Undercover Badge; Next Generation

Chapter thirty seven

*Unedited; forgive grammar and spelling errors for the time being.

CHAPTER 37

I remembered being carried in the arms of someone running.

The jarring motion made my head whip and my hair fly and blurred my already blurred vision and my head hurt. The fire had filled my lungs and throat and stung my eyes while my home burned down around me. I was hiding in the wardrobe- My mother's. Her clothes were soft and cool against my hot stinging flesh, all cool silks and soft cashmere and fine cotton. My mom was a lady, a real lady. Delicate and sweet. My mom was a blonde haired English rose.

James was running me away from the building, and I kept reaching back for my home. For my mom.

A flashing image. My mother, engaged in a fight with a large man while red flame reached burning fingers from the floor to the ceiling across the walls. Her yelling at me to run. "Katherine, Go! I'll be right behind you, Darling." But she wasn't.

I was little enough to have to wrap both arms and my legs around James' large frame; he was always so big and tall and I loved it when he carried me. My hair continued to fly in the night's wind and I could see the stars. At least, I could see the ones that weren't hidden by the thick black smoke.

"Get her out!" Kat screamed at the top of her lungs. I turned to stare.

She was tall and thin and beautiful but not so much in this moment, dressed simply in dark jeans and a white t-shirt that was smeared in blood and soot, one side of her face pinked in what looked like a sear mark. She was in the building. I'd wondered why Kat would run into the building when James and I were safe because I'd thought we were her family. We weren't. Amy, my mom, was still in there, fighting the man. Where was my father?

Kat caught up to James, took me and held me up with hands covered up to her elbows in drying blood, her fingernails caked with mud and blackened soot and dirt. She pressed me to her chest and I caught a face full of hair that smelled like fierceness and strength but also singe and smoke. It didn't smell comforting anymore. Her shoulders were shaking and her voice was thin and she was sobbing and now I understand why. My mom was in a building burning to the ground.

So I hugged her neck and pressed my face to her collarbone. I was wondering where my mother was. Wasn't she coming for me?

A pale pink blanket being tucked around me by my mother. A book with a fairy tale princess and a unicorn on the cover. A soft little plush rabbit with blue fur and red spots handed to me by a pale hand. I hadn't been missing silly toys. I'd been missing the mother that handed them to me.

Darkness, and then I woke again in the helicopter. It was so loud and so cold and Kat was crying. "I'm sorry baby, I'm so, so sorry. Oh my God, I'm so sorry baby-" James's eyes were midnight blue behind the tears I could see brewing there.

"We need to keep her safe." She pulled me to her chest and hugged me so close. Something was wrong. I tried to ask where my mom and dad were.

"It's okay, Baby. Here, okay?" she set me back down and took the emerald necklace out of her collar. She put it on me and it felt ridiculous, the long chain surpassing my navel.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? If they find her-" James started.

"They won't." she cut him off. "They won't ever find her. Not while I'm alive. They won't." she sounded desperate, her face dark. She said; "Everything's gonna be all right baby, we've got you." but my voice was shrill and stubborn when I demanded "Where's mommy and daddy?"