It´s not really that hard to make a car to a rolling bomb. Actually every car is a rolling bomb with the immense amount of fuel that it´s containing. Who ever poured fuel into an open fire knows the enormous flame and also the second degree burns that result from that. Multiply this explosive flame by 1,000 and add a bit of explosive placed on the tank with it, there you have a pretty useful bomb that you can also drive.
Scratch didn´t had to drive his bomb to any location anymore, the old abandoned storage hall at the docks was a perfect location for what he was up to. It stood at the right place, exactly where he needed it. Like it was made exactly made for something like that.
Placing the explosives under the car felt for him like a deja-vu. Last time he did that he wanted to scare Kitty with that so she keeps her nose out of the whole issue. It didn´t work. But this time it would, mainly because of the main difference between this T.U.F.F. car and the old one. And that difference was a stammering scientist that lay in the trunk who piped up. "Let me o..o..out!"
"That sounds like a demand." Stated Scratch calmly while he attached the last parts to make the car to a bomb.
"Because it is one! I want you to o..o..open the trunk!" meant the scientist.
"So that you have the chance to escape? Hm… no. I don´t think that´ll happen." Scratch crawled out from under the car and stood up. "Also you don´t want to see what happens next."
"Why? What h..h..happens next?"
"Fate happens, Keswick. The story of two people will find its unavoidable end today. The tale will end how it has to end. The book will be closed. Mors ultima linea rerum est." He recited with a bit of sadness in his voice
"Geeze Dudley! Can´t you say this so that I c..c..can understand this?" complained Keswick.
"You´ll figure it out yourself soon… Like the mayor… If I get him into my paws after that I will let him pay for letting me doing this I… " The dark shadow that landed almost inaudible behind Scratch on the hard concrete ground of the hall made him stop in midsentence. It was time, the showdown should begin.
No grin was on his face as he turned around. Not even a bit of him tried to make the corners of his mouth form the known and by much hated ice-block melting smile. In the end, this wasn´t a situation that made him grin.
"So you are here." Scratch stated toneless.
"Where else should I be?" replied Kitty. "In a contrary to you people mean something to me and aren´t just pieces of a big game of chess that you sacrifice if you need it."
"I´m sorry that you have this image of me Kitty. Even if I´m afraid that you´re right." Scratch opened the jacket of his suit and folded it carefully together. "I just want you to know that… you´re not a pawn sacrifice."
"Should I feel flattered now?" she asked as the dog also took of his tie. "Flattered that killing me is something special for you."
"No… I just want you to understand that this won´t be easy for me. And again I want to apologize for all the pain I brought to you… and for this last bit of pain I will bring to you." Scratch sighed.
"We´ll see about that Dudley."
"Yeah…" nodded Scratch. "So, should we begin?"
Kitty answered his question by running towards him lunging out her arm to hit him with maximum speed. She was fast, the strike had maybe knocked Scratch out if he hadn´t evaded it. The swift move that helped him dodging gave him the chance to grab her by her clothes and toss her to the ground.
But Kitty was also fast, faster than Scratch had expected. Before he even realized it she was back on her feet and slammed her fist against his chin. Dazed staggered the canine a few steps back and received a nasty hit in his stomach. He bend forward in pain what made Kitty take the chance to ram her knee into his face.
However, this time the tables turned, Scratch was the one who was faster now. With one hand he caught the knee with the other he shoot up to beat into Kitty´s face. The short moment of distraction he got through that he used to grab Kitty and run with her against the next wall. Kitty let out a pain-filled cough as she hit the wall. Scratch attack hit home. Kitty couldn´t move, he pressed her with all his strength against the wall.
"I´m sorry Kitty." He mumbled as he moved his hands to her throat and embraced it slowly with every single finger. "I think we both knew that it had to end like that. Even if I hoped that the whole thing had taken another course."
"STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!" screamed a furious voice behind Scratch that made him let Kitty go and turn around. Jessica stood there, alone but with her colt loaded and ready in her hands.
"Oh who came there!" called Scratch out loudly. "The chief herself!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP SCRATCH AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP! IT´S OVER!"
"No it just began." Roared the psychopath and pulled a little black walkie-talkie looking thing out. "I´ll explain it easy. Deadman-switch and the bomb is under the car and in the car is your scientist. So if you don´t want to heave a crispy Keswick out of the trunk… give me the gun and let me sort this out."
"NO! Not this time Scratch! This perverse game ends now! I will neither let Kitty nor Keswick die!"
"I REALLY DON`T HAVE TIME FOR THAT!" shouted Scratch and walked towards Jessica. "It´s a really simple question, Kitty or Keswick."
There was it, probably the hardest decision in Jessica´s life. It wasn´t just a plain decision between two options. It was more. It was about career or friendship, her own goals or the good of the others, about death… and death. Scratch forced her to play god, no, to play death. What should she do?
Sacrificing Keswick? Sure this step would be the easiest and oddly also the most logically step. A simple pull on the guns trigger and Scratch would be history. She had stopped one of the most dangerous criminals worldwide. The aftermaths? The end of Scratch´s killing spree, a promotion, a pay raise, a place in the history books but also a funeral.
Some people maybe would think that she wouldn´t care about a funeral if it would help her to get the promotion but Jessica wasn´t that cold. Especially not when it comes to Keswick. She really started liking the little T.U.F.F. scientist and also thought about asking him to drink a beer with her, as friends of course. After all, Keswick wasn´t really her type.
On the other hand, sacrificing Kitty sounded worse. It would mean Scratch is on the run and she had nothing than a dead agent. Also, she maybe never liked Kitty but never had the intention to harm her physically at least not so much that it causes her death.
In the end, it was the wish for Keswick´s survival, the friendship she felt for him and the hope that there was something left of Dudley Puppy in Scratch that would hinder him from killing Kitty that made her say "Sort it out."
"Good." Nodded Scratch as Jessica laid her colt on the ground and kicked it over the ground towards him. He picked up the gun and holstered it. Then he deactivated the dead-man-switch and put it inside his breast pocket before he walked back to Kitty who still was holding her throat retching on her knees.
"Let´s end this once and for all." His heavy hands were about to claps around her slender throat again but Kitty didn´t seem to accept her fate yet. The knife she hid in her boot the whole time came to use. With surprising speed she jumped towards her opponent and thrust the knife into his shoulder.
Fortunately, for her, exactly at the spot where Keswick had shot Scratch recently.
"You got to be…" howled the dog backing off the cat.
"You really thought it would be that easy?" coughed Kitty angrily.
"No" hissed the psychopath and pulled the knife out of his shoulder. "But you just made it very easy for me." Scratch was a good fighter, that was sure. He was experienced with pistols, rifles, heavy artillery, fist fighting but if you let it happen that a knife fell in his hands, you could also immediately give up.
Kitty had no idea, she had just seen him fighting with a knife back then in the church against Young. But if she had known that Young had been the only worthy opponent in this discipline she had thought twice to bring a knife to a fist fight.
From this moment on everything went so fast, at least from Jessica´s point of view. She had to watch the whole thing unable to intervene without risking Keswick´s life. Scratch started sprinting towards Kitty, dodged the fists she threw at him and then bumped into her with the knife ahead. And exactly in that moment, the moment of the collision, the time stopped. Jessica saw the scene like an old oil painting in front of her.
Like Rembrandt himself painted the scene. Scratch, close to Kitty, like he was hugging her but with his hand still embracing the knife around which her clothes started to soak the warm blood that escaped her body. The cold and unforgiving eyes of the dog darted a stern glance at Kitty while she returned the psychopath look with a face full of surprise and disbelieve, like she had never expected it that he really did what he had done.
Then, after some time which felt like a complete eternity for Jessica, the scene started moving again. Scratch still stood there watching how a single tear started rolling down Kitty´s cheek. The other hand, that was not holding the knife, he laid gently on her face and wiped this single tear away.
"We both knew that it had to end like that." He said in a somehow comforting way. "Don´t cry."
"I… don´t want to…" She gasped in heavy pains.
"I know… I know…" With a jerky movement Scratch removed the knife from Kitty´s stomach and exposed her body to the gravity.
Kitty collapsed, in silence. No cry no moan no last words were heard from her. It was like she had just given up. Given in to the man that destroyed her whole life, given in to a force that now finally managed to break her completely.
"SWINE! YOU DAMN SWINE!" screamed Jessica as Scratch knelt down to the dead body of her former rival. She also couldn´t believe it. And less she couldn´t believe that she really let that happen.
"I´m just that what they made out of me." He said putting his arms under Kitty and lifting her gently up. "If you excuse me now. I´ll change a corpse against a person that is still breathing." Scratch started to walk slowly to the exit of the storage hall.
As he kicked the metal door open the salty sea breeze welcomed him. "In ten minutes you can open the trunk without any problem. The bomb is dismantled then." A few steps later Scratch and Kitty´s body were just part of the darkness of the night.
Jessica didn´t lose any time, even though she knew that she was allowed to open the trunk in ten minutes, she already rushed to the car. "Keswick? Are you okay?"
"Yes I am." The T.U.F.F. scientist called. "Well, my foot his hurting but beside that… Anyway, what happened out there?"
"I… Kitty… I…" Jessica stammered feeling how her eyes started to fill with water again. More because of shock then because of real grieve about Kitty.
"What?"
"HE KILLED KITTY!" it burst out of her.
"WHAT?!" Keswick screamed and started furiously kicking against the trunk lid. "I´M GOING TO KILL HIM!"
"Keswick watch out!" she yelled pressing down the lid so that Keswick couldn´t kick it open. "We can open it in ten minutes."
"We don´t h..h..have time for that!" the scientist meant stop kicking.
"What do you mean?"
"We still have the chance to get him!" explained Keswick screaming "Go and rip out his BLACK HEART!"
"And where should I search for him?!" Jessica screamed back suppressing more tears.
"He mentioned the mayor. I don´t know if he´ll go there i..i..immediately but he will."
"That´s all you got?"
"Jessica, you may haven´t r..r..realized it but I´M IN A FUCKING TRUNK! The fact that I HAVE any kind of i..i..information is evidence of the incapacity of all T.U.F.F. agents!" Keswick roared. "And now get off and make a bleeding wound out of Scratch!"
Jessica didn´t hesitate too long. If there was a chance for her to get Scratch and avenge Kitty´s death she wouldn´t let this chance slip away.
She ran to the door through which Scratch earlier left and called to Keswick. "Don´t you dare blowing yourself up!" before she fused with the night.
-Mors ultima linea rerum est = Death is everything's final limit -
-As Scratch said it, it ended how it had to end. It´s maybe too late for Kitty but not too late for Parva.-