The Devil on Kazoo

26: The Ones Who Stay

"I told him I'm in no hurry
But if I broke her heart
Then won't you tell her I'm sorry
And for once in my life I'm alone
And I've got to let her know just in time before I go"

~"I've Gotta Get a Message to You" by the Bee Gees

Kathy hadn't spoken a word since the news.

The walk from The Big Man's office back to Wolgemoth was a miserable blur. All Kathy could see was Bash walking away.

As Smiley raged against both his former employer and his brother and Syl tried desperately to be the voice of reason, Kathy only shrunk. She felt her body become a shell and everything else inside shrivel like a dried sponge.

It was as if she were slowly devolving into the little girl she used to be. All the old fears, all the bad memories, all the timidity flooded back as Kathy faced what she feared most.

Losing the radio was bad enough. But what if that meant losing the Crumbs as well?

It was so unlike Bash to abandon anyone, much less the Crumbs, that none of them knew what to do. They were lost without their leader. And of all times, this was when they needed him most.

Kathy lowered herself onto her bed, her heart pounding.

She heard Smiley let out a furious yell in the room next to her, then something crashed and shattered against the far wall.

Kathy flinched at the sound with a sharp inhale.

Then she couldn't breathe.

It felt as if a boulder had been placed on her chest, suffocating her until it was all she could do to gasp for breath.

We've lost the station, we've lost the station...

It was almost a euphemism for what they'd truly lost: everything.

Nightmare after nightmare replayed in Kathy's mind of the day her family left her.

That day, she hadn't known what was happening until she'd tried to follow her mother back through the door of her uncle's pub.

Her mother had gripped her shoulder–not in a gentle, maternal way, but in the way a prison guard would halt an inmate from going forward–and looked, unwavering, in Kathy's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Katherine. There are too many mouths to feed."

Kathy hadn't gone quietly into her new life. She had run after the cab, screaming at the top of her lungs for them to come back as if it was simply because her parents couldn't hear her that they didn't turn around.

Kathy felt it again, now. That desperation. That feeling of being trapped with nowhere to go. She'd always been the least of all the Crumbs, hadn't she? The last one added. The one who had decided to date the enemy.

If any Crumb were to be abandoned, logically, it would have to be her.

Kathy gasped for breath, her hands clammy and cold. Her heart pounded so fast she was almost sure it would leap out of her chest altogether.

Syl slid the curtain back, her eyes wide. "Kath, what's wrong? Are you alright?"

Syl rushed to Kathy's side, trying to envelop her in a hug, but Kathy batted her arms away.