This chapter is a little weird, even by my standards...

This chapter is meant to be a thriller/horror chapter but considering the scariest movie I've watched is I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House, I'm severely lacking. I have not seen any Friday the Thirteenth or Nightmare on Elm Street movies, nor have I seen The Exorcist, The Town That Feared Sundown, or Halloween. I'm not a horror fan, as you will probably be able to tell by this chapter.

The inspirations for this chapter were mostly the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with a splash of creepy boiler rooms from across fiction and some classic 'damsel-in-distress' action.

Other notes I would like to make are that the four boys and Kate are all eighteen or older. Also, Kate has been missing for two weeks as of the start of this chapter. She and Kenny are not only together as a couple, but they've been living together for a few months.

NOTE: NOT CONNECTED WITH THE REST OF THE STORY IN ANY WAY.

OWTF!

Ow… my head…

I open my eyes to see I'm in a place I don't recognize. It looks like a boiler room straight out of a horror movie, where Freddy Krueger will come out any minute and slice me open. I stagger to my feet and look around to try and get a better grip on my surroundings. I can hear the clanging of pipes in the distance—a familiar and slightly-comforting sound. I quickly try to find something to defend myself with.

"Hello?" I call, a little hesitant as I unscrew a pipe.

"Is someone there?" I hear an all-too-familiar voice call back. I almost drop my weapon before they come into view.

"Kyle!" I gasp.

"Kenny!" he gasps back, rushing forwards. "Do you have any idea where this is?"

"No," I reply, tightening my grip on the pipe. "And I have a feeling we're in big fucking trouble."

"I woke up an hour ago and I've been wandering around, trying to find something familiar. I keep hearing things and it's freaking me out!"

I unscrew a second old pipe (evidently these are for show, not use, since they're pretty rusty) and hand it to Kyle. He takes it without a word, nodding as we head off together.

This 'boiler room' is actually a massive labyrinth of pipes, steel beams, and hissing steam, dead ends around nearly every corner. Oddly enough, nobody is here besides us, as far as we know. We eventually run into Cartman (who's crying for his mom and Kate) and Stan (who took a similar approach to me in grabbing something to defend himself with—a crowbar).

"I keep hearing stuff," he says, looking around. "I heard a girl giggling and I thought I saw Kate."

"Well, if we're down here, chances are that Kate is, too," I sigh. "I hope she's o—"

Suddenly, a high-pitched whine comes from overhead as some kind of intercom system crackles to life. The voice coming over it is music to my ears—Kate. My beautiful girlfriend who's been missing for two weeks.

"Shit, is this thing working?!" she squeaks. "I hope so." She clears her throat. "Guys, I don't have much time. You need to find the exit. Don't worry about me."

"Babe!" I yell up to the nearest speaker, causing her to yelp. "What are you talking about?! We're not leaving you!"

"You have to!" she snaps, picking the microphone back up. "I can't keep them both at bay much longer! Get out while you still can!"

"Who is 'them'?" Kyle asks.

Before Kate answers, she begins screaming in pain.

"Get off that intercom, you stupid whore!" a man yells at her in a Jersey accent. A deep voice, plus that insult…

"Let go of her!" I yell, gripping the pipe tighter.

"Or what, you welfare-fag? You'll beat me with that pipe of yours? Trust me, kids, you're in over your heads."

"Kate, we're coming! Just hold on and we'll help you kill him!"

"My daughter is an idiotic, disrespectful, psychotic little bitch. She has no idea how to kill someone… or should I say had no idea how to kill someone."

"What. Did. You. Do. To. Her?" I ask, about to smash the nearest object.

"Nothing much. All I did was bring her here. She's already murdered a couple of the guards trying to escape, but now she's contained. Goodbye!"

"Wait!"

Before I could say anything else, the intercom cut off. Rage floods my being and I start running in a random direction. I vaguely hear the guys calling my name and running after me, but I don't care. My body has kicked into high gear to get to Kate as soon as I can. Suddenly, I feel two sets of hands grab me and pull me back. I turn to see Stan and Kyle are holding my arms.

"Let me go!" I snap to them both.

"We don't even know where we're going, Kenny!" Kyle reminds me, tightening his grip. "We need a plan. We can't just rush in there."

"My girlfriend is in there, and she's hurt!"

Still, they manage to calm me down to a point where I can think clearly. I remember a story Kate told me about—the story of the Minotaur and the hero who slays him. Apparently, it's the only myth her dad knows, and he admired King Minos for his efficiency in dealing with annoyances. Anyway, according to the story, the Minotaur was at the center of a massive labyrinth, built by a genius inventor as a way to contain the half-man.

"The Minotaur," I say, snapping my fingers.

"The what, now?" Stan asks, looking confused.

"The Minotaur! It's Mike's favorite story, from what Kate said, and this place is like a labyrinth! We just need to find a way to get to the center and we'll find him and Kate."

"As long as we get out of here," Cartman agrees, whimpering.

We follow the hall down all the twists and turns, running into more than a few dead ends. The silence once we enter what must be near the center is eerie, the sound of the clanging pipes dying away and being replaced with nothing but the sounds of our footsteps, our breathing, and our rapidly-beating hearts. It's deafening and more than a little unnerving. Still, for me, the thought of getting Kate away from Mike is more than enough to keep me going and keep me from turning back.

I've seen her scars.

I know what he did to her.

I know what he tried to do to her.

How many nights has she cried her eyes out in my arms, reliving the torment in her mind? How many times has she been afraid to leave the house because he might be out there? How much more pain is he going to put her through? How long…

…until he kills her?

The door is large and ornate—extremely out of place underground. I open it by kicking it in like a badass. We enter a room that makes it apparent we're in an underground bunker of some kind, complete with security cameras and a metal door on one wall. A key is sitting on the console that has the security footage playing on it. I grab the key and the ornate door closes and locks, trapping us inside.

"We'll find a way out!" Kyle offers. Cartman, the fat and lazy bastard he is, finds a chair and sits down rather than helping.

I run over to the metal door and put the key in the lock. By some miracle, it works and the door opens. I head down the hall that the door led to. As I go, I can hear Kate crying at the end and I quicken my pace. Eventually, I come to a room that has blood on the floor. I can see a couple of bodies in the corner. Kate herself is curled into a ball, her face buried in her knees. I kneel next to her and begin stroking her hair like I always do.

"Kate," I whisper, and she looks up at me. Her eyes are red from crying, and she scoots away.

"Get away from me, Kenny," she says, her voice trembling.

"Babe—"

"No. I'll—I'll hurt you. I'll kill you. Just like them." She gestures to the bodies in the corner. "You have to go."

"Sorry, but I'm not leaving." I sit down and lean against her, and she lets me. "What's going on?"

"I'm… I'm sick. Something in my head. There's two of me in there. One of them is right here—that's this me—but the other one is still up there, screaming to get out, for me to let her out. I've been fighting her for years, but she wants out. She wants to hurt people. She wants to make them suffer. She wants me to be the soulless, emotionless, obedient, perfect killing machine that my father wants me to be." She's shaking, so I put my arm around her to try and comfort her. "I don't want to be that me. That me would obey him no matter what. That me would get married to a stranger and kill him after the wedding, just so my father could become richer. That me wouldn't hesitate to kill…" She looks at me, then looks away, and I catch her meaning. "I call her Katherine. I know that's my full name, but I'm Kate. Katherine is the one who will do whatever my father asks. I hate her."

"You said you've been fighting her for years?"

"Ever since the day Uncle Pete took me away from my father and brought me to South Park. She started screaming the day I left Young Beach and hasn't stopped since."

"Kate, you can beat her," I assure my girlfriend, but she's not listening.

"…I think… I think Katherine is the part of me that's proud to be from a gangster family. I think she's the side of me that everyone has—the side everyone tries to hide but not everyone is able to."

I hug her to my chest and she starts sobbing again. I cradle her gently until she wears herself out and then I carry her out of the room and down the hall. I can tell she's lost some weight, and that she's not in the best physical health, but she's alive. I finally reach the metal door and the surveillance room where Kyle and Stan are trying to pry the ornate door open. Cartman notices me and pushes over a cot that was in the corner, presumably for Mike to sleep on while he watched over his daughter/human torture experiment subject. I lay her down on the cot.

It's only now, in the light, that I see how battered and bruised she is.

Almost immediately, I want to hold her again, and this time, I don't want to let her out of my sight. I reach for her, then pull back. She's asleep, at least, and as comfortable as we can possibly make her. I take her hand and squeeze it. Cartman, for once reading the room, backs away and goes to help with the door. Kate sits up suddenly.

"Get away from the door," she says in a chilling tone. The others obey and back away, just as the door flies open to reveal Mike. He's smirking in a way that says he's about to win.

"I see you found her," he comments nonchalantly. "It doesn't matter. All four of you will be dead soon."

"No," Kate replies.

"You're not in a position to negotiate, you bitch." He shoves me aside and slaps her. "You're going to do your fucking job."

"No."

Kate reels back and lands a hard punch to Mike's nose, knocking him backwards and making him hold his nose after a loud crunch fills the air. Behind his hand, blood is flowing and staining his too-tanned skin brownish red. It's a sickening color and reminds me that despite all the money she had as a kid, Kate's world wasn't that different from mine. Like me, she comes from a world of violence and drugs—a world where only the strong survive and even that isn't guaranteed. A world where you have to fight or get killed by fighters. The only difference is that she lived in a big house.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH!" He lunges for her and she ducks under his arm, falling to the floor. Stan and Kyle rush over and help her up, while Mike bleeds all over the cot. Cartman snatches the gun attached to Mike's belt and tosses it to Kate while I hold down the broken-nosed bastard.

Kate shoots him twice.

Once in the gut.

Once in the head.

He passes out from blood loss, and I expect Kate to drop the gun.

She doesn't. Instead, she has this odd look on her face. Her bright green eyes are glazed with something I don't recognize, and her smile is twisted into something evil. She shrugs off Kyle and Stan and brings the handle of the gun down on Mike's head. To our horror, she continues bashing his head in with the gun. I rush forward and wrestle her to the ground, trying to get the gun out of her hand. It hits the floor and Stan kicks it across the room.

"Kate, calm down!" I beg. She tries to scratch and punch me, but I'm holding down her arms and sitting on her torso, keeping her from attacking me. Cartman is holding down her legs while Kyle grabs Mike's phone and dials 911.

Eventually, Kate stops fighting me and her eyes become teary as she starts crying again.

"Kate, I love you, but you need help," I tell her, letting her sit up. She nods.

"I'll go to a psychiatrist," she sobs, latching onto me.

A few minutes later, after Kate falls asleep again (from exhaustion and crying), the police and an ambulance arrive. The paramedics check Kate over and determine that she needs to be put in the hospital. Mike is somehow still alive, and they rush him out as soon as they can. Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and I are put in the back of a cop car and driven to the hospital at my insistence.

It's over…

TWO MONTHS LATER…

Sunlight streams through our bedroom window as I open my eyes. Kate is snuggled up next to me, snoring lightly. She didn't have a nightmare last night, which is good, according to Dr. Harding. He says every night that she doesn't have a nightmare is a sign of her getting better.

After we went to the hospital, Mike was arrested for kidnapping and torture once he regained consciousness. Kate wasn't charged with anything due to the fact that he'd been holding her captive and that she was diagnosed with a split personality. Dr. Harding, the psychiatrist assigned to her case, began helping her keep 'Katherine' under wraps. She's only been home for a couple weeks now, because they wanted to keep her for observation to be sure she wouldn't go on a rampage and try to kill anybody. Dr. Harding said that Kate's split personality was the result of her father's abuse and the two weeks of torture she endured under him—a coping mechanism.

"Kenny?"

I'm shaken from my thoughts by Kate's voice. I look down to see her awake and gazing at me with a smile.

"Morning, beautiful," I tell her. "How'd you sleep?"

"Good. I didn't have any nightmares." She gets out of bed and slips on one of my T-shirts. "I'm going to make breakfast."

"You do that."

She exits the room.

I don't know how long she'll be my Kate. I don't know if she'll ever snap back into being Katherine. I do know that I made a promise when she came home that I'd help and support her in getting better, even if it never happens. It's my job, and I'm going to take it seriously.

Even if she kills me, over and over, I'll be there for her.

Yeah, so I don't know how many of you read these author's notes, but I'll explain the best I can what's up with Kate for those who are curious.

So, the concept of Kate having two sides of her personality has been an idea in the back of my head for a while. Originally, one side was Kate Cartman and the other side was Katherine Silverton—one sweet but strong, and the other cold and ruthless. This eventually morphed into the AU idea that Mike Silverton tried to turn his only child into a perfect killing machine until she ended up in South Park thanks to her uncle. In this version, Kate's mother was murdered by Mike and Mike was never tried for the crime, so he raised Kate alone until Pete got his niece out of there.

As far as the boys being in the maze, Mike just wanted them out of the way. He never planned for them to know Kate was there so quickly. His plan was to break her completely and then turn her loose so nobody would be able to snap her out of that state. As you can see, that failed and Kenny is trying to help her keep a handle on 'Katherine'. What a good boyfriend!

Also, yes, Kenny and Kate have fucked. Several times. I just wanted to say that. No, Cartman isn't happy about it, but he's learned to either deal with it.

So long and thanks for all the fish!