26

A/N: For Verity. And Serena. But more for Verity. #shameless


Kate was woken very early in the morning by a tapping on her window. She looked at it curiously; the blinds were drawn so she couldn't see who it was. She thought it might be Richard, but she knew it couldn't be. He wouldn't make a speech like that and then turn up at her apartment at 5 in the morning for... for anything. She picked up her knife from the dressing table and wished she had time to put something, anything, on, but they were opening the window now. She braced herself. Someone could have been following her.

The blinds twitched; every cell in her body was on high alert. Perhaps she should start wearing a nightgown.

It was a man. He was wearing black, and a mask that covered the top half of his face. She could see his leer, though.

"You can put the knife down," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you. Tonight."

Kate shuddered and kept a firm hold on the knife. The man laughed.

"I have a message for you." He took an envelope out of his pocket and held it out to her; she didn't take it so he dropped it on the floor.

"Be seeing you," he said cheerfully as he moved back towards the window. Kate knew there was no point asking him anything... She had a feeling she'd met him before. And she was almost certain she knew who he worked for. When he was gone, still holding the knife, she bent down and picked up the envelope, slit it open, and tipped a letter out of it.

Leave Sally Alone.

She knew who it was from. She was sure. She knew the handwriting. She had seen it nine years ago.

Let your mother go or you will be next.

She still had the note, but there was no need for her to take it out of the little box it lived in along with her mother's old jewellery. The image of it was seared in her mind. She had taken no notice. She had almost been killed.

She looked in the glass at the thickest scar, the knife wound in her stomach which still pulled on cold nights, even though it was completely healed. She ran her finger along the smooth line and sucked in her breath, wondering what on earth Sally could have to do with him...

She called him Dragon. She didn't know who he was, just that he was powerful and political and impossible to touch. He had people everywhere, he was one of the reasons she had to hide her identity.

He had known she wouldn't die. His man – she strongly suspected it had been the same man who had just been in her room – had told her...

She was in a dark cellar, she had been there for days. Her hands were tied above her head, they had taken her clothes, she was starving, dirty, and sure she was going to die. He came in every hour or so, the masked man. He asked her what she knew about his employer. She didn't say a word. She knew they were responsible for the death of her mother and she might just be nineteen, little more than a child, but she would not let them win.

He came in again, bringing as he always did the stub of a candle which lit the room enough for him to see where to hit her. She forced herself to look for something to hold on to, a ray of hope... He kept his mask on and did not reveal his identity – if he planned to kill her, there would be no need for the mask.

"Hello, My Lady," he said smoothly. She noticed he held a cup. Water. Her eyes widened and she instinctively lunged towards him. He chuckled and took a rag from his pocket. He dipped it in the water, which now saw was steaming hot, and approached her. He knelt in front of her; she was kneeling on the floor, resting as much as the chain from the ceiling attached to her wrists would allow.

He pressed the rag to the skin of her stomach, washing her. It was hot, burning hot, and tears glistened in her eyes. Then he took the rag away.

"Now," he told her. "We are going to let you go. But you are going to stop. You are going to accept your mother's death, which was regrettable, and in time, probably about a year, you will be able to get on with your life."

She didn't understand, but her head was spinning from lack of food and water anyway. He pulled out his sword.

"I am not going to kill you," he told her. He whistled and another masked man came in. "This is a doctor, the best in the city." The doctor was holding a gas lamp which showed the other side of the room to be much cleaner. There was a table. Kate strained to see but her eyelids were heavy and she couldn't make out much else.

Her captor was still kneeling in front of her. He stroked her jaw gently.

"This is going to hurt," he told her. "And that is the idea. It will be agony. For months. You won't be able to move. You will hardly be able to breathe. But you're strong, you will survive. You'll be able to feel it though. I was cut this way, once. It was in a battle – I was lucky to live. But you never forget, the cold steel sliding into your flesh like butter as every nerve in your body screams for some release from pain worse than death. What I am about to do will mark you for life. And it will stop you. Because you will realise, in the end, that you want to live, but that you only live because we let you."

Kate struggled against her chains, a new wave of energy buzzing through her because she had to get out!

"Why not just kill me?" she asked, after he had watched her for a while.

"Because my employer is not an evil man, Katherine. He did not want to kill your mother and he does not want to kill you. You are young – you must be punished, your ways corrected – but you deserve a chance."

"I don't want his chance," Kate growled.

"You have no choice," he said softly. "Think about life," he advised. "Before you fall unconscious, which may take almost an hour, think about this life which my employer is so graciously giving you, and think about how thankful you can be that you will have a life, and how foolish it would be not to obey."

His words were somehow more terrifying than his sword. He gave a shout and two more masked men came in and took hold of her; she screamed and writhed but they soon overpowered her and pinned her completely still. The first man undid her chains. He held his sword over the candle to sterilise it, then waited for it to cool.

"Be grateful, Lady Beckett," he said, then, with absolute precision, thrust the blade into her stomach. Her scream pierced the air, as sharp as the sword that had cut her. She screamed until her lungs were empty, which did not take long. This must be what death felt like. She wished for death, though. She vaguely noticed them lifting her onto the table and felt the doctor press something to the cut before she lost consciousness – but even then, the pain didn't stop.

Kate rubbed the scar. She told herself firmly that the only pain she had now was in her head.

"So what does Sally have to do with it?" she asked out loud. She had a horrible feeling that she could guess – and that it had something to do with Sally's baby. Her 'dragon' and his 'friends' liked women, young, pretty women, just as a lot of men did. Perhaps the Dragon wasn't truly evil himself, but from her research she was fairly sure he used women to keep in favour with other people. Sally must have been caught up in it somehow.

She didn't know what to do. They had to be watching Sally – how else would they know she had been looking after her? But... their concern meant that Sally knew something. But if Sally knew something she would be dead. Unless... Unless Sally was like her. She had been threatened into not talking. They had let her go, thinking, as they had done with Kate, that she wouldn't be a threat... but they knew that Kate wanted revenge and that she might be able to get something out of Sally that no one else would be able to.

So what could she do? She had to help. Sally was sick. And she had to find them. The fact that the Dragon was worried enough to send her a note meant that there was a real chance. Sally was a real chance, she knew something real, something important. Kate might finally be able to bring them to justice...

She stopped herself. She was thinking about risking a fifteen year old girl, a pregnant, abused, fifteen year old girl to get justice for herself.

It wasn't that simple, of course. She might save dozens, hundreds of people even. But she didn't know if she could do it – or rather, she knew that she could. She wanted to. But she didn't know if it would be right.


Richard was awoken far too early in the morning by a tapping on the bedroom window. His first thought was that it would be Kate – but how could she do something like that after their talk the night before? He scrabbled around as the window began to open, grabbing his candle holder to use as a weapon, and wishing he was wearing something more than... nothing.

"Kate!" he gasped as she slipped through the blinds. She had to laugh, despite her worry, at the similarity of his situation to the one she had been in earlier.

"Sorry," she said through a giggle. She sobered up quickly, though. "I have to ask you about something."

"And it couldn't wait?"

"No," she said shortly. He pulled on some underwear and sat down on the bed, looking at her expectantly. She began to explain, leaving out the part about her imprisonment and injury. She simply told him that she had been threatened to leave it alone and she had, but that was largely because she'd had no information anyway.

"I was so young, Castle, and so scared. I didn't know what to do... So I decided to find away to help other people. I trained myself, I went abroad and trained more, and I came back here to protect people so they didn't end up like my mother. But... He's done so much wrong, him and everyone around him. I can't use Sally, it would be wrong – but she's in danger anyway, and stopping him would save and bring justice to so many people... not just me."

Richard listened to everything she said, and immediately understood her dilemma.

"I don't even know if she's okay now," Kate said. "I mean, Charlie would have got a message to me... unless something happened to him! I put him in danger too and he really is just a child, just a little boy..."

Richard took her hand. She bit her lip.

"I'm so sorry to bother you so early-"

"Don't apologise," he told her firmly. "I'm glad you came to me. Now, just relax a little. We'll work out what to do."

Kate nodded. "Charlie," she said after a moment. "I have to get a message to him. So I have to see the other children."

She looked outside. It was getting light. She would have to go as Lady Sara.

"Can I borrow a dress?" she asked.

In half an hour, Kate was ready to go. Alexis, woken up to find clothes, insisted on going with her.

"It'll be more convincing – people doing charity work always go in twos," she said. Kate frowned but admitted that Alexis was right. They would be far less conspicuous together – 2 philanthropic ladies feeding hungry children. Richard couldn't go; he understood but wished there was something he could do. Kate handed him the box, the one she kept the rings in. She had brought it with her.

"Read the papers in there. Since you know... you might as well have read the documents."

He nodded. Kate regretting giving it to him almost immediately. She was sure it would have the same effect on him, on what he thought of her, as Pandora's box had had on the world.


A/N: Happy Castle Monday folks! I hope you liked the chapter and please review! And Serena... if you unfollow me they will NEVER have sex again. #TwoCanPlayAtTheBlackmailGame. Also, bribery - if you review, I feel more inspired to write scenes of a 'lovely' nature...