Serve and Protect

Chapter 38

[CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains scenes depicting police activity, panic attacks, and drug (mis)use. Reader discretion is advised. Please see the bottom of the chapter for specific content details.]

Catra hadn't slept in days.

Exactly how many days, she couldn't be sure. After a while the sunsets and sunrises all started to blend together. But there was so much work to do. Catra couldn't have slept if she wanted to.

So maybe it was a good thing that the nightmares had gotten worse. It seemed like every time she dozed off, Catra found herself back in a moment she wished she could forget. Face down on a crate as Shadow Weaver's switch bit into her skin. Fighting for her life in a cheap motel room. Watching helplessly as the girl she loved abandoned her again and again, like a shitty song stuck on repeat. Catra couldn't understand why her mind insisted on bringing her worst days back to her. Then again, it's not like she had a lot of good memories to choose from instead. Maybe her subconscious was just working with what it had.

Sleep had become the enemy just as Catra's grand plan started to take off. As expected, it hadn't taken long for people to realize the Runestone they were used to just wasn't cutting it anymore. Using The Crimson Waste to move Robots to higher-paying customers had been a stroke of genius. The Horde was back in business in a very big way.

All of this should have been a good thing. Catra had delivered exactly what she'd promised. And yet, it never seemed to be enough. Nearly every day she was fielding calls from Prime demanding more. At this point, just the sensation of her phone vibrating in her pocket was enough to send Catra's anxiety skyrocketing. She'd had to talk herself out of chucking her expensive electronic tether into the river more than once.

At this point, the only thing that brought any comfort at all were those little magenta pills.

It was Robots that helped sustain Catra through the long, sleepless nights.

It was Robots that gave her the stamina to keep pushing through the stress of Prime's endless demands.

And it was Robots that lied to her, whispering sweetly that everything was going to be okay.

It was Robots that occupied Catra's mind late one Saturday night as she paced in her apartment alone. She was getting used to spending what little free time she had that way, holed up by herself with nothing but her thoughts for company.

Things between her and Scorpia had been strained since their first visit to the Crimson Waste. Scorpia's usual bubbliness had been replaced by something distant and wary. Now, instead of greeting Catra with a dazzling grin, Scorpia's lips only twitched into an unconvincing half-smile. Her gaze seemed to waver between cautious and pity, and Catra couldn't stand it.

Still, Catra caught herself reaching for her phone, intending to text Scorpia and see what she was up to. She was surprised to find herself longing for those nights back at the old hotel, when she and Scorpia wrapped up a shift and returned to her tiny room to gorge on Chinese take-out and get drunk on cheap beer. It all felt like a lifetime ago now. Catra gave her head a shake and pulled her hand back. She didn't need Scorpia's pity, and Scorpia didn't need to share in the hellish burden that Catra's life had become.

Alone and feeling sorry for herself, Catra was about to get high when her phone buzzed.

"Can't I get one fucking night off?" she grumbled as she fished it out of her jeans, fully expecting to see UNKNOWN CALLER flashing on the screen - a sure sign that Prime was waiting on the other end of the line. Instead, she was met with a photo of Double Trouble blowing a kiss. They'd assigned it to their contact details when Catra asked them to save their number in her phone. She blinked down at the picture, confused. The two of them had texted before, but they'd never called one another.