A Cat Called Kat

Chapter Nine - The Traitor

After about ten minutes, Caroline opened the door again and kind of silently invited me inside. Then she closed it firmly behind me.

And I had a bit of a surprise when I walked into that oh so familiar room. One entire wall had been swung around like a cupboard door to reveal a staggering array of torture equipment ranging from modern high-tech stuff to the medieval.

And when I saw this, I suddenly realised something. I mean... Mr Bossy had been pretty angry with me when they'd brought me back here that first terrible night after my stupid betrayal thing but, by his standards, he was still being kind and gentle.

Just opening that door would have been way, way too much for me.

Then my eye was drawn to the traitor in the middle of the room. She was naked except for a gag and blindfold and she was stretched out backwards over something that looked like a vaulting horse. She'd had buckets of cold water thrown over her and was trembling violently though, I suspect, not just from the cold. Caroline was holding something that looked rather like a cattle prod and I got the impression that she'd spent most of the last ten minutes using it on her victim.

And I realised that, by keeping me outside, they were obeying Mr Bossy's unspoken commands. He was never going to let his kitten have anything to do with torture.

Then Caroline gave Elroy a nod and he removed her gag.

"Who are you?" Mary asked. I could hear she was close to hysteria. "What do you want from me?"

"We are representatives of Anthony," Caroline informed her in this quiet, controlled voice that must have been so much more terrifying than anger would have been. "And we're here to torture you to death. That's what happens to traitors, isn't it?"

"But Anthony's dead," she gasped.

"No, he's not. He was wounded in the first wave of the attack on the Villa but he is currently recovering. And, what is more, even if you had succeeded in killing him, I'd still be torturing you to death. My loyalty to him goes beyond the grave."

I gave Caroline a bit of a look when she said that.

"But..." Mary began but she was interrupted by Caroline applying the cattle prod thing to her stomach. She jerked violently and screamed then lay there panting.

"You don't speak except to answer questions," Caroline went on as if nothing had happened. "All you get to decide is how quickly or slowly you die. Fortunately for you, we only have about fifty hours before you are missed..." She paused for a moment to let her victim think about this. "Unfortunately for you, I'm very good at this and those fifty hours are going to seem very, very much longer."

She gave her victim a few seconds to think about this then asked. "So, why did you do it?"

"Do what?" the traitor asked but then she screamed and jerked violently as the prod was applied to one of her breasts.

"Why did I betray Anthony?" she guessed, still gasping. "Because he never gave me the respect I deserve... just because I was a woman... every time a seat on the board came up, he passed me over... even though I worked so much harder than the men who were promoted over me."

"Not that it matters any more," Caroline told her. "but, for your information, Anthony didn't pass you over because you are a woman. He passed over you because he didn't trust your judgement... or your loyalty. And, by the look of things, he was right on both counts, wasn't he? I can all but guarantee that he doesn't even think of you as a woman."

"I know that he..." the traitor exploded but then she suddenly stopped talking.

"What do you know?" Caroline asked gently. She began to tease one of her victim's nipples with her cattle prod but I guess this time the thing must have been switched off because it didn't give her a jolt.