Hunted Predators✔️

Chapter Twenty-three

Katherine Cruz looks as if she was pulled out of a painting. She stands on the ledge of a fifty story building, her short hair whipping across her face, her dress billowing around her legs in the wind, her face serene.

She stares at the city without looking at it, her eyes blank and void like a corpse. Closing her eyes, Katherine raises to the tips of her toes, her forehead scrunching as she leans forward.

"Hey!"

Katherine opens her eyes.

"Hey, lady! Please. Look at me."

Katherine turns around to find a teenage boy standing behind her. For a moment, the boy just stares.

Rolling her eyes, Katherine turns back around, facing the city. With that, the boy snaps out of his stupor. He grabs Katherine by the waist, picking her off the ledge. Katherine raises her eyebrows. "Surprisingly strong for a scrawny white boy."

The boy grins.

Katherine makes a face. "Allright, set me down."

"Why? Afraid I'll bite?"

At Katherine's glare, he sets her down. "I'm Ethan."

Katherine crosses her arms over her chest.

"Hey, do you want to get out of here?"

"What?"

"Do you want to get-"

"No, I heard you. Just- you don't even know me."

"That's why I asked you out. To get to know you."

"I wasn't on the roof because I liked the view, you know."

"I know."

Katherine looks away, fed up and amused all at once.

"Look, I can't just walk away from you."

"Why not?"

"Come on. Come with me. It has to be better than standing on this roof top."

Surprising them both, Katherine cuts him some slack and takes his hand.

Maybe following Ethan is going to be another great mistake, but at the moment, Katherine doesn't particularly care. He's right. Almost anything's better than standing on that roof.

"An ice cream shop? Really?"

Katherine stares at the shop before her, her nose wrinkled.

"They have the best chocolate milkshakes in the whole city, baby. C'mon, let's get a table."

Katherine and Ethan sit across from each other in a booth, sipping on chocolate milkshakes. Well, Ethan is. Katherine is putting her lips around the straw, pretending to suck every now and then. Ethan looks up from his milkshake. "So, who are you?"

"Kaaah- sitting."

"Cassidy?"

"Yup."

"Okay, that's your name, but what's your story?"

Katherine blinks. "Oh, look at that!" She points behind Ethan at random. He cranes his neck, turning around, and his eyes fix on the large bulletin board by the entrance of the store. More specifically, the flyers.

The group of bright red flyers stapled over all the other advertisements are hard to miss. 'Help put an end to the killers', Katherine reads, 'Join us in a protest for the passage of the Grimson Act, a law to put away vampires before they kill us all.'

"Oh." Katherine raises her eyebrows. "Better clear my schedule. Looks like I've got an awesome way to spend my next Friday."

"I dunno, I feel kind of bad for her."

Katherine keeps looking, finding two pictures of herself next to the text. On one, there's Katherine smiling for a picture in the yearbook. The other is of Katherine in the courtroom, with blood streaking down her chin and her whole body drawn and shadowed from hunger. "It's like a nicotine ad," Katherine remarks. "A cautionary tale of the model student turned feral beast."

"Yeah, it's like the media only have two pictures. I bet she freaks the poparazzi out too much to be taking pictures."

"Mm-hm."

"You kind of look like her."

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I mean, like the picture on the left. If you had longer hair and-"

Katherine stands up. "Well this has been so much fun."

"Wait- you've barely drank any."

"I have to get going."

"Wait, Cassidy-"

"Can't," she says. "I've got a meeting."

She wasn't lying.

An older woman glares at Katherine as she walks into the apartment. "Sorry, Tía Helena," Katherine mumbles. The woman ushers Katherine in, never breaking her glare.

"Hello." The woman waiting for them on the sofa smiles and offers Helena her hand. "I'm Anna Polanski. I'll get the paperwork together, and then we'll get started working in Katherine's case."

As Anna digs through her purse, Helena wrings her hands together, glancing at the door like the cops were going to bust through at any moment. "Are you sure they're fine with you skipping school today?"

"I think my trial is more important than learning what the powerhouse of the cell is."

"Fine, Katherine." Helena's lips press into a line.

"Before we get started," Anna says. "I just want to go over a few things. Please be sure to keep a low profile. If you give any one a second reason to look at you, it could not only impact the out come of the trial, but also give the a reason to force you back into the Wellness Institution to await the final days of your trial."

"They're not going to do to that."

"Don't overlook the government's generosity-" Helena says.

"They only let me free because they'd rather I have a few days worth of their Institution's secrets rather than a few months. Either that, or they're hoping I screw up and kill someone so they don't look like complete jackasses."

The two women stare at Katherine. Katherine blinks, blushing. She unclenches her hands, smoothing them out on her thighs. "Alright," Anna says. "On to the next issue. Katherine, I think your best option is to fight the charges, head on."

"What about a plead deal?" Katherine asks.

"They're not offering any. I also tried to bargain with a plead of insanity, but the offense is declaring insanity a result of you being a vampire, and use it as an argument to put you down."

"Put me down? Like I'm a dog?"

"That'd be their argument."

Katherine swallows. "If I fight this head on, then I'm going to loose."

Anna doesn't quite meet her eyes. "Let's start with possible defensive arguments."