Re: Military lockdown: Cat & Matt
Cat would've told him that he was always going to be an asset. After all, she was here, wasn't she? Standing there in black that had nothing to do with attempting to steal the Mona Lisa. Once an asset, always an asset, and those strings were never entirely cut. She would've told him, just like she would've told him that she didn't trust the government. She didn't trust him. No, Cat knew better than to trust, and those lessons had been learned very young. Back home, it was the hallmark of friendship to be betrayed. That was just life, and it was better to realize that everyone had a price.
So, given those realities? Cat made the best choice. Matt? Matt hadn't.
He asked if she was jealous, and she chuckled. "No. I just don't like being ignored. It doesn't make me very inclined to help you," she said truthfully, and Cat was done pulling punches. She figured he could take it. If not? She would've simply refused to talk to him, because her new life-tactic involved avoiding whoever couldn't handle her, as she was, claws and all.
"I think you're foolish. If you weren't? You would've seen this was inevitable. And, understanding that, you would've held the cards and made your own deal. But you didn't. You just waited to get caught, and now the terms are out of your hands," she said bluntly. Jealous? Her? Never.
"Well, you trust our Captain. There's that. Or did you have someone else in mind?" she asked deliberately, switching fluidly from English to Russian. And, oh, Cat wasn't stupid. Maybe she'd never been to school, but she'd taught herself what she needed to survive, and that was all that mattered. No, she understood precisely what he meant.
She chuckled again. "I don't want you in my debt, дорогая." She reached for the chair the agent had left behind, and she tugged it near to the bars. There, Cat slid slinky to straddle the chair, her arms folded on the back. "This is a good group. It's green. Most of the people in it are kids. Do we understand each other?"