Chapter Ten

1/

Trowa arrived at an abandoned train station shortly before midnight and watched the moon climb the heavens. He didn't hear the men approaching until they were on top of him, and then the world went black.

2/

She stared at her hands folded in her lap, lips pressed together tightly against any sound. The young priest had left her only minutes before, and Cathrine could hear him speaking in low, urgent tones to the nun who had come to collect her.

The room was as familiar as her cell, with its spartan walls and single stained glass window, depicting St. John the Baptist and Jesus in a river, a dove descending upon the young Christ.

Something had happened. She didn't know what exactly, but the air of the church was electric and tense. Her captors were waiting for something just as surely as she was.

The door behind her creaked slowly open, and the nun entered without speaking. Cathrine stubbornly remained kneeling, bowing her head as if deep in prayer. God don't let these people get the best of me. Red curls obscured her vision. She'd overheard one nun telling another that only the daughter of a witch could possess such vivid red hair.

"Like hellfire," the nun had whispered.

Everyone here had black hair and muddy brown eyes, so naturally they felt an aversion to her oddly colored hair and eyes, which were gray in some lights and blue in others. "Holding back thunderstorms," Trowa had said of them an eternity ago.

"The Lord grants forgiveness to those who ask for it," the nun was intoning solemnly now. Her face was youthful enough, but her hard, wrinkled hands gave away her age.

Cathrine stood and gazed upon the woman, steely-eyed and cool. "In that case, you might want to start asking Him now."

"The hearts of the heathen are as stone." The nun smiled pleasantly. "Child, you will see the light."

"Hopefully soon," Cathrine retorted. "I haven't seen the sun in weeks. This place is so dreary."

The nun escorted Cathrine out of the little room which had been set aside for the sessions with the young priest. So far, of course, there had been no progress--Cathrine resolutely refused to speak, though the priest had implied that perhaps "a taste of the fires of hell" might change her mind. She was afraid that any day now she would be led to some dark torture chamber instead of the confession room, but she tried not to think on it too much.

Cathrine and the nun were passing by the huge entryway of the sanctuary when Cathrine saw him, skinnier and paler than she remembered, meters away in the middle of the nave but she recognized him instantly. Her heart stuttered, and a whimper escaped from her lips. Then a scream, and she was tearing across the sanctuary, scrambling around pews and half-tripping with terror. He was blind-folded and hand-cuffed. The group of men surrounding him were already ushering him away, at the same time hands took hold of her, yanking her back from his now retreating form. She struggled ferociously, striking out and crying, "Trowa, Trowa!"

"C-Cathrine!" His voice climbed the scale, from a whisper to a shout. The men around him fought to keep him still, but he stumbled away. Cathrine bit the arm of the person holding her, and he let go of her, gasping in pain. Trowa--three steps--her arms were around him for an instant, his breath hot against her neck, his body slender against her, hands cuffed behind his back but he fell against her and she sobbed into the collar of his shirt, fingers digging into his shoulder blades--then they were forced apart, shoved to opposite sides of the sanctuary.

"N-no!" Cathrine shrieked, fighting passionately against the hands holding her. "No, let me go--"

"Cathrine! Cathy!"

"Shut up, you little bastard!" Sickening thud as a man's fist connected with Trowa's gut, and the boy collapsed, hacking. Cathrine could no longer see anything beyond the blur of her tears.

"You'll be punished for this," the man holding Cathrine said. "Give up."

"Goddamned bastard." She hardly felt the slap that responded to her insult. She could only think of Trowa.

3/

The room was dark, lit only by a single light bulb, like in those old detective flicks where the policemen interrogate a suspect--except that these were no policemen here. The two men, one short and one tall, were not much older than thirty or so. The short one was dressed in the sensible black of a priest. The other man wore plain jeans and a ragged old leather jacket. Both sported serious expressions.

"It's a cold world out there," the taller man said presently. "Hard to trust people, you know? They've got all these walls. You're probably not a bad guy. I've read your file. Just a regular Joe trying to make ends meet. But nowadays we gotta be careful, you know?"

"You're going to kill me," Trowa said matter-of-factly. He wandered where they'd put his weapons after they'd disarmed him--not in this room. He wasn't sure he could escape from this without them.

The priest smiled a little sadly. "Who's to say that you won't go running to the enemy once you've got your precious sister back? There is a battle going on as we speak, Mr. Barton. Good versus evil. We want to prevent you from choosing the wrong side."

"I don't care about your battle," Trowa replied. "Kill whoever you want--I can't stop you, and I really can't hold it against you." Not after all the lives lost at my hands. "Get rid of me if you want. All I ask--"

"Don't worry, we'll let your sister go," the tall man said impatiently. "She doesn't know enough to pose any threat to us, and who'll believe a slutty little circus bitch, anyway?"

"Wong," the priest said warningly, and the man seemed chastised. The priest turned to Trowa. "Let me explain. You must have informed someone of your past employment because the private investigator hired by the enemy received word of the planned assassination and arrived in time to prevent it. One of our men was murdered--another is in custody, and will probably reveal our whereabouts within a week's time. Our organization is in shambles thanks to you. Surely you understand that we must eliminate the man who instigated all of this--that is, you."

Trowa said nothing.

"We'll release your sister on one condition," said Wong, the tall man with the leather jacket. "You must take up your cross. Admit your guilt before the world--take the blame for the assassination attempt, deny knowledge of our existence, breathe not a word to anyone regarding us. It's a death sentence, but you deserve it."

Trowa looked away. His wrists were chaffed from the rope binding his hands to the back of this chair. He was hungry and frightened and already sure of what his choice would have to be. Would Cathrine ever forgive him if he did this? No. She was a born romantic--she would have wanted them to die together. But he couldn't bear the thought of her suffering because of his selfishness, and he knew that one day she would move on and forget how badly this was going to hurt. One day.

A Bible was placed in his lap, and one of his hands untied. Angry red marks encircled his wrist, vivid against the black cover of the holy book. He felt rather than saw the gun pressed against the back of his head. "Do you swear to it?"

Trowa swallowed. Imagined Cathrine in a nice house in the countryside with carpets and the most beautiful curtains in all the world.

"Yeah," he said gruffly. "I swear."