Instead, I roll away and get to my feet, shaking my wrist. “Where the fuck did you learn that?”
“Tamura-sensei,” Kat says simply. “I learned from him after my foster mother got done teaching me what she knew. He taught me aikijujutsu.”
I look around and really look at the loft that Kat's living in. To be honest, calling it Spartan would be an insult to the Spartans. Her bed looks like it's some kind of reject from a military surplus store with only a thin mattress on top of the cheap metal frame. My eyes drift over to a cheap Formica dresser that looks like it doubles as one of her tables, then to a couple of wooden folding chairs. Her kitchen... well, I've seen office break rooms better equipped. A hotplate, a mini fridge, a cheap sink with a single cupboard above it... I don't even see a shower, although most of the loft is dimly lit, so I guess it could be on the far side of this huge space. “Love the decoration style. What do you call it? Goodwill Chic? Haute Homeless?”
“I call it functional,” she replies, coming around and pulling two jelly jars down from the cupboard and running the water until it's obviously cool to her touch before she fills them both up. “Vengeance isn't a well-paying job.”
“Yeah, about that,” I say, sitting down in the folding chair that looks slightly stronger than the other. I notice that she's got a computer in the corner on a table that looks strong, if a little cheap. Like one of those all-plastic office desks you can get at Wal-Mart for about thirty bucks. The computer, though... damn. I don't know a lot about computers, but any computer that's running an actual antifreeze-based cooling system and pump has to be some serious shit.
“You use that thing to help set up your little stunt on me?” I ask, taking a sip. The water's not the greatest I've ever tasted, since it's unfiltered city water, but at least it's cool. “That shit'll give you cancer.”
“Not worried about cancer,” Kat says, taking a seat in the other chair. I get a better look at her, and my cock twitches in my slacks again. Jesus, she's fucking sexy when she's angry. Her eyes are sparkling with an inner fire, and the way her body's put together, she's built like a cat, all feminine curves and deadly sleekness.
“You... Katrina, what the hell were you doing, pulling that stunt in the limo? I mean, in the past few days, I've learned a lot about why you might want to be pissed at Pops, but why'd you have to do that to me?”
“You think what you've been through the past few days is hard?” Kat spits, angry again. “You didn't have to go through what I did! Try three foster homes in six months! You try finding out that your best friend's father ordered the car bomb that blew up your parents! You try watching as your parents are turned into a fucking fireball!”
She's on her feet, yelling at me, her chest heaving and her forearms bunched. I'm kinda glad she left her glass on the floor by her feet. I think she might be able to crush that jar in her fist the way her muscles are flexing. My cock twitches again, but I tell it to shut the fuck up. I'm pissed off too, and I'm on my feet before I know it. “That doesn't mean you go and humiliate me! Hell, I barely talked Nathan out of killing you and giving me your address instead!”
“Killing me? I don't fucking care if I die,” Kat responds, stepping back and turning around. “If I can take down your father, I don't care if my next home is six feet under. After what I've been through the past ten years, death would be a vacation.”
Her words chill me to the bone, and my anger dissolves, at least temporarily. Instead, I back up, away from the chair. “Kat... Katrina. Whatever you want to be called right now. Tell me what you know.”
She turns back around, and I see a hint of humanity in her face, and not just the enraged warrior I'd been looking at most of the time since I walked in the door. “You really want to know?”
I nod and sit down on the wood floor. “Yeah, I do. If it makes you feel better about it, you can get your gun and keep it on me. For the first time in my life, I want to know the truth.”
After a moment, Kat nods and comes over close to me before sitting down. The way she sits hikes up one of the legs of her martial arts pants, and her calf is just a foot away from my hand. It's defined, and perfect, and oh my holy God so sexy. I start to reach out, but stop. Kat notices, and gives me a little nod of appreciation for my restraint. “So what do you want to know?”
“Why didn't you reach out to me before? All I knew was that you'd left school, and that one day you just dropped off the face of the earth. I didn't even know your parents were dead until months later.”