The moon gleamed brightly, a great, luminous eye. Not a single cloud covered the sky, and for some reason that made Cathy think the air felt colder without them. A wintery scent hovered low on the street, smelling of moldy snow and chalky grime. At another point in time it could have been a comforting thing, beckoning thoughts of Christmas, but holidays were the furthest thing from her mind right now.
Exiting the house had been easy enough. Just a quick look out the window to check if her neighbor Bandage Face was skulking about (he wasn't) and it was as simple as opening the window latch and slinking out. Wedging herself once in the metal gate was more than enough.
The courthouse, as always, was completely out of the question, so the only choice left was to walk ahead and into the street to leave Park Row behind. She knew what district of Gotham was situated east of her current spot; the Amusement Mile. While she was entirely familiar with it previously, she was afraid. Seeing it from her Park Row window, when she even risked looking through it, the Amusement Mile carried the look of a haunted, abandoned metropolis. Buildings leaned crookedly due to their foundations being partially sunk in the Gotham Bay after the earthquake years back; there wasn't a street or a sidewalk to walk on.
She refused pointe blank to retrace her steps back to Park Row and head south to The Bowery. Even before the idea of Arkham City was even proposed, Cathy avoided The Bowery. It was rumoured to be a crime hub - that is to say, higher than average for even Gotham standards - once known for high-end sophisticates to shop and walk with no trouble. Basically the place to be if you had the money, but the area had deteriorated within the last decade. It's opulence, naturally, attracted thieves and small-time swindlers, and, in time, operations grew to underground smuggler's dens and racketeer enterprises.
Cathy didn't live in Gotham at the time of The Bowery's downgrade of quality, she arrived almost two decades later, but sometimes, when glancing at the distant, fancy lights still left over, she wished she had been around to see it in its heyday - even if she could only afford to window-shop on her retail salary. It was a good guess to assume that The Bowery's criminal activity hadn't lessened since.
It was also rumoured to be The Penguin's territory, and Cathy knew enough about his slippery dealings to know to stay far away.
CRACK!
A whip snapped the air nearby, startling Cathy. A rage-fueled "Hey!" cut in from somewhere. She stopped dead and her heart catapulted into her throat. She swivelled in every direction but it was very difficult to tell where the shout came from. Its sudden arrival from seemingly every angle was the least of her worries, though; the more pressing matter was that it's range was incredibly close. Her feet were rooted, unsure of which way to go. Would she end up running into danger's waiting arms or away from it?
Cathy backed up into the courthouse wall, underneath one of the enormous two-storey windows, her flight response kicking into high-gear but with nowhere to go. She tried desperately to suppress it, it was too risky to just blindly run in any direction.
A lithe shadow flew high above her, outlined with the signature curves of a woman.
"Hey!"
Definitely angry and they were coming closer. It didn't matter, Cathy had to run, she simply had to, there was nothing else for it. Just as she peeled herself off the stone and took her first step, two men in blue parkas barreled around the corner, popping out of the back-alley and blocking Cathy's path.
"What the-?" gasped one with a dark but greying beard, making startled eye contact with Cathy before throwing his head to the sky and watching the black figure disappear over the courthouse rooftop.
"Damn! It was Catwoman, wasn't it? Bitch stole my findings," said his companion, sight trained on the same rooftop.
"Wait, wait, wait, hold on," said the bearded man, holding up a hand to silence his partner. His eye-line switched to Cathy once again and he focused hard, sizing her up.
Cathy felt as though her shoes had been nailed into the ground. Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself. She had slipped up in her already clumsy attempts at stealth. It was all over. She was never going to get out of Arkham City, she would never see her dad again. Staying in the house was her best option and she blew it.
Cathy tried to make her expression look impassive, but masking the common deer-in-the-headlights look was always exceedingly difficult. She bit the inside of her cheek to hold herself together, breathing steam slowly out of her nose in the cold air.
"What are you doing out here, son?" the bearded man demanded incredulously, as though Cathy had simply decided to take a leisurely stroll in the most lawless place on earth like it was the dog park.
Son? His tone clearly meant he took her to be a young male, not an actual blood relation. Before this whole mess, being referred to as 'son' would have been a mean blow to Cathy's feminine ego, but she couldn't think of a time where she'd been happier to be mistaken for a boy. A lack of make-up, eyebrows hidden under a beanie, and her thin, unpuffed lips were going a long way.
Cathy answered nothing to him. If she spoke, they would know the truth for sure. She blinked once to show them that she acknowledged what he said, but pressed her lips as a sign she didn't want to speak to them. She felt as though her heart would give her away, it throbbed against her ribs so painfully. A bad time to be, but she was reminded of cartoons characters whose outlined hearts would bounce out their clothes like rubber.
Don't look away, hold eye contact, hold eye contact, don't look weak, look like you know what you're doing...
The two men said nothing for a few suspended seconds that hung in the air, the ticking unheard but hugely felt. They wore matching blue parkas that shared the same thick, fur trim hoods, almost giving their faces an appearance of sub-human animals. The five o'clock shadow on the companion and the thick beard on the other weren't helping matters. With bluish moonlight illuminating them, Cathy could almost imagine them as rabid werewolves anticipating to tear her flesh to ribbons.
"Doesn't trust us, Phil," piped up the companion, leaning slightly to talk to the bearded one. From this angle she could make out the second guy's long, narrow face and glass-cutter chin.
Phil nodded shallowly in understanding. He raised his palms calmly in a show of surrender to Cathy. "Hey, we promise we're not gonna hurt you, okay?" He spoke with a voice just glazed in New York. The sound, the inflection, everything.
Meanwhile, whilst Phil did all the talking, the thin-faced man was angling his head several ways, inspecting Cathy almost scrutinizingly, though trying to make himself appear as though it were casual. As casual as brain surgery. She wished he would stop doing that, it made her feel scarily exposed, as if he had X-Ray vision or something.
"Doesn't look like the kid's wearing any brand either," he reported. "Maybe this one managed to escape the gangs all this time."
"See?" Phil faced Cathy assuringly, risking a tiny, harmless smile. "We're just like you, not part of Joker, Penguin, or Two-Face's thugs. Just like you, see?"
He leaned just the barest inch towards her as a sign of trust, but cautiously, as though she were a feral cat ready to lash out her claws at any moment. When she noticeably bristled, he backed off right away.
"C'mon, buddy, just tell me your name," Phil implored with furrowed eyebrows. "Or if not, can you at least tell me how—"
The companion suddenly started tapping Phil hurriedly on the shoulder, not taking his rounded eyes off of Cathy. "Phil?" he said, speaking in a concentrated quiet that meant he was lowering the volume on purpose—not for their sake, but for anyone else who could be listening in. "Phil, this is a girl."
Cathy's limbs froze. Oh damnit! No, no, oh no, please stop...
Phil frowned in annoyance and turned to his companion. "What are you talkin', Mike?"
"It's a girl," repeated Mike. He lifted a mittened finger and pointed at specific places on Cathy's face with no regard to the gesture's rudeness, as though she were some unfeeling display mannequin. "Look, the jawline, see? The forehead."
You asshole!
A surge of fear and anger electrified Cathy's body. She wanted to slap Mike's accusatory finger out of her face and book it. But both men were within arm's reach, they'd pluck her off the ground faster than she could take a step. Her sudden pulse was hard to ignore. Instead, she affixed her face with a mildly astonished look of denial.
Phil paused at Mike's words and looked Cathy over again, this time with a perplexed, searching look. Cathy's eyes shifted between the two. As subtly as she could, she brushed her fingers over her pockets to check for hairpin bumps. Each pressed flat. Damn, the pins were all stowed in her bag currently being squashed into her back, way out of reach.
"Chrissakes, I think it is," murmured Phil.
Cathy had to wonder, were these even inmates? It had only occured to her just in that moment that they hadn't attacked her and dragged her off somewhere. In fact, they had missed many opportunities to. These two hadn't been violent so far, but they could have just as easily been luring Cathy into a false sense of security. It would be a pretty smart plan, she commended, and easy to fall for considering how desperate survivors could get when exposed to Arkham City's conditions.
"Look, it's not safe to be here," said Phil, inexplicably rushing all of a sudden, cautiously surveying the area around them. "Come with us, we've got a small encampment not too far from here, there's lots of people like us."
Cathy shook her head. She wasn't going with anybody. The idea of them carting her off to some secluded area gave way to a blossom of anxiety inside her.
"Please don't make me force you," said Phil. His eyebrows were tilted in slight desperation, as though he were a hostage negotiator and his grip was slipping. "We'll even go ahead of you, you'll have every chance to run away if you don't trust us. You hungry? We've got some food, too. Plenty to share. We shouldn't leave you here, it's not safe."
Food. Cathy stomach clenched at the temptation. A couple cupboard snacks weren't going to tide her over for very long. Noting how many days had passed already, it had shown her just how little prepared she was despite all her planning in her apartment. She was sure that she would've been out of Arkham City by this time, but each of her ideas had failed so far.
She had no choice. There was a chance she could still strike out on her own and make it through to Gotham alive, but...there was also a chance she would not. And that weighed heavy on her mind.
Cathy breathed out through her nose. Almost robotically, she nodded as a consenting sign. Okay.
"Alright. Follow us, then," said Phil. Just as he had offered, he and Mike went ahead and allowed Cathy to stay seven steps behind. They lowered their hoods, presumably for better visibility. Cathy just tucked her beanie down further over the tips of her ears.
When Phil had given the a-okay that the courthouse steps were clear, they all emerged from the shadows. Phil and Mike headed east. Amusement Mile it was, then.
Occasionally, Phil would hold out an arm for them to stop and would peek around the corner to scout ahead. If the coast was clear, he would motion for Mike and Cathy to continue following. Sometimes Phil and Mike would look over their shoulders, only for moment, to make sure that Cathy was still trailing. Or to keep an eye on her in case she attacked, she thought.
Both men kept to the sidewalk, presumably to be as less noticeable as possible, so Cathy did the same. It made sense, it was what she had been doing all this time already. She recognized this road they were taking by the time she spotted the neon red "The Stacked" sign.
She glanced across the street at the row of boarded up, broken, and trashed shops until they were parallel to the bookstore she used to work at. If she hadn't known the path she took to work, she never would have recognized the place. There was no need to board it up, the front windows had already been smashed in and most shelves stood bare, obviously ransacked. One or two trampled, forgotten paperbacks here and there were all that was left. Cathy didn't have enough faith in Arkham City's inmates wanting to seek literature. No, they just needed kindling. Disheartening as it was to imagine so many books go up in flames, the joke was on them, though. While a pile of books lit up like a spark of lightning on dry grass, they burned quickly and didn't sustain for long.
Leaving the stores behind, and passing by the still-working sign of Finnigan's bar despite the closed off windows, the road opened up to the Gotham Cathedral looming high to the open night sky. Cathy thought that Phil and Mike's safehouse was in there until they led her to the left, underneath the section of the collapsed overpass still standing. They stopped at a twelve foot high wall of sheet metal and aluminum roofing panels; an architectural nightmare, but a solid fort nonetheless.
Phil looked over his shoulder, watching for anybody else who could have been watching. He then knocked lightly on a smaller section of wavy roofing. It then slid aside and a woman in a matching blue parka poked her head through. She sat on a mattress on the inside, seemingly on listening duty. She motioned for Phil and Mike to enter, but held Cathy in her sight. The woman looked her over suspiciously, noting Cathy's lack of a blue parka.
"It's okay," said Phil, motioning his head to indicate her. "She's not part of any gang."
The woman's eyes darted between them. She seemed to trust Phil's word, though, and whispered, "Alright then," and allowed them to crawl through. Mike went first. Phil wouldn't go until Cathy went in. Once she lowered to all fours and crawled through (the mattress' use was apparent now), Cathy was greeted by the glow of several fires going in metal barrels, and about fifteen blue parkas. The little encampment was situated against a dead end of tall boarding houses whose front doors had the same metal gates attached as the one she had to slip through the other night.
A row or two of small shacks gave the appearance of a shared living space, though the bare minimum. The row was sectioned off at intervals to look like small rooms for each person. A filthy mattress in each one made it obvious that was exactly what they were supposed to be. Mike seperated from them and walked off to speak with a few others while Phil led Cathy to one of the room spaces, second to last from the end. Past the shacks she noticed two burnt cars here too, just like back at the alcove.
"This one isn't being used, you can have it," said Phil. "It ain't the Royal Hotel, but I'm sure it's better than a bed of snow."
Or a hardwood floor, thought Cathy. She could still feel the soreness in her shoulder. She nodded her gratitude and took a quick glance inside. She was perceptive of two blue parkas who were watching her keenly from their fire circle just within hearing distance, and she did her best to act like she wasn't aware.
Phil was leaning casually against the shack opposite, with his arms crossed. "So, if you don't mind me asking," he began, easing into what he was about to say, "what are you doin' out here, wandering alone like that?"
Cathy watched the fire and remained silent, pretending to be distracted by it. A couple seconds of silence flew between them.
Phil chuckled good-naturedly. "Look, I know you ain't a mute, okay? If you were, you woulda made some indication. Come on. I gotta know your name. All of us here, we gotta look out for eachother, and we can't do that without at least knowing something about you. You know, bridge the gap, fight the same fight and all that."
Cathy supposed she owed him that much for his hospitality. She sighed through her nose in preparation. "It's Cathy."
"Cathy," he repeated with a nod of acceptance. "There we go, we're gettin' somewhere now. Short for Catherine, I bet?"
"Just Cathy," she answered with quiet finality.
Phil nodded, taking the hint. "I gotcha, I gotcha."
Cathy wasn't sorry for her tone. Her full name felt too personal given the circumstances. These men weren't talking to the Catherine Jacob, they were talking to her one-track minded shell that ran on a fuel of utter terror and self-preservation. Everything that made Cathy what she previously was had taken a backseat. Though she supposed the same could be said for them as well. If they were being honest, that is. She just hoped she wouldn't live to regret revealing her real name like she had with her birthday the other night. If she didn't survive, then maybe it would be a good thing that at least someone remembered her being here.
"Can I at least ask how old you are?" Phil tried again.
Cathy didn't see how that would be a threat to her well-being. "Twenty-one," she murmured.
"Twenty-one? Oh."
"Oh what?"
"Just thought you were more sixteen or something, that's all. Not that I wouldn't have offered this place to you otherwise, it just kinda disturbed my conscience to know that some teenager was wandering around by themselves."
So that partly explained why Phil was so insistent on getting her to the camp. Besides also being female in a place that would be utterly unforgiving to them, of course. Cathy also didn't want to admit that it wouldn't have mattered if she was a teen or forty years old, she would have still been in the same vulnerable, inexperienced predicament.
Phil left momentarily to drag over a metal oil drum, placing it in the center, closer to the shacks but far enough away so as not to catch anything on fire.
"Anyone got a light?" he called out, rubbing his hands together in preparation. "Let's get some dinner cooking."
Cathy felt she owed him this much as well. Couldn't hurt to gain the camp's trust while she was at it, too.
"Hold on," she volunteered. "I do."
Phil almost looked surprised that she spoke without a question prompt.
"Go right ahead, then," he smiled, inclining his head to the barrel. "Wood's all in there and everything."
As Cathy dug into her pocket for her matchbook, Phil went scavenging through a pile of metal scraps in a corner. She struck a match, tossed it into the barrel, and slipped the matchbook back into her pocket. A warm glow flickered inside the rusty walls and soon the flames peeked every so often above the rim. Phil returned with his treasure: a sheet of metallic mesh, wider than the mouth of the barrel. It balanced perfectly as he set it on top. He then entered what was presumably his own room, opened a crate, pulled out two tin cans, and punctured their lids off with a simplistic can-opener. One in each hand, he brought them over to the fire and placed them on top of the mesh.
"There we go," he said, adjusting their position to absorb a satisfactory amount of heat.
Cathy felt a fraction of the fire's warmth on her face, but her back was frozen. She hugged her arms and doubled over to keep the cold from seeping through her clothes. Tonight was abnormally chilly.
"Who are you guys?" she asked, feeling just a bit braver to start asking questions of her own.
"Us? Technically we're political prisoners." Phil sat down on the other side of the barrel and scoffed humourlessly, shaking his head. "That's just a fancy way of saying we know too much. There seems to be a new one thrown in here everyday."
Cathy's retreated her hands into her sleeves to stay warm. Phil noticed.
"Hold on a sec." He abandoned the fire and disappeared into his shack. He emerged again, unfurling a thin wool blanket of a warm brown color. He draped it over Cathy's shoulders and returned to his spot. "It's not much, but every layer keeps a little more of the bite away."
Cathy hesitantly clutched the scratchy blanket closer around her neck, rather overcome by this token of generosity. "Thank you." She meant it.
"Don't mention it. We weren't all brought together under the best circumstances, but we all gotta look out for each other, eh? It's the only thing that keeps us from turning into the monsters out there."
Cathy had to agree and took a little comfort in knowing that this was Phil's philosophy. She removed the bag off her back and took a swig from her water bottle filled with the stale bathtub water. The weather had cooled it nicely while it was stowed in her pack and it satisfyingly wetted her parched throat.
"You look about my daughter's age, ya know."
"Hm?" Cathy lips smacked off the spout.
"Around the same, give or take," continued Phil. "She's on the other side, though, with my ex. None of them know where the hell I've gone to, none of our families do." Phil indicated the whole encampment. "To our loved ones on the outside, it's like we all disappeared."
"I'm not a political prisoner," Cathy made sure to mention. "My dad knows I'm here."
Phil shrugged just as Mike returned and joined their meager circle. "We ain't picky here. If you ain't straight from Blackgate or Arkham, you're pretty a-okay. Now that you got us on the subject though, mind telling us why you're here of all places? Because let's face it: no one would wanna be in here on purpose."
Now it was Cathy's turn to laugh dismissively—at herself. "I was too stubborn for my own good, that's what happened. I wouldn't budge from my home. Evacuation notice after evacuation notice—" she swung her finger around in orbiting circles, "—but I took that proposal like an absolute failure of a plan, one too stupid to actually work. I'm not even a good protester, I've never had reason to do it before, never had an issue in my entire life that I thought could be solved that way. But this was something different. I got territorial over a place I was paying for entirely on my own for the first time."
The mental dam had burst. Once Cathy started, the words she hadn't been able to tell anybody were now pouring from her mouth without restriction, escaping for the chance to be heard.
"I wasn't alone though, there was no way I would have fought this thing all by myself. But lots of people, tons from my own apartment building joined in. That's how I got involved with the protests to prevent this whole place from turning into some sort of playpen. I thought with such great numbers opposing, there was no way the proposal for a prison would go through. I felt safe with a group. Now look at me. I'm stranded, I'm helpless, and in way over my head. I-I don't know how much longer I can do this..."
Who was she trying to kid, she was no survivalist, just a city-bred girl stuck in a dead-end retail job. Or used to be, ever since the bookstore was forcibly closed down.
Pent-up frustration bubbled unhindered from Cathy's chest. Worry had suppressed it deeper and deeper inside as she watched Arkham City's containment walls climb higher and higher. Now that she was in the thick of things, dead center in a playground of murder and thievery, her carefully rationed emotions became unhinged and left to spill messily. Never could she have imagined herself in a more debilitating situation. This was something she would have read in an survival thriller paperback, or the newest release from a famous spine-chiller author. This was the stuff of fiction, the stuff of Hollywood screenplays. But it was real, and much different when one was on the other side. A bookmark or remote control wouldn't put this problem on pause.
She sighed and propped her chin on her fists in frustration. "I really thought we could turn this whole Arkham City mess around. It wasn't even a rights issue with me at the time. It was more like I thought the whole Arkham City idea was a total joke by an idiot mayor who snapped from the pressure."
Phil nodded sympathetically as he passed a warmed can of watery sweet corn to Cathy. "Didn't we all. Really sorry to hear that, Cathy. But this is pretty much the safest place for you. Well, relatively speaking." He frowned at his surroundings like an unpleasant stench hovered about. "But stick with us, we'll make sure you'll get home to your dad. Arkham City should close any day now. There's too much wrong with this place for it to stand up much longer."
Mike chuckled darkly. "Could you imagine all them lawyers elbowing eachother right now to take this mess on? Psh, guaranteed slam dunk. They'd be living off royalties and interviews for the rest of their lives."
"I'll tell you one thing, I ain't planning on dying," Phil's eyes unfocused and his jaw hardened. He brandished his fork pointedly, his can of string beans forgotten in his hand. "I never been in jail before, never had no problems with the law, but when I get outta here it'll be worth the risk, just to gut that Quincy Sharp like a fish for putting me in here. All of us!" He twirled his fork in his fingers as if contemplating the thought.
"It doesn't matter how soon we get out of here, though," said Mike, "we won't be the same again. You see Neil over there, Cath?" Mike pointed discreetly to a dark-skinned man, sitting demurely on his cot and staring off into space. "Poor guy. There's some sicko running around this place who's been cutting off people's faces. Neil happened to find one body like that, lying in some corner he happened upon. Hasn't quite been able to shake it off since then. He still talks, but he's...changed."
"Mike, stop," interjected Phil. "She doesn't need to hear that."
He didn't sound mad, but there was a warning sitting on his tongue. More than likely he wanted to shield Cathy from the gory details in an attempt to keep her hopes high.
"Sorry," said Mike quickly.
"Can I ask you something?" said Cathy now that she had Mike's attention. "How did you know I was a girl?" She thought she had been pretty good at hiding it, but somehow he still knew.
"It gets easier when you've been doing it for fifteen years," he informed her. "Before I was thrown in here I was a facial profiler and sketch artist for the GCPD."
"And I'm just an plumber," added Phil, picking at his string beans. "Beats me on what kind of incriminating information they got on us, I ain't done nothing wrong."
"Me neither," said Mike, shaking his head at the mystery.
Finishing off the sweet corn and even hungrily (but politely) slurping down the cloudy water pooled at the bottom, the late hour was getting to Cathy. She spoke for a while longer with her rescuers, mostly just listening rather than speaking, but even staring into the fire was making her tired.
Soon, Phil and Mike dumped snow on the flames, dragged the barrel off into a corner, and retired to their own sections, wishing Cathy a good rest.
Left to herself and afraid of getting robbed in the middle of the night, Cathy crawled onto her bed and layed close to the backwall, her drawstring bag pressed against it so as to make it harder for any thief to sneak anything without waking her. The mattress certainly didn't smell like roses, that was for sure, but a place to sleep was a place to sleep. She layed her head down and glanced one last time at the sheet metal barricades keeping intruders out and wondered how effective they really were.
A long yawn made her head drowsy. Well, weak walls were better than no walls at all.
Cathy was aware of the black of her eyelids when she heard the first strangled yell and a horrible commotion. Bolting upright on the mattress, she awoke to utter chaos. Blue parkas everywhere were fending off the orange-clad inmates attacking them, or fighting off the ones that were stealing supplies into their buff arms. One inmate laughed and kicked over an oil drum fire, sending glowing ash and cinders everywhere.
Cathy's jaw hung slack and her motor-skills were paralyzed as she frantically witnessed the wreckage happening before her. Three seconds stretched on far longer than she ever remembered a few seconds lasting, and she didn't feel at all in control of her body. She scrambled to kick the blanket off her legs, her body feeling heavier than she ever felt before.
Wobbling onto her feet, shaking off the resting state they were in, she glanced every which way for Phil or Mike. In a bid to stay out of sight, Cathy kept close to the shacks and hurried to her right.
"Phil?!" she shouted despite all instincts telling her not to make herself heard.
A battlefield stretched out before her. By her count, five Arkham inmates had broken into the camp, and despite being outmatched by the political prisoners in number, they were stronger and more willing to maim anything that stood in their way.
Cathy's neck cricked in whiplash as she suddenly felt herself being wrenched sideways, and in a split second she was staring at the stars. A large muscled inmate straddled on top of her, his knees squeezing her ribs to pin her in place. He had managed to grab her by the bag on her back and had thrown her to the ground while she had been standing there. His head blocked out the night sky as he leaned over her, while the flickering fires nearby created manic shadows on his ghastly grin, bringing to life the gnarled pockmarks of his skin like treebark.
"Haven't seen one of you in so long," he growled smugly, almost victoriously. His rough fingers began tracing her throat none too gently. "Stay. I'll take good care of-"
Out of the corner of Cathy's eye, a pipe swished out of nowhere, and the shrill, echoing clank of metal slamming into skull resonated painfully in her teeth. The inmate's legs loosened and he slumped sideways, thrown by the pipe's kinetic energy, and landed outcold on the filthy concrete. Cathy scrambled backwards, kicking her legs out spastically to distance herself from his limp form.
Phil clutched her upper arm with his free hand and helped her onto her feet.
"Go!" he yelled over the commotion, eyes bulging with fright. "Run and don't stop running. We'll find you, just go!"
Cathy hesitated. There was no way he would be a match against inmates who practiced chin-ups from their prison bunk-beds everyday. "But Phil-"
"NOW!" Grabbing her shoulder, Phil shoved her in the direction of the compound's entrance. Brandishing his pipe like a baseball bat, he then ran headlong into the fray to help his friends.
Cathy watched him momentarily, unsure to either escape or help, helplessly shifting her own two feet that were ready to spring to wherever she decided. But he told her to run and that's what she had to do. She'd be killed before landing a single punch. Taking one last heartbroken look over her shoulder, she sprinted to the sheet-metal barricade, hoisted herself up, and jumped onto the other side.
A/N: Special thanks goes to a friend who suggested the Catwoman sighting when I was stuck on how to get the political prisoners to meet Cathy when she constantly does her best to not be detected.
Also also, last month I saw a huge spike in visitors to this story. That got me super excited! It's like fifty over the average that I usually get. And yet only two people said anything (much thanks to PenWieldingRose and JaquesRiddle, by the way). Are all you lurkers afraid I'll bite or something? :P Come, come, sit closer with all of us. This isn't high school, everybody can sit at our table.