Kate

Kate stared at the button for a full second, somewhat flummoxed.

"Would you like to see what it does?" asked the Ten Man, giggling. "Shut your eyes, ducky. It may not be pretty."

"Who are you?" asked Sticky.

"Oh? We haven't been acquainted yet, I see. Not by name, at least." The Ten Man extended a white-gloved hand with fingers that strongly resembled the whiskers on those terrifying star-nosed moles. "Damon, McCracken's second-in-command." Pausing to let it sink in, he tilted his head and leered at the children for an uncomfortable ten seconds - long enough to make them all shuffle their feet, feeling very self-conscious indeed. "Now, if you'd just cooperate with us, we have a small errand to run and I'm afraid there's no time for misbehavior. Come along." He stowed the button away in his breast pocket and gestured towards the door.

"No," said Kate hotly. "You're sick."

"Really?" He lifted an eyebrow coolly. "That's the best you can do, is it?" He turned to the Ten Men behind him. "Did you hear that, boys? I'm sick."

Kate's fingernails dug into her palm as she willed herself not to explode, because exploding generally solved nothing, and what they needed at this particular moment was some sort of escape. An escape that was escaping her, the irony of which she couldn't help but appreciate. The harder she racked her brains, the more impossible it became to think of any plausible solution.

Cleo was trembling next to her. Kate shot her a look. What in the world could be running through her mind? Cleo was an odd one, in her opinion. There was a story behind her - especially after Constance had been unable to read the girl. In fact, don't quite trust you, thought Kate, studying Cleo carefully and wondering what her next move might be.

This was made apparent when, after a moment of visible indecision, she said clearly, "Damon." He wiggled an eyebrow at her. Unfazed, she continued, "Take me."

Reynie turned to her, an expression of respect on his face. "Cleo," he said gently, a warning. "You don't have to."

"I do. I got you into this mess... please, just let them take me."

Reynie shook his head. "We can't lose you now. You're our fearless leader!"

"Thanks," she said, relaxing slightly. He smiled encouragingly at her. "But I have to do this. There aren't any other options, and we all know that I'm most dispensable in this group. I'll only get you into more trouble. You know that." She faced Damon, who looked utterly delighted by this turn of events, and took a deep breath. "Take me."

Kate wanted to punch the girl in the face. Who did she think she was, that miserable excuse for an honorary Society member - as if! She'd sided with the wrong people and if she thought she could amend things by heroically sacrificing herself, she was an idiot, the most absurdly stupid...

Kate stopped herself, alarmed. Since when had such unkind thoughts crept into her head? Surely she wasn't jealous! Was she?

No, that would be outright ridiculous. Kate had always prided herself on her ability to remain more accepting and patient than the average person - a quality she most admired in Milligan, and sought to encompass every day - and this itchy, irritated feeling matched with her inability to think clearly when Reynie was close by simply didn't add up.

Oh, how frustrating it was for poor Kate! With all this inner turmoil and angst plunging her into a most disagreeable state, she still felt herself magnetically drawn to Reynie, whose head was ducked but whose mere profile - mahogany eyes; straight nose; a flop of dark brown hair flicked over his eyebrow - sent a warm shiver down her spine.

Not now, please not now, Kate begged silently, forcing herself to look away. He looked over at her and gave a small smile, making butterflies explode in her stomach. Not knowing what to do, she waved feebly, managing to trip over air in the process. Determinedly focusing back on the problems at hand - and there were quite a few - she refocused, planning to sort out these foolish feelings later.

"That's an excellent start," Damon was saying, rubbing his hands together and beaming at a trembling Cleo. He snapped his fingers. In an instant, she had drowned in a sea of Ten Men. Sticky's shout caught in his throat helplessly and his face drained.

"She'll come back," whispered Kate.

He looked bleakly at her. "Yeah," he said, though his eyes were blank.

Apparently oblivious to all of this, S.Q. was leaning protectively over Constance, who seemed to be coming to.

"Is she okay?" asked Sticky, moving away from Kate and, in a surprising act of maturity, accepted momentarily that Cleo was gone and he couldn't do anything about it without jeopardizing the rest of them.

"I think so," S.Q. replied, running an uncharacteristically steady hand across Constance's brow. "She feels feverish."

"Well, she has to be okay," said Sticky, swiftly moving to the little girl's side.

"Oh, she will be," said another Ten Man. The children's heads snapped up in unison at the sound of his simultaneously grating and high-pitched voice. "For now, at least. But we hold the power. It is our button that can cause this pain, our button that can ruin everything for you."

"Let us go," said Kate firmly.

Damon chuckled. "I'd be careful, sweetheart. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I believe there's something you owe us."

"We don't owe you anything," Reynie said loudly. "You took away our family time and time again, you tried to break us apart, you tried to hurt us and inflict damage beyond repair - and all that we're asking of you is to let us go. Just... please let us go."

"Why, this is fascinating!" said Damon, stroking his chin. "Is Reynie Muldoon... scared?"

"No," said Reynie angrily.

"It looks like the infamous 'Society' has given up," continued the Ten Man, ignoring, the multiple, vehemently loathsome glares aimed at him.

"Stop it!" Reynie interrupted. "You know what? Okay, sure, we're giving up, I'm being a coward, whatever - just let my friends go, and know that this isn't over. Not by a long shot."

Kate looked at him. He was normally so calm and rational, so even, and seeing him this fired up couldn't help but spark a little bit of pride in her chest. Regardless of how she felt about him, there was always going to be fondness of whoever he became and a pleasure when she was able to contribute to it.

"There are people I care about here, you know. People I truly care about." Reynie's voice quieted a little; his eyes flickered towards Kate. "People who, if I lost them, I would almost understand why you men become the empty shells that you are. But even if I lost them to you, I would spend the rest of my life looking for them, and loving them wherever they were, and I wouldn't give up." He sucked in his breath, abruptly realizing that the Ten Men were probably going to kill him - and where had that whole speech come from, anyway?

All Damon did in response, however, was to appear, if possible, even more gleeful. "Which is all very noble of you, dearie," he said, beaming "But I'm afraid 'letting you go' just isn't on the table."

"Fine," said Kate, crossing her arms. "What is?"

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere." Damon turned to the other Ten Men in satisfaction. "Gentlemen?"

They walked a little ways down the hallway, alternately murmuring and cackling in relish, leaving the children alone for a moment.

"We have to get out of here," Kate said, feeling fear creep across her skin and brushing it off impatiently. Fear wasn't going to help matters. What would? Well, there was the million dollar question.

Sticky looked up at her bleakly from where he and S.Q. knelt by Constance. "Kate, we can't. There's no escape. We haven't a clue where they've taken Mr. Benedict, or Milligan, or Rhonda, or anybody."

"There's got to be one."

S.Q. looked unusually glum. "I say we do what they ask. It will give us our best chance to survive."

"No!" Kate stomped her foot, infuriated. "Do you honestly think that if we go with them, they'll let us survive? You ought to know better than anyone else that the Ten Men - and McCracken - have a long list of priorities, and our survival isn't one of them! If we go with them, we're goners! They'll take us, they'll take our families..." She stopped, realizing that her voice was echoing against the walls at an alarming volume. "Look, we can't give up now," she said, in something close to an undertone. Silence.

Sticky glanced at Reynie and asked, "Where did you get that speech, anyway?"

"I don't know," Reynie responded, looking bemused. "I guess-"

Outraged at the fact that they were calmly having an analytical discussion, as if they were about to take a seat and begin assessing statistics or business or what have you, and not nearly as fired up as she, Kate yelled in frustration, "Are you all mental? Get up!"

"Hey, hey," said Reynie, coming to her side. "It's going to be fine, okay?"

Why were tears springing to the backs of her eyes? How could the others be so calm, so resigned to their fates? And Milligan... what if he... she couldn't even bear the thought. Kate brushed away her tears impatiently. "Stupid," she muttered.

"Oh, Kate, we didn't mean - " started S.Q.

Reynie shook his head imperceptibly at them, an act that Kate caught but did not acknowledge, and tentatively slid an arm around her shoulder. She stiffened - what was he doing? - but something told her to relax. Looking down, she saw that Constance was awake, and their eyes locked. Some unnamed thing passed between them, and Constance blinked slowly and Kate knew what she wanted to do.

In a most un-Kate-like gesture, she leaned into Reynie's one-armed hug, ear pressed against the warmth of his chest, where she could hear his heart rate calm under her presence. "It's going to be fine," he said, his voice resonating throughout her body, chin notched over her head in a perfect fit.

It is safe to say that at this point, Kate was quite exhausted, and worn out, and fed up with fighting her own feelings all the time, all for a dumb guy. As much as she wanted to pull away from the said dumb guy and act like it never happened and she didn't feel the way she knew she did, an even larger part of her advised her - begged her - to stay just where she was, just for a moment. And so she did.

She felt Reynie's other arm close around her, drawing her closer into an actual hug, and a split second of panic sparked in her chest. But then Constance was standing and tugging at the hem of her shirt and the resistance was gone, replaced by the most unfamiliar and wonderful feeling that she was right where she belonged. Sticky and S.Q. smiled at each other as Constance joined them to the side. In an older brotherly manner, S.Q. leaned down and swept the small girl up onto his hip, as if he had done so many times before. She scowled, squirming indignantly, and then realized that this was actually quite comfortable and she was actually quite tired. A strange peace flooded over the group for one long moment.

Reynie finally pulled away from Kate, brushing a hand lightly over the curve of her cheek and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, then intertwined their fingers in the most natural, easy gesture in the world.

They waited, just like that, their thoughts full of Mr. Benedict and Rhonda and Number Two and all the other people who they loved, when the Ten Men returned.

Let's take a moment to acknowledge that this was nothing short of a miracle, and also a bit odd. For goodness' sake, they were facing imminent doom, and most people would be running about like chickens with their heads cut off instead of calmly realizing that they liked each other a great deal and oh, let's just hold hands and have romantic interludes while the bad guys plan out our death.

Back to the miraculous aspect of this situation, however, the problem here was that as strange as this may sound, the timing was remarkably inconvenient. Or so it seemed. The Ten Men were most definitely going to be brutal if they saw Kate and Reynie together - together together - and this bizarre state of tranquility could quite possibly be misleading, as there was no telling what horrors McCracken might put them through next, and they couldn't afford to forget about that.

Then again, Constance had come to. S.Q., for whatever reason, was holding her, and she wasn't smacking him in the face. Kate and Reynie were finally... well, they were something. And Sticky had let go of Cleo, at least for the moment, and felt like a part of the Society now more than ever.

The whole group was shrouded, for now, in love. And wasn't this what Mr. Benedict wanted all along? Wasn't this what the truest form of freedom was? Their love for each other was maybe, possibly, just enough to get them out of this mess.

It could work.

The Ten Men returned, walking slowly as if they cherished every step they took closer to the people they so dearly wished to destroy.

"What are you doing?" asked Sticky.

"Put her down," Damon snapped at S.Q.

"Pardon?"

"The girl. Put her down."

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" S.Q. looked innocently bewildered - an almost convincing act if Constance didn't feel his arms grip her tighter.

"Forget it," said Damon, disdainfully deciding that it wasn't worth the trouble. The young man seemed rather daft, after all. He turned to the others, glancing at Kate and Reynie's hands and raising an eyebrow. Oh, what a shame that that wouldn't last long.

"What are you doing to us?" asked Reynie, whose voice was noticeably steadier. "What can we do for you?"

"That, my dear, would take a long, long while to explain, and unfortunately we're a bit pressed for time."

"Fine. Just tell us where - what's going to happen," said Kate, whose voice was no longer shrill with fear but rather imbibed with the hidden threat of what might ensue if she felt compelled to unleash her inner strength on the men.

"Change of plan, boys," said Damon, who was eyeing Kate in intense dislike. His gaze flickered between her and Reynie, and he murmured something to the Ten Man behind him. The message was passed through the throng in an eruption of whispers, and soon they were all wearing identically zealous leers.

"What is it?" asked Kate a tad fearfully. "What are you doing to us?"

Damon reached a hand inside his pocket and withdrew that strange button again. "This," he said, pressing it down as hard as he could.

In what felt like slow motion, they all watched as Kate let out a terrible shriek of agony, fingernails ripping across Reynie's palm as she was wrenched out of his grasp by some invisible force, and collapsed on the floor.

Author's note

First off, I legitimately owe all of you apologies. I really can't make excuses, because "I'm busy" sounds wishy-washy pretty quickly, and I have had opportunities in which I could've worked more and updated faster. But this chapter has been in the works for awhile and what with schoolwork and my music stuff, I've had to work on it in installments. So it may be choppy, it may be inconsistent - I know the length is extremely unusual - and you may not like it at all. But it's what I wrote, what I had in mind, and my own writing, and I want to share it with you all.

I think it speaks for itself, really. I had a lot of requests for more Kaynie action - I hope that was satisfactory, at least for now. If there are gaps in the flow of the chapter, then it's either, like I said, that I was writing and editing at different times, or that I have a tendency to assume everybody else is inside my brain and therefore makes sense of/visualizes everything I do. Of course, the best part about reading is making the scenes your own.

Oh dear, I'm waffling. That's a fun word. Anyway, it's late, and I'm sleep deprived, so I'm afraid I'll just have to post this now. Yikers. I'm a little nervous, since this was a big chapter to write, for me at least... but don't hold back. As usual, tell me what you think, any requests, where you want this to go, etc. Thank you thank you thank you for all your support. You guys rock!