Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Fear the Quintet ❯ The Caves ( Chapter 9 )

Hoorah for character development!

Computers.

Kitty was good at them.

She was so good, in fact, that she had been selected to code a section of her school website, much to the dismay of her friends and to the amusement of the others.

“You geek,” they would snort. Kitty didn't care. Kitty never cared, because she liked what she liked, and didn't really mind if nobody else agreed. She had her boys to talk to about things like this. Things like her pokemon obsession or her aptitude for HTML.

Unfortunately, most of Kitty's good friends were boys, and she went to an all-girls' school. This provided much difficulty for her; who would she talk to if something awesome popped into her head, like wondering who would win in a fight between a surd and pi?

Obviously, it would be pi. I mean, come on, how much win can you have in one number?

These were the kinds of things she had trained herself not to say to any other living being. It was for the best, really.

But it was bloody boring.

So why now was she sitting, bored as hell, in a pokemon centre with seven boys and a computer and wishing to high heaven that she were anywhere else in the world? It should have been a dream come true to her. It wasn't. It was just boring.

“Try that, try that,” one of them suggested, poking at the screen.

“No, cos that's blocking it,” another shook his head.

“Click on that and copy this bit,” yet another ordered. Fred struggled to keep up with these demands.

“Not there, you idiot.”

“Click on that!”

“You doughnut.”

Kitty sighed and propped her head on her arms.

“Are you nearly finished?” she asked loudly. They obviously did not hear her, but she didn't feel like asking again. They were trying to transfer the data from the badge onto the rest of their IDs, but it wouldn't work as it had already gone onto one ID or something, so instead they were transferring it from one ID to the others. It was more complicated than it sounded, Kitty was sure.

Which was annoying, because it already sounded pretty complicated to her.

She didn't like to be confused, and she knew she wouldn't be much help, and she was extremely bored, so she stood up and left. She doubted any of them had even noticed.

“Right, Brevis Village,” she said to Rocky who trotted at her side. “We have what seems like quite a lot of money. What shall we do?”

“Vee,” Rocky suggested.

“We could, we could.” Kitty nodded. “Or we could get something to eat.”

“Eevee!”

“I know; I have the best ideas.”

They wandered around for a bit until they found a café. The same one they had been in the other day. Or was it only yesterday? Wow, it seemed like they had already been here for so long.

“What would you like?” the waitress asked as soon as she was seated.

“Something expensive,” Kitty said with a polite smile. The waitress winked and went away.

“So what should I catch next, Rocky?” she asked her Eevee who was sunbathing in the pool of light streaming through a window.

“Eevee,” he replied.

“I dunno, Eevee are quite rare,” Kitty said, thinking seriously. “What else?”

“Eevee,” he yipped, stirring slightly.

“I already said no!” Kitty said impatiently. “How about a…” She thought about it, “Happiny! Actually, they're really rare too.”

“Eevee,” Rocky said.

“You are impossible,” Kitty sighed.

“Hey…” someone said in front of her. She looked up to see Matthew navigating his way around the tables to join her. Rocky scampered out of the way of his clumsy approaching shoe.

“Hey, are they finished?”

“Nope, they're arguing about something beginning with `trans…', so I left. They didn't even notice.” He smirked.

“Ha,” Kitty replied cleverly.

The waitress arrived with what looked sickeningly like a Corphish on a huge plate and set it down in front of her.

“Uh…” Kitty began. Matthew went a little pale. “Is that a pokemon?”

“Of course, it's a freshly caught Corphish,” the waitress said, a little confused. “Prepared just this minute!”

“You eat pokemon?” Matthew asked her rather bluntly.

“Um,” the waitress began, but Kitty came to the rescue.

“Thank you, and can we have a Coke each please?”

“What's a Coke?”

Oh, God.

“A lemonade?” Matthew suggested instead.

“Sure, one moment.” And she was off again.

Kitty stared at the large cooked lobster creature in front of her. If she had no objections to eating animals - actually that wasn't true; she had been a vegetarian for two years - then why should she have a problem with eating a pokemon? She gingerly picked up the oddly shaped fork and prodded it. It rocked. The shell was hard as steel.

“You gonna eat that?” Matt asked brightly. Kitty raised her eyebrows a little but then dropped the fork and shoved the plate over to him.

“Go to town,” she muttered, and her eyes trailed back to the window. She wasn't even hungry.

Eventually the waitress arrived with their drinks and a complimentary bowl of water for Rocky, which made her smile. Matthew reached over and poked her on the arm and she shuddered involuntarily. His brow twitched and he withdrew his hand. She smiled at him.

How on earth could she explain why she didn't want him touching her? She couldn't, simple as that.

Or could she?

If she admitted what she had been having weird dreams about him, maybe he would understand and leave her alone. Maybe he wouldn't speak to her more than he had to and would definitely never ever lay one finger on her ever again.

But what if he…

She shook her head violently and realised that her sudden movement had alarmed him slightly, enough for him to raise his head from the boiled carcass of a lovable children's cartoon character.

“You alright? You look a bit dopy.”

She sighed and put her chin in her hands.

“How many girlfriends have you had?” she asked. She felt as if it was something she ought to know.

Matthew looked at the ceiling for a second, then back to her. “Four.”

“So have you ever been in love?”

He smirked and shook his head, lifting the fork back to his mouth. She didn't know if he was saying no, or if he was just laughing at her question.

“Haven't you?” she pressed.

He looked at her again, and then his eyes faltered, if only for a second, and he said something that she knew would haunt her dreams every night for at least another week.

“Not with any of them.”

She couldn't speak for a moment. It didn't mean anything. Why did she care? What about Scott? She chewed her lip for a second. She couldn't leave it at that or he would start asking her why she cared all of a sudden.

“How far have you gone?” She made an attempt at a coy smile but assumed that probably made her look a bit like stalkerish and dropped it. He didn't answer straight away so she felt the need to validate the question. “I just realised I knew practically nothing about you.”

Which was true.

He laughed at her again and dropped the fork, lifting his arms up and clasping his hands together behind his head.

“I don't want to talk about that with you.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he replied, as if that answered everything. There was a strange look in his eyes but it changed back to normal so quickly she thought he was probably putting it on.

“Well now I really want to know. Tell me.”

“No.”

“It's because it's nothing, isn't it?” she pressed, smiling wider.

“Ah, you wish,” he said happily. “You like innocence. That's why you chose Scott.” He grinned.

“Scott is far from innocent,” she retorted without thinking. Matthew feigned disgust. “Tell me. I won't tell anyone that you haven't gone further than a friendly hello hug.”

“It might ruin our friendship,” he said seriously, although she knew he was joking.

“Oh, come on, we're not even that good friends,” she snapped.

The hurt in his eyes was real.

But it faded.

“Then I don't see why I should tell you,” he said slowly, and then started eating again. Kitty was stunned into silence by her own words, and by his reaction. Why hadn't he teased her back? Called her ugly or fat or weird or…

Actually, he would never say those things. His teasing was far more subtle and intelligent than blind insults. She sighed.

“How about you?” he finally said. She raised her head, but his was bent over the plate of rapidly disappearing pokemon meat.

“Me what?”

“All of the above.”

“Oh.” She paused for a while. “Two, yes, and not telling.”

He took a moment to remember the questions and then nodded. “Would you have told me the last one if I had told you?”

She thought about it. “No.”

He laughed, but it was slightly less friendly than the other times. “Why not?”

Kitty saw the others leaving the centre behind Matthew through a window. She stood up and picked up Rocky. “Because I, unlike you, am a lady,” she said as haughtily as she could, and left him to his Corphish.

*

The Clearwater Caves were nothing special, much like every other place they had encountered on this strange island. Yes, it was breathtakingly beautiful, but she was a teenager, and she didn't give a damn about that, to be honest.

But she felt as if she should, so she stood on the edge of a cliff, feeling slightly sick with vertigo, and gazing out at the glittering unnatural blue of the endless sea and the softly rippling trees. She sighed, and turned around to face the others.

“Come on, Kitty,” one of them said impatiently.

“I am admiring the view,” she replied, striding towards the entrance of the cave.

“We've all seen the sea before,” Charlie said from somewhere to her right. She frowned at him, although he couldn't see.

“We haven't seen this sea, though.”

“Seen one, seen `em all,” Matthew said. He had, regrettably, left the café and joined them again.

“Shut up, Matt,” she said, without thinking, and they were all inside.

It smelled funny. Like mould and tears.

“Awesome, a Geodude!” Matthew cried within five seconds of entering. Already the lack of light in this cave was beginning to creep Kitty out.

“Matt, that's a rock.”

“What?”

“Nothing, go ahead.”

Kitty squinted around for Scott. She needed somebody's arm to grab onto so she didn't trip over a pebble or something.

She navigated her way through the gloom (not Gloom) to where she thought he was, eavesdropping on the conversations on her way.

“Charlie?” This was Adam's voice.

“Mhm?”

“Can I stick with you through this cave?” He sounded nervous.

“Um…” Charlie seemed a bit suspicious. “Ok?”

“Thanks.” Relief shone in his voice.

Kitty raised her eyebrows to herself. She had totally forgotten Adam's… well, not condition. Or maybe it was a condition. She knew that she alone understood why he wanted to stick with Charlie, and in that moment wished that it could have been her with water pokemon, and not him. Charlie had no urge to protect, nor any sympathy or empathy or anything like that. Not to other boys anyway.

He used to. For her.

*

“Why couldn't daddy come?”

“You know he has to work; stop being a pain.”

“But-“

“Just enjoy the treat, will you? You're seven years old; you don't need your daddy with you all the time. Go play with your friends.” Her mother had a habit of handing her off onto the boys. She went off to talk to Adam and Joe who were playing some strange boy game that she knew they wouldn't let her join in with. She didn't want to, anyway.

“Eurgh, it's Kitty,” Joe said when she navigated her way to the back of the tour bus to them. She gave him a look that made him shut up. He thought he was funny. He was not.

“Hi, Kitty,” Adam said brightly. “Where are we going?”

“We're going to see the animals,” she said. Joe paled, and she happily picked up on it. “You scared?” He clenched his fists.

“Course not. I'm not a big fat girl like you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I hope they eat you.”

*

“Anything you want to catch in the cave?” Scott asked from behind her, making her jump. She wondered how someone so big (tall, not fat, never fat) could sneak up on her without her noticing. To be fair, it was getting darker with every step she took.

“Help!” someone cried from slightly deeper in the cave. “Help me!”

Kitty trotted towards the source of the noise, but tripped over some cracks in the floor and barely managed not to fall flat on her face by doing some sort of intricate dance routine.

“What the hell was that?” Charlie asked, coming up from behind her.

“I think I heard someone call for help-“ Kitty began.

“Not that, the crazy boogie you just did.”

“Oh, I almost-“ Kitty began again.

“HELP ME!” somebody screamed again, this time a little closer.

“Dakota, put your flames up,” Scott ordered. The area around them lit up with a delicate orange light and they could see a slightly overweight man sitting hunched over next to a rock, panting and bright red.

“Um, are you alright?” Kitty asked.

“I've been travelling for days and I can't find my way out!” the man cried, not looking any happier at seeing other people.

“You're in luck,” Matthew announced, arriving just in time. “The exit is right over there.” He pointed a couple of yards behind them at the entrance to the cave.

“Thank you!” The man sprang up and ran to it.

“Ok, you're welcome,” Matthew said into the darkness, and they carried on, but a few seconds later heard a sort of inhuman wailing as the man trudged back to them.

“Couldn't find it?”

“That's the way I came!” he sighed.

“So you've been lost for days only three metres away from where you came in?” Kitty asked. He nodded, lips trembling. “Jesus…”

“Actually, it's Herbert.”

“Ok,” Kitty said. “Um, sorry.”

“I know!” He held a finger in the air. “To cheer me up, why don't you battle me?” He wasn't looking at any of them in particular.

“What type of pokemon do you have?” Charlie asked, readying his Totodile's pokeball.

“Uh, mostly Rock and Ground,” he replied. “Three on three?”

“Alright. I'll battle you,” Charlie said graciously, obviously not thinking it mattered that he only had two. “Go on, Loki!” Orange light burst forth from the pokeball in his hand and the Totodile fell with a wet `splat' on the hard rock floor. It didn't try to get up. “Uh…” Charlie said. “Water Gun?”

Loki leapt up from the floor and shot a devastating amount of water from its tiny mouth straight forward.

“I haven't released anything yet,” Herbert said, a little confused. Loki had returned to its former position of lying on its face. Apparently it had found that quite comfortable.

“Haha!” Charlie said, a little too loudly. “Oh yeah.” They both stood there for a moment. Kitty was a little worried at Loki's motionlessness.

Herbert broke the silence. “Go! Geodude!”

Matthew lit up somewhere in the cave.

“Boooring,” Charlie cried. “Water Gun!”

Loki rolled onto its back and squirted water straight up into the air like a little blue fountain.

“At the Geodude!” Charlie cried some more.

The Totodile's head went at a funny angle and it shot more water into the air. This time the stream arced and smacked the Geodude in the face. It fainted.

“Well that was crap,” Charlie said cheerily. “Next please.”

“Go on, Onix!”

“A bit better, I guess.”

The enormous creature dissolved into the air and roared. A stalactite (or was it a stalagmite?) fell from the roof of the cave and slammed into the floor next to Adam who screamed, literally, and leapt away, slipping on the cold ground and landing on his bum. He carried on scuttling away like a Krabby. Kitty trotted after him and helped him to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his sweating hands.

“Onix, use Dig!”

The huge pile of rocks disappeared into the floor and there was silence, broken only by the Water Gun spilling onto the ground where it had been seconds earlier.

Adam stopped breathing and didn't let go of Kitty's hand. She could almost feel his heartbeat, as though it were pulsing through the damp air of the cave.

The Onix erupted from the ground, catching Loki square in the middle. He flew through the air and Charlie sprinted off to catch him. He returned with an undoubtedly unconscious Totodile and returned him sadly.

Kitty didn't see this. Adam had fallen to his knees once again and it was all she could do not to get dragged down with him. He was still holding onto her. She tried to pull him back to his feet but he mutely refused, his breath sharp and catching in his throat. Nobody else had noticed. That was boys for you. A fight was going on and they would never notice one of their best friends having some kind of serious panic attack.

“It's a pokemon,” she tried to tell him again and again. “It's hardly even real.” It hurt her to say it. “It's trained, and it's different.”

She couldn't be sure if he heard her or not. His hands slipped away from hers and she tried to catch them again but he rested them on his lap. She couldn't see his eyes. His head was bent low and his limbs were spread.

“Adam, please,” she whispered. “Listen to me.”

She couldn't even hear his breathing anymore.

*

Suddenly the bus stopped. Joe jumped out of his seat and pressed his face to the foggy plastic window. “What's happening?” he asked nervously.

Kitty opened her mouth to inform them that it was probably a flat tyre or something, when she saw the pure panic in his face. She smiled. “We're probably being chased,” she said with a simple shrug.

“What?” he breathed.

“By a lion or something. If we stop moving then there's a chance he'll get bored of chasing us and go away.” She bit her lip convincingly. “Unless he's already… smelt us…”

“What do you mean?” he wailed. He wasn't even pretending not to be scared anymore. Adam was busy eating a peanut butter sandwich and was not listening.

“If he's smelt us then there's no use stopping,” she explained. “In fact, he will probably come eat us any second.” He made a little strangled noise.

“What do we do?”

“Just curl up, make no noise, and hope you don't smell strongly.” She wrinkled her nose. “Actually, never mind about the last one.”

His eyelids flickered and he curled up into the foetal position.

“Don't be silly, Joe. She's joking.” Adam had finished his sandwich. Kitty was snorting with silent laughter.

“Your face!” she cried. Joe went bright red with both embarrassment and anger. “You almost wet yourself.”

“No I didn't!” he yelled. “I'm not scared. I was kidding along with you.”

“Alright,” Kitty said. He was a little surprised that she had accepted it so easily but then his face turned back to pure anger and humiliation. “Prove it.”

“What?”

Kitty stood up. People on the tour bus were moving up and down, wondering what had happened to hold up their tour of the beautiful African plains.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm not scared of animals, Joseph. Are you?” she asked, the picture of perfect innocence. He glared at her.

“Of course I'm not. I'm not scared of anything.”

“Well let's get off and walk instead, then,” she said. “We'll get back to camp quicker.”

“What?” he paled again. “Don't be an idiot. They told us not to leave the bus.”

“Scared?”

“No!”

“I'm definitely not. Adam, are you?”

“Of what?”

“Of the big scary animals.”

“I want to stroke a lion.”

“Come on then.” She took him by the hand and led him to the back doors of the tour bus. Joe made a weird strained noise at the back of his throat and followed them. Obviously, Kitty had been joking. She wasn't an idiot. She wasn't going to leave the bus.

“Go on then, get off,” he said. A droplet of sweat had formed on his forehead, but it could just as well have been from the overwhelming heat.

“Ladies first,” Kitty said icily.

He swore at her and yanked the door open. Kitty was a little surprised. Nobody on the bus even noticed. They were too busy freaking out about why they weren't moving.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” the driver said across the intercom. “We will be moving shortly.”

But they didn't hear it, because they were off. Kitty's heart was beating madly, but she didn't let it show. Joe was positively green. Adam had seen a colourful bug and had gone off to inspect it.

“Ok, I proved it, now let's get back on,” Joe said quickly. Kitty agreed.

“Come on, Adam,” she cried. He didn't hear. She went over to him and prodded his arm and he pointed to the bug. It was enormous and disgusting and had too many legs. She squealed and backed away. Joe cried out suddenly and she turned around. There was nothing there. “What is it?”

“They've gone!” he yelled, and started to run. Kitty realised with a jolt that there really was nothing there. The bus had driven off! She grabbed Adam's arm and yanked him after her, and they all started to sprint after the speeding bus.

“This is all your fault,” she growled to Joe.

“How?” he yelled back. She didn't know.

“It's so pretty,” Adam said softly to her left. She looked around to see what he meant. The large insect was crawling over his arm and making its way to her hand. She screamed her lungs out and snatched her hand away, clamping her hands over her head. She hated bugs!

“What now?” Joe asked. The bus had gone, disappeared over the horizon, through the waves of heat.

Kitty shrugged. This was it. They were going to die. They were three small painfully pale children alone in an African plain. She fell to her knees. They had been out there for less than a minute and she already felt faint from the heat.

“Oh, no,” Joe whispered.

“What is it now?” Kitty asked angrily, unsure how this could get any worse.

“There's something moving behind those trees.”

That was how.

*

“Onix, use Screech!” The Onix reared up and opened its mouth wide.

“Now, into its mouth, Marill!” Charlie ordered. The Marill ignored him. “Um. Go on.” It folded its arms.

“Charlie,” Scott hissed, “that's not its name.”

“Oh.” Charlie stared at it dumbly for a while. “Water Gun, Fisher. Hurry up!” The Onix had started to Screech. The Marill happily shot a stream of water straight down the Onix's throat. The Screech became distorted and gargly and its eyes rolled up into the back of its head.

“Ok, this one is sure to trump you!” Herbert called, returning him and releasing another.

“Who talks like that?” Charlie muttered, as the new pokemon appeared.

“Holy crap,” Scott cried. The rest of the boys expressed their surprise as well.

“You don't normally battle Tyranitar this early in the game,” Charlie said, appalled.

“What do you mean?” Herbert enquired.

“Nothing…”

The Tyranitar roared so loudly that spit flew from its mouth. “Use Earthquake!”

Kitty knelt down by Adam and clasped her arms tightly around him as the floor started to shake. He was shaking more violently than her, she realised, and as it died down she saw two things: Fisher the Marill had fainted, and Adam was crying. Hard.

“Sweetie,” she whispered. “It's ok.”

How was she supposed to convince him that it was all right? She had no idea. She hugged him tighter.

*

For the second time, they were running. This time running from the unknown. Kitty swatted branches and oversized rubbery leaves, leapt over logs and finally stopped, panting, shaking, sweating.

“I think it's gone,” she said. Her raspy voice surprised her. She needed water. Nobody answered. “Joe?” She looked around. “That's not funny, Joe.” She backed up against a tree. “Adam?” She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. Things like this didn't happen to normal people. They just didn't. “ADAM?”

She had no choice; she had to walk to the camp where the bus had been heading. Maybe they would be waiting for her. Maybe she wouldn't die. Maybe.

This was exactly the kind of prank Joe would pull on her, but she knew that it wasn't a joke. Even he wouldn't do this to her. Even he wouldn't let her think that her friends were dead, or that she was. She realised that what she had done had led them to this. If anything happened to any of them it would be her fault. She needed to find them, to save them, somehow.

“Adam!” she screamed. It was the loudest she could yell and yet the sound was lost in the trees, absorbed in the humidity. “Joe…”

Many hours later she was back. She had no idea how. She opened her eyes and she was in a tent. The thought crossed her mind that it had been a dream, that she had fallen asleep in the bus, but the fear had been real. She scrambled outside. It was pitch black. She was immediately scooped into the arms of her crying mother.

“You're alright!” she sobbed. Kitty nodded dumbly.

“Where…” the words stuck to her throat like peanut butter. The thought made her feel sick. “Where are they?”

Her mother went grey for a moment. It may have been the moonlight. “Sweetie, I'm just glad you're safe. The guides went looking for you. You'd fainted about half a mile away.”

Kitty could see Adam's mother crying by the campfire. His father patted her, but there was a dead look in his eyes, as if he didn't know he was doing it. Joe's mother sobbed nearby as well. Kitty felt tears well up in her own eyes.

“Who's looking for them?” she demanded.

“There's no use going now,” one of the guides explained in a heavily accented voice. “It's too dark, we won't be able to see a thing.”

“This is my fault!” she cried, tears flowing freely now. “Go find them or I will!”

“Kitty,” a voice whispered from behind her. She wheeled around. Adam had appeared at the edge of the woods. He was stained with something dark. Surely too dark to be blood. He fell to his knees and tears tracked their way down his cheeks, clearing a path through the dust.

Kitty ran to him and hugged him. Whatever he was soaked in, she could feel it soaking through to her clothes as well.

“Where's Joe?”

The adults were coming up to see him now. His mother ripped him out of Kitty's arms and hugged him desperately.

“Adam,” Kitty said. He looked at her over his mother's arms. He wasn't hugging her back. “Where is he?”

“It chased us,” Adam said. “We tried to climb a tree-“

“Sshhh, don't speak, darling. You've had enough stress for one day,” his mother whispered, stroking his head. He opened his mouth to carry on anyway.

“Let him tell me where my son is so we can go get him,” Joe's mother said through clenched teeth.

“But he couldn't get high enough. He curled up and pretended to be dead, instead…”

He couldn't finish speaking. Kitty knew how it ended. Soon he didn't have to pretend anymore. She burst into tears and they sat there crying together. The noise echoed into the trees and a cold wind blew through the plain that night.

They went home the next morning. It was in the news everywhere. The tour company got shut down, even though it wasn't their fault. Kitty threw up for two days whenever she thought about it. It had been her fault.

Adam refused to speak to anyone about it. Anyone except her. They went on a school trip to the zoo and he ended up vomiting all over the floor halfway through. He was officially phobic of large wild animals, a psychiatrist said.

Kitty did not blame him. If she had seen her best friend get torn apart and ripped to death for over an hour, then had half-heartedly tried to revive his bloody remains and stagger back to camp, she was sure she would be about the same.

But the truth was, she would never understand. She would just have to pretend, and hope that eventually everything would work out ok.

Just as Joe had done.

*

“Now another Water Gun!” Charlie commanded. The Marill obeyed and the Tyranitar crashed to the floor.

“That was the best battle I have ever had!” the guy said happily. “You really cheered me up.” He returned the Tyranitar and thought for a while. “Hey, can I travel-“

“Sorry, we're not going that way,” Kitty said, and helped Adam up.

“That was amazing!” Fred said, as they all walked away from Herbert. He grumped for a moment and started off in a different direction this time. “That really was the best battle I've ever seen.”

Kitty hadn't seen much of it, but she was pretty sure it couldn't have been that amazing. Adam was fine now, and probably glad that his friends were so caught up in the battle that they hadn't noticed his panic attack.

They didn't know the whole story. They thought that he had gone missing and never been found. That was what the adults told them, anyway. They hadn't particularly liked Joe. Neither had Kitty, to be honest. This only made her more guilty whenever she thought about it, but no one knew that it was her fault, except for Adam, and he obviously didn't hold it against her. She hoped.

“Hey, I know you,” someone said. Kitty squinted through the weedy light of the Cyndaquil, and suddenly the cave was lit up perfectly. She could see! Two Houndoom, one with a red collar and one with a blue, held their heads back and each had a tiny flame spilling from their mouths. If those two flames were enough to light up the entire cave, then Kitty did not want to get on their bad sides.

“Cordelia, wasn't it?” she said to the girl.

“Yup.”

There was someone next to her.

Now, Kitty was not a rude person, usually, but if pressed, she would have had to say that this woman was probably the ugliest she had ever seen. Really.

There was nothing obvious wrong with her face; nothing she could put her finger on, but there was something definitely very wrong about it all. The arrangement of features, the sizes, the proportions, the colours. She stared at her for a long, long time, and knew that the boys were doing the same, until she realised how rude she was being and snapped out of it.

“This is Giselle,” Cordelia said, waving a hand in the woman's direction. “She is an insider in Umbra. I'm questioning her.”

“Who?” one of the boys asked. Cordelia ignored him, quite rightly.

“Have you found anything out yet?”

“About what?” another boy asked. She glared at them all.

“About Umbra,” she snarled.

“Nope,” Kitty said, swooping in. She could see the `who' forming on their lips and didn't want to lose the respect of this girl. She wasn't sure why. Giselle was shifting around a little, and Kitty thought it might have had something to do with the fact that seven boys were staring with their mouths open at her. “So, Giselle…” The word was annoying to say. It was such a wrong name. “You work for Umbra?”

“That's right,” she said; glad to have someone talking to her. Her voice was too high. “I am a mole.”

“Uh huh,” Kitty said slowly. “Cool.”

She remembered that she had no beef with Umbra and slowly turned around. “So we're trying to get out of the cave, know the way?”

“Yep, that's where we're going,” Cordelia said. “Come with us.”

Eight hearts sank at once. She had no idea what it was about this woman, but none of them liked it.

“So, which one of these boys is yours?” Giselle asked her as they started to walk again. Kitty thought, for the first time, that maybe it wasn't her face that was hideous; maybe it was something else, something behind her eyes.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

Giselle laughed, a laugh that attempted to tinkle but rattled instead.

“I want one,” she said simply. “I want to know which one is…” her voice purred around the next phrase, “out of bounds.”

Kitty raised her eyebrows, and decided not to answer, until she saw that the woman was staring at Scott with a hungry look in her eyes.

“Him.” She pointed at Scott. “Take anyone else, but leave him, ok?” She gave her a careful look and walked faster to catch up with the others. The woman caught up easily.

Kitty groaned inwardly. It would be a long walk to the end of the cave. Would she have to spend it with this nasty creature, a panic-ridden Adam and six other dopey boys?

Of course she would. What else could she do?