'

He sighed. He lifted the phone, his thumb poised to type. But he paused, his head tilting as words went through his head. Finally he let the phone drop and pushed himself up. He closed all the curtains. In five minutes he had brushed his teeth and thrown all his clothes in the hamper, choosing a simple basketball shirt and some comfortable joggers instead. He went back to his jacket on the sofa, rooting through the pocket to find the screw-top medication jar. He wrestled it open and pulled out one tablet, pushing the lid back on and setting it on his bedside table. He went back over to the kitchenette and poured himself a glass of water before carrying it over and leaving that on the table too.

Then he climbed under the covers and, despite the pain it caused him, turned on his left side and curled up in a ball. His left hand went up and held onto his opposite shoulder, and he slapped his head into the pillow a few times.

Sleep was easy; avoiding the dreams of falling asleep only to wake and find everyone had deserted him yet again was not.