Chapter 7 Part 1.1

May 2th 2508

ETA 91 Days

"I will kill them." Kate grunted unable contain her heavy breathing or her wide-eyed panic. Then she swung into Griff, embracing him in a hug. She squeezed him so hard he struggled against her iron grip.

Kate was bigger faster and running on far more adrenaline, swallowing up his movements with ease. She took a quivering breath.

Then a thought hit.

Phobia! Fear! Kate remembered the stories, the faces of those who had come back from the impossible. Mother's friends who'd needed to have their minds reset, and fried, having to say goodbye to the people they were.

Griff needed to be calmed down, that could not happen to him!

But…

No one was trying to kill them. There were no monsters or guns. She could turn it around. Maybe make a game out of it. Yes!

Kate had to concentrate on the only real person in the room, all else was reduced to just a figment of her imagination.

She'd buried her face into his, rubbing noses and pecking him all over with kisses.

Finally, she took a slow, long, quivering, exhausted breath in and sucked in the pain before blowing it out into the boy's face as if she were trying to blow dry his soul with a spell.

Then Kate grinned and shoved up Griff's head by the cheeks with brutal force, one would have thought she were trying to snap his neck. All to ensure that he was staring right into her eyes, but hers bounced around then finally focused on his and she grinned. Laughing out loud.

Eventually, she pinched his cheeks to snap him back to reality, as his gaze was clearly lost, but Kate just kept laughing.

"That was the scariest thing we've done!" Kate said with a near hysterical laugh. "You were in a hurricane! You stood in the middle of the eye of the wind gods and you survived."

"What are you talking about?" Said Young Striker.

Kate, remembering the room had three humans, pulled Griff's face to her neck, wrapping him as if blocking him from an explosion. She turned to Young Striker.

Now…

Kate knew she was scowling, viciously, monstrously! But the reality must've been far worse than she realized because he literally retreated a step. One would have thought there was a panther right behind her eyeballs, challenging him.

"I'm talking about the win we just got." She said.

"Oh yes, you were amazing." He said, struggling to play along.

She was being so rough! But how else could she be sure what she was saying would sink in, and it had to. There wasn't room to ask, or guess.

She roughly flipped Griff around, who still shivered. They were eye to eye, grinning like maniacs, leaving no room to move.

"Do you understand Griff? You were bad ass. You did something insane and dangerous. You challenged yourself and won! Challengers are the winners. Mother is the same. The things Mother does are dangerous too. Afterall mom was a soldier. And you just did it too. You won,"

Kate choked up, the need to weep starting to spill over. She hugged and lifted him, carrying him awkwardly like a hundred-pound bag of dog food. He didn't even resist.

"The strong are powerful. The strong are brave and the strong deserve to rule the world. Some idiot thought we were weak. They tried to test us and we easily made it. Let's see how they make it when we give them a taste."

"Katerina?" stuttered the Frenchman.

"What is it?" Kate snapped.

"Can I speak?"

"Aren't we speaking right now?"

"Alone."

"This is as alone as I am willing to be. What?"

He hesitated. She sighed.

"Griff, stay in my sight and don't go far." She warned. "I need you to look through all that stuff. I'm going to be saying a bunch of things that will get me into trouble." Kate pulled him in rather conspiratorially. "I want you to be able to deny what'll be said. Find plugs, then we can sync them."